Transcript
Speaker: Well, hello and welcome to another episode of Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast from Solas. I am Andy Bannister and I am joined by my esteemed colleague, Simon Wenham, all the way from Oxford. Simon, how are you doing today? Thank you very much. It's very kind of you to call me esteemed, but I'm not quite sure if that's warranted, but it's very kind of you.
Speaker: Well, today this podcast is going to be one of the hottest places to be, I think, literally, because as we record this, the UK is in the middle of ah of a heatwave. Are you melting there in Oxford, Simon? Yeah, definitely. Yes, we've got a portable air conditioning unit on. We've been huddling around it. It's roasting.
Speaker: Well, one of the funny things is that um loads of things in the yeah UK are shutting down because it's hot. Our local scout troop are not meeting tonight. All the schools are shutting. And ah for me, the most amazing thing today was an African friend messaged me this morning on Facebook and said it all in four emojis. He sent me simply a message that had ah a picture of the UK flag then a sun symbol, then a snowflake, and then a laugh out loud symbol, um which I think just summed up because I think the Africans there are going, yeah, we have sun too, and we're still all working fine. But anyway, aside from hot introductions, let's move from that hot introduction to another hot introduction because we have not one but two guests.
Speaker: on the show today because one guest is not enough so we are joined today very excited for this one we are joined by Adam Curtis and ah Ian Miller who are ah down there in Maidenhead Adam ah Ian welcome to the welcome to the podcast hello and in Simon it's good to be here yeah glad to be with you Well, it's great to have you. And I love the bio, by the way, whenever we do these podcasts, people may think this is just all like seat of the pants stuff. But no, we do work. We do effort. There is a bio that gets sent in. So you guys have told me that Adam Curtis is taller than the average doorframe.
Speaker: and is a minister team in Maidenhead. And ah ian you're the other associate vicar at St. Mary's and used to be a barrister but but before becoming a vicar. So I'm glad the Lord saved you from such dark and terrible places. But you're united around this initiative called ah Maidenhead Questions. That's the thing that's connected you. So why doesn't one of you... I'd also say we're united around the Lord as well. you I love what you did there. Yes, absolutely absolutely. So fantastic. So guests one, presenters zero. um
Speaker: um but i remember that. Don't worry, that will come back and bite you. So um tell us about Maidenhead Questions. Let's kick off with what is the Maidenhead Question kind of initiative? Because it's because it's an amazing thing. And rather than me mangle it, I'm going to let one of you...
Speaker: talk us into what it is and then we'll dig into what's happened and the story and the way God's worked through it and what other lessons there might be for other churches here from what you focus on. So take us away. Maidenhead questions. What is it?
Speaker: Well, it all it all began when ah the Bible Society released their Quiet Revival report talking about how young people were engaging with Christianity and particularly how much they were engaging with it online. Now I know there's lots of complexities around that report but Made of Christians was born and are are reflecting upon it. And also just hearing the stories of people in our own churches, um the fact that actually lots of people were coming into church claiming already to be Christians, and yet this was the very first church they'd ever been to.
Speaker: And it was a sense that actually they've engaged so much with Christianity, with Jesus Christ, online. And so we were then reflecting, if loads of young people are interested in Christianity, people are turning online before they walk through the door.
Speaker: How can we build a bridge to people here in Maidenhead? How can we share the gospel with people who we're never going to meet ah and who are um and we don't have a contact with?
Speaker: And so we came up with this idea. Why don't we ask the people in Maidenhead what their questions for God are? And then based on those questions, we're going to produce podcast answers. And that was how Maidenhead Questions was born.
Speaker: Fantastic. and And so how did you go about doing that practically? Obviously, it's one thing to say, let's ask questions. It's another to um actually work out how you find out what people are asking. So how how did you do that?
Speaker: We went about it in a number of different ways. um we We thought that what we really needed to do is obviously get people to put their questions somewhere. So we set up a website um which they could put their questions into.
Speaker: And then we um had a great church initiative of getting out into the town with flyers, which had the the address of the website and inviting people to put um their questions on the website. And we also actually took a billboard.
Speaker: outside the station, ah which was sort of um you know one of those huge, great big billboards, which ah which which which was quite fun, but it was quite nice to be flyering near that. um And so the idea was that and people would would would would be willing to put their questions down. And we had the strap line on the... yeah on the flyers, on the poster, which was, God, my question is.
Speaker: um And there was a slightly sort of humorous side to the way with the graphics had been done. um we we We didn't want people to feel like they were kind of um you know they were going to be putting their questions in to lectured at or anything like that. we We wanted to sort of draw people in and and and invite them to to to to do that sort of freely.
Speaker: That's how we went about it. And we also got T-shirts made as well, and then different members of the church could buy them. And it was just so fun watching people wearing the T-shirts as they were running around doing park runs or wearing the T-shirts when they were keep picking up their kids at school as they were going out flowering.
Speaker: And then we produced loads of social media content, so little shorts of people's testimonies and the questions they'd engaged with and did some paid ads on social media as well. Well, of course, what the ah what the ladies and gentlemen at home cannot see is that you you two are wearing, you're modelling for us, these beautiful kind of kind of T-shirts. We'll have to put a photo up kind of somewhere on the Solace website, perhaps accompanying this episode, so people can see those T-shirts in all their glory. um Before we come to some of the things you discovered and some of the kind of questions that came in, one question I wanted to ask, actually... Did you find it interesting having the conversations out when you were flyering? Because presumably so some people actually got drawn in and we're were asking questions and chatting with you because you've given out a flyer with that with that on. So was that itself an opener to some interesting conversations when you were out on the street in front of the station, wherever it was, doing this kind of stuff?
Speaker: I would say that the answer to that is mixed. um yeah ah we had We had some occasions when we were out there ah on the high street and people were really stopping and engaging. And yeah it's really interesting as well. One one Saturday, for example, um a member of the church family baked about 200 brownies, um absolutely delicious brownies. And we had a stall at the end of the...
Speaker: drive We're Town Centre Church, we're right on the high street. And people were stopping and helping themselves and then really happy to chat and take a flyer. And um we had ah we had lots of good conversations in times like that.
Speaker: um i think when we were just outside the station during rush hour, um people were focused on getting a train or um coming home and less willing to stop. And at times that those, if I'm honest, those times could be quite hard. There were some people who really, once they knew what you were about, you know, was ah ah there was an air of hostility almost.
Speaker: um and And I actually found um once or twice, I found that quite, quite hard, but I was kind of reassured that we were in a, in a place where it was good to be. we were amongst, we were right out there amongst people who, who were hostile as well as those who were curious.
Speaker: um Adam, would you add anything to that? I would say that my best conversations came when I was wearing the t-shirt and doing just normal life things like going to a cafe, going to a doctor's, whatever it was. And in those of spaces and then engaging with someone and then they'd be like, oh, what's this t-shirt about? What's got my question here? And then you could talk about it.
Speaker: um And I, especially some people who I'd seen multiple times and they'd be like, oh, you started that initiative. How many, what's the questions are people asking? So then I'd tell them, oh, well, the number one question so far is about suffering. And they'd be like, oh, and what would you say to that? And I'd be like, oh, but then we'd be off. Then we'd be having a good conversation. So for me, it was less to do with the intentional flyering and more to do with the unintentional conversations.
Speaker: So that's interesting. Does that mean you were wearing the T-shirt literally, I mean, was it over a ah long period of time? is that it Was that the the deal of what you were doing in terms of the church reaching out? Not not necessarily the same T-shirt. You may have had more than one.
Speaker: Yeah, it was it was a two-week window where we encouraged people to to be wearing them. So, yeah. Great. and and so Can you give us a sense of the types of questions that people had? Was it simply everyone just has their own questions or were there certain themes that that came out? Because obviously you live in a certain area and we know that, for example, a local area might have a certain type of local politics, for example, and people are shaped in different ways. and so I'd love to if you could just give a sense of what sorts of of questions people were asking in your area.
Speaker: Well, our most popular type of questions, maybe unsurprisingly, were questions around around suffering. And there were some people asking them quite academically, and then some people were asking them, and you could sense there was a lot of feeling behind the question.
Speaker: and ah And sometimes a huge amount of detail as well it was coming through. Our second most popular type of question actually completely threw me, and I wasn't ready for this at all. And this was on questions um around the Trinity and the nature of Jesus' divinity.
Speaker: And I... I sort of should have seen that this was going to happen because actually our church is 100 meters away from from a mosque and we had a big, huge poster on the side of the church.
Speaker: So actually, of course, we were going to draw those sort of questions. But I did find it quite interesting because there were clearly from Muslim perspective, there also a few from Jewish perspectives as well. And then there are also a few which weren't so obviously linked to a religious sort of like bent or angle and yet still on the nature and character of who Jesus was in his divinity.
Speaker: So that that did take me by surprise. Then our third most popular um topic was... Heaven, hell and the afterlife. ah Heaven, hell and the afterlife, questions around around death.
Speaker: And what's been really interesting, the episode we made on that has really engaged people. ah Then we had questions on does God exist and questions of doubt and faith. And then lastly, our fifth most popular topic was on the topic of other religions, which Andy was was our guest on.
Speaker: And then I'd also then throw in there, there were loads of questions which didn't fit into any of those categories. So we did have some questions on sexuality and gender and transgender in the church. um But we also had a few questions which had the most vigour in all the questions we got asked. The ones with the most vigour were on the hypocrisy within the church and abuse within the church.
Speaker: And and bigot bigotry. Yeah, bigotry. And so we did an extra episode specifically on that because we felt those are the questions with the most feeling other than the suffering ones um behind them.
Speaker: I mean, ah that that fascinates me. And by the way, i want to say on air as well, I've said it off air. I'm very grateful because you guys shared with myself the the question set. and And I and Michael Lotz, who's a friend of Solas, who's an evangelist like me, we're writing a book on questions this summer.
Speaker: And so you guys kindly shared your questions with us. And what's interesting, your bunch of questions mapped onto, we've got about 1,200 questions. kind of now and i would say very similar themes actually lots around suffering is a big one and then some really weird outlying ones and all kinds of pieces so here's the i want to ask you next though you've talked about questions and how you collect them you're out in the street flyering you had the website set up to gather them brilliant obviously you didn't just collect questions you've implied because you said episode there you've done something with those questions um in terms of giving answers so what was the next step and and in the project for how did you go about
Speaker: answering us how have you been been doing that and and and how has that gone you go into a couple of little hints there in that last answer uh there adam but what was kind of the the next step in the project once you've done the question collection Well, first of all, with timetable, I mean, I'm not saying that we might have reflect on the timetable we had and whether it was the right one. But what we did was two weeks, I think Adam has already said, two weeks of collecting questions. We then had two weeks where we put together podcasts answering the top um five questions.
Speaker: um And then we had another two weeks where we were going out there really trying to encourage people to engage with those podcasts. But yeah, so the answers, um we've invited a number of esteemed ah guests and to answer the questions and you being one of them. And some dodgy ones too, so that's fair enough.
Speaker: ah And we we've we had a really good time recording those podcasts um with some with some excellent people. We had Glenn Scrivener from um Speak Life. We had Naomi Brem um and others from Oka and and you, Andy. And and it...
Speaker: um and So we've got this sort of resource now, which we hope will help the church family as they listen and then share with others. um Obviously, we're hoping that people outside the church will listen to listen in, and that's why we're going out. we've we've We had another big billboard in that um ah in that ah third two-week period where we advertised the podcast, and we were flyering, trying to encourage people to to listen to to the answers. Yeah.
Speaker: We hope you are enjoying today's podcast. But did you know that as well as the Pep Talk podcast, Zolas also does live events in person in churches all around the country, equipping and encouraging Christians to get a little bit better at sharing their faith.
Speaker: And we've worked from the south of England to the highlands of the islands of Scotland and all kinds of places in between. you'd like us to come to your church and do a confident Christianity event, get in touch with us through the website.
Speaker: And now, back to the program.
Speaker: So you do all of that. To what degree do you know that the people asking the questions have got them answered? I mean, is there any way of connecting in or have you had any feedback from people um from what you've done saying, actually, that was really helpful or or it's brought them closer to the Lord or or ah move them significantly in their walk towards Christ?
Speaker: Oh, great question. And I think we're at the moment, we're still in that stage of pushing the podcast out. So, um, yeah, the last episode that she dropped on Friday, um Jason Roach dealing with questions on hypocrisy in the church. Um, fantastic episode. And so we're still very much in that pushing, pushing it out.
Speaker: Uh, within every episode, we were inviting people to come along to, to visit us on a, on a Sunday. Uh, so we can see that people are listening to episodes. We can see that people are engaging with episodes. We hear from church members and telling us, oh, I loved, loved, uh, that episode about heaven and hell and death.
Speaker: And so I've sent it onto a friend that we know that that sort of stuff's happening, but at this moment in time, we're, we're very much on the pushing it out. And then our prayer is that actually this will just be,
Speaker: ah a bridge builder into people's lives uh maybe answers a difficult question maybe help them start to grapple with jesus christ for themselves for the first time and then in time we will start to see people coming through through the door who we've never met but we're very much in the stage right now still pushing it out and we get praying praying that the lord will produce produce a harvest if that's his will Now, I suppose the next question I have is ah is a slightly more difficult one, but then you two are used to difficult questions by now. You've you've collected hundreds of- We're used to asking the difficult questions, Andy.
Speaker: Yes, no comments. um So, obviously, i mean what you I genuinely am really impressed by by what by what you two have done. i do I don't just say that. I travel around the country, see lots of different churches, see different initiatives. I love coming across creativity in evangelism. I think it's a very creative idea.
Speaker: So I suppose the question I have is obviously you guys are a slight, not big, but medium-sized kind of church. you've You've put this on. People listening to this um who what who think, this is a great idea, what would you say to them to to encourage them? Do you need to be a medium-sized church? can you Is this adaptable in different ways? i mean, I know you're still in the process, but to people who are intrigued and thinking,
Speaker: hey, we might want to think about trying this out in our community. Is there any kind of any advice, any tips, things not to do that you learned early on that but we haven't talked about or things that you reflect already and go, that was a key moment for us. So yeah, is there any sort of transferable kind of skills, transferable learning here? Because um'm I'd love to think there might be others listening to Pep Talkie might come and give this a go, suitably adapted for their context.
Speaker: Yeah, that's ah that's a great question. now It has to be acknowledged. We're very, very blessed as a church to have a staff team to have to put this on, but also to have ah members of the church who could really help us. like There's a um man in the church who edits podcasts, so he's editing that. There's a guy in the church who does social media, so he's helped us with that. a lady in the church who builds websites, so she's done that for us. so Amazing. we are very blessed and we want to be yeah acknowledge that that this isn't possible for every every church just by the way sorry to cut you off there but i think you that i just want to flag that up adam that is a really important point because i think some churches are more blessed than they realize um because you may have people with skills you may have young people who have those skills and often on some of the sort of forms of ministry we do we don't use those skills
Speaker: So straight away, I love the fact that you identify people who might otherwise be sitting there thinking, well, God's made me a podcast editor. What can I do for the Lord? And the project you came up with answered that. So just to flag up, I think that's a more important step, actually, than listeners may have picked up. You know, look at who God's put within your community.
Speaker: can Can I just add to that as well? i ah it it has been a real joy working with members of a church family, but ah but actually there's those people who are doing those particular, very specific things, but then just the general thing of a whole load of people um coming together, um whether it's flowering, whether it's baking brownies, whether it's going out. And there's a sort of like a wonderful, it's a good, it's a lovely thing for the church family. It's a good thing for a church family to be pulling together and doing a project like this. But I think um i think Adam and I have talked ah about this and reflected on the fact that we actually did have quite a... ah We had a good budget for it and actually not... I mean, most people will not be getting billboards outside the station. That was a first for us. It was a a foray into a completely unknown field for me, booking that sort of thing with advertising agencies. but um And it I think most people won't be able to do that. and and But i think... i think
Speaker: When we started the project, it was only later that um Adam and I discovered that our church had done something similar about 10 years before. um But they'd done it on a shoestring and um done it in a very different way. And it just made me think that actually it is possible to do something like this without having having ah the billboards and things like that. That actually um just getting out there and and ah asking those questions and collating them some way, um ah you could do it a lot more cheaply than we than we did.
Speaker: Yeah, that's very, very true. And um but you could literally send people out onto the street with ah with clipboards asking people what their what their questions are. You don't need to necessarily build a website. um And actually asking people, engaging people would wonderful way of seeing what people people think And the very fact that we produce loads of podcast episodes.
Speaker: um I do think there's something about this being online, which is particularly helpful for our moment and our time. and But actually, you still could have done it differently. You could have asked one speaker to come and to deal with a number of topics rather than asking, well, I think had seven speakers in the end dealing with different different questions and topics. So there are ways of minimizing the the work which is involved. Yeah.
Speaker: But by the way, on on that as well, I know then Simon's got another question that he's he's dying to ask. i I recognize the facial expression. But the other thing as well, I think, Adam, for took would to encourage people listening to this. the other thing I like that you did is that you drew in people um you know who had the expertise in asking questions. Because i think some churches might say, well, we don't have someone who can do that. But you just shown. You brought me in. You brought Glenn, Naomi, others. you know There are lots of people out there doing this kind of ministry who are more than happy to be a resource leader.
Speaker: to churches. um So to encourage to other church leaders, I can guarantee that if you're a church leader in the country, think you're doing something even remotely similar, if you reach out to Solas, Speak Life, Oka, we are most likely to say, yeah, we'd love to if all it requires is jumping onto a on a recording for half an hour. i think that's all it took, half an hour, 40 minutes with you with you gents, and we've helped produce something. So again, I'm a big believer that God has equipped the church perhaps in more ways than we realize. And we can sort of stop and think we can't do it.
Speaker: But actually, maybe that we do have the pieces. So again, the way that you brought so many people together, you know, from the brownie baker to the question asker answer is is brilliant. Simon, you were going to ask something that I think.
Speaker: That's very kind. Yeah, I was just wondering, what are you hoping to achieve sort of, ah bar the obvious? so So let's say in a year's time, you've done this what what what is Where are you wanting the community to be? are you Is it about just getting a sort of greater openness? Is it points of contact with others? I'd just love to to have a sense of of what you are really hoping for for your community in terms of how this will change things. And and I appreciate its early doors at the moment.
Speaker: Oh, Simon, that's a good question. I don't know if I don't ever have a wonderfully well thought through answer. I know one part of my answer would be the the joy about making an online resource is that it lives on.
Speaker: Like the wonder of doing an event is you actually get to meet people in person. And that is just great. You get to build the report, but then the event is done. The great thing about doing an online resource is that with we're going to move the way the podcast from the Mainhead Questions ah website onto our own church website. And then actually, I think they've still got a shelf life for the next site five years. um And actually, i host my own podcast called The Delight Podcast. And actually, just watching how those numbers grow over the years is just so encouraging to to me. um So actually, that that sense that we're still going to have this great...
Speaker: Maidenhead specific evangelistic resource available on our website for years to come, which we can continue to push out for our social media and continue to encourage people who come around to Christianity Explored and whatnot to engage with. that that That encourages me that we've we've got this great resource now.
Speaker: Add to that, I listened to Randy Newman. Is it Randy Newman who wrote that book on questioning evangelism? listened him speak on a number of occasions. and he he He speaks of of people being on a kind of alphabet spectrum from a atheist to Zed to a committed Christian, the most sort of committed Christian. and And he often speaks about our task as evangelists as is moving people along that alphabet. We might move them from A to B. We we might move them from M to R.
Speaker: but and i guess I guess one of my hopes for this will be that um this will have this will have affected people in different ways. The fact that we have been inviting people to ask questions and and really um let them ask their kind of the most kind of visceral questions, and passionate questions, and and my goodness, we've really got some of those represented here. I hope that for some of those people, they might not come near a church for it for a long time, but actually just asking that question um and engaging with this will be a first step and might, you know, I hope have moved them somewhere along the alphabet. But for others, it might be the thing which actually ah it means that they take that step of coming, perhaps not to our church, but someone else's.
Speaker: um And then, of course, there's the effect on the church family, which I always think whenever we do evangelism, we we we we We grow as a church family. um And I always think that actually sometimes you can put on an evangelistic event, you can have a great evangelistic project, and you can look and think, well, I wanted to see lots of numbers, lots of people putting their trust in the Lord. And we don't it doesn't look like we've seen that, but actually we've seen a huge effect on the church family who have grown as they've gone through this initiative. So I could kind of...
Speaker: Whenever I look at an evangelistic project, that's the kind of way I'm thinking. and I think it's the same with this. Yeah. but It's funny you say that as as just a final comment. I think the other thought I had there, Ian, as well, is the other ah really beautiful thing this project has done is I would hope in time it will encourage Christians in their evangelism because, you know, one of the fears I often hear from people that holds them back from sharing their their faith is what happens if someone asks me a question?
Speaker: Well, praise the Lord in Maidenhead, you've partly answered that because now any Christian in the community should hopefully be a little bit more confident knowing if a question comes up to go, that's a great question. And, you know, I think on the Maidenhead Questions website, probably, you know, lots of other people like you ask that. Should we take a look?
Speaker: And it's localized. It's got an answer to it and it's wrapped in a story. um And I think if you can take that fear away from a Christian that I'm going to get, you know, sort of kiboshed with a question that everyone's thought about, it's help.
Speaker: Yeah. So the final question I have for you and then Simon will do a wrap is, so we've talked about Maidenhead Questions and all you're doing. Where do people go? Is there a place that people can go to find what's going on, to find the podcast? You talked about moving onto the church website in time, but where's the best place for people to come and find all the stuff that's come out of this amazing project?
Speaker: MaidenheadsQuestions.co.uk That's an original URL. I see what you did there. We'll we'll put a link to that in the show notes, won't we, Simon? Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Adam and Ian. It's been wonderful to hear that. The thing that's really struck me is this that everyday evangelism is about those points of contact, isn't it? And in in in yesteryear, we used to sort of knock on people's doors and we don't obviously do that in the same way, but actually the online world, as you said, you you connect with many, many more people and it shows that people have got questions. I love that. The the church needs to be answering them. and These could be personal questions, but they could also be themes. And actually we won't be discovering them unless we're doing getting out there and asking our own questions of other people to find out what what they're asking. And the one thing that came to mind whilst you were speaking is when Andy was speaking at a Confident Christianity event, someone asked a question about manifesting. And it was really interesting because I had heard the language, but I had never really sort of thought of it as a thing. And the person was saying, a friend of mine is all about manifesting what they want to have you know happen in their life. and And it was really interesting because had that question not come up, I i would
Speaker: had no idea that that was a question that someone had or that people were thinking about. and It really struck me as to sort of being more in tune with people around us. so but I just want to say again, thank you so much, Adam and Ian. Hopefully this episode will inspire more people.
Speaker: and as Adam and Ian have said, it actually, you don't have to be a huge church. There are other ways of reaching out to the community around you. And it's wonderful, isn't it, to see what God might then do with those questions that people have and as we deal and answer them and also building up the church too, which is wonderful as well.
Speaker: So thank you all for listening. Thank you also, Andy, for being with us. And do tune in again for a more inspiring guest on Pep Talk, the Persuasive Evangelism podcast from Solas.
