With Heart | A ‘download’ from God

DEREK Bodycote spent seven years at a ‘mega-church’ in Adelaide before coming to Horsham to tend the flock of about 350 people at Harvest Church.

Pastor Bodycote’s previous church – Paradise Community Church – had 8000 members and a staff of 40 pastors.

But the move to Horsham is a story in itself.

Pastor Bodycote described prayer as “a conversation with God,” rather than a rote prayer, or reading out a prayer from a book.

“Prayer comes from the heart,” he said.

“I’ve been married for 40 years and, in many ways, prayer is like talking to my wife.”

When he is praying, Pastor Bodycote will read a portion of his Bible and then reflect on it with God.

He uses an acronym to describe the process – SOAP – which stands for scripture, observation, application and prayer.

“I’ll read something and then think ‘how can I apply this to my life,’” Pastor Bodycote said.

“If it’s something about loving people, I’ll think, ‘am I doing this?’ and then try and apply it to my life and ask God for help and support.”

He said Harvest Christian Church, which is affiliated with Australia Christian Churches (formerly called Assembly of God) had many young married people with families attending.

Pastor Bodycote said the church prided itself on being youth friendly, with youth church services offered.

“The Old King James way of talking using ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ is not something we do,” he said.

“Prayer is a relationship with God and we teach that it’s just like talking to a close friend.

“There are no fancy words, just keep it as simple as you can.”

Pastor Bodycote said Harvest Church’s ‘busy bee’ program for children aged two to five years did not involve prayer in any way “other than team leaders looking for any mothers or fathers who might be struggling in any way”.

“We are very sensitive to people, we’re not there to Bible bash,” he said.

“If they want to talk, people can talk, if they don’t want to, they don’t have to.

“We will pray with people if they ask us.”

Pastor Bodycote said the church took prayer requests for individual members, their friends, neighbours and loved ones, for healing, encouragement, or bereavement.

“When we pray, obviously God’s not going to speak to us in an audible voice,” he said.

“God will speak from the Bible – from the verses you’re reading which seem like they’re written just for you.

“Sometimes just being still after reading something, a random thought might come into your mind.

“If it’s encouraging, it’s God.”

Pastor Bodycote said the best way of describing the practice of prayer was like “a download from God”.

“Prayer is probably one of the biggest strengths of Christian life,” he said.

“God has three different ways of responding: ‘yes’, ‘no’, and the big one is ‘wait’.”

He said God often spoke ‘through other people’ in everyday interactions.

“I’ll ask God, ‘well, what do you think?’” Pastor Bodycote said.

“If it’s silent, I know I need to wait and pray on it.”

He said ‘praying on it’ was like mulling over a decision that needed to be made.

“I thought our church was getting too full and we probably needed to put some new rooms in,” Pastor Bodycote said.

“I prayed about it, and I asked God what He thought.

“We have guest speakers and everyone that came to visit for the next month said ‘oh, have you thought about putting some new rooms in?’”

“After five or six times, I got the message.”

Pastor Bodycote said the church subsequently took up an offering for the building works.

“It paid the whole bill – and you know, God is in that, God has provided,” he said.

Pastor Bodycote also gave an example of how God could help with making a career move, explaining that he had initially turned down the offer to move to Horsham and join Harvest Church as all his family was in Adelaide.

When offered the the job, Pastor Bodycote requested a week to pray about it.

He also asked something unusual.

“I said, ‘can you do something for me too please? Will you pray about this too, about whether it’s going to be the right decision.’”

“They said oh, it is, and I said, look, no, will you pray about it too and they said ‘yes’.”

Pastor Bodycote then wrote a pro/con list, outlining the for reasons to go to Horsham and the reasons to stay.

“It was equal, so I thought, ‘OK, God, this isn’t going to help me,’” he said.

“We’d been in Adelaide at a restaurant and it was quarter past eight on a Saturday.

“I needed to make this call, but I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do.

“We got in the car, and the radio came on, it was a quiz that was on.

“I really needed to hear from God. A woman’s voice came on and it said ‘no, not Horsham’.”

Pastor Bodycote took that as a sign, ringing the Harvest Church pastor and explaining he wasn’t going to accept the offer.

He then went about his life for a few weeks, but couldn’t get the Horsham offer out of his mind.

“I thought, will it always be ‘no,’ and ‘do I need to stay here?’

“This was ‘wait’.”

About the same time, Pastor Bodycote got a phone call from an old friend in the UK.

The friend was driving through a town in the UK and had been praying for Pastor Bodycote and his wife Grace.

The town’s name was Horsham.

“My friend said, ‘I just got this feeling that you should move to Horsham. But I wasn’t sure if it was here -- is there a town in Australia called Horsham?’”

The Bodycotes subsequently made a call and accepted the invitation to move to the Wimmera.

“It’s been the best decision we’ve ever made,” Pastor Bodycote said.

“I find God speaks to me, not in an audible voice from heaven, but often using other people’s voices.”