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With Steve Osmond
379 Plays1 year ago
Andy and Kristi sit down with the newest member of the Solas team to discuss his passion for evangelism. Having arrived in Scotland recently from South Africa, Steve Osmond reflects on the opportunities, surprises and challenges we have here. Kristi is also interested in Steve’s background in zoology and how that has informed his conversations with atheists.
Steve Osmond hails from South Africa, where he earned his MSc in Zoology from the University of Johannesburg, specialising in ecotoxicology and ecological risk assessment. Along with his passion for the natural world, he also has a love for theology: exploring the connections between faith and reason, and how Christianity makes sense of the world. He has been involved in pastoral ministry and creating training programmes for discipleship in theology and apologetics. Steve holds a MA in Apologetics & Theology from Southern Evangelical Seminary. He now lives in Perth, Scotland with his wife Robin and two young daughters.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Pep Talk' Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast. I'm Kristy and I'm joined by Andy Bannister, my wonderful co-host. Andy, how are you doing? I am doing well, Kristy. I'm doing very, very well. I noticed, by the way, I get a surname and you're just Kristy, so...
00:00:26
Speaker
Obviously, that means you're so famous and so well known. There is only one. There is just the one, Christi. Whereas these are the ladies of them. I'm just Christi at home. Whereas you're like Dr. Andy Bannister, you know. Exactly.
Meet Steve Osman
00:00:43
Speaker
We're also joined by a third member today called Steve Osman. Steve, welcome to the, welcome to the podcast.
00:00:50
Speaker
Thank you for having me. And thank you for giving me a surname. I appreciate that. You're very welcome. Very welcome. To introduce you a bit, Steve, you, well, there's so much we could say about you, but you have a background in the sciences, specifically in zoology, which I'd love to ask you more about later. You then have a wonderful experience in terms of pastoral ministry. And from what you've shared with us, just, you know, before we, before we went live, you also have a heart of
00:01:16
Speaker
for kind of engaging people with Jesus as well and equipping people to know how to kind of think about these big questions and respond to them. But your background is in the sciences.
00:01:26
Speaker
with a bit of kind of partial ministry in there as well. And recently, very wonderfully, you joined a team of Solas as a speaker.
Steve's Initial Experience at Solas
00:01:37
Speaker
So now Andy Bannister, I believe, is a colleague slash boss. Is that right? And how is that going? Tell us everything. This is where Andy steps up for the podcast. So Steve can talk very frankly. Yeah, I was about to say a bit of watch what I say. I think I'm still on probation. I've only been around for just on three months.
00:01:53
Speaker
Um, but that is indeed true. Yeah. I'm part of the speaking team. Um, and yeah, having, having a lot of fun so far, just dotting around, uh, Scotland and getting to see, uh, all that it has to offer and meet some really, really good people. And yeah, just spend some time with the Solas team and get to know a little bit about, you know, what, what we're doing. And yeah, been such a blessing.
Transitioning from Secular Work to Ministry
00:02:18
Speaker
So, Stephen, that introduction that Christy gave, she talked about the fact that you have inhabited these different worlds. There's been the secular world of work and science and zoology. I love zoology. If you're playing Scrabble, it's a great word to use up those letters that you can't do anything else with.
00:02:35
Speaker
And tell us a bit about that journey though, particularly I'd love to know about evangelism and that journey. How have you found sharing your faith, talking about your faith? How has that shifted? How is that different from when you've been in the world of the kind of secular non-church workplace to coming into ministry? Because I know sometimes folks find it can be difficult, right? Because when you're in that secular world, in the work world, you're naturally meeting non-Christians.
00:02:57
Speaker
Whereas when you move into the water ministry, the relationships with them are slightly different and not quite, I suppose, as natural. So how has that gone for you over the years? Yeah, that's an interesting question. And I definitely stumbled into evangelism. I by no means sort of have ever thought of myself as a natural evangelist. It's really through my time at university in the sciences that
00:03:24
Speaker
people came to find out, you know, my friends came to find out that I was a Christian and that just led to some, you know, natural conversations about, you know, well, how can you be a Christian, but also be studying the sciences and slowly but surely, you know, after learning a few responses to that, I discovered that I actually quite enjoyed evangelism. And that led to just more and more conversations that were really, really fruitful, some of them challenging over the years.
00:03:53
Speaker
but that then eventually developed into a bit of a ministry calling.
Balancing Ministry and Evangelism
00:03:57
Speaker
And I thought, you know, naturally as one does, well, you know, I love evangelism and I'm a, I love historical ministry. So the best thing to do is to go off to the church and spend some time working in full-time ministry. And the, I suppose the initial thought for me was that the more I was in ministry working in the church, that I would be actually doing more evangelism.
00:04:20
Speaker
And strangely enough, I think I discovered that the opposite is actually true. I found, you know, quite short down the line that I was actually doing far less evangelism because I was surrounded by Christians the whole time, which is a wonderful thing. And the pastoral ministry is something very dear to me and it has its place. And I really do applaud and cherish those who are full-time ministers. But I just found for me with this
00:04:49
Speaker
desire for evangelism, I was really just not able to do as much of it because you'd really disconnected from being in the workplace where you just had these good natural conversations. I found I actually had to work a lot harder to find those conversations and actually be able to go and evangelize while I was in full-time industry. So, yeah, a bit of a, I suppose, yeah, the ups and downs with that all pros and cons really.
00:05:17
Speaker
And so, yeah, I've over the years dotted in and out of ministry and consulting. But I think I'm probably happiest when I'm in some way at least able to go out to just meet people in the world and have natural conversations and see how I can guide them to become spiritual conversations.
Evangelism in South Africa vs. Scotland
00:05:39
Speaker
That's really cool. I think one of the things that we haven't yet mentioned, Steve, is that you are originally from South Africa.
00:05:46
Speaker
And I would love to hear kind of how have you, what sort of shifts have you seen, you know, in the questions that you've heard and we're engaging with in South Africa and the types of kind of spiritual conversations that maybe just in these early few months of life in Scotland that you've already experienced and encountered. It's been a very interesting journey. So as I mentioned, we've been out for just over three months, I think it is, based in Perth.
00:06:16
Speaker
and didn't have that much exposure to Scotland. We'd been out for a bit of a vacation for about three weeks. That was at the end of 2022. And so I got a little bit of a taste for the context here, but most of what I knew is really from speaking to people in Scotland and in the wider UK. So South Africa is a bit of a melting pot. I think there's so many different
00:06:45
Speaker
cultures, so many different sort of streams of church, that you do get exposed to a good variety of things. But what I have found is that the nature of the questions in South Africa, you know, things that people find as maybe barriers to faith would still be
00:07:08
Speaker
like very much on the evidential type side. So big questions about, you know, God's existence or the reliability of the Bible, things like that. And I think you still have a culture that is relatively Christianized. And you're not that far down the line in terms of having generations, you know, the third or second, third, fourth generations who've never been in the church. You still have this backdrop of Christianity that is still there and exists for the most part, I think, where you come over to
00:07:38
Speaker
Scotland in particular, and it seems for the most part that you do have a far more secularized culture that is a few generations down the line of families who just have absolutely no Christian influence whatsoever, no biblical understanding, people who've never set foot in a church in their life. They don't really have a concept of God. And so the questions
00:08:06
Speaker
I think reflect that people seem to be asking more, more existential or like sort of the experience of everyday life type questions, you know, like, what is the, what is the meaning of it all? You know, how do I live? What is, what is a good life look like? Where is meaning to be found? Questions about justice and the environment, especially in environment, environmental issues for, for the most part of this, you don't have a huge community
00:08:37
Speaker
in South Africa that is really going on about that. I do find in South Africa, in Scotland, that is a bit higher up the list of issues.
00:08:49
Speaker
The other thing as well though, Steve, that you commented to me the other day, and I think one of the interesting things when you come from a different culture, I remember when I came to Canada, when we moved there in 2010, you know, you see things as an outsider that perhaps other people haven't noticed because they're under their eyes. You made a comment the other day about the fact that actually there's also, as well as the secularism that you've talked about there, you also kind of quite encouraged because there's also wherever we've traveled, and you and I have traveled quite a bit,
00:09:14
Speaker
you know, speaking in churches across Scotland in the last few months. There's also signs of growth too.
Scottish Church Vibrancy
00:09:22
Speaker
Right. Which is, which is interesting. It's not all doom and gloom, is it? The story is more, is more complicated than that at the same time. Yeah, absolutely. I've been like really pleasantly surprised, you know, so from, from landing here and hearing
00:09:37
Speaker
about, I suppose, the wider state of the church and all the things going on and, you know, the secularism that has, I suppose, dominated things for the last while. I was really expecting to find, I suppose, very, like of a better word, dead churches. But I really find that in the, I suppose, we've been mostly going to more evangelical churches and although
00:10:04
Speaker
They are a lot smaller than what I'm used to in South Africa for the most part. They are vibrant. They seem to be committed. The leaders that I've met at every single one of them have been people who are focused on the gospel. They love Jesus and they see the necessity of evangelism.
00:10:30
Speaker
and having the church, not just getting specialists from the outside, people with reams and reams of degrees to come in and do that kind of thing, but they see the value and the necessity of the body of Christ, the church itself, being the ones to actually go out and do that work of taking the gospel out to the world. And that to me has been
00:10:53
Speaker
It's not something I expected, but it's been very, very encouraging. And so I've just thoroughly enjoyed going out and meeting people at these churches. I'm really glad that that's one of the things that that's so nice is able to release you to do at the moment. And Steve, what I'd love to hear more about is, you know, considering your background in the sciences and as now you're thinking more about kind of engaging people for these spiritual conversations, are there any kind of natural inroads that you found
Zoology Background in Evangelism
00:11:21
Speaker
you know, to develop those conversations. So particularly with a background like zoology, I don't know many Christians who are in the zoology kind of stratosphere because of the nature of the kind of science that you're looking at. And I just wondered, you know, how did you, well, I guess two questions really, sorry, I'm free to not answer either of these, but I guess, how did you find studying that as a Christian for yourself? And then secondly, how has that helped you or
00:11:51
Speaker
helps you to see the world and think a little bit more about how to develop conversations that kind of lead to Jesus as a result. How do you find that as a Christian and how do you find that in your evangelism? I guess are the two things I'd love to hear more about. Yeah, fantastic question. So while I was studying and through the Zoology degree, obviously doing a hang of a lot of evolutionary biology,
00:12:20
Speaker
I hear stories from universities where you have these, you know, every lecture that you find in the evolutionary space is a very hardcore atheist and anti-theist. And, you know, they're just out to devour all the little Christians who scamp into their classroom. And I think that that probably is true for many, many places. I've heard really bad stories about that. I think the department that I was in at the University of Johannesburg at the time
00:12:50
Speaker
was quite varied. And so I did have, you know, lectures from, you know, very different backgrounds. There were a couple who were more like what I've just mentioned. And so when it got to my post grad studies, and especially my honors year, and into the master's, I think maybe that's when it started coming up, where it was
00:13:15
Speaker
not just, you know, for the most part, as you're going through the undergrad, it seemed like people were really just like, hey, this is what is in the curriculum, this is what the textbooks are saying, and people would, you know, you're just focused on getting your good marks and handing the papers and stuff. It seems once you get to post grad, then the kind of worldview stuff that lies behind these things starts to come out a bit more, as people have thought about it a little more. And one of the big things that really highlighted that was when we did a philosophy of science
00:13:45
Speaker
course. And that just highlighted, I suppose, some of the worldview backdrop behind these things and why these questions matter. And that actually led, for the rest of that year, we then started having a lot of debate around what led to the existence of God, the place of faith in the sciences, the faith and reason kind of debates that you have.
00:14:10
Speaker
And that does seem to really not be on the radar much until we got to the latter years of our studies. What that's done, I suppose, for me in terms of the shaping evangelism is having, I suppose, a solid group of the evolutionary paradigm, that sort of neo-Dalwinian worldview.
00:14:33
Speaker
and understanding that that's exactly what it is. It's not what the science is. It's a worldviews and ideology that comes along with a lot of the stuff. To understand that and its implications has been a really good inroads. So for example, if I get into discussion with someone and I sort of lead with my background that I've studied zoology, you know, very soon down the line, you get into the evolution sort of discussion. And I think that the
00:15:02
Speaker
Biggest opportunity there is to show how this whole neo-Darwinian evolutionary model of random chance and materialism. So if all there is is matter and there is no spiritual realm, then basically we are the product of just blind random chance. And that leads you to having basically no real foundation for moral values and duties, I think. So like, is there really good? Is there really evil in the world?
00:15:33
Speaker
on that new Darwinian blind evolution type model, all you have is subjective views. I suppose it all becomes just relative. And what that does is it really kicks against the intuitions that we have as humans who, as a Christian, I believe are made in the image of God. So we have this deep sense of justice. There's beautiful things. We have a sense of beauty that moves us to a sense of thankfulness.
00:16:02
Speaker
I say this deep sense of gratitude now on blind, random, atheistic evolution, there's just really no one to be grateful to. So it's like this random feeling that you have. So what it does is I think it gives you wonderful inroads into just saying, well, if that is the case, this sort of random, blind, random neodar evolution, if that is the way things are, you just have no tools to explain
00:16:27
Speaker
All of these things that we feel as humans, all these things that are really the biggest questions of life, the more meaningful stuff, it just does nothing for that. So it kind of highlights to me that there's much more to the picture. There's something definitely behind all of that and we can actually reach out and start looking for those things and that really opens up then the spiritual conversation.
00:16:49
Speaker
I think that's so right because I think one of the things I've certainly found too, that questions around justice, meaning, purpose, identity, they seem to be such live questions in our culture right now. And I think gently introducing the idea of
00:17:07
Speaker
What's the better explanation for those things?
Role of Conversations in Evangelism
00:17:10
Speaker
I like it a number of ways, Steve. I think it's very powerful. I think it's also quite humbling as well because rather than going in with our non-Christian friends going, I've got a knockdown argument here. It's so devastating. It's going to drive through the walls of your secularism and just flatten you. And of course, then defenses go up. You're doing more invitational. Why don't we look at this together and see what better explains
00:17:29
Speaker
these things. But the other question I guess I had for you is that one of the things that, you know, we do at Solas is we do the Confident Christianity conferences that we tour around the country. Christie has been a guest at those in the past. And one of the talks that we've had you doing these kind of last few weeks is you've cut your teeth into this exciting world. You have this little presentation you do on the art of conversation. And I love the, there's a lot I like about that. I like the use of the word art in there. I think it's quite clever.
00:17:58
Speaker
And conversation is interesting. So I suppose that's the final question because I'm just conscious the clock is against us. But why do you think conversation and learning to have better conversations is so helpful in evangelism, whether you're in the sciences or in the humanities? What is it about conversation that you think is helpful and how can as Christians we perhaps learn to get a little better at those conversations?
00:18:23
Speaker
That for me is such a key question, I think. And I'd really say that it's because we have to always remember that behind every question there's a person. It's not just a machine. It's not a wall that's coming to just throw this question and you can toss some kind of very good erudite intellectual argument at it. It's like, no, this is a person who is complex and has emotions and feelings and perhaps has
00:18:54
Speaker
maybe some difficulties with Christianity that maybe present as intellectual arguments, but behind it there's a lot of, you know, there's life experience that needs to be addressed and spoken to. So that's where, for me, conversation has to be the sort of domain of evangelism, primarily, I think, because as you're engaging with a person, you are acknowledging all of those things.
00:19:24
Speaker
As you engage in the conversation, you acknowledge that, hey, this is a person who has all of these things going on. And so I suppose it just highlights the value that you see in them, which is really where culture needs to go. Things have been so polarized in so many ways, just like this idea of just shouting at each other to try and win some kind of worldview competition. It just goes nowhere in my mind. I mean, it's not helpful.
00:19:54
Speaker
So if you're really engaging in my proper deep conversation, it's the most natural way to actually get to sharing these things and sharing your experience and how God has really worked in your life. And it's a wonderful way to just naturally share your testimony as well. So yeah, there'll just be a couple of thoughts on that.
00:20:13
Speaker
Thanks so, so much, Steve. As Andy mentioned, we are now sadly out of time. It's been really great to hear some of your experiences and your background. And yeah, as Solas team and friends, we pray for you as you start your time with Solas in and seek to serve the Lord and others through it. Thanks so much for your time. I'm Kristy Mayer. This is Andy Bannister. This was Steve Osmond.
00:20:38
Speaker
Please stay tuned and in a couple of weeks time we'll be back with you on your podcast through Spotify wherever it is you find your podcasts and we look forward to being with you with another guest then. Thanks so much for listening, take care and goodbye. Bye for now.