How Six Ordinary People Sparked a Massive Revival with John Funnell—Welsh Pastor

The Aggressive Life with Brian Tome

Crossroads

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 824 Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2025

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Pastor John Funnell arrived at Noddfa Church, in one of the poorest valleys in Wales, only six elderly members remained. He expected to quietly lead them until the church closed—but God had other plans. Through prayer, risk, and persistence, those six believers have become a thriving congregation of more than 300 people, sparking a modern revival movement.

In this episode of The Aggressive Life with Brian Tome, John shares how revival started in a forgotten community—and what it really takes to experience a spiritual awakening. From repentance and renewal to the challenges of explosive growth, his story is a front-row seat to what God is doing in post-Christian Europe.

If you’ve ever longed to see revival in your life, or wondered how to prepare for the next great move of God, this conversation will inspire you to keep moving forward.

Watch this week's episode on YouTube here.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Yeah, so every Wednesday at 11 o'clock still today, myself and who I affectionately call
0:07.0	the old guard, those that are still with us, we meet for a short Bible study and a prayer
0:13.8	meeting. It's 11 till 12 o'clock. In those early days we had a lady in a 90s called Doreen who could only walk with a Zimmerframe.
0:26.6	And she would have to leave the Zimmerframe outside the church and fall on all fours to get to her seat in the small hall at the back to pray for us. We could help her. Hold on, hold. Hold on. Hold on. She walked with a zimaphrain? What is that? Yeah, a zimaphane. So it's like a walking aid that the older people have. So she couldn't get it into the doors, you're saying? And so she had to crawl on her hands and knees to go pray.
0:56.2	Yeah, in our 90s.
0:58.0	Damn, dude.
1:16.6	Welcome to the aggressive life.
1:20.6	You know, the aggressive life is really a podcast that,
1:23.4	where we talk to people who I feel like talking to,
1:24.7	that's really what it is.
1:28.1	I always struggle how do you categorize this?
1:29.2	This is a man podcast.
1:33.6	This is a spirituality podcast, the pastor podcast, is a hunting podcast?
1:38.3	Is it a mechanical know-how podcast?
1:41.1	I'm interested in all those things and much, much more.
1:44.1	But what I'm really been interested in,
1:48.8	Brent hot on recently is what we're going to talk about today.
1:53.1	We're talking about the topic of revival, awakening,
2:02.7	and we're talking with a guy who's in the midst of one right now in Wales over in England.
2:05.5	Oh, another shrimp on the bar, eh?
2:06.5	That's actually Australia. I can't think of Englander without, without crocodile Dundee, which I know is so offensive.
2:14.5	That's an interesting, yeah, connection.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Crossroads, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Crossroads and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.