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With Mark Greene
90 Plays2 years ago
With the recent death and funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, her life of service and character has been honoured and spoken about throughout society. Her Christian faith was the source of those qualities, admired by everyone from prime ministers to hairdressers. What a great time to show our friends or colleagues that these qualities of servant leadership they respect and value are modelled on Christ's own Kingly service.
Ex-New York Adman, formerly London School of Theology vice-Principal, Mark Greene is Mission Champion at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC). A pioneer of workplace ministry and whole-life discipleship, his books include Thank God it’s Monday, Imagine how we can reach the UK, Fruitfulness on the Frontline, and, with Catherine Butcher, the million-copy selling The Servant Queen and the King She Serves. He has just published A Life of Grace: a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II. He is married to Katriina, a Finn, and they have three splendidly different adult children.
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Transcript
Introduction to Pep Talk Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to another exciting edition of Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast. I am Andy Bannister from Solas and I'm joined as ever by my intrepid co-host, Kristy Bear from Oak Hill College. Kristy, how are you doing?
00:00:27
Speaker
I'm feeling very intrepid, as you can see, boxes all around. How are you? I am doing pretty well. Yes, listeners can't see that Christy is surrounded by boxes. Her entire life is in boxes. And for those of you who regularly follow the episodes, last time you heard that she is moving, now she's in the process of moving, and before long she'll be in a palace or something.
Introducing Mark Green and His Journey
00:00:45
Speaker
But we have talked about palaces. We have a guest who's got a link to palaces today, don't we, Christy? A sort of tangential link, but there is a link.
00:00:53
Speaker
Yeah, we do. Today, we're joined by Mark Green. Andy, I think you're going to say a couple of things. Actually, yes, we planned beforehand that I was going to do the introduction, but I passed it to Kristy. This is 100 episodes in and we still can't get introductions, right? We had joined by Mark Green today. Mark, you wear various hats. You worked in advertising for 10 years, but we won't hold back against you. That's my joke.
00:01:18
Speaker
I'm sure I think of others. We discovered before the show began that you like dad jokes, like I do. So we have a bit of mad men later on. And then you led, you were also leading London Bible College where I was a student. I came after you were there. So, you know, the bombshells were still falling.
00:01:35
Speaker
And then more recently, being involved at LICC, London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. And again, regular listeners to pep talk would know. We've had Paul Woolley from there on the show. We've had Tracy Cottrell. So you're our third LICC person. So lots of hats. So maybe a great first question. Tell us a bit about that journey. How have you journeyed from the world of advertising through theological education now to helping think Christians think about what it means to live for Christ?
Workplace Ministry and Its Importance
00:02:04
Speaker
in the workplace? Is there a thread that links those things together? Oh, yes, I think there is. Although, you know, when you're in it, you don't necessarily see it as it's emerging. So I love working in advertising. I love the people. I love the creativity. I love the pace. And of course, the lunches were spectacular. But during that time, I was in America at the time and I was being discipled.
00:02:27
Speaker
Who knew that such a thing existed? By this marvelous guy who was a lawyer, who was associated with the navigators. And, you know, because I was in America and, you know, disconnected from, if you like, all my friendship groups in England, and so on, you know, you're encouraged to do this, that, and the other, and where are you going to do it? You're going to have to do it in the workplace. And about two, three years in, I was invited by my church to teach a
00:02:51
Speaker
An Adult Sunday School class, one of the great gifts of the American Church is Adult Sunday School, particularly if you come to faith, as I did rather later in life at 23. You've got some catching up to do. So they asked me to teach it on workplace ministry, which was something I didn't know I was doing.
00:03:09
Speaker
because I didn't know there was a category, because I didn't grow up Christian. And so I bought a book and realised I sort of was doing this, and I taught this thing. And the amazing thing about this Sunday School class, it wasn't a sort of young, urban professional thing, although it was Manhattan. It's just a load of folk, really. So after, you know, the first three weeks, we had 10 minutes to share
00:03:30
Speaker
what was going on, what we were seeing going on in our workplace. After the third week, we had to cap it at 10 minutes of sharing because there were just so many stories. And I just realised that, you know, oh my goodness, God can work through anyone in any place. When I came back to the UK to go to Theological College because my disciples turned me on to the Word of God. I just wanted to learn more about the Bible. I had no sense of any call to what you people normally call full-time Christian
Challenges in Secular Work Environments
00:03:56
Speaker
ministry. I thought I was already in it, you know,
00:03:59
Speaker
to be a vicar, to be a minister, to be an overseas minister. She just wanted to get in the Word of God. When I came there, I suddenly realised virtually nobody thought the workplace was significant. I mean, there was the marvellous Richard Higginson, who just written a book when I arrived called Call to Account, but it wasn't on the curriculum of any theological college. And it's not just that it wasn't on the curriculum as a topic,
00:04:23
Speaker
As one of my colleagues has once said, you know, work is not a topic to be preached. It is a context to disciple people for, you know, a fantastic theology of work, but actually not really know how to apply it where you are. A friend of mine looking at the boxes that I can see and no one else can, was in a delivery business.
00:04:45
Speaker
And he has a complete full understanding of why people need packages and why it's a good thing to deliver them. He's got a theological frame for that. But the context was toxic.
00:04:57
Speaker
really difficult, badly run company, indifferent to employees and so on. That's what he's dealing with, the both hand. Anyway, I came back and I saw no one was really doing this and it hurt me actually. I think when God puts different things on different people's hearts, why did it hurt me? Because I realized what's going on as one woman once said to me is, some people die without knowing the ministry God has for them.
00:05:22
Speaker
There are always people going out into their everyday life, not knowing that God is really with them, not knowing that God wants to work through them in a rich and holistic way, not only by sharing the gospel verbally, but by collaborating with him in his holistic mission of bringing Shalom into the world, renewing everything.
00:05:40
Speaker
And it applies whether you're a housewife, it applies, well, it applied then whether you're a housewife, whether you're a plumber, whether you're an electrician or whether you're an accountant or an ad man or whatever it might be. And this was such a diminishment of the call of God on people's lives.
Reframing the Gospel through Advertising Experience
00:05:56
Speaker
I mean, you know, the difference it makes when somebody knows that God is with him, you know, 24-7, it's extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary. And so that was it for me. I thought, well, I need to do something about this.
00:06:09
Speaker
Well, I couldn't really help it. And I suppose the connection with advertising is twofold. The first connection is that that's where I learned that it's possible. Two things are possible. One is anybody can be fruitful for God in everyday life, wherever they might be. And the second thing was I was in a church that were making disciples like this.
00:06:34
Speaker
So it's possible to have a church community that doesn't just recruit people for their own programs, marvellous as many of those are, and fantastic as all the things that pastors are doing in social action and communication is. It's possible to have a church like that. And then the third thing, I suppose, is the professional angle, which is what do you do in advertising? What you do in advertising is you try to help people see something afresh
00:06:59
Speaker
that they may be familiar with or not familiar with in a way that motivates them to some kind of action.
Queen Elizabeth II: Servant Leadership and Faith
00:07:05
Speaker
So once upon a time, you know, stout, or Guinness if you like as an example, was something that older people drank as a laxative.
00:07:15
Speaker
And then pretty soon, Ogilvy and Maynard get hold of it, and Dorothy says, originally gets hold of it, and suddenly, over time, it becomes this cool drink. Or, you know, Lucasade, and you're both too young to remember this, but Lucasade used to be something that was given to sick children. That's how it was. You buy this when one of your children is sick, and they drink in it, and it's turned into, you know, an energy-restorted, which is what he does, for the fittest people on the face of the planet, whether virtual or real.
00:07:44
Speaker
So advertising helps people reframe things. And what we have here is a real need to reframe the gospel. Brilliant. That's wonderful. Mark, one of the things, I suppose one lady who knew that God was with her 24-7 is the topic of your latest book, A Life of Grace, a memoir of Queen Elizabeth II. Would you like to tell us a little bit about her and how she saw God with her in the workplace and at home?
00:08:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think the first thing about this really is that just to be clear, I didn't get this idea from myself. I mean, God spoke to me about Queen Elizabeth in 2015 very, very clearly. I was asking, Lord, could you show me somebody who is in the public sphere?
00:08:38
Speaker
the public eye who lives out this holistic discipleship that we're looking at, you know, models godly character, does good work, creates the culture, stands up for justice, is a message of the gospel. And he said to me, the queen, and I didn't, I had one thing that was royal in my house, which was a
00:08:57
Speaker
glass paper went from the silver jubilee. So I wasn't a role watcher. I hadn't been a role watcher. He said the queen and I thought about it and did a bit of work and thought, oh my goodness, God is right. Who knew? And I think that was the first clue that I began to research this and realized, yes, when you ask people about what is she like with people, it's full of grace and kindness and patience and self-restraint.
00:09:27
Speaker
obviously politically in all kinds of other ways as well. Does she do good work? Absolutely, does she do good work? Everyone says that. Personally, she works very hard, but all the prime ministers have said, you know, she's been so helpful to me. And, you know, does she mold a culture? Well, again, when you look at the Commonwealth, oh my goodness, when one thinks about what she's done there, when she comes to the throne, there are eight nations in the Commonwealth, and they're all run, except for hers, by white men.
00:09:58
Speaker
The rest of the nations that come to be the Commonwealth, now 54, were all nations that we exploited. They were the Empire.
Evangelistic Opportunities Post-Funeral
00:10:07
Speaker
And in the period of her reign, she somehow manages to turn all those nations that we exploited and granted independence to from people who would have legitimate reasons to resent us and not to want to jump into sand pits with us and jump over high jumps and all the things that the Commonwealth does or cooperate or medicine or anything else into a fellowship of friends.
00:10:32
Speaker
It is the most extraordinary achievement. The daughter of the man who ruled a quarter of the world turned, as she put it at one point, the crown from a symbol in those nations of imperial domination to a channel for cooperative egalitarian friendship. That is moulding a culture. It's extraordinary achievement in that regard. It is. One thing that I was struck by, Mark, I'd love to get your
00:11:01
Speaker
thoughts on this too. I was very struck by, in the days after the funeral, or sort of leading up to the funeral and then after the funeral, was the conversations that began for me with folks who have got, you know, marginal faith or no faith, you know, around the Queen. You know, I have friends who are not particularly monarchist, who made very positive remarks about, somebody used the phrase servant leadership,
00:11:23
Speaker
which ended up the opportunity to go, interesting, where do you think that came from? And then remember talking to another sort of skeptical friend around the fact that we take for granted that her model of leadership is something to aspire to serving others. You go back in history, for most of human history, whenever leaders have got their hands on power, they've seen it as their job to just use that for their own.
00:11:46
Speaker
for their own ends. Where did we get the idea that true leadership should be servant parted? And we have to be very clear, I'm not putting her on a pedestal. She was a faulty human being like we all were, but the fact she aspired to that model of leadership, well, obviously it came from Christ. And then I suddenly discovered having these evangelistic conversations out of the funeral, even watching the funeral with a mixture of friends who were not all Christian. I just think it was an amazing opportunity. And okay, yes, the funeral was gone.
00:12:13
Speaker
And in time, we'll talk less about her. But right now, am I right in thinking there's a moment here for us in terms of conversations with friends around an event this big and this historic? And of course, some of what you've written about the book.
00:12:30
Speaker
Well, yes, I think there is. And I mean, what is it in some ways extraordinary to me around this? I think, by the way, just to comment on the moment, I think the moment is until around about four o'clock on Christmas Day or maybe boxing day. In other words, I think once Charles does the Christmas speech, I think up to that moment, I think people are still going to be thinking about the Queen maybe till New Year. It will still be, you know, leadership transition is a moment of leadership comparison.
00:12:59
Speaker
You know, that almost inevitably. So I think that will occur. But I've had a very similar experience. It has been quite surprising to me. I went to the barbers, those of you who can't see this might be surprised by that, but I went to the barbers and actually it's a hairdresser. There used to be a barber, but it's now a hairdresser. It's a salon. I went to a salon and
00:13:25
Speaker
It's the sort of place where they wash your hair, so they wash my hair. And the person watching my hair is a 19-year-old young woman called Sophie. And this happened just before the platinum, actually. And she said, what have you been doing? I said, I've been writing a book about the queen. Oh, she says she's 19 years old. She's, you know, in a hairdressing context. So she's not enough. She isn't.
00:13:43
Speaker
an upper middle class person. She could be. You can wash her and be upper middle class, but she's not. And she's, oh, I love the queen. I'm thinking, really? Where did this come from? Oh, I've always loved to think about what party I can have. And the next time I go, so I give her a copy of something called The Servant Queen, which is the one the queen wrote a forward for and sold a million copies. And when I go back next time, there's another young woman washing my hair.
00:14:05
Speaker
And she said, oh, I saw that book, it's fantastic. I wish my grandfather would love it. So this is a curious thing about the queen is that even if you yourself are not interested in it, you know somebody who is. And you're sort of interested because they're interested. And I found this, you know, you
00:14:22
Speaker
This happens in what you might call cold contact situations, which is not where I like to focus talking about evangelism. I rather talk about ongoing relationships. But in cold situations, I'm on a train and I strategically leave a copy of the book on the table. And I get a sense from God that the people opposite me might be interested
00:14:42
Speaker
So I say, are you at all interested in the queen? And the woman looks at her husband and kind of raises her eyebrows and sort of, oh, is he interested in the queen? Is he ever? And he just beams. And so we had this conversation about the queen, et cetera, et cetera. Extraordinary everywhere we go. And the professional evangelist like yourself. So Amy Ewing said exactly the same thing and the reason to address, I heard her speak, you know, that she's never had so many opportunities to talk to ordinary people about the gospel than because of the queen.
00:15:10
Speaker
So I think it is that. I think it is because we admire service. And in a way, you can see that when the Daily Mirror used to have their ordinary hero awards. There is something deep in us that really connects to the nobility of selfless sacrifice. You see it in Remembrance Day. You see it in the popularity of things like the Lord of the Rings.
00:15:37
Speaker
as well. Historically, obviously, we'll see how this one pans out, rings of power. But you see that aberration for the Sam who is prepared to... He's not the hero, but Sam is prepared to go and give his all to help Frodo. And even Frodo who hardly picks up a sword, but he's prepared to carry this thing. He's prepared to serve the greater cause. I think it is
00:16:01
Speaker
It is not surprising that it is deep in humanity, given that the creator God sent his son to serve and not be served. So I think it triggers something in people.
00:16:13
Speaker
Mark, this is wonderful to hear, and I'm so thrilled to hear that you've had so many opportunities. I've experienced similar as well. And I guess one of the things, maybe one of the last couple of questions, our time is quickly running out, sadly. How do you go about moving the conversation on from talking about the Queen to somebody to entering that conversation around servant leadership and potentially Jesus? Like, is there a
00:16:40
Speaker
How do you go about progressing that conversation in a natural and easy way? Well, of course, as ever, it all depends on who you're talking to. So part of that discernment is to, I suppose, first of all, find out what they particularly admire about the Queen.
00:16:59
Speaker
You know, what is it that they admire? And quite likely one of those qualities is going to, she may well have said something about how that quality is something that she got from her reading of the Bible. So it could be reconciliation and forgiveness, which was very, very high on her agenda.
00:17:19
Speaker
And she's had a lot to say about that. And indeed, one of the reasons for this book is to equip people with those connection points. So that almost, what is it you love about the Queen? Oh, I love her love of life. Isn't that interesting that she had all this work to do and that she loved life. And she talks about, because her God is a God who created all these things. And she sees it as a gift from her and she has
00:17:44
Speaker
perspective on her work and you know she talks about taking the long view and giving her best for today and not getting stuck on the past if you like the mistakes she's made but moving on. So in almost any area there's something that then connects to the Bible or to Jesus and
00:18:05
Speaker
And for some people, the ground has shifted, if I may say, let's just make this point in terms of the way the country was asked to view the queen before the platinum jubilee and after the platinum jubilee. So even a 90th birthday, 2016, the media, most of the media you would get, or indeed from almost all her biographers, was the queen is a committed Christian.
00:18:35
Speaker
There was no exploration of it. Virtually no testimonial around it. You come to the platinum and the BBC had got hold of the servant queen and the king she served. The biographers, her own biographers talked about that as the validation of it. And you had all these people coming on the BBC and the main funeral things and the main platinum jubilee things talking about her faith. So the difference now is that the faith connection has been made for us.
00:19:03
Speaker
You know, it's easy to say. So of course, you know, one of the interesting things about the way the funeral was covered and the way the platinum celebration was done was so many people were talking about the Queen's faith. And yes, that was very important to her. And she did speak about it a lot. And I think this is where she got her strength
Skepticism and the Monarchy
00:19:20
Speaker
from. So the frame is different than it was even a year ago, when a year ago I could write, you know, the media ignores this, essentially, they don't know what to do with it. Whereas
00:19:34
Speaker
They did something with it this time. That's a quick follow up question, Mark, on that. I wonder if this is a generational thing. I've noticed that with friends kind of similar to my age, like late 20s, early 30s, mid 30s.
00:19:49
Speaker
many of them don't like the Queen very much. And I just wondered if you had any kind of wisdom as to how to go about these conversations with them when it comes up, because the themes that come up for them are ones of privilege, the privatisation of the monarchy, the things that you mentioned earlier on about the role in
00:20:13
Speaker
the empire and seeing seeing the queen and others basically just a very wealthy family who yeah they've worked hard but
00:20:22
Speaker
why we kind of, why is it that all radio stations took over announcing her death? You know, why is it that you can't go anywhere and not kind of see her face on a bus, et cetera? And so there's just quite a bit of, it's almost based on hostility. And that's just been very, very prevalent for me in my friendship groups. And I just wondered if you had any wisdom on how to talk about it with them.
00:20:49
Speaker
Well, I imagine you've got more wisdom since they're your friends. I think one of the things for me, there's a number of facts that I think help. So I think the notion, for example, to some extent, I may have addressed this adequately for you, but I think when you tell people a little bit about what she's done in the Commonwealth, when you say you see her as a relic of colonialism and imperialism, that's not the way the Commonwealth see her.
00:21:17
Speaker
That's not the way those populations see her. That's why there is a Commonwealth, because they don't see her that way. So if one examines these things one by one, clearly she is privileged, but then you say to her, so let me tell you about her day.
00:21:33
Speaker
Let me tell you about her week. Let me tell you about some of the places that she has to go to in order to serve this country and to honor people that you do approve of and who are grateful usually for the honors. People who are running charities, people who sacrifice their lives, people who generate wealth through business, all the honor system and all that kind of stuff, whether we like it, that system or not.
00:21:53
Speaker
So she stands there for hours or has stood there for hours, you know, saying hello to people she's never going to meet again and encouraging them. She goes to places that most of us would not choose to visit an awful lot. She gets on a train and she goes to Skuntthorpe and she goes to the middle of nowhere. She goes to a factory. How many of us want to spend the time in a factory? And then she goes to a shipyard and then she does this and then she does that. And yes, it always smells of fresh paint.
00:22:18
Speaker
But actually, for the sake of encouraging all people of many different levels in society, that's what she does. And in fact, it's been said, I mean, the Queen and the Royal Family spend far more time in what you might call with people who are in some way deprived or sick or more marginalized than most of us, unless you're a social worker.
00:22:46
Speaker
The ceremonial aspect is there, but Princess Anne's visits seven prisons a year. The actual work here, and again, they're incredibly wealthy. Yes. And the real question is, what do they do with it? Look at what most people who are incredibly wealthy do with it. Well, most of what they do with it is they have a long holiday in Balmoral. You know, they used to have a boat. They don't have a boat anymore.
00:23:15
Speaker
You know, are they buying?
00:23:18
Speaker
extraordinary amounts of this that and the other are they frittering it away i don't think so so part of this i think is a confident you know they've embraced their calling and i think in a sense it's up to the government and the political process to decide whether we want to have a monarchy anymore but while we have one let us say let us look at their life of service and
00:23:47
Speaker
and assess whether we think they are doing that well. And essentially in our interest as it has been defined by the limits set around them by the political process. Well, we have hit
00:24:08
Speaker
The 25 minute mark. Mark. So thank you so much. We started from the world of advertising. You did a great plug for the monarchy at the end. The funny thing is I would call myself a slightly reluctant monarchist, but I remember having a fascinating conversation with a friend the other day who's not particularly monarchist. And I just looked them in the eye and I went,
00:24:28
Speaker
So you say you would have rather not have a monarchy. Does this mean you'd like more politicians? She looked at me and went, oh, yes. Good point. So Mark, your life of grace tribute to Queen Elizabeth II is available fairly widely. We'll put a link.
00:24:45
Speaker
in the show notes to the book so people can find it themselves. But one thing I love about it, actually, I love the way it's priced. You can buy it in bulk quite cheaply. So you've talked about giving it as a gift to people. If that's attractive to you listening to this, if you've got the kind of friendship group who are into the queen and whatnot, do encourage people, get hold of copies, give it away. One of the things I like about it, it looks good. It looks like a
00:25:10
Speaker
a good gift. It's not done cheaply. There's something about gifts that have quality to them and this certainly does. So, Mark, thank you so much for your time. I know you're a busy man, if not busy, just busy colour coordinating your bookshelves. For those who can't see the amazing science side picture that Christian and I can see behind Mark. But it's been a pleasure. Thank you for taking the time to join us today. It's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you very much.
00:25:33
Speaker
And Christy and I, we're back in two weeks time with another guest, another topic, another episode of TEP talk. Thanks for listening.