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With Andy Bannister
151 Plays1 year ago
Gavin Matthews fills in as host this week, so Andy can swap chairs for an interview about his latest book, How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like An Idiot. From "crunchy Christians" to comedy footnotes to Master Question-Asker, Gavin finds out what to expect from Andy's book-length version of his highly popular seminar.
Andy Bannister is the Director of Solas and is a highly in-demand speaker, writer, and broadcaster. From universities to churches, cafes to pubs, schools to workplaces, Andy regularly addresses audiences of both Christians and those of all faiths and none on issues relating to faith, culture, politics and society. His previous books include Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? and The Atheist Who Didn't Exist. He also hosts two podcasts, PEP Talk and Pod of the Gaps and presents the Short Answers video series for Solas.
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Transcript
Introduction: Guest and Topic
00:00:10
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to another exciting edition of Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast. I'm Andy Bannister from Solas and I'm joined this week by my intrepid co-podcastee, Gavin Matthews. Gavin, great to have you in the co-hosting seat today. And who've we got on the show?
00:00:28
Speaker
Well, it's been a surprise this weekend because we are welcoming an author who has just published a new book, and it's a great book.
Purpose of the Book
00:00:35
Speaker
I've read it today that the book is called How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like an Idiot. And the author is, was actually you. Wow. Well, this should be a fascinating conversation. So welcome to PepTalk. Thank you.
00:00:47
Speaker
So Andy, you have brought this book out. This is a book entitled How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like an Idiot. Why do you want to stimulate us today to do what Peter was doing back in the Bible, talking about Jesus? What is it that's important about talking about him? Well, thanks for that Gavin. And I think I'd begin by saying, of course, I think if you are going to be a disciple of Christ, to be faithful, you've got to talk.
00:01:13
Speaker
about your faith. I don't think the New Testament knows the category of non-evangelizing Christian, so I think it's a very natural part of following Jesus that we should want to talk about Christ. Wasn't that true with our friends and neighbours, our family? I say should because I think for many people it's tough. It's really
00:01:32
Speaker
really hard. I think many people, if they hear their pastor up the front of the church on a Sunday, exalting people to share their faith, they don't think, fantastic, I'm going to get out there and do some of that. A lot of us, if we're honest, get that sinking feeling inside like going, gosh, I wish I had the courage. I wish I had the confidence. I don't know where to begin.
Motivation for Writing
00:01:50
Speaker
So the book really was written to kind of bring those two things together, that sense that we want to, because, you know, we're passionate. Jesus is the most exciting thing in our lives, or he should be. But then we have that off on that disconnect with how we communicate that with others. So yeah, that's why the book I just got, I began to increasingly think I know the journey I've been on in terms of showing my faith. I know many people struggle. And if
00:02:14
Speaker
If we, so less if I as an author can help people get that bit more enthusiastic about telling others about Christ, then it's a win-win all round.
00:02:23
Speaker
And why a book? I mean, I know you've been speaking on this subject on conferences and platforms and churches. Why have you taken the message into book form? What will
Books vs. Digital Media
00:02:31
Speaker
that do for? Well, I considered stone tablets, but the shipping cost for that is tremendous. So Amazon kind of rebelled. Why a book? It's a great question, actually. You're right. I mean, the title for this book actually goes back about 10 years.
00:02:45
Speaker
when I was living in Canada and got invited to come and speak at missions conference and do a session on you know everyday evangelism and myself and the conference organizers were brainstorming on the phone around titles and I think we had something really dull as the title like you know how to talk about Jesus in more winsome confident ways with friends neighbors and colleagues and everyday conversations or something it was just dire and then as we kind of brainstormed it together
00:03:12
Speaker
I still don't know who said, oh, we should just call it out to talk about Jesus without looking like an idiot. I was like, I love that. And then since then, I've given that talk hundreds of times, tens of thousands of people. And I think it was about six or seven years ago that a friend of mine, as I was sort of batting around ideas for the next book said, well, you should write that book. That's the book.
00:03:33
Speaker
someone needs to read, the Dummy's Guide to Evangelism. So that's where the idea came from. And then I think there was that sense that, you know, at Solas we do things in person, we do things digitally. But there's something about an old-fashioned book that you can't quite beat. It has advantages. I mean, firstly, you can swap wasps with it. I wish you can't do it with e-books or other kind of forms of media.
00:03:55
Speaker
but then more seriously you can read it again and again and again, you can mark it up, you can look at it, you can give it to friends, you can go over bits more slowly that you've missed. So I think there's so many things that a book does and then of course you know I and you and other Solas team members, we can only be in so many places whereas a book can go into hundreds or thousands of places. So
00:04:18
Speaker
That's the reason. And besides, some of my humor is so bad, it only works in footnote form. So I have to, you know, every so often write a book because there are jokes that just won't work from the stage. Although if you've heard me in person, you might be looking there thinking, none of your jokes work from the stage, buddy. But, you know, good luck to you.
00:04:34
Speaker
It's best not to comment on things like that to your boss, is what I'm going to say about it. One question then, what kind of level is
Audience of the Book
00:04:43
Speaker
this pitched at? Is this pitched for professional evangelists and specialists or is it pitched for young people? Who's this sort of aimed at? What gives you readership?
00:04:50
Speaker
Well, the backstory is for people who haven't yet read it to go in the opening story, in the opening chapter, Gavin, I tell the story of my first job. So when I was 20, I worked for five or six years. I was starting when I was 20, worked five or six years for the health service, for the NHS, for a hospital in London. And during my time at St. George's Medical School in London, I, as I described it in the book, I was very much an undercover
00:05:17
Speaker
Christian, my undercover Christian, I mean that outside work, I was actively involved in my church in all kinds of ways. Inside work, I kept my faith to myself. I said nothing. I was terrified of people discovering I was a Christian. I was probably the most pathetic evangelist in the world, or at least I thought I was. And then I felt terribly guilty for this and didn't know what to do and so on and so forth.
00:05:40
Speaker
Then in my later 20s, I encountered friends and older, wiser Christians who really helped begin mentoring, encouraged me and teach me ways I could talk about my faith more naturally. But in one sense, when I set out to write this book, I found myself thinking, Gavin, what's the book that if I had a time machine, I could go back and give to my 20 year old self and go, Andy, you need to read this.
00:06:02
Speaker
because this will start where you are and help you. And by that, I mean it assumes nothing. Right down to, literally, we don't have the word evangelism anywhere on the cover. Reason being, many people are terrified of the word evangelism. And they see books with the word evangelism on the cover. And I have friends, I know people who are like, well, I'm not an evangelist, so it's not for me.
00:06:24
Speaker
So I wanted to write a book for somebody who knows nothing, has no confidence, has possibly never even had a conversation with a friend or family member about Christ because they just don't know where to start. Literally, if you've been a Christian for six days, I would hope you could pick this up and get started. Meanwhile, if you've been a Christian for 66 years, you know, more like someone like you, Gavin, then, you know, there's something in here too, because it's not a theology book.
00:06:51
Speaker
It's not a heavyweight intellectual book. It's got some big ideas in it, but it's designed to be very, very simple. And very seriously, that also means if any of you have kids or grandkids who are following Christ and don't know where to start on this kind of journey, it's also a great book for someone, for a young person or a teenager. Because again, it's designed to be very, very, very practical just in terms of things you can do to have everyday conversations about your faith. So it assumes nothing, Gavin. It really does start at ground.
00:07:21
Speaker
at level one.
Personal Fears in Evangelism
00:07:23
Speaker
So can I dive into that sort of St. George's Hospital kind of era when you start the book and you're talking about your fears of sharing your faith and your fear of being known as a Christian. And there's a quote that particularly amused me in the book where you wrote, Ephesians 6 talks about the belt of truth and the helmet of salvation. Meanwhile, my own spiritual attire seems more akin to the flip-flops of fear, the socks of silence and the underpants of uncertainty, which I don't think that's quite amusing.
00:07:52
Speaker
Fear, though, is a really serious thing. And many of us have been or are paralyzed by fear about sharing our face. So what are good ways of responding to the fear that we all face? And how can we trade the underpants of uncertainty for maybe the sort of the spirit? How can we overcome and process these sorts of fears in helpful ways?
00:08:11
Speaker
That's a great, that's a great question. And, um, and I think, I think looking back, I mean, first it's interesting to reflect on what I was afraid of and from talking to others over the years, I know I'm not alone in this. I think I was probably afraid of, of looking like an idiot. I was equally more afraid of making God look like an idiot. I was afraid that I would say something so useless. It would actually do damage to the gospel. I was probably afraid of the implications of my career.
00:08:37
Speaker
workplaces can be very conformist environments and it can be very tempting to look like everybody else. I was certainly afraid of being unpopular and then I think also I was probably afraid of being asked a question to which I did not know the answer. What would happen if somebody asked me a question about science, suffering or sexuality or a topic that doesn't begin with S?
00:08:57
Speaker
you know, what would I say? So those were the fears. And then I think as I began to move through that and beyond that in my in my late 20s, I think a couple of things struck me Gavin is quite significant. The first thing is, if one is a bit nervous about sharing your faith,
00:09:13
Speaker
It can be helpful to name those fears. You know, sometimes we kind of spiritualize the more we bury them under the carpet where, you know, we sort of say, well, I'm not, you know, I'm not called to evangelism. I'm called to other things. And we use that sort of, you know, spiritual excuse to to mask the fear much better to pull the fear out and address it and go, I am afraid of and then name it. I deal with other Christians.
00:09:33
Speaker
around you that's why small groups and church fellowships are great because we can support one another because this is my fear and others may be afraid of different things and we have people who can support and encourage us so the moment you bring a fear into the open you make it much easier second thing is to prayerfully reflect a bit on what the real fear actually is good analogy here i told the story in the book of
00:09:54
Speaker
years ago another fear I had I was afraid of flying and for years I wouldn't get on a plane you know I was terrified of flying and if you'd asked me why I'd have said things like I'm afraid of the wings falling off or afraid of the whole thing you know collapsing or you know gravity suddenly noticing that several tons of aluminium is up there in the air um all those things I'd have said
00:10:13
Speaker
But actually it took a bit later in life to realize with the help of a friend who was a pilot actually, and also quite a good psychologist, that my real fear in that case was control. I liked being in control and sitting in an airplane, you know, going 500 miles an hour with some bloke up the front or some woman at the front pulling the controls and you've got no, no handle over that. That's as far from control as you could possibly be. So I wasn't actually afraid of flying. I was a fear of losing control.
00:10:38
Speaker
And once I address that, everything else sorted itself out. Now, here's the thing. I mentioned when I was at the medical school wanting to be liked. I actually think for many Christians, the fear of evangelism comes out of we actually want to be liked. We want to be popular. We want to fit in. We want to conform.
00:10:56
Speaker
and the other fears flow from that and having that simple quiet life where we don't look any different from everybody else, excuse me, if we're not careful that becomes a bit of an idol and that's what needs addressing. So figuring out what the real fear is and then confessing that, excuse me, and praying that through can be really, really helpful. So that's the second thing. And
Christ's Lordship in Evangelism
00:11:17
Speaker
then the third thing I think can be really helpful on this journey is realizing that you're not alone on the one hand,
00:11:24
Speaker
God puts us into communities. And I think there's something important there about not trying evangelism on your own, making sure you've got friends who are praying for you, encouraging you as you go about this kind of stuff. But also realizing that, of course, ultimately, it's not our job to try and strong our friends into faith. It's the role of the Holy Spirit to work through us. And it's Christ's job to call people. And there's a sort of surrendering quality to evangelism. It says, I will be faithful.
00:11:49
Speaker
I'll do the very best that I can, but then I shall leave it to the Lord and the Holy Spirit. And when you take that pressure off and just realize your job is to be a faithful witness, not to manipulate people, that can actually make things a little bit easier as well. Yeah, that's really important. I think that the number of people who say to me that they are
00:12:09
Speaker
fearful of letting God down and doing more harm than good is remarkable. A number of people say to me they're so worried that they will say the wrong thing and put people off Christ. It's such a significant fear and I think that's nicely worked through in the book. The other thing I love particularly about the cover is the proportion of the letters.
00:12:26
Speaker
someone pointed out the other day that your name is actually quite small, and the biggest word on the front is Jesus. And a bad book cover does exactly the opposite, the bigs the author are put above the Lord. But this is really a Jesus-focused book and a Jesus-centered book, which I think is one of the really lovely things about it. So I wanted to ask you, why in the book do you emphasize the lordship of Christ in a book about conversations with friends and colleagues? Because there's one bit in the book where you really emphasize that
00:12:53
Speaker
Jesus is Lord, the Gospel is about the Lordship of Christ. So tell us that very briefly, what has, I suppose, what is the throne room of heaven and Christ seated at the right hand of God got to do with the conversation of the water cooler at the office and how do you bring those two perspectives together? Well, that flows out of Gavin. In 1 Peter 3.15,
00:13:17
Speaker
Peter says, in your heart, set apart Christ as Lord. Always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you the reason for the hope that you have. And often for those of us who love apologetics, persuasive evangelism, and so on, we leap straight into the reason part. But interesting that Peter begins with, in your heart, set apart Christ as Lord. So the first thing that Lordship of Christ means is that for us as witnesses, it makes sure we're orientated correctly to Christ. Because if we're not, we've got nothing to share
00:13:44
Speaker
Anyway, so the first thing is it does, when it reflects on the Lordship of Christ, helps ensure our hearts are in the right place. That's the first thing. Second thing, it takes on the pressure off, as I shared just a moment ago, of going, Christ is Lord, and he's the Lord of everything. He's the Lord of creation. He's the Lord of evangelism. So really, it is not our job, as I say, to persuade people. It's our job to be faithful witnesses and then get out of the way and let Jesus do his work. And it takes a lot of the pressure off.
00:14:10
Speaker
And I think I realised later in life, as I moved through some of that early stage of fears around evangelism, but the next thing that crept in was that sense. It was all about me. I had to put all the effort in, and if my friend didn't fall to the ground in weeping repentance after I had a conversation with them, I'd failed. And that's actually to downplay the Lordship of Christ. Our job is to be faithful and let Christ do his work, a second thing.
00:14:33
Speaker
Third thing, I think, on our focus on the Lordship of Christ, as Gavin, is I think a lot of Christians get confused about what was supposed to be sharing when we engage in evangelism. Are we supposed to be sharing our testimony? And the answer may be partly, yeah, but how does that play out?
00:14:49
Speaker
Are we supposed to be sharing about our denomination? Are we supposed to be sharing about some aspect of theology? Are we supposed to be making sure the person we're talking to is memorizing every aspect of the book of Romans? I mean, what is it evangelism is actually communicating? And there are different answers that in which book you read. But I think ultimately evangelism comes down to we want our friends to recognize that Jesus is Lord and everything else
00:15:17
Speaker
flows from that. And that's actually thoroughly biblical. Paul in Romans says, if you confess with your mouth and believe with your heart that Jesus is Lord and you believe that God raised him from the dead, then you are saved. Those are the things you believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus and his Lordship.
00:15:32
Speaker
And so I think really, evangelism at heart is about lordship. It's about helping people understand that it is Christ who is Lord, and everything else flows from there. That doesn't mean we simply get around parroting Jesus as Lord, Jesus as Lord, Jesus as Lord. But one thing we can help our friends do is figure out what are the alternative little lords they've already bought into. And there's quite a bit in the book around the fact that all of us worship something.
00:15:56
Speaker
There is no human being on planet Earth who does not have a Lord and Master. The question is, what is it? If it's not Jesus, it's going to be something else. It's going to be ego, or sex, or money, or career, or performance. The list of possibilities goes on.
00:16:14
Speaker
Get the idea of lordship into your head and it can be helpful because when you're engaging with your friends, you can be listening, you can be praying, you can be discerning, okay, what is occupying the place of Christ in their lives and how do I gently and more not so gently if the Holy Spirit nudges you, but how can I gently address that? And if you want a good example, by the way of that in action,
00:16:35
Speaker
Go read Acts chapter 17 verses 16 through 34 where Paul is in Athens and you see him do a really wonderful job actually of engaging the idols quite literally. He does it positively and in a challenging way. He's able both for the Athenians to be positive about how religious they are but also to be firmer in terms of the way that religiosity is misplaced. So there's quite a helpful model for us there in terms of how we share with our friends.
00:17:02
Speaker
And isn't it interesting that so often Christians feel more comfortable talking about church, but the world is more interested in hearing about Jesus. And that is actually really interesting that it's what we need to be better at speaking about is sometimes what people are more willing to actually hear in the cultural moment that we find ourselves at the moment. And you mentioned that the kind of heart of the book is the use of questions.
Using Questions in Conversations
00:17:24
Speaker
And I'm sure that anybody that's ever been to a Confident Christianity Conference or heard you speaking will know that you encourage us to follow the laws example by asking questions.
00:17:32
Speaker
questions to blow conversations open and the, you know, what do you mean by that question? Why did you ask that question? And have you ever wondered, are probably familiar to most of the people that have come this evening. But there's an extra question that you've developed in the book. And I wonder if you could tell us just a little bit about the question that you've added to the normal conference talk and where that can take us in our personal evangelism. And that, of course, is the weather question.
00:17:58
Speaker
And not rising rain and snow. No, I was going to say, which is not about whether it's pouring with rain today. No, exactly. So for people who haven't been to a conflict of Christianity, there's the three questions we start with and we always teach at those, Gavin, we teach the what question. So if somebody says to you, you know, there's no evidence that God exists, great question to respond with is, well, thank you for that. What do you mean by evidence? You know, what would you need to see or hear to be persuaded there might be God, for example?
00:18:24
Speaker
And there's the why question. Somebody says, oh, for goodness sake, you're Christians. Why do you believe the Bible, for goodness sake? It's a book of ancient myths and legends and totally unreliable. The why question simply, you look at them and go, well, again, thank you for that. I've heard others say similar things before. But I wonder if you might be willing to tell me why it is that you think that. What is it that you've read or seen or heard that's led you to that conclusion? And the why question just gets your friend to justify their skepticism.
00:18:51
Speaker
The wandering question, that really is you're looking for things in your friends' lives that don't really make any sense if there isn't a God. A good example is human rights. You know, I've had secular friends over the years who swear blind, they don't believe in God, but they have, you know, Amnesty International stickers on the back of their car. And a great question is, hey, have you ever wondered why human rights and value and justice matters to us?
00:19:14
Speaker
And that's a very gentle way of starting spiritual conversations with those who aren't interested. But then, yes, Gavin, the third question, the weather question, the weather question kind of draws those threads together. And I learned over the years that, look, for many of our skeptical friends or unbelieving friends, if you turn around and say, right, you know, you joy well need to take Christianity seriously. It's absolutely the truth and everything else is wrong.
00:19:36
Speaker
there's a chance, a very strong chance, that defences are going to go up, you know, the drawbridge is going to go up and they're just going to defend or retreat or back off. But if you phrase the same idea in a question, you know, I wonder whether, you know, Christianity makes best sense of some of the things we've been talking about this evening, then that's a much softer way of approaching it. You're far more likely to draw somebody in
00:20:02
Speaker
to a conversation. And that's often the approach I'll take with friends. Rather than say, look, here's a knockdown piece of evidence you jolly want me to become a Christian. I might say, well, look, here's a number of things we could talk about. Our passion for justice, our love of beauty, the fact that science works, the fact that human beings universally believe in some sort of sense of morality, the death and resurrection of Jesus. I might put all kinds of pieces on the table. And I might say, look, I just wonder whether
00:20:31
Speaker
Christianity makes far better sense of all of these pieces of evidence taken together. And again, it's a very gentle, much more winsome way, I think, of inviting people to consider a different possibility because I think we can sometimes forget Gavin more inviting someone to consider the claims of Christ.
00:20:50
Speaker
inviting someone to actually put their trust in him, follow him. That's an unbelievably radical change of perspective for many people. Those of us who have been Christians for years, maybe we forget just how radically counter-cultural that is. And if we became Christians 30, 40 years ago, the world was much more Christian to
00:21:10
Speaker
today you're asking someone to do a complete 180 degree change, swim against the tide, you know, literally, you know, turn their whole life and everything upside down. That's what conversion looks like. And so no wonder sometimes our friends are like, I can't even conceive of that. But the weather question just gently invites them in to take a closer look. And by the way, because I was like, say this, it's thoroughly biblical. Where that idea for that question was first seated for me. So that was a lovely moment in John chapter one.
00:21:40
Speaker
where we're told that Philip and some of the other early disciples, they've met Jesus, they've become convinced. He is the Messiah, and Philip goes and finds Nathanael. And he says to Nathanael, hey, we found the Messiah. We found the Messiah. Jesus was Nazareth. And if you remember the story, Nathanael turned around and goes, what, Nazareth? Then they could come from there. Are you insane? And rather than bang him over the head with arguments, Philip says, come and see.
00:22:07
Speaker
Come and see. Why don't you come and see whether this is right? A very invitational question. It's not come and see and I'll prove you know I'm right or come and see because you're an idiot. It's come and see. It's the weather question and I think there's a lot of that in scripture. Jesus was very good at this through the parables too, inviting people to contemplate whether
00:22:27
Speaker
might be a different way of seeing things. You know, Luke 15, he's addressing the Pharisees who are, you know, having a real hostile go at him for going and hanging out with tax collectors and sinners. He tells the story, doesn't he? The story we know is the prodigal son and ends with the older brother out there in the field and the father's words of invitation ringing in his ears. I think Jesus basically uses that story to turn to the Pharisees and go, I wonder whether
00:22:54
Speaker
you're behaving a bit like the older son of this story. I wonder whether there's a different way of seeing things. So that's how the weather question works.
00:23:02
Speaker
Yeah, that was really good. Thank you. I think we're nearly out of time for this section, but I think we've got time for one more question, which is this. In the book, you talk about the way that so many of the people that you're sharing your faith with have got complete misconceptions about what the gospel actually is.
Addressing Misconceptions
00:23:18
Speaker
And so you could be talking and sharing something, but they're hearing something quite different, even down to the sort of the fundamental level of you say the word God,
00:23:26
Speaker
And you fill that word with all sorts of biblical content, but the word God to them can mean something very strange. And so you can almost talk past each other. But in the book, how would you help us to address the issue where we are being misunderstood and where people have got completely the wrong idea about any aspect of the gospel, even down to who God might be?
00:23:47
Speaker
Yeah, there's a couple of things going on briefly, Gavin. The first thing is I think we need to we need to address and we need to be aware of and in some cases repent and perhaps change the way we've done things slightly. One reason for this is a lot of people, surprising number of people, had bad experiences with the church, actually, that, you know, and today, you know, it's it seems to me depressingly and scarcely a week, a month goes by without, you know, some Christian leader falling spectacularly and making headlines. And I think a lot of people are very suspicious of the church.
00:24:17
Speaker
And it's easy to get into thinking, well, it's not fair or we need to defend ourselves or whatever. I think we just need to recognize that's where a lot of people are coming from. I told the story in the book of some friends we met on holiday who often got to know us for a week, looked across the table one evening at my wife and I and said, we can't figure you guys out. You're clearly into this Jesus thing, but you're not crunchy.
00:24:39
Speaker
And I remember saying, what do you mean we're not crunchy? To which they said, well, you know, crunchy Christians. I went, I have no idea what you're talking about. That sounds like a cannibalistic breakfast snack. And then they said, well, you know, people who are always criticising everything and anytime you say anything, there's always like oohs and ahs and they get very nervous and, you know, having conversations with such people as like walking on eggshells, but you guys are a bit different.
00:25:02
Speaker
And I remember being quite moved by that because I don't think there's anything particularly special about Astrid. I think we just do our best to listen and take people as we find them at the beginning of the conversation rather than digging around the head. But I think some people are coming from that background and that's going to be a misconception Gavin. And then other people have all kinds of weird
00:25:23
Speaker
baggage and half-remembered things they heard back in school 30 years ago or something somebody said on the media that's all got bubbled in there and they've no idea what Christianity is. A couple of thoughts there. I mentioned the what question earlier. It can always be really helpful
00:25:40
Speaker
when people use a word that even you're familiar with, just to slow it down and check you're on the same page. So if somebody says something about God, for example, and you might be something you wildly disagree with because that's something they've said that's even offended you, just to again inwardly count to 10 and then say, hey, that's interesting. When you say God, what do you mean? What does that word mean to you? And there's every chance you are going to get some really quite weird answer.
00:26:08
Speaker
And again, the art result, the best way forward there is not to push back and go, well, you're wrong. Let me correct you right there. Because again, defense has come up. Better to ask a couple of questions to clarify, even if you feel appropriate to go, look, I'm sorry.
00:26:22
Speaker
you've been given that impression by something a Christian has settled down, let me tell you what I think God is like and then share who you understand God to be through how he's revealed himself in Christ. But start by finding out what they already think and then the other thing you can do to really reinforce that
00:26:39
Speaker
And that's another chapter for me that was crucial in the book, Gavin, is find ways to connect the conversation to Jesus. Rather than just give your opinion, find ways to say, you know, this is a fascinating conversation. And this conversation we're having reminds me of, in some ways, actually reminds me of something Jesus once said.
00:26:58
Speaker
Well, it reminds me of something that Jesus once did. It reminds me of a story that Jesus once told. And the one story I tell in the book, and I'll end with this, was that I told the story in the book of a year or two ago. I was doing the University of Mission Week. I forget where it was. Now, I think it was one of the Scottish universities, certainly, possibly St Andrews. And we met, a friend and I met a girl who had been coming to several of the events at the University of Mission Week. And we got chatting, and she shared how actually she found Jesus quite
00:27:26
Speaker
I think she's quite attractive was almost the word she used, which is really positive. And then she said, oh, but. But.
00:27:34
Speaker
How could I take Christianity seriously, given the behavior of some of its leaders? And she gave examples of stories that have been in the news. She said, you know, there have been clergymen who've misused their position for power, sexual gain, monetary gain. How could I take the church seriously? Now, there's a thousand and one things one could have said in there, and it's quite tempting to try and defend the church and go, hey, not quite as bad as you paint. But it occurred to me that's not going to go anywhere, really.
00:28:00
Speaker
But we just listened, asked a couple of questions and then I felt this real nudge of the spirit just to look at her and say, look, you know, I share your disgust at these stories, quite frankly. I share your disgust completely because it's so antithetical to how Jesus himself behaved. In fact, this very conversation reminds me
00:28:18
Speaker
of the story of when Jesus washed his disciples feet. So I said, have you ever heard that story? She hadn't, and my colleague on the speaking team said to her, well, have you got a moment? Would you mind if we read that to you? And this late girl was like, no, I'd love to hear that. So, you know, cracked open the gospels, read that story, were able to talk about it and the radical countercultural difference it was to have a rabbi, you know, bending down and washing someone's feet. And then, you know, that led naturally to an opportunity to say, you know, and the other thing this reminds me of
00:28:46
Speaker
is something Jesus did, too, at the end of his life when he died there on the cross. Somebody with ultimate power, the very Son of God, who could have just destroyed all of his enemies with a mere snap of his fingers. But he didn't. He didn't use his power to victimize others. He laid his power down and became a victim in order that we might be reconciled to God. And I said any leader who does whose behavior doesn't in some way remind you of Jesus's self-sacrificial approach to leadership probably doesn't deserve the title Christian.
00:29:14
Speaker
And that opened up this entire conversation that ended up with us being able to give her a copy of Mark's gospel at the end to take away. And we did it just by starting with her problems, Gary, her misconception, well, I won't say misconception, her perspective of what the church was like and connecting her to Jesus. So I think that's our challenge. That's the task and that's our privilege. Wonderful.
00:29:42
Speaker
Well, thanks for all that, Andy. That was really interesting. The book's great. You could highly recommend it. Thank you for joining us for a pep talk this week. As ever, we'll be back in a fortnight with another guest and more conversation about how we can share our faith in Christ with friends and family. Thanks for joining us. Goodbye. Bye for now.