A Fire by Night: becoming a people of God's presence

Introduction

“And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.” Exodus 13:21  

"Jacob, why are we alive? "

A few years ago, I  took our daughter to see  Jacob Collier play the iconic Hollywood Bowl. It’s my favorite live music venue because it’s an open air amphitheatre, so you can take a picnic basket with you and you can see the Hollywood sign up in the hills beyond the stage. Our sons teased me because the prodigious British jazz/pop musician is quite eccentric and they see him as pretentious. To be fair,  it is definitely musician’s music. Every song has multiple key and time signatures. You might call it snob rock. But the concert was magnificent - an outpouring of joy and beauty from a humble genius. It was a memory making night of joy  with my daughter that I still treasure today.  Around this time I watched a conversation  on YouTube that Collier had with some of his fans after a similar concert in Barcelona. I was arrested by his approachability. The multiple Grammy award winner stood there on the curb without any entourage, surrounded by fans, in no rush to escape. Impressive. The conversation was mainly about his music until one of his young fans took a sharp right turn down Philosophy Street. 

 “Jacob, why are we alive?” she boldly ventured. 

Visibly taken aback and speechless for a moment, his hesitant reply was a sincere, yet hollow echo of our cultural moment. 

 “It’s so fun being alive. We must be open to the world and the world will be open to us. It’s hard, but that’s what love is. Being open and trusting the world. Why are we alive? There is no reason. Not even one. But it’s worth celebrating.”

I’m not sure the fan was satisfied with his answer. I know I wasn’t.  But it was a poignant reminder that genius is not the same as wisdom.  All the talent and fame in the world was not able to answer the universal cry of the human heart.

How would you answer that burning question if it were asked of you? 

Why are we alive? 

Fun, open experiences of the world, for no particular reason? Is that why we are alive?  

Thankfully, no. 

Do you know that if you can answer that question rightly, you are far more wealthy and wise than any Grammy award winning, platinum selling genius who says there is no real reason to be alive?

Eli Wiesel, the Jewish Holocaust survivor, famously wrote, “If you can find your why, you can survive any how.” 

Perhaps you’ve given up in the midst of hardship and pain because you don’t know your why? Perhaps you feel frustrated and empty because you’ve spent too much time sweating over your what, where and when, but have never stopped to do the hard work of your why?

One reason for this is that most of us are swimming in the murky waters of post-modernity, which tends to reject any grand coherent telos or reason behind our existence.  It’s your narrative versus my narrative. No transcendent truth. No overarching reason and therefore, no ultimate hope. 

The German theologian, Helmut Thielicke described human history as a dramatic play, in which God is the playwright. There have been acts and scenes before us. We’re born. We come out onto the stage of history. We have no idea what the story is. We have no idea who the heroes and villains are. We have no idea who the playwright is. We have no idea when the story began or when it ends, what our role is or what lines we’re supposed to say. And so, we end up with a life of great confusion and perplexity. This, contends Thielicke, is the human condition, and in that sense Jacob Collier has hit the nail on the head. 

Enter the Biblical story. Thielicke proposes that the Bible tells us our origins, our Author and our future. That we come from God. That God is the playwright, and that we’re going to God. And in the middle, we’re here to be in relationship with God. In fact, he argues that God desires so strongly to relate to His creation that the Author writes himself into the story!  When we meet the playwright and learn the plot and come to recognize the heroes and the villains, we find that we do, in fact, have a meaningful part to play in the author’s story.

To put it plainly, Thielicke contends that you and I are here to know God. That’s the ultimate reason we are alive.That is our why. 

You may protest, “But, I do know God.” To which I would reply, “You may have met him, but you and I have not even begun to plumb the depths of what it is to know God.”  We will spend eternity getting to know God. Jesus said it plainly in his high priestly prayer to his Father on his disciples behalf. “Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)

Augustine of Hippo, the 4th Century African Church father, was converted after drinking deeply from the cisterns of worldly pleasure and coming up thirsty. Having finally been satisfied from the fountain of Christ’s presence, he famously concluded:

“Almighty God, you have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they have found their rest in you.”

Thielicke was riffing off the bold thesis of Augustine. If we are made for God’s presence we will only find our rest in God’s presence. 

CS Lewis, the 20th Century British apologist, co-signed.

 “Human history is the long and  terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” 

This virus of restlessness and unhappiness from which we suffer today is because we are on a fool’s errand to try and find rest and happiness apart from the presence of God. The only cure for us is to become a people of God’s presence.

I realize that some of you may be doing the proverbial eye roll right now because this all seems quite mystical. Perhaps even simplistic. A people of God’s presence? Downright impractical. How does knowing God help me choose the right career? Help me find a life partner? Solve my debt problem? Relieve my anxiety or my addiction? Heal my broken marriage or my depressed child? Grow my church? Deal with the political mess we’re in? Are you suggesting endless hours of solitude up on a mountain?

Well, solitude would do many of us a world of good. But stay with me, won’t you? 

Your why has a huge bearing on your what, your where and your when. It offers you the priceless gifts of perspective, resource and hope. Knowing God means knowing  Someone greater than your current trial and stronger than your current storm. It means drawing from Someone deeper than your deepest longing.  It means hearing from Someone wiser than your current complexity.  Jim Packer, in his seminal book Knowing God, summarized what I am trying to say in this way:

 “Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord.” 

While knowing God does not seem that practical, it is the most fundamental root that resources us for every practical issue we face, enabling us to bear fruit in the most adverse conditions. As the prophet Daniel, whose dreams and interpretations in exile solved the conundrums of the King of Babylon declared, 

“The people that know their God will be strong and do exploits.” (Daniel 11:32)

Dear reader, this book is firstly about your why. Every one of you is created for the presence of God. Of this truth, I so desperately want you to be persuaded. The prophets of the Old Testament spoke about their oracle. For instance, Jeremiah the prophet talked about an oracle concerning false prophets and false shepherds. (Jeremiah 23:1)The Hebrew word here is, massa, which means a weight or  burden from the Lord. I have written books on worship, church planting, revival and emotional health. But I feel that the common burden of these books, the massa that I carry, is for the Church to be a people of God’s presence. Of course I want you as an individual to encounter God’s presence. But  I pray as I write, that the story of the cloud by day and the fire by night would melt away any individualistic view of God’s presence, igniting your vision for the Church as a people who encounter and carry God’s presence into the world together. One cannot read these passages of Scripture without acknowledging that God dwells among a people. God leads a people by his presence, rather than merely, a person. 

 Hence, the burden of this book is to convince you of your great why and help you to live confidently from that why, by recognizing and responding to God’s presence in your life.  I intend to do this by narrowing in on the wilderness years of Israel, following their dramatic Exodus from slavery in Egypt. While there are many instances in the Biblical narrative in which God demonstrates his presence with His people, few are as vivid as God dwelling with Israel as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. (Exodus 13:21) I chose this portion of Scripture in particular because life seems to feel to many like a wilderness. The heat of our day and the darkness of our cultural mood are pervasive and oppressive. Yet, the cloud by day and fire by night stand as a sacred billboard, selling us on the promise that God is ever present with His people, even in wilderness seasons. Perhaps, particularly in wilderness seasons.

This is also the reason I settled on the title, A Fire by Night, instead of the more exact, ‘a cloud by day and a fire by night.’  For a start, A.W. Tozer had already written a book by that name. For the sake of brevity I will refer in this book to the mysterious phenomenon as the fire-cloud.  But I chose to emphasize the fire by night as a reminder that God’s presence does not depart when night falls. 

 The fire-cloud powerfully demonstrates that God’s presence not only dwells with his people, it also moves before them. It is not only a comforting presence. It is a guiding presence, leading us as God’s people on his mission. Canaan awaits, but God’s people must break camp and follow the fire cloud when it moves, if they are to cross over the Jordan.  So, the fire by night connects God’s presence with God’s mission. They are inseparable.

They are why we are alive.  

Song: People of your Presence

A Call to Apostolic Partnership

A Guest Blog by Dr. Andrew Butterworth      

Churches & the Ends of the Earth

Is your church having an impact beyond your city? In 1900, Nobel Peace Prize winner John R. Mott wrote a booklet called: ‘The evangelization of the world in this generation’. It was a bold call to action – could Jesus’ mission to reach every tribe and tongue be completed by the people living on the earth at that time?

 

Mott’s generation has come and gone, and now the baton has been passed to us. It’s the tension that every local church should feel. We have our ‘Jerusalem’ that we focus on, but we need to keep an eye on ‘Judea, Samaria and the ends of the Earth.’ (Acts 1:8)

 

In my own church’s new members’ meeting, we tackle this head-on. As a local church, we get to reach our ‘Jerusalem’,we say, but through partnership with our global church family, Advance, we get to help reach ‘Judea, Samaria and the ends of the Earth.’

 

The New Testament Pattern

Partnership multiples impact. Have you ever considered what the best model for churches to partner together to do this is? Personally, it’s something I don’t want to leave to chance to get right. If Jesus has given us an approach in Scripture, then I want to back it – because I know there will be wisdom in doing that. 

 

When I read the New Testament, I see churches planted and elders (in the plural) set in place by travelling teams of Ephesian 4 ministers (Eph. 4:11-13). In the Book of Acts, we see that Paul goes on mission, launches churches and then travels back to care for them. 

 

Once the number of churches he looked after became too large, Paul sent delegates in his place, such as Titus,appointing elders on Crete (Titus 1:5), Timothy going to Corinth (1 Cor. 4:17) and Epaphroditus to the Philippians (Phil 2:25-30). Even when Paul wasn’t with those churches, we read that he was thinking about them and praying for them(2 Cor. 11:28, 1 Thes. 2:17, Phil. 1:3-11). Paul carried these churches in his heart and used his team to convey that care and concern to them when he couldn’t. 

 

We see Paul’s heart for local churches in Acts 20. The mission calls Paul onwards, but such is his fatherly concern for the elders he has set in place in Ephesus that he asks them to journey 50 miles to the port at Miletus so he could say a tearful farewell to them and give them some final instructions. We see a similar parental heart with John when he writes to the churches he looked after in Asia Minor, referring to the believers as ‘my little children’ (1 John 2:1).

 

This is the apostolic model. Over time, this model evolved into something more static and pastoral. By the late second to early third century, most cities had churches led by elders that were then overseen by a city-wide overseer or bishop. It was these bishops who gathered to form the first councils: Nicea(325 AD), Constantinople (381 AD), Ephesus (431 AD), Chalcedon (451 AD), etc. The church was organised and busy fighting heresy, but it lost its early momentum. 

 

The Apostolic Model Today

Picture churches led by plural eldership teams, maintaining local authority, yet influenced by experienced leaders who carry the heart for the broader mission. These leaders don’t dominate – they aren’t interested in wading into local church issues. Instead, they serve, equipping the church and encouraging it to stay missional. Local churches respond by getting caught up in this mission, releasing leaders and resources. Could the approach we see in Acts be meant as a blueprint for churches today?

 

Discrete, independent churches that voluntarily choose to be interdependent for the sake of mission.

 

You might think that this is simply a description of how many church networks operate. And I understand that because there are a lot of those around with genuine desires to see churches planted and strengthened and the mission of God continued.

 

But there’s a big difference. While these networks offer peer-level support, they typically lack the kind of fathering dynamic seen in Paul’s ministry—a relational authority rooted in mission, not structure. Many networks might describe themselves as offering a ‘brothering’ or fraternal connection. But the apostolic model goes beyond this.

 

While the apostolic model has these brothering relationships,it has, in addition, fathering relationships too. I understand that this sort of language can get into really dangerous territory really quickly. But just because something can go wrong it shouldn’t mean we avoid it together. The solution to misuse is not ‘no use’ but correct use (1 Thess. 2:11). And when I look at New Testament leaders like Paul and John, I am not referring to their unique role as Scripture writers, I am referring to their trans-local, Ephesians 4 role of caring for churches beyond their own. If the ascended Christ gave gifts to ‘build’ his body (Eph. 4:12), shouldn’t we, as local churches, make use of them? 

 

Eldership teams can still be the final authority of governance in their local church but also receive fatherly input for the sake of mission. In my 20s, I grew up in this type of movement, which birthed the movement I am part of now.One of these leaders of this earlier movement wrote a book on what this should look like titling it simply: ‘Fathering Leaders, Motivating Mission.’

 

The Need for Fathering

When I talk to young planters, this is what they are desperate for – fathering. In its absence, this void is filled by coaching or mentorship. Or failing that, finding older leaders in church networks who can give a form of informal fathering-style input. While I know this helps, this isn’t the apostolic model we see in Acts. The danger is that mentorship or coachingwithout catching people up in a bigger missional urge can become more therapeutic rather than spurring the missiononward. To use the title of the book, leaders need fathering,but they also need motivation towards mission. 

 

When our church faced a leadership transition, we invited a fathering leader from within our movement, Advance—someone with four decades of ministry experience, who had planted multiple times. He brought a sense of stability but alsokept the community on the bigger vision. Genuine apostolic leaders will always do that—it’s how God’s wired them.

 

It's people with big, let’s-do-this visions that have kept our church looking outward. In 2021, we planted out into a neighbouring suburb. In 2024, we sent a young family to the coast to start a church in the city of George. And in 2025, we sent a young family to plant north of us in a suburb called Edenvale.

 

If I am honest, if I had just become a pastor of a church that wasn’t part of this kind of movement, I am not sure our church would have taken some of those risks or borne some of those costs. But it had been helpfully imparted to us that we exist for something bigger than ourselves, that we have a part to play in the Great Commission that starts in Jerusalem, but finishes at the ends of the earth. 

 

Why Apostolic Partnership Still Matters

Our church needs to be part of something bigger. I need to be part of something bigger. And for me, it needs to be more than a brother-to-brother connection. We need experienced fathers in the faith, who have been there, done it and made the mistakes along the way to mentor us, assist us - and exhort usto look beyond our city. 

 

That’s the goal of the apostolic movement or apostolic family of churches. It has its flaws, like anything else. But since I came across this at university, I haven’t looked back. It’s the model I hoped for. It’s what I see in Scripture. And when it’sworking well, it feels like we are back in the days of the early New Testament church - churches multiplied, leaders released, and the gospel advancing to the ends of the Earth. 

 

In that kind of environment, rallying cries like Mott’s don’t feel idealistic. They feel necessary.

The evangelisation of the world in this generation? Let’s do it! 

​

Loaves in the Storm: Navigating the Joy and Sorrow of Multiplication

                                               

Last Sunday we commissioned Ryan and Stacie Macdonald, their children and pre-launch team to plant a church in Portland, Oregon. It was a momentous moment both for them and for us - a dream 8 years in the forming, now became the beginnings of a journey. What a joy it is to send! what a longing fulfilled to join  Jesus in the redemption of that beautiful and broken city. But after the joy of the moment,  I and others, have felt the storms of sorrow blow in. I've never known anything other than leading in a multiplying church, so these feelings of loss and vulnerability are not new to me. But they are no less real.  And they are not uncommon.

I’ve heard few people talk about the emotional storm that can brew after multiplication, both for those who are sent and for those who send. 

 How do you maintain emotional buoyancy in a post-multiplying storm? I have returned to a chapter I wrote on this in my book, Broken for Blessing, in order to steady my soul. Perhaps it will help steady yours too?

Mark’s Gospel describes the disciples navigating through a storm immediately after the feeding of the 5,000. I’d never noticed any connection between the loaves and the storm, but Mark certainly makes one.

 Jesus tells the disciples to get into a boat and go to the other side after the multiplying miracle. Meanwhile, He goes up on a mountain to pray and watches as they make painful progress in the boat because a strong wind is against them. Jesus waits all night before He walks on water to them, and when they see Him they are terrified, thinking He is a ghost. They call to Him, He gets into the boat and the wind dies down to a whisper.

 This is the verse that caught my attention: “And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, for their hearts were hardened.”(Mark 6:32)

They did not understand about the loaves. Sometimes in Scripture, storms are a result of disobedience. When Jonah disobeyed God’s call, the ship he was on went through a terrible storm until Jonah repented. This was not that kind of storm. It was a God-ordained storm of obedience. Some of us have been taught that obedience to Jesus will ensure fair weather and plain sailing. This storm of obedience rips that idea to shreds. Mysteriously, Jesus sent the disciples into the storm to reveal Himself to them. He wanted them to understand about the loaves in the storm. What they learned about Jesus from the high of multiplication was meant to be carried with them into the low of the storm. He was still compassionate. He was still powerful. He was still able to provide for them, this time not with bread to fill their empty stomachs but with bread to nourish their fearful souls. This is true of every storm of obedience. 

But I have found it particularly true of post-multiplication storms. No matter how many you send, it seems to me that you make headway painfully for a while after multiplication. You lose some momentum, which can cause you to lose heart. It’s one thing to lose resources in the process of multiplication, but these losses are another thing altogether.

This is a natural consequence of sending people from your congregation. It’s not just how many you send. It’s who you send: your volunteers, your encouragers, your givers, your worshipers, your leaders. These are all the qualities that make church compelling. Not surprising, then, that it feels like the wind is against you after you send. For those who go, the excitement of the new journey can make way for the storm of loneliness, unfamiliarity, the lack of a large, warm encouraging gathering. 

In the storm of obedience one can start to second guess God's calling.  Didn’t we do what He told us to do? Mark's gospel is clear that Jesus sent the disciples into this storm of obedience.

Over the past 15 years at Southlands, we’ve sent over 300 people to plant 9 churches. Remember, we were a church of around 500 adults and 100 kids when we began sending. Each time we began to recover from the last sending, we felt called to send again. While it’s been a joy to see how the newer churches have experienced growth and life, sometimes it’s felt like we were going backward as the primary sending churches. Other times it was like we were rowing just to stand still. Most of the time it has felt just like Mark’s Gospel describes it. 

"They were making headway painfully with the wind against them."

If you do the math, they had been rowing from the first watch of the night to the fourth. That's about 9 hours. They had gone 3-4 miles, about halfway across the Sea of Galilee. That's about 300 yards an hour! I think it's funny that they were going so slowly Jesus could catch up to them and walk right past them, walking! But it wouldn't have been funny to these disciples, who were terrified and discouraged. 

Losing momentum after multiplication can cause a storm of discouragement and fear to brew in the hearts of the church  and its leaders. Jesus’ command in the storm to “Take heart” was not just an exhortation to the disciples. It was a description of their inner weather system. They’d lost heart: lost their inner buoyancy, something that esonates with me deeply. I should know better by now, but, every time we send, I experience an inner storm and begin to lose heart.

This passage about the storm has helped me enormously in my inner storms after multiplication. I have come to treasure the first three words of verse “He saw them.” Jesus saw the disciples making headway painfully. The word in the original Greek is deeper than simply viewing them. It means to possess significant vision. In other words, Jesus understood the significance of what they were experiencing. He empathized with them and was able to do something about it. The Matthew account of the same storm says that Jesus prayed while He saw them. The truth that Jesus is a sympathetic Savior who is touched by our weaknesses, and that he lives to pray for us in our storms, is a real comfort in heavy weather. I have also learned to take heart in the post-multiplying storm by trying to understand the loaves. The disciples lost heart in the storm because they did not understand the loaves. They were blind to the connection between Jesus’ bread miracle and the deeper significance. Jesus was crystal clear that the miracle was, in fact, a sign that He is the Bread of Heaven. He Himself would be given to fill the emptiness of the human heart. On the cross, His body would be broken to heal our fragmented souls. At the Last Supper, He took the bread, broke it and said, “This is my body, broken for you.” The prophet Isaiah describes the implications of Jesus’ broken body for our souls.

“Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”  (Isaiah 53:4-6)

Christ’s body was broken to give us peace in our crushing anxieties. His broken body

holds us together when we feel like we are being torn apart in a storm of self-pity, doubt and despair. Because He bowed His head into the ultimate storm on the cross, His broken body is like ballast in the hull of our souls, keeping us afloat when the wind and waves threaten to sink us.

An Anchor for our Souls

The second verse of Edward Mote’s hymn, “On Christ the Solid Rock” is one of my favorites:

“When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest on

His unchanging grace, in every high and stormy

gale, my anchor holds within the veil.”

What a vivid description of how Christ is an anchor for our souls. But what does that mean? What is the basis of that promise? 

It’s taken from Hebrews 6:19 “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

 Christ is an anchor for our souls because he has weathered his storm of obedience on the cross,  and can strengthen  us as we weather ours. But don't miss that He is a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek was the priest who blessed Abraham, confirming God’s oath to bless him and multiply him. "I will surely bless you and multiply you." So, the promise that is an anchor for our souls is not just a personal, priestly promise. Rather, it is a commissioning promise with global implications. It is a promise that God will lead us on a multiplying mission to all nations! The storm of commission includes the pain of sending and leaving people you love, the cost of giving of your best, the insecurity of uncharted waters, the cold wind of stretched resources, the icy fear of possible failure or rejection.

But God’s promise is that as we obey Jesus our Great Commissioner, we experience Jesus our High Priest,

who calms our fears, undergirds our insecurities and strengthens our frailties. Christ has gone before us, completing His mission on earth. He is a wise forerunner who can now help us navigate the same journey. Not only does He help us in the storm of temptation, but Christ also strengthens us in the storm of mission!

This is a sure and steadfast anchor for our souls. We may still have moments of panic or discouragement. However, I have found real comfort in the even-keeled presence of Jesus, which in turn has made me more even-keeled. The One who slept through storms with his head on a pillow in the bow of the boat is able to give us anchored emotional buoyancy, whether we are the sent ones or the sending ones.

And mark my words, in His time, the storm dies down to a whisper and the wind fills our sails again.