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With Andy Bannister
68 Plays4 years ago
When you're a "professional" evangelist and "qualified" apologist, that means it all comes easy when sharing your faith, right? But we all have to start somewhere. This time on PEP Talk, Kristi interviews her normal co-host Andy Bannister about how God called him into public ministry and what he's learned along the way.
Andy Bannister is the Director of Solas and an adjunct speaker with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. Having ticked the wrong box on his university admissions form, he now holds a PhD in Islamic Studies. He has written The Atheist Who Didn't Exist and his next book Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? is due out in March 2021. When he's not travelling, writing, speaking, or entertaining his children with bad jokes, Andy can be found walking the hills of Scotland or the Lake District.
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Transcript
Introduction and Call for Reviews
00:00:00
Speaker
Thanks for listening to pep talk if you're enjoying the podcast There's one way you can really help us out and that's by going to your podcast provider whether that's the iTunes Store or Google Play or Spotify wherever it is you get your podcasts from and Rating the show and if your podcast provider gives you the opportunity also leaving a brief review Because that helps other people find pep talk and get plugged into all the great resources that we have here for you Thank you so much
Special Episode Introduction: Andy Bannister
00:00:36
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast. My name is Kristy Mare and today I'm joined by Andy Bannister.
00:00:45
Speaker
Well, hello. Good to be here as ever. Hello, Andy. Sorry, I sound a little shady when I was introducing you. You did. That sounded very mysterious. It's because today is a very special day. Is it? It is. Your birthday? No. My birthday? Don't think so. Oh yeah, let's go with that. You can find the cake later. But no, today the tables are being turned on you, Andy Bannister. And we get to know a little bit more about the man behind the mask, behind the face, behind the voice of this podcast.
Andy's Journey into Evangelism and Apologetics
00:01:11
Speaker
So you're basically saying we failed to get a real guest this week, so you're going to interview me.
00:01:15
Speaker
I wouldn't put it quite like that, but we are looking forward to getting to know more about the man behind the apologetics. The man, the myth, the legend. Indeed. This is it. I mean, Andy, we know that you are, I mean, are you the CEO of Solas? Something like that. The man who carries the can. Okay. General dog's body.
00:01:37
Speaker
Man of many, many, many kind of, what's the word? I'm not sure what the word is, faces. Many faces. Well, Andy, we'd love to get to know more about you. I mean, yeah, so you're working at Solas. You have wonderful kind of experience in apologetics, evangelism, ministry, but how did you actually begin your journey? What did it look like for you? How did you get started in this?
00:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, in this great journey. So yeah, the interesting thing is, if you told the younger me that I would be doing a job like I'm doing now, evangelism and apologetics and sort of public ministry, I'd have thought you were mad because I was quite a sort of shy sort of teenager growing up, growing up a Christian kind of home, came to came to faith in Christ, really my teens, and then got a few bits figured out in my twenties.
00:02:20
Speaker
But
Challenges and Learning at Speaker's Corner
00:02:21
Speaker
then it eventually ended up doing youth work for some churches down in London. And where everything changed was one day a gentleman came to a church in London and did a seminar on Islam.
00:02:35
Speaker
and you know what Muslims believe and how we can engage our Muslim friends and so on and so forth. But in the course of that conversation he described to her every Sunday afternoon he and a group of Christians were going to Speakers Corner, Hyde Park in London, and he was standing on a ladder and preaching to Muslims and then engaging with them afterwards and seeing a great response.
00:02:54
Speaker
It sounded amazing. He was one of the most charismatic speakers I've ever heard. And so I went up and talked to him after this seminar. And so he said to me, well, why don't you come to Speakers Corner next week and see what we do? So the following Sunday afternoon, I went up to Speakers Corner and met him at Marble Arts Tube Station and he was carrying two ladders. And I said, why have you got two ladders? Ominous. Two step ladders. He went, well, one is for me to preach on and one's for you to preach on. I said, I thought you should come and see what we do. And he went, well, the best view is from a ladder.
00:03:24
Speaker
And I said, I've never preached on the street before. I've never done any preaching in public before. He went, oh, it's easy. I went, okay. I said, I've never talked to Muslims before. Oh, they're easy. Well, both those statements were wrong, Christie, because I got on a ladder and the Muslims there were very well trained at heckling Christians and they told me to peace it. So they threw all kinds of questions, all kinds of projections. Got down from the ladder thinking,
00:03:47
Speaker
Maybe I need to become a Muslim because they seem to have everything.
The Need for Apologetics: A Personal Realization
00:03:50
Speaker
I have nothing. I couldn't give any reasons why the things I believe are true. Went home wrestling with this in my head on the train on the way home. Lay awake that night tossing and turning and wrestling with all of this. And about three in the morning, my long suffering wife pokes me in the ribs and says, why are you tossing and turning? Keeping us both awake. Told her my story.
00:04:07
Speaker
And her wise words were, why don't you read a book? Ideally in the morning, not at 3am. So, following morning, went to the local Christian bookstore, told them my story, and they said, well, you need apologetics. And I thought this sounded like a breakfast cereal. And apparently it's not. It's not some sort of hearty, nutritious morning breakfast product.
00:04:24
Speaker
They explained it as the, you know, the whole sort of art and science of giving reasons why we believe. And they directed me to this sort of dark spider infested corner of the bookstore where no one had been for 10 years. And I sort of fought through the cobwebs and I came back with a little pile of books and I read them and I got answers to every question my Muslim friends had asked me. And so I went back to Speakers Corner the following week after reading for a week. I went back confident and equipped and ready to go. What could possibly go wrong? They had new questions.
00:04:54
Speaker
I looked stupid all over again. I know eh? And so again I went home and I read and I read and you know for the next three months we repeated this exercise. I would go to speakers corner on the weekend, stand on the ladder, look stupid in public, come home, read and then God did something through that. He gave me a love of
00:05:10
Speaker
public proclamation of the gospel gave me a love of just wrestling with the difficult questions and that people have about the Christian faith. It also gave me a love of Muslims. I disbelieve Islam and I have a huge issue with Islam but I love Muslims.
The Art of Asking Questions in Evangelism
00:05:23
Speaker
They're amazing people to engage with and it all started
00:05:26
Speaker
there. That was the journey and lots of things have happened since then, but really it was just being sort of encouraged to stand on the ladder, even though I had no idea what I was doing. And my big takeaway from that is, look, if God can use me in that way, God can use any of us in that way, because I knew nothing. And here we are today.
00:05:44
Speaker
I mean, this is such an amazing story. This is wonderful. I mean, you're saying that you knew nothing, but how have you got to this position now where one of the things that I really love about you and your ministry is that you have such a great, such a great love of people, but also you're such a great conversationalist. So with any question that somebody asks you, you're able to kind of
00:06:07
Speaker
weave it into a story and then you answer their question so succinctly and so powerfully. I mean, how do we... I mean, we're not all gifted in communication and being able to kind of do that. How can we best learn from you in that kind of gift?
00:06:25
Speaker
It's very kind of you. I guess I've learned from others. I'm watching and learning from others. And, you know, one of the books that was a big influence on me, there's a wonderful book called Questioning Evangelism by Randy Newman. This is a wonderful book, Questioning Evangelism, on just how to ask good questions and start conversations. And questions are the big key to it.
Engaging Conversations Through Questions
00:06:45
Speaker
And so one thing I think you can do is just practice being good at conversations. We were talking just before we started to hit the record button and I was saying,
00:06:55
Speaker
big Christian event in London and afterwards myself and a couple of colleagues got grabbed an Uber to get back to the station to get the train where we're going and I felt guilty because the you know I always sort of think there should be opportunities for evangelism right you know they're 20 minutes in the car with a taxi driver and I was so tired
00:07:12
Speaker
But I still thought, you know, I can still try to have a good conversation. So I just asked him lots, found out about his background, his story, his family and everything. It was interesting what my colleagues afterwards said to me. So that was really interesting to watch. They said, you just, you found out so much about him. And I said, I just felt guilty. I didn't share the gospel on that occasion. They said, but no, but it was really interesting that you didn't sit there in silence or playing on your phone. And so I would say to people, look, if you want to become better at conversations and better at talking naturally to people, just practice. If you're scared about sharing your faith, okay, start a couple of squares back.
00:07:40
Speaker
next time you're on an airplane next to somebody on the train or in a taxi or at a bus queue or you know whatever just think to yourself what kind of questions might I ask to begin finding out about this person's life and as you do that pray inwardly because God might surprise you that actually you think you're just practicing your conversational skills but actually they'll say something and you're like oh I can make connections so yeah learn to ask good questions and just practice naturally
Humor in Apologetics
00:08:05
Speaker
You know it's funny you say that something like that happened to me coming back from Cardiff I was getting an Uber at four o'clock in the morning to get this 5am train express train to Paddington station and I'm sitting there thinking I don't really want to talk to anybody right now I'm utterly exhausted and had this great conversation
00:08:25
Speaker
with attack with the Uber driver based around his view of kind of karma and people who'd recently died in his family and how to less kind of make sense of suffering. He asked me what I did. I said, you know, I kind of teach philosophy part time. He was like, do I know what my life philosophy is? I was like, go on then. And he just immediately started to share well what you give out, you get back.
00:08:45
Speaker
I was like, oh that's interesting, why do you think that? And so this is just so, so helpful in just starting every day for the second. Yeah, I had one, again we were talking about this earlier, the most recent example I had where it went a bit further than that was I was on a little fishing trip, I live in Scotland, so you know we have all this beautiful landscape and a friend and I were on a fishing trip at the lake and we'd hired a fishing guide because we don't know what we're doing, so it's great, so you know.
00:09:10
Speaker
and kill ourselves and you know so you're in this boat the two of us plus this fishing guide for you know about six hours actually and so we got chatting and and stuff and just general chit chat and through this he'd found out we were Christians because he asked so what's a different job and so the answer I currently tend to use is I kind of say I'm a sort of vicar because that gets people intrigued what do you mean a sort of vicar
00:09:33
Speaker
And then he actually, then he led with a couple of apologetics questions. He interestingly asked, what do Christians think of hunting? Because then we got on a lake with a fishing rod. But then once he'd asked me a couple of questions, I just then said to him, so what do you think about God and life for the universe and everything? And he said, I don't really believe in God and religion and stuff. And then it was interesting. He paused and then went, well, did I say that?
00:09:55
Speaker
is I definitely think death's not the end. I definitely think there has to be something other than just this life. And that was great because I was simply able to go, well, what do you think it is and why do you think that? And that just led very naturally Jane to say, I think you're right. And I think the reason I find Christianity so compelling is we're not just guessing about that. We have, if Jesus' claims stand up, we have someone who has unique authority to tell us what that's like, rather than just our sort of fumble around in a Scotch mist trying to figure what's out there.
00:10:22
Speaker
But it literally started with a fishing rod, families and career and life and everything. And then, you know, 45 minutes later, we were leading very naturally. And so just conversations, questions, and prayer.
Integrating Personal Gifts into Evangelism
00:10:33
Speaker
So, so helpful. One of the other things that you were involved, well, you were involved a little while ago as you wrote a book, didn't you? I did, yes. So the atheist who doesn't exist. The atheist who didn't exist. Yes, who didn't exist. That's very much. That book. The red book, it's a good book. The red book, absolutely. Don't read mail, read my book.
00:10:53
Speaker
Because one of the things you do there is you so wonderfully weave in humour into these kind of different, as to how we can like answer questions well. What is it about humour that you think particularly engages people in these everyday conversations?
00:11:06
Speaker
Well, the reason that book uses humor, and if you haven't read The Atheist and Exist, my question to you would be, why not? It really is the only book I think I know that tries to combine evangelism and humor. And I guess the reason I did that, Christy, was twofold. Firstly, I mean, I say I was quite a nervous teenager growing up. I was intrigued by kind of public speaking, and so I had experimented with doing some standard comedy. I used to on Saturday mornings rather go to magic classes up in London. Really? Wow. And then conjuring and circus skills. The magic circle.
00:11:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I like that and stuff and sort of fumbling around with it. And so, yeah, comedy has always intrigued me as a communication form and I remember thinking, I wonder if I can use that in apologetics and evangelism.
00:11:46
Speaker
And around the same time, I was frustrated by the fact that books like Richard Dawkins, you know, The God Delusion, other atheist books were coming out, making a huge impact. Christians had written good responses, but those responses were not being really widely read. And I think the reason being many of them were boring. And I remember thinking, okay, how can we engage people to respond, to engage with the responses? And then I came across something, C.S. Lewis, the famous Christian writer, everyone said,
00:12:13
Speaker
He was asked why he'd started writing narratives and stories like 90 books, and he'd said, look, he'd figured out that the front door to people's minds are often guarded by watchful dragons. And so we can't get our arguments past them because the dragon will kind of not let it go. He said, but, you know, he said, I wondered whether it might be possible to tiptoe past the watchful dragons using story and narrative and coming through the side door.
00:12:37
Speaker
And I read that quote thinking, that's interesting. I can't, I couldn't write fiction. I'm not anything like that. But I, people told me I'm funny. And so I wonder if we could instead tickle the dragon under the nose, under the chin, and while it's rolling on the ground laughing, waving its legs in the air, we can charge through the front door anyway. So that was why I just got it.
00:12:53
Speaker
But the big takeaway as well I learned from that book, because I'm conscious that people listening to this, some people listening to this, you will be, you know, very funny people, you know, and maybe ask the Lord how you can use that gift for evangelism. But maybe you're listening to this and that's not you, you're not a particularly funny person, but there are other things that God's gifted you in. And I think my lesson from that book was how can we take what God's made us good at
00:13:14
Speaker
that we might not think is evangelistic but use it. So like if you're good at hospitality and catering and you know, why not be the person who invites all your neighbors for meals and use your gift of hospitality. You know, maybe you're good at arts and crafts. How can you use that for evangelism? Now maybe you love reading, you know, go and join the local reading group.
00:13:34
Speaker
And when it's your turn to recommend the book for the book circle, I don't know, recommend C.S. Lewis's The Screwtack Letters or something interestingly Christian. In other words, what interests you? What are your passions? And then how can you bring that to the Lord and say, Lord, help me use that. So it's not just some hobby, but it's actually something that we can use
Overcoming Confidence Issues in Evangelism
00:13:52
Speaker
for evangelism. Because I think it's wonderful all the gifts that the Lord has equipped the church with and different people's shapes and sizes and interests and backgrounds. And maybe there are some things we're neglecting.
00:14:01
Speaker
I love that because that just seems to say that we don't have to be a carbon copy of the Andy Bannisters. Definitely not. Or the Randy Newman's or whomever, that God has made us with our unique gifts and our unique interests and we can harness those to be more fully human and to bring others in. That's right. I mean, one of the things I was quite struck by was just before we started recording was you said that you wouldn't really say that you're confident
00:14:29
Speaker
person like inside which I just find staggering. We've worked together for quite a while now and you have such a presence and a gravitas in the way in which you speak and commend the gospel. How have you gone from that? Here are the things that I'm passionate about like humour and Islam and apologetics and grow not only in your competence but in your confidence in doing that.
00:14:55
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's a common pattern, actually. You'd be surprised how many people in public ministry, I think, you know, give that outward impression of being very confident, and we can look at them and go, oh, I wish I was like so-and-so or so-and-so-and-so, but actually on the inside, you know, they're wetting themselves every time they stand up and speak. And I quite like that, because it means for me, when I stand up and speak, you know, it does make you very conscious that you need God.
00:15:16
Speaker
I think the biggest danger for evangelists and preachers and folks like us can be that you suddenly think you know what you're doing. So no, so definitely, yeah, whenever I get up and speak, I often find myself sort of praying as I step up to speak to an audience of students or people at the pub or wherever. I'm sort of praying, Lord, why am I here? Couldn't you send somebody else? If there's anybody else, send them. I will happily stand on my back and just do the dishes. And the Lord goes, yeah, I've sent you in case we sort of kick up the backside.
Transformative Stories of Faith Sharing
00:15:44
Speaker
So yes, I think I would turn that into, for folks listening to this, you know, if you're sitting at home listening to this thinking, ah, it's great for Andy, you know, you're clearly a loud mouth, Christian's great for you, you're also, you know, very confident, you're a speaker and a writer, but, you know, you don't know, I'm just a little old me, I don't have the ability to do stuff, okay? No, the Lord can really use you. In fact, in some ways, the less your ability and the less your confidence, the more you have to rely on God. And I actually think, I always want to turn it around and say, I think, is it maybe that it's easier
00:16:13
Speaker
to do great things for God. If you're not confident, I don't know. I'm just, I raise that more as a question and a thought because, you know, great gifting can be helpful, but it can also get in the way. So yeah, I think that I would get worried the day that I stand up to speak to an audience and I think, ah, yeah, I can do this. This is old hat. You know, then I'm in danger.
00:16:32
Speaker
And that's one that I remember when I was in student ministry a little while ago and some of the people with me were kind of encouraging us to say to the Lord, here I am, Lord, use me. And that's just been a constant refrain for me that here I am, I'm weak, I'm fragile, I don't know everything, but I'm willing, I'm willing to be a vessel, I'm willing to learn, I'm willing to grow.
00:16:58
Speaker
That's the key thing, willingness. One of my favourite stories from ministry on that side of things was some years ago, back when I lived in Canada, we did a university mission at a particular Canadian university, and there were about 30 or 40 Christian students working on that mission.
00:17:17
Speaker
And there was one particular wheel ass, I lived in Scotland for a while, wheel ass, young woman, quite small, quite petite, quite shy. And we've been encouraging the students to invite their friends to events. And some of them had, but she found the hard way of doing it terrifying. Just almost reduced her to tears, the thought of going and inviting my classmates to an event. Finally, on about the Thursday, it was a week-long mission,
00:17:41
Speaker
plucked up the courage with lots of encouragement and lots of prayer and lots of people saying, go on, go for it, you can do it. She invited one of her friends in one of her classes to come. It's a lunchtime talk, which on sexuality that day, but I had one of the local pastors, one of the local churches speaking on, does God care what I do in the bedroom? And her friend came, listened to the talk, asked the question in the Q and A, went up and talked to the speaker afterwards, was there for two hours? At the end of that two hours,
00:18:06
Speaker
the speaker was able to pray with her friend to receive Christ. You should have seen that girl at the team prayer meeting the next day. I have never seen this transformation. She was like she was floating on air because she'd gone from being, I'm the most terrified mouse-like person ever, politically four days to have the courage to invite her friend and had seen God break through dramatically. And just that confidence boost in going, the Lord actually used me. He used me to see somebody come to Christ.
Equipping Listeners with Practical Tools
00:18:33
Speaker
I just love that story.
00:18:34
Speaker
Amen. What a great story. And I think that's something that I think encourages me and hopefully our listeners too, that as we do these kind of podcasts, as we talk to different people that this is everyday life. We're not all the professional apologists or evangelists. We're all evangelists in that God calls us all to
00:18:56
Speaker
to make Christ known wherever we are, but we don't need to have written five books on a topic. We are just like that girl who's able to invite her friends in boldness and confidence and trust that God will speak. Yeah, I think that's good and I think the vision for the podcast and hopefully to those of you listening at home or in the car or whatever you're trying to track with us, I guess my goal is to do a couple of things. I want to suddenly bring people onto the show who've written books that we can learn from, but distill it right down.
00:19:24
Speaker
You know, don't just give us the big picture of the book, just send it right down. Give us some nuggets that we can use at work, at home, at school. But also in time, we're also wanting to bring some guests who are, you know, haven't published books, who don't have great platforms. You know, perhaps somebody who's run an alpha course at work, perhaps a university student who's helped set a mission up. Just like, you know, there are no, seriously, Louis famously put it, there are no ordinary people. But when I say ordinary people, you know what I,
00:19:48
Speaker
what I mean, and so we don't just pack the podcast with famous Christian celebrities, but we also have people from whom we can all learn something, because that's my goal through the pep talk podcast. You and I learn something and there's listening away going, and you know what? That's equipped me and empowered me and encouraged me to share my faith at work at school at home.
Episode Wrap-Up and Next Episode Teaser
00:20:08
Speaker
Brilliant. Well, Andy, it's been a pleasure having you on the other side of the table this week. Thank you for sharing your experiences, and we really look forward to joining you next time on pep talk. Thank you for joining us. Bye for now. Thanks for joining us, and I look forward to getting back on the regular side of the microphone next time. Thanks so much.