Tiffany Buhler is the Managing Director of David’s Tent, a 72 hour non-stop worship festival which began in the UK in 2012. In this episode Gina and Tiffany talk about the vision and history of David’s Tent and the journey to bring it to the US this October. I hope you are encouraged as Tiffany shares about God’s presence and faithfulness in both the journey of David’s Tent and her family.
For more information about David’s Tent and Tiffany Buhler visit davidstent.net
The Birthing of David’s Tent
Gina:
Thank you for being here. Excited to get to know you. This is only the second time we’ve met.
Tiffany:
I feel like I know you so much more already.
Gina:
I’m excited to have you here. David’s tent is an event that’s coming up next month. It’s already October next week. It is a worship event of 72 hours of coming into His presence and your tagline is, “Because He is worthy,” which I love. It’s powerful.
But a lot of people here don’t know what David’s Tent is, but more importantly, I just would love to hear your story. How did we even get here? Where did this come from? You’re His girl, you’re His daughter, and you said yes to Him. What did you say yes to?
Tiffany:
I don’t know if I knew when I was saying yes. David’s Tent is a non stop worship festival. That is not a festival, in the frame of entertainment, but more of coming away and connecting with God and pursuing the presence of God together as one body in a region. And I said yes to David’s tent back in 2011 in the United Kingdom.
My husband and I were living there because he had been relocated there for work. We were working there and I’d been involved with Burn 24-7, helping get worship and prayer, more local to a specific city. I’d been helping get those going in the US before we moved. And then I started helping get them going in the UK. That was how I got going in the UK and started connecting with people and knowing people. I didn’t actually have the initial vision of David’s Tent.
I got invited into it by a group of people in London that were evangelists and different professionals from across the city that had this great idea that they wanted to do like Glastonbury, which is kind of the British version of Coachella. They wanted to do a Christian version and a British version. They had interviewed me, because of my experience with Burn 24-7. They needed somebody who could build this event that they were seeing in their perspective.
Gina:
But were they talking about a worship version? There are Christian Coachella’s, and Christian music festivals, not necessarily worship artists. Were they wanting to do a worship event?
Tiffany:
They wanted to do a worship event, but they didn’t have the vision for 24-7 worship. They wanted to do more of a revivalistic, evangelistic, almost like a conference. By the time you do a couple sets of worship, then all these speakers and then worship. That was the initial vision. I didn’t want to press into my vision of 24-7 worship, because I was being invited into that picture, but they had a name David’s Tent.
So one night we were trying to figure out how do we get people involved in this? We’re a grassroots group of people that are coming from different churches. Nobody knows who we are. How do we get people to actually come to this? We were thinking, we gotta get Reinhard Bonnke. We’ve got to get big names to come in and speak.
I felt the Holy Spirit impress on me, we need actually be true to what our name is. What would happen if we, like in the time of David, had the arc in front of us, the presence of God was there, would we want to do anything else? Would we want to go anywhere else? Would we care who’s there? Should we not just minister to Him and be true to what the actual name is?
A lot of people don’t know that that’s the origins of David’s Tent in the UK, that it started with more of an evangelistic revivalistic vision. So we left that night and everyone was like, “We can’t just plan a festival around 72 hours of nonstop worship.” And I was like, “We can.” It’s that scary thing of like, who will come, nobody wants to worship for 72 hours straight. That’s boring. But, we went with it and we really felt that it was scary.
It was hugely risky because again, who’s gonna come to just a worship festival. You’ve gotta have great names and great speakers. That’s what our Christian culture is used to. In our first year we took the big risk and we had about 600 people come from all over the UK that nobody knows, it’s a miracle that we were able to get started that strong.
But what was beautiful was that we were all very surprised by the presence of God that was so tangible in our mists and the way that He manifested Himself. We didn’t expect that level of His presence. We realized that this is His idea more than it’s our idea. We’re just catching it and here to facilitate it. We had only thought about doing the one year and we were going to see how it went and it was good. It was successful.
What it did was it just left everyone very hungry for more. So then they handed off the reins to me after that, because they were like “This vision is different to our vision and this is what God’s breathing on. So you run with it and we’re gonna do our own things.” Which was great. So I’ve been running with it ever since, and it’s just consistently grown in the UK, year after year. We’ve had our eighth festival in the UK, which was just a couple of weeks ago.
About 6,000 people come for three days and they just worship and to just meet with God. What’s incredible is the testimony of connection with God that people didn’t know they could have. One of the biggest things in the UK, that’s a stronghold, is mental illness, particularly depression. That is by far our biggest testimony, those people who come get healed of depression.
People spend three days in the presence of God, hope gets reignited, identity gets restored and they have an intimate conversation with God and go on a journey of healing and freedom and restoration and vision gets deposited. We’ve heard of a lot of new ministries getting started from David’s tent. Marriages, people meeting each other, friendships. We actually this last year at David’s Tent in the UK, had a singles cafe because it’s a thing.
So we’ve just seen phenomenal growth. We’ve seen phenomenal hunger in the UK, which has really been so surprising. I don’t know if a lot of Americans realize that there’s a lot happening in Europe. But, when you see 6,000 people worshiping their faces off for three days, there’s got to be something stirring. We’ve seen awesome unity happening in the body of Christ. We’ve seen a big shift in the culture. People standing up like the brides, people taking their place as believers.
Because for years now, they’re getting this time where they’re being saturated and it’s propelling them into a deeper relationship with the Lord throughout the year. We don’t want David’s Tent to be something that’s event-focused. Actually, this is catalytic for your relationship with God. That you taste and see that there’s more and that He is good. And then that gets cultivated even deeper in your own space.
Gina:
It’s almost like a personal awakening. Because I encounter so many people who get saved and receive Jesus as their Savior, their sins are forgiven. They’re gonna go to heaven someday. And they go about as far as that, and they’re good with that. They don’t want more. But they don’t believe that they can necessarily hear God’s voice.
They think that it’s the pastor or the leaders or the people who are more spiritual that have that capacity. They never go through the veil that was torn. Jesus died for so much more. So much more than most of us have ever accessed. That veil was torn so we could come boldly into His presence. So we could have intimate face to face, abiding time with the Father like Jesus did, so that we could receive the Holy Spirit indwelling in us. So that we could be connected.
It’s the vine and the branches, it’s John 17. And we’re in such a time in history too, that culture and the world itself do not allow for space. It doesn’t allow for space for us to come intentionally. People don’t even know how to sit next to somebody without fidgeting. I gotta look on my phone too, while I’m texting while I’m talking, while I’m watching TV.
To have someplace that will allow people to step in and encounter God for the first time, is an awakening. Once you see color for the first time, you’re not gonna go back to wanting to see black and white. You want to keep going. Which is super powerful and significant. So just for the people in the US, who don’t know, describe what it is.
David’s Tent is literally a tent in the UK. Just describe that for us. It’s gonna be a little different here, but I would love people to know the legacy it comes from because I think that’s important. Because you’re bringing something that has matured and deepened and widened. There’s a heritage that is being deposited here. I think it’s important for people to know what that is.
Tiffany:
In the UK, it’s on an estate that is owned by Christians and it’s got this stunning manner home, which everyone calls the castle, but it’s not a castle. It’s a little Downtown Abbey kind of look and feel. They just have acres and acres and acres. The landowner has prayed for years on that land and has actually envisioned tents on the land and the big top that we’re in before we ever came to them.
It’s a divinely inspired thing. It’s not a coincidence at all. God has already set it. He’d set it in hearts before we ever landed and said, “Here’s a great idea.” People come away and the tent on the land, and they camp. We have ministries and lots of prayer ministry happens throughout the weekend where people can just go into the tent, connect with God, come back out and get a SOZO or get prayer ministry.
We have a lot of space for community and networking within the communities, other missions organizations, kingdom businesses that come and people can just connect and find out more about what’s happening in their nation. There’s a prayer garden where we spend a lot of time interceding for the nation and the nations. And we’ve had people that have come down, members of parliament. One of the House of Lords come down and led us in some intercession for the nation in the UK.
We have youth ministry and children’s ministry where they’re just getting fired up. The kids are getting more fired up sometimes than the adults. Which I love because our heart is that it’s not just for students and it’s not just for a certain age range, but it’s for all of the generations to be together like a family reunion, as it were, to celebrate the goodness of God together and eat together.
We have a ton of great food vendors on site. We’re kind of limited to the Delmar fairgrounds here, and their food selection, but we have like different food vendors and people, they just eat together. We see people sharing food together in the campground where they’re meeting people from other places. And we hear all these testimonies of people connecting, whether it’s in the community spaces or where they’re eating, there’s just a rich atmosphere of the presence of God. People feel more at ease to actually connect with one another.
Our two values are the first and second commandments. Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, and strength, and then love your neighbors yourself. Our two focuses are, first the presence of God and then connecting with the people that are next to you. We encourage that a lot. I love seeing people praying for each other all over the site and just so much connection and family and unity and people just resting and having a good time. It’s really refreshing.
Gina:
I haven’t had a chance to go to England, but I know a lot of people who have. What I have heard from people is that they are overwhelmed by the encounter they personally had with God and then the connections they made with people. There’s something special about the relationships that are built.
It’s just different and it’s deeper and it’s richer. It’s not networking, and it’s not this surface, “Hey, I was at this conference and I met these three guys.” It’s completely different. It’s what we are made for. It’s that kind of connection. Also, I heard a lot of people, this is just a testimony to you and your team, talk about the spirit and the atmosphere of the people there who are serving and the depth of love they carry.
They see the value in each one of God’s kids that walks through the gates and how they care for and how they serve the people there. I heard so many people amazed and overwhelmed by that. Even coming back and having it shift their understanding of ministry in a lot of ways. That’s just a huge testimony of what God’s doing in and through you guys and how you’re leading your people to lead.
It’s so necessary now. There are so many people with so much baggage from the church, especially people who’ve been in ministry and on staff. Can you share about the landowners, there are a couple of other things like isn’t there a vineyard that God blessed? And then there was a place where witchcraft used to happen. Could you share those little stories?
Tiffany:
When Justin and I were praying about moving to the UK, I turned on God TV, because I needed confirmation of the 90 million confirmations that we were supposed to move again. And I saw the landowners being interviewed on God TV. This was before we moved and I recorded it. And I showed my husband because I was so fascinated by the fact that these guys have this land.
They run another festival on their land called Big Church Day Out where everyone just comes and it’s more family fun, rides, there’s music, it’s definitely more entertainment-based, but it’s definitely amazing. And I told Justin, “This is why we’re moving to the UK.” And that was it. I didn’t see them again. I didn’t pursue Big Church Day Out. We moved to the UK, we were there.
When the David’s Tent team asked me if I would be the one staff and build this event, they said, “Here’s a postcode, which is a zip code.” You can pretty much get anywhere in the UK if you just have a postcode, because you can plug it into your GPS and it takes you exactly to where you’re going. They give me this postcode and I’m driving, thinking this is probably a really bad idea. And I get over the hill and I see the estate in the distance and I was like, I know this place. I’ve seen it.
Now I know the landowners, of course. And the guy who runs the festival met us on the land because they helped us get started in the first year. That was just amazing. And then they have a vineyard on the land that the first year that we did David’s Tent, their wine was recognized by the Queen and it was used to inaugurate a boat service. And it’s now our eighth year, it is recognized as the winery of England, which is phenomenal.
The land had been surrounded by covens. This area is very highly-focused on witchcraft and the landowners would put a cross up on the hill on a regular basis that would get defaced and brought down. After the first couple of years of doing David’s Tent, they don’t have any of that activity anymore. And actually what’s happening is that people are moving to that area and the local Vickers that we know, the local leaders are so envisioned for revival that they’re literally preparing their villages.
These little villages that have been sleepy Anglican, not very strong church villages, they’re coming alive. And people are all moving to the area because they’re anticipating a revival in this area and they’re preparing their barns. They’re preparing things for revival. It’s just phenomenal. It’s amazing to see.
Invited into God’s plan for California
Gina:
How crazy it is that you get to be a part of it, that you get to witness it. How cool is it that God invites us? If we listen and He invites us, it’s not that the heavy lifting is on your shoulders. It’s really not. It’s Him going, “Come on. I got a really good idea. Let’s go do this.” Right. So England, eight years, how did you end up here in Southern California back in the USA? What brought you back? What made you decide it’s time to do one here?
Tiffany:
My husband and I have moved, we’ve followed a prophetic word before we got married, that we would be nomadic, going from country to country. So England was our third nation to live in. We felt that if we were moving again, we would move to California because that’s where we want to live. I grew up coming to Pacific beach. San Diego was in my heart so much. I have always longed to live here. So we just said, when we’re ready to move, it will be California.
As David’s Tent was growing, we began to talk about whether we would grow into the nations at some stage. That was something that we’d had as conversations and we’d been planning and just waiting on God. Because the magnitude of one festival is a lot of work. So to do another one, the Lord has to breathe on it, in order for it to happen.
We were going to stay in England until our kids finished high school, which I have three teenagers. One has started college. We have a few more years left to go. We’ve kind of seen ourselves in England until about 2023. And we’re thinking that we’ll make the transition unless the Lord moves us before that. But in 2016, we were going really strong. We were still in the UK. Our daughter was hit by a car coming home from school. It was near fatal.
She suffered a very significant head injury in the hospital for months. She was in a coma for a couple of weeks and then in rehabilitation for four months, she’s a phenomenal miracle just so you know. She’s in college. They had said she wouldn’t probably walk or speak or go to school or anything. She was almost a vegetable.
She’s a miracle after miracle after miracle, but a long journey for us. After that happened, we made it through our first year of her rehabilitation and we made a commitment to the Lord that we wouldn’t make any moves until we’d been through this for a year. And we were able to, in a healthy way, decide where we meant to make a transition from England at this stage.
We fasted and prayed as the family and felt like the Lord released us in 2017 and really started to swing wide the doors for California. Justin’s company that he had just started working for, Sony pictures, came to us and offered to relocate us to California. So we took that as a sign that we were meant to move back to California. And because of the trauma that we had endured, we hadn’t really thought we’re going to go to California to plant David’s Tent.
We felt like it was permission from the Lord to come and rest and heal and to also pursue consistent healing for Hannah. Turns out San Diego is the best place for a head injury. What ended up happening was even though Sony pictures is in LA, we said it has to be San Diego. And they said, “We’ll move you where you get the best care for your daughter.”
And it turns out, through our research, we found out that San Diego is actually the best argument. And so they brought us here so that Justin could work remotely, which is phenomenal. They paid for everything. It was such a God thing. And we felt like the Lord said that we could come and pursue that healing for Hannah and for ourselves.
And then in the midst of all of the confirmation of us moving here, we thought “What are we gonna do with David’s Tent? We’ve been leading it for all of these years. We need wisdom.” And we began to get prophetic words from different people in different nations that didn’t know we were moving. And it was all about the multiplication of David’s Tent. There was one phone call from Stacy Campbell that was like, “California’s ready for David’s Tent.” Even though she didn’t know I was moving.
And other people said that it was time for growth and multiplication. We really took that as a word from the Lord. There was about a 10 day period where it was just consistent every single day. So we caught that vision and we were open handed. We’re like, “Lord, you know where we’re at. We love David’s tent. We love what You’re doing with it. We’re going to carry on leading with the UK. And if you open the doors in the US, then we’ll roll with it. We trust you. We don’t want to do anything you’re not in.”
And so we got to San Diego, we didn’t know very many people. We had a couple people that knew us. Roy was one of them. We just waited and rested and just prayed and didn’t tell anybody much about David’s Tent. We wanted it to open if it was supposed to. And we just rested and healed. And then it started knocking on our door from every angle. And we’re like, “Lord, are You doing this? You wanna do this in California?”
Gina:
That’s so important. Before we go on further, I just want to acknowledge the significance of how God met you and the miracle that you experienced with your daughter. I was getting emotional even while you were talking. Because you’re leading this worship movement, raising awareness that He is worthy of that level of attention and affection.
And this is why, because He’s a God who meets you in the middle of the most tragic, the most horrific, the things that the enemy means to steal, kill and destroy, God meets you in the middle of that. He is the Redeemer. He is the one who works all things together for good for His glory. He does bring beauty for ashes. That’s who He is.
The next David’s Tent, you worship differently than you did in the ones previously. And then to come here. God is so intimately intentional with this. He cares so much to bring Hannah here. It’s not just about caring for her. It’s also caring for you, His daughter who’s like, “I really want to be in San Diego.” That shouldn’t matter to Him in the grand scheme of things, but it does, because He loves you. That’s what a good Father is. He delights in not just caring for needs, but also wants and desires.
There’s a complexity to His love for us that I don’t think we allow ourselves to receive or even understand. And then I feel like I mentor a lot of people, I pour into a lot of leaders, and for all of them, rest is very hard to choose to do. It’s very hard to receive permission to rest, to give ourselves permission to rest. I don’t think we understand the gravity and the necessity of rest. And the trust it requires too. Because you’re letting go and being dependent in a different way.
There’s something really powerful about your willingness to rest and your willingness to let Him meet you there, your willingness to just be a mom and a dad of your kids and to be a son and a daughter to your heavenly Father and to just live life and let Him meet you in that. That’s an important thing, so that you can continue the ministry that He’s called you to do. Because that has to come out of the overflow of where He’s meeting you. If we don’t allow ourselves to rest, the depletion is going to catch up with us.
Tiffany:
A hundred percent. I’m thankful for rest. I rested. And I remember it was about a year. He said exactly one year and funny enough, we landed on the 17th of September. The nonprofit gets formed on the 17th of September. The stamp that we have is exactly one year and then it all just launched after that. And it’s been fast and furious ever since.
I’m so grateful that I had that year where we could heal, we needed it. It rejuvenated us, and it made us appreciate what we were able to experience in the UK, as well as recognize and get a lay of the land and get an understanding for what San Diego’s like and what it’s ready for. It would’ve been premature for us to just move straight here, dive right in.
Gina:
How has this been? It’s almost like having a vineyard and having these grapes planted on this land and they’re so fruitful and amazing. And then you’re like, “Now we’re going to plant a vineyard over here.” But the climate’s completely different. The soil’s completely different. All of it. You’re transplanting something, but the very nature of being in a new place, you can’t replicate it.
You can’t try to just manufacture, there’s no way you can conjure or manipulate or manufacture what was David’s Tent, because that was an organic move of the Spirit. God did something, but God’s certainly doing something here, but it’s a new wine, so it has to have new wine skins. So how’s that journey been, of discovering what that even is and how to navigate it?
Tiffany:
It’s a really interesting journey. Because I’ve lived in other nations and have been able to get a feel for other cultures and respect that it’s helpful for me to just know that you have to navigate differently in another nation. What I love is that when I landed on San Diego soil, I immediately fell home like more than I have in any other nation and any other place. And I’ve loved the culture here.
It’s made it so much easier for me to find my way in the culture, whereas some of the experiences that I’ve had in other nations, I haven’t really loved the culture and that’s made it very hard to try and pioneer and plow through. So for me it almost felt like it’s become a labor of love, because I adore the culture. I adore the people here. I adore everything about Southern California.
So I almost want to see the beauty of what we have seen come, but also I want to flourish in what’s already here. I recognize that there’s such a difference between the two places. There’s different perspectives, there’s different levels of encounter and different theological backgrounds and that in the different nations that spiritual legacies are different. That was a huge one.
I pray a lot about “Lord, how does this fit with Your outpouring in the Jesus people movement days? Is there a second Jesus people movement arising now? Is there spirit and truth? And what does that spirit and truth marriage look like?” I don’t feel like we fully discovered what it’s gonna look like for SoCal until we are in that weekend and it’s the full expression.
I’ve been so delighted to meet all of the worship leaders and to connect with pastors and leaders. People who are so stirred and hungry for something like this and to hear what God’s already doing, to sense the song and the sound that’s in the land here. I geeked out about the Swallows of Capistrano, just the song around that. I’m definitely paying attention to what the heritage is, but so for me, I’ve loved the process.
I really do love the process and I don’t find it difficult or aggravating at all. Whereas I know some people find that pioneering process a little bit tough. I think because David’s tent is so relationship based and organic, it has to happen in that slow connected network. Not even network, just relational around the table, spiritual family. It’s slower.
But I do feel like we have this great little vine that’s coming from our vineyard and I want to protect that culture that is in that space. And I do believe there’s something really beautiful that this vine has to offer. The wine that will come will be nurtured by the soil that’s here. It’ll be nurtured by the environment that’s here and it’ll carry some of the DNA of what we have in the UK. But ultimately it will be the flavor of San Diego.
Gina:
I’m excited for what God’s going to do, what it’s going to become. Thank you for your obedience and for your stewardship of the vision and the talents and the deposit that He’s giving you. You’ve been on quite a journey with Jesus in all of this. What has He done in you? How do you feel like you’ve been changed and what are the things that He’s shifted in you through this whole thing?
Tiffany:
Probably the biggest thing that I’ve found is just the reality of God. That’s been the most profound thing for me. It’s one thing to have that faith and have that response to faith. It’s another thing to have intimacy and relationship with God. It’s when every day is reliant and dependent on Him and He has to move, if not, it’s not going to happen.
And whether that’s from seeing David’s Tent established in the UK and growing, to what we’ve walked through with our daughter, to the transition to move here and believing in faith and hoping for it to be established here. I see so much of the reality of Him. I think if I were to ever do this out of any motivation, other than just because He’s worthy, I want people to understand and encounter the reality of God.
Because I know that that is life transforming. You can never be the same. One word that He speaks, we remember forever. It changes everything. It goes so deep. There’s so much richness in it that we’ve just not even uncovered, because maybe we haven’t seen it yet or we haven’t understood it or we haven’t known.
Where I thought I knew God really well, back in 2010, I would say that every year, and especially the last three years of the journey with our daughter and moving to California and pioneering here, I have no doubt in my mind that He’s with me always that He is a hundred percent for me and so good. He’s just right alongside us in every single thing that we do.
Gina:
Thank you. Thanks for taking the time. And thanks for sharing your story. It’s powerful.
Prayer of Blessing
Gina:
I have a couple of things that I want to challenge and encourage each of you on before we close, I wanna call all of us to intercede, To intercede for what God wants to do a David’s tent and this place at this time, this holy place of meeting between the God of the universe, the Alpha, the Omega, the Beginning and the End. The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, who is also the lover of our soul.
The place of meeting between Him and His sons and daughters. Pray for freedom, for healing, for no distractions, pray for walls to come down for strongholds to be removed. Pray Isaiah 61. Pray that His will is accomplished. Pray for each of those individuals that they would know that they are seen and known and loved.
That they would experience that love and that they would be transformed. I also just want to take a moment and encourage you. You are important. You are gifted. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit. You are heirs and coheirs with Christ. He knit you together. He delights in you. His banner over you is love, and He is rejoicing over you with singing. And he has a purpose for you.
My question is, what is He inviting you into? What is the invitation that you need to respond to? It might be repentance. It might be deeper intimacy with Him. It might be to lay down the boxes that we’ve placed God in, lay down religion to go deeper with Him. And lastly, I want to challenge all of us, when I say all of us I’m talking to myself too, to be willing to step into a new level of obedience.
It’s time. It’s time to stand. It’s time to say yes, it’s time to step out of the boat and to trust God at His word. And then just sit back and watch as He works, as He creates extraordinary things out of the ordinary, as He brings the miraculous to the mundane. Father God, in Jesus name, I thank you. I thank you for Tiffany. I pray that You would bless her and her family. I pray for protection and encouragement and that You would just honor and bless their yes, and their obedience, their surrender to You.
And Lord, I pray that you would move mightily at David’s Tent. I pray for things to shift in the spirit, in the heavenly realms, as Your kids gather to seek Your face Father. Do what only You can do. Thank you for the privilege and honor it is that we can walk boldly through the veil, into Your presence. That we can see You, that we can hear You. That we can worship You. Amen.
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