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With Callom Hardraker
131 Plays1 year ago
How are the arts effective in sharing the gospel? What are the issues in reaching young adults for Christ? And what does it mean to be pastoral in evangelism? These are just some of the questions covered in a wide-ranging PEP Talk discussion today with Andy Bannister, Gavin Matthews and our guest Callom Harkrader from Southampton.
Callom Hardraker is currently the Young Adult Pastor at Above Bar Church in Southampton, where he has been on the staff team since 2015. Originally from the USA, he has apologetics training from The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics. Callom also serves on the steering group for The Mark Drama, an innovative theatre tool for learning the gospel story.
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Transcript
Introduction to Pep Talk Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast. I'm Andy Bannister from Solas and I'm joined in the co-pilot's seat by my Solas colleague, Gavin Matthews. Gavin, how are you doing today?
00:00:23
Speaker
Afternoon, I'm all right. How are you, Andy? Not bad at all. Not bad at all. The sun is shining. It's the afternoon. The tea is warm. What is not to like? And talk at the sun's shining. We are joined all the way from arguably one of the sunniest parts of the UK, all the way from Southampton on the south
Callum's Journey to Pastoral Role
00:00:39
Speaker
coast. We're joined by Callum Hartgrutter. Callum, welcome to pep talk. Thank you very much. It's an honor.
00:00:45
Speaker
And you wear a number of hats. We may hear about some of those as we go. But that's the big one, is you are the young adult pastor at Above Bar Church in Southampton. Gosh, that's quite a mouthful, getting all that in you. Take a breath. How did you end up there? Because as people were here at a moment when you opened your mouth a little bit more, that is not a Southampton accent that you carry. So perhaps in 60 seconds, what's your story? And how did you end up where you are now doing what you're doing?
00:01:13
Speaker
Yes, far from Southampton, I grew up in rural Virginia in the US, grew up kind of going to church. But I would have said, of course, I believe in God. I'm an American. Through a youth group Bible study and God working in my life, I became a Christian when I was a teenager.
00:01:34
Speaker
got very passionate about evangelism, and eventually doing lots of mission and university and things.
The Mark Drama and Evangelism
00:01:40
Speaker
I studied at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, which is what brought me to these fair shores, and then worked for a ministry called the Mark Drama in Southampton, met my lovely wife during that year, and kind of the rest is history. I've stayed, and Americans think I'm British now, so I don't really have a home. Both sides reject me as saying, you don't sound like you're from here.
00:02:02
Speaker
So you've got a transatlantic accent now, have you? That's what happens. I say yeah, mid-Atlantic, it's somewhere over the sea. Wonderful. You dropped in there the sentence, the Mark Drama that you voted. Now, that's a sentence that many people have heard, you know, particularly about universities and CU's. But for any listeners that have not come across the Mark Drama, what is that? What does it achieve? What was your involvement in it? Yeah, yeah, the Mark Drama is every incident in Mark's gospel.
00:02:30
Speaker
Not every word, but every incident in Mark's Gospel acted out in 90 minutes by a local Christian union or church. And a trained director comes in and helps them put it together in a very brief window of time.
00:02:47
Speaker
And as a person who has a theatre background, it sounded like something that would never work, but it actually really does. And it's a great way of inviting people to come and see the gospel, basically, just straight up the gospel for themselves. And we find a lot of people who might not come to church,
00:03:07
Speaker
You might not accept an invitation even to an outreach event, but to seeing you in a drama, sure, I'll come along. And it's powerful because it's Jesus. It's Jesus's words. It's the gospel. I love it.
00:03:21
Speaker
One of the things I love straight away is that we've had almost 100 episodes of pep talk by this point. We have talked to all kinds of people and all kinds of backgrounds, but I could probably count on the fingers of one hand while still keeping a couple of fingers free to hold hula hoops. Number of Christians who are involved in evangelism and the arts.
00:03:40
Speaker
in some way. Maybe Callum a couple of questions really sort of bolted together. One is why is that? Why is it that the church has sometimes, not always, but hasn't perhaps neglected the arts a little bit in terms
Arts in Evangelism
00:03:52
Speaker
of outreach? And then secondly, what are the advantages of that? What is it that drama and other forms of art? What does that bring to the evangelistic table as it were? Why is that? Why is that effective? You touched on it slightly there, but perhaps unpack that a bit more.
00:04:04
Speaker
Yeah, if I can go in reverse order, why is it effective? I love C.S. Lewis' quote, and I will butcher it, and I don't know exactly where it's from anymore. Anyway, I use it so much. But I think he's talking more about stories and allegories, but he
00:04:20
Speaker
He says that stories often can sneak past the sleeping dragons of the heart. And it's the same with art. There's just something, a song, for example. I noticed recently a CU that did a talk, and I can't remember where it was. It was somewhere in Europe, not the UK. But they did a whole talk in a mission week on like, why does music make me feel the way it does? Something like that. And I thought that's brilliant because there is something about the arts.
00:04:47
Speaker
that can convey a message where you're closed off to a talk, you're closed off in a conversation, but then it comes to you in a song or drama or spoken word or something, and it just sneaks past those defenses and conveys something in a very powerful way. But I think that's part of why it can be so powerful and effective. It's a way God designed us.
00:05:10
Speaker
But why is it not done more? I mean, you know, that probably somebody who actually is more an expert in arts than I am would have better answers. But I think there's a few things. I mean, one,
00:05:23
Speaker
I don't know, I think we all have had a terrifying experience of a church drama or something where it's like, you know, people are wearing tea towels on their head and wearing sandals. And it's just really naff. I love that British word. And so there's been a lot of really bad drama that's been done in cheesy, cheesy, corny stuff that's been done. So where maybe we've swung the opposite way of saying, let's not do that, which I'm all for.
00:05:51
Speaker
And I guess sometimes it's just, I don't know what it is, but there is something that often discourages the more creative people in churches. And even for myself, I find I really like writing sketches and things. And I've written some really good ones, if I do say so myself, but I find it, I need more time than church gives me often to develop those. And that creative side often gets poured into preaching, which is not a bad thing, but yeah.
00:06:20
Speaker
Do you think that the arts are going to be an
Impact of Arts on Young Adults
00:06:23
Speaker
important way of reaching young adults? Because I know it's a huge part of your ministries with young adults. Do you think the arts is a significant area for reaching that generation? The reason I'm asking that is particularly because I preach in a lot of churches representing Solas, and it's often those young adults who are the missing group. You see older families, you see people with children, the Sunday school go out, but very often the missing
00:06:45
Speaker
demographic. Is Arts Ministry a helpful way of addressing that, do you think? And if not...
00:06:51
Speaker
What is? I think it is. And I think it is. And I think it's also important that we do equip the young adults that are in churches in thinking about how the arts influences them. So this last year, like I did with our students, a thing of like watching The Greatest Showman and analyzing the messages being very powerfully conveyed in a film and talking about it. And, you know, what do we agree with? What do you think if Jesus was sitting here, he might have and that kind of thing, which they were eating up.
00:07:20
Speaker
And so I think we need to do more of. And yeah, I mean, the obsession with artists, I mean, so many young adults now, Harry Styles is like a messiah to many young adults. And it's, it's quite striking. Musicians, artists, Netflix has so many avenues to consume art now as well.
00:07:48
Speaker
But they're always conveying powerful messages and far more often during the week they're being consumed than a sermon in a church service. So yes, I think it can be a powerful way and it's an important way that Christians need to be involved in if we're going to reach people for sure.
00:08:05
Speaker
So with that sort of link into the world of young adults, and by the way, I love the idea of equipping young adults. And actually all Christians actually is so good to be equipped to understand media, to read it well. You know, we've got a young family and we're beginning to do that with our kids, teaching them to go, yeah, watch stuff. I mean, by all means, but think about the messages and learn to critique, affirm what we can affirm, critique what we want to critique.
00:08:29
Speaker
But young adults in general, and this is going to be a very broad question, what is going on in that world right now? Because one of the things I've noticed over the years, every generation that grows up, there are some questions and issues that are the same. There are new questions and new issues.
Young Adults' Faith Questions
00:08:45
Speaker
coming in. As you're rolling your sleeves up, wrestling with that generation, what are some of the big questions around faith? And for perhaps those who aren't Christians, and for those who are, what are the things we need to be thinking about in terms of helping them be faithful witnesses to their friends and peers? Another really tiny question that has only been taken. It's a busy question. Well, I think most kind of
00:09:10
Speaker
questions are on faith and God normally they boil down if you really boil them down ultimately to either is it true or is it good, I think. And I think most of the questions young adults are asking right now is around the is it good. And
00:09:29
Speaker
Yeah, so whether it's around social justice and equality or around, you know, does it promote flourishing? Does it work for me? Does it have good vibes? The word vibes is said a lot in my each day for me and the people I work with is the kind of questions often that are being asked.
00:09:56
Speaker
You're right in that people haven't changed. I find when you dig down these things around who am I, these things around what is my place in this world, and questions around identity, around shame, around what does it look like for me to be my best me. All these kinds of things are still the questions being asked. I also just notice more and more
00:10:25
Speaker
more and more young adults are far less equipped for practical things in life. Even things like how to cook sometimes or how to just be independent. And so there's a real element of also kind of, they're almost like they're looking for a mentor, they're looking for a parents. And
00:10:49
Speaker
one of the big YouTubers and TikTok guys is a person who he just shows them how to fix things. Like that normally maybe a dad would teach their children how to do, but they haven't had that. And it's just fascinating to me. It's fascinating. And yeah, so that's where I guess I got as wired me, I used to be nicknamed as a
00:11:14
Speaker
my nickname at university in the Christian Union was mom. Partially helped by the fact that my parents gave me an old beat up nine, eight seater Chevrolet Suburban to drive around at university. So I gave everybody a lift. And I don't know, I have a really pastoral heart. And so I guess with the young adults, I see
00:11:39
Speaker
as well as a lot, you know, things like me intimidating around sexual ethics and all these things. Just a lot of kind of who am I and how am I going to make it in life kind of at the end of the day. That's really interesting. And he's known you for a long time, but we'd never met before we started recording. So I did read the little biography that you sent through. And I was intrigued by something in that in which you described yourself as a pastoral evangelist.
00:12:06
Speaker
And I thought that was interesting because there's a lot of literature and a lot of people who would see the pastor of the Avengers as pulling in very different directions, you know, that the pastor wanting to look after those in the fold and the evangelist wanted to go out and there being an inherent tension between those two roles. But you wanted to pursue those two things very much together, as was obvious in your last answer, actually. I think it's about the role of a pastoral evangelist. What that means is you go into your city, Southampton,
00:12:32
Speaker
with
Pastoral Care and Evangelism Journey
00:12:33
Speaker
the gospel. How do you do that with that frame of reference as a pastoral evangelist? Yeah, well, it's a journey I've been on and a kind of trying to bring together instead of them being opposing that I've had to arrive at. It's been a journey for sure. I've always been passionate about evangelism.
00:12:55
Speaker
But I've also not always knowing it, as I've grown as a Christian, had real pastoral gifting and God uses me in lots of pastoral settings. So in my first year at university,
00:13:07
Speaker
I got quickly involved with the local Christian fellowship and a fourth year asked me if I could talk. And so I was like, okay, we met up and they basically opened up to me, they were engaged. And they opened up to me immediately about kind of they were having second thoughts about their engagement. And I'm first year, like an 18 year old, like, what the heck, but I've noticed over my time, I used to, you know, doing university missions.
00:13:33
Speaker
I would always find myself, often with somebody not even from the university, but at least once during every mission week, in this long conversation with somebody where they're crying and talking about their divorce or their mental health or these kinds of things. And I'd be like, God, I'm here to do evangelism, not like, you know, do all this pastoral stuff. What are you doing? And finally a moment of going, you know what, Keller, maybe your area where God has wired you,
00:13:58
Speaker
is more of a pastoral evangelism. I find it not very difficult to convince people that this world is messed up, is broken, that there are things wrong, and that includes inside of each of us.
00:14:20
Speaker
I usually can get there, I guess, by basically just being vulnerable, being authentic, I say, with my fingers up because that's kind of a trendy word to use. But being kind of vulnerable myself, it opens up to other people then to be like, oh, yeah, I struggle sometimes too. And it's just an interesting human habit. I guess you see it right away in Genesis 3 with the fig leaves. We want to cover up. We usually try and act like things are fine.
00:14:50
Speaker
But things are not fine in a post-Genesis 3 world, and who are we kidding?
00:14:57
Speaker
It's been a journey for me as I've grown, also massively struggling with putting my identity and success and how I look to other people. But actually, you know, if I share, I've had, you know, I've had time off this year with kind of just struggling, feeling mentally down and burnt out and that kind of thing. And actually, if I share that, it gives permission to other people. And then they go, oh, I have to stop too. And you know what?
00:15:27
Speaker
There's an easy connection there, it's like, there's something wrong with this world, isn't it? It's not quite the way it should be. And that kind of, those touchstones of the gospel of, you know, the creation were made, you know, by a loving God and a world was meant to be a certain way, but it's now broken the fall. Jesus came in this world to recreate this world in a sense and to rescue us from our sin and
00:15:54
Speaker
bring us to a new creation where we have relationship with him. I find those kind of touchstones of the gospel, those four, you know, they apply to everyday things in life. But I guess that pastoral evangelism comes partially being in a pastoral role, people come to me sometimes with heavy things. And I kind of find ways not of like, just always appointing it straight to, well, you should be a Christian, but
00:16:21
Speaker
of being like, yeah, recognizing certain things. Actually, this actually shows the truth of the gospel at the end of the day. And also then by being vulnerable and sharing just deeply myself and not trying to kind of act like I'm stronger than I am, working out of weakness, very biblical. I find people connect with that and it comes to deeper conversations.
00:16:46
Speaker
I think the transparency piece is huge actually. I remember a couple of years ago doing a mission week at a Scottish university on the last night. We did an event on suffering and the CU asked myself from the other speaker to rather than do a talk. We just sat on the sofa at the front of the stage, had a dialogue about suffering, shared, you know, she'd been through some mental health stuff. I had some stuff when I was younger, bits and pieces.
00:17:07
Speaker
very, very honest, talked about the hope that Christ brings in the midst of the chaos doesn't remove the chaos necessarily. And then the Q&A was amazing, Calvin, because it just opened up into students sharing their stories, there was no pushback, there was no hostility. And it was just a really easy way then to talk about the difference that Christ makes when you've when you've done that.
Transparency in Ministry
00:17:29
Speaker
So I really want to affirm that. Yeah.
00:17:32
Speaker
Well, I was just gonna say I most frequently get people then like non-Christians coming and talking to me and deeper conversations coming out of the fact that I just say I get counseling from time to time. And yeah, it just
00:17:50
Speaker
opens up, it gives permission to people. And I think, you know, if our identity is in Christ, then we can be vulnerable. We are hidden in Christ. I mean, we're not going to, you know, we have to be careful sometimes with the vulnerable positions we put ourselves in. Yes, there needs to be some shrewdness of serpents as well as innocence of doves. But in the end of the day, I guess it's a leaning into my identity is in Christ.
00:18:18
Speaker
I'm saved by grace through faith, not by anything I've done, not by my impressiveness. So embrace the weakness, I guess, is what I'm learning, and be fairly transparent. And it really, it's something our world so needs, because for most people, we go about our days, actually, like everything's fine. But of course, we're in a broken world, like everything is not fine.
00:18:43
Speaker
Yeah. Um, but we have amazing hope, um, as well, uh, cheeky question. I was going to far off back of that and coming to the top of the top of the time, this might be the final question and Gavin can draw the threads together in some crazy kind of way. Um, so.
00:18:58
Speaker
The way that Gavin set that question up, those worlds are often a little bit separate, the pastoral world and the evangelistic world, and you've really learnt how to straddle them.
Balancing Grace and Truth
00:19:06
Speaker
So, a bit of a perhaps cheeky question. To those who are listening to this who are a bit more pastoral, what might you say to encourage them to be a bit more perhaps evangelistic through that pastoral? And to those who are like the go-getter evangelists who are out there, proclaim the thing,
00:19:21
Speaker
What might you say to them to encourage them to slow down a bit and listen to where people's heart is at? What word might you say to either side of that camp to try and encourage them to come together? Yeah. I think that Jesus is described in John 1 as being full of grace and truth and the powerful thing of it's grace and truth. It's not grace or truth or sometimes grace sometimes truth that he would come fully brought both.
00:19:46
Speaker
I think the tendency with the pastoral heart sometimes is to avoid the conflict. And for those of us who have that more kind of, oh, we like the grace, but maybe not so much the truth sometimes. No, no, no, it's the grace and truth have to, but always together. They're not separate. And similarly, there's some of us who much more prefer the truth stuff and like the grace, ahh, you know, it's like, no, no, no, always together.
00:20:11
Speaker
But also, as humans, we like to dichotomize, but the incredible thing I think we see in Scripture is that it all comes together. Whenever we're talking to another human being, that is a, you know, they're physical, but they're also spiritual, and it's not a kind of separating end or it's that no, they're all there. So similarly, I guess just, yeah, you are engaging with a person who you have no idea what's gone on in their past and all the different things and
00:20:40
Speaker
blockers and walls they might have to the gospel and what's their actual physical needs as well. And you've got to keep them all in mind. Yes, we need to communicate the gospel that is essential, but to the whole person that God created and loves. And yeah, that's my essence of it, I guess.
Conclusion: Reflections on Grace and Truth
00:21:04
Speaker
And that's a really wonderful note on which to finish with that reminder, Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth from the beginning of John's Gospel. A wonderful note to kind of draw all that together. Thank you so much for your time. We do pray that God will bless you in your pastoral evangelism in Southampton and your church and the evolving ministry there that we didn't even get a chance to talk about.
00:21:24
Speaker
We will be back in a fortnight's time with another edition of pep talk when again We'll be talking about sharing the gospel of Christ with our contemporaries in our culture today with a different guest But always the same gospel the same Jesus that we are proclaiming We look forward to joining you again in a fortnight's time and that's goodbye from us