Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
With Murray McNicol
73 Plays4 years ago
Church outreach events and evangelism courses sound like a great idea, but do they actually work? Here on PEP Talk we discover that, yes, they can! We hear today from an ordinary guy (chartered accountant, no less) from an ordinary church that is developing an amazing culture of outreach - and seeing God at work through it all!
Murray McNicol is a member of Maxwell Mearns Castle Parish Church, just south of Glasgow in Scotland. His background is accountancy but currently runs a small software business.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Call to Support
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, thanks for downloading PepTalk. If you enjoy today's episode, why not get a free copy of Andy's book or my book by becoming a regular supporter? Visit us at solas-cpc.org and donate just £3 per month. Thanks so much. On with the show.
Meet the Hosts: Andy and Christie
00:00:28
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to Peck Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast. I'm Andy Bannister from the Sola Centre for Public Christianity up in Scotland, and I'm joined as ever by my co-host all the way from London, Christie Mayer. Christie, how are you doing this afternoon?
00:00:43
Speaker
Oh, hello, Andy. You're doing very well. Thank you very much. Just enjoying the grounds of Oak Hill. It's a lovely place to be. Too much information, but you didn't need to know that. How are you doing? I'm doing a building site out my window. It's sort of concrete and diggers. Oh, I'm so sorry.
Introducing Guest: Murray McNichol
00:00:59
Speaker
Well, you are outnumbered today as a Londoner because I've come to you from Dundee, and we have a guest all the way from Glasgow, Murray McNichol. Murray, welcome to Pep Talk. Thank you very much.
00:01:11
Speaker
Well, it's a great to have you on the show, Murray. And for people who don't know anything about you, you don't know your name at all. Why don't you sort of begin by telling us a bit about, you know, who are you and sort of basically how did you end up sitting in front of a microphone talking to
From Accountancy to Entrepreneurship
00:01:26
Speaker
us this afternoon? What's the what's the journey you've been on?
00:01:29
Speaker
Well, I guess the immediate reason is that I encountered Andy Bannister on a couple of occasions over the last year or so, or year and a half. And I guess the first of these was an event that we did at the church to encourage members to invite some of their friends or relatives who weren't Christians.
00:01:58
Speaker
to come for a curry one evening. So I think that was last year and that was the first time in Mount Andy. Subsequent to that, we did a confident Christianity session in the church earlier this year and just got that in before the COVID curtains came down. But as well as the church-based stuff, you're also a bit of a business person, right? I guess you're an entrepreneur, actually, given the sort of stuff you've done, right?
00:02:26
Speaker
Well, yeah, I am an accountant, chartered accountant by background, but that finally became too dull, I think, and I was a software business with a friend a few years ago. And that is in the catering software sector, providing software to businesses who want to feed their
00:02:50
Speaker
employees in their workplace. So it's been very difficult times over the last six months, but we're now starting to recover, I think. We wouldn't dare do any jokes about chartered accountancy being sort of boring and dull because we'll get complaints.
00:03:09
Speaker
Marie, so essentially you're a Christian in the workplace, in the business world.
Christian Ethics in Business
00:03:14
Speaker
How have you found that? Well, in some respects, I think it's easier for me in that it's kind of my business and that means that I can pretty much set the rules.
00:03:31
Speaker
and things that perhaps go on in other businesses that Christians might struggle with. I hope very much that I rule out here and that we're a very straightforward and straight and honest organisation where everybody is treated well. So I think from that point of view it's easier and I do sympathise with a lot of
00:03:59
Speaker
Christians who are perhaps in workplaces where things happen, where they maybe struggle with them and that by being in a whole lot of different aspects of their work and things that they're asked to do and maybe training they're asked to undertake and so on that maybe doesn't, but it just means I have a great advantage here in not having to take on some of these things.
Evangelism in the Workplace
00:04:25
Speaker
Because one of the things that we do as Christians very often is we're very tempted to separate evangelism from the business world, the workplace, whatever it is. And it just sounds like you've been given such a unique opportunity, particularly in this niche area of business that you're in with giving software to catering businesses. Have you had any evangelistic opportunities? Have you found that kind of dimension of your Christian life in the workspace?
00:04:55
Speaker
And in some respects, as the boss, I feel like you have to be a little bit careful about being too directive, if you like, in relation to these things. But in conversations over, we've got a nice little kitchen area in the business and just general conversations at lunchtime or during breaks. And sometimes we can have a sort of meaning of life type conversation. I think that's
00:05:22
Speaker
the sort of introduction to things rather than kind of opening the Bible on the breakfast bar or whatever. But just a conversation about meaning, I think, is something that a lot of people really welcome. And sometimes you can obviously move that towards the Christian world, if you like, and to explaining that.
00:05:52
Speaker
I love the idea of creating conversations at the workplace and I've heard others say similar things, Murray. Are there any sort of tips or strategies or things that you've found have worked well for starting those
00:06:07
Speaker
those conversations obviously we could we could pray that those opportunities open up but are there sort of ways you've found of sometimes sort of you know sowing the seeds a little bit so people ask the kind of questions? At the moment we have this kind of global pandemic I guess that's challenged a lot of people in terms of
00:06:27
Speaker
what they thought would be their, perhaps their life pattern and so on, and really what's it all about, if you like. And I guess from there it's possible to move to a more spiritual plane in relation to the Christian worldview of things.
00:06:45
Speaker
So we are asking just so many more questions at the moment, aren't we? I found that with my own friendships that it's so much easier to kind of move from the suffering in the world to talking about God because we're just seeing it, aren't we, in this very materialistic kind of society. Suddenly all of that, our comforts are being stripped away and we're kind of thinking, oh gosh, what?
00:07:06
Speaker
What is going on with life? How does that work? How do you best go about doing something like
Creating Inviting Church Events
00:07:12
Speaker
that? Because I imagine that thinking about a curry evangelistic event sounds amazing, but it also sounds like a lot of hard work and a lot of people that's going to be needed to do that. What do you think it might look like, as you mentioned, perhaps, particularly with the pandemic backdrop? How can we go about creating spaces like that where we can invite friends at the moment?
00:07:34
Speaker
The main thing is that you engage someone who's very engaging and credible. Because what you want to do is give people confidence to invite their friends.
00:07:50
Speaker
Church things can be a bit churchy, if I could put it that way. And to people who are not used to that world, if you like, it's just to an extent alien and strange. And if you can create an atmosphere and ambience in a restaurant where
00:08:07
Speaker
And people are served nice food and they have good conversation over a dinner. And then after that, people are relaxed and listen to Andy Bannister or Christy, I don't know if you do that sort of thing as well, but an everyday engaging speaker who probably challenges them and makes them think in ways that they haven't before.
00:08:28
Speaker
but in a completely unthreatening environment. And I think the key is to create confidence for people to invite. And I think we said in the Church that we don't come
00:08:40
Speaker
don't come unless you're bringing somebody. Because I think sometimes Christians like to go to these things and really that wasn't the point. So we were reasonably firm in saying, you know, bring someone in your family, a friend who's not a Christian and that will make the night worthwhile.
00:09:03
Speaker
I think it's funny you say that, Mary, I've done lots of these events over the years and I've come across churches, you know, even taking things a little bit further than you did there and sort of saying, you know, we're only going to sell tickets in pairs. The implication is, buy one for yourself, buy one for your friend, but don't you come, don't you come showing up on your own if you're a Christian and don't you just come bringing your mate from the church around the corner either. We want to see.
00:09:28
Speaker
I love the way you describe the event. I love doing it for you because I think, you know, bringing events into those kind of spaces is very powerful, actually, because they're very accessible before they relax. Did you get any feedback from sort of non-Christian folks who came on the night? Did you hear any stories or comments afterwards about how people found coming to the event in that kind of space?
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it was it was hugely positive. We did have feedback sheet to the end and all the feedback was was hugely positive. I think I think I don't want it to to feed your ego too much handy, but the negative feedback was could the top not have been longer, I think.
00:10:20
Speaker
But one thing I would say about it is it sounds quite important for these things because, you know, if the speaker can't be heard, then it's no good. So do make sure you've got a sound guy. And for questions, it's very useful if you can have a kind of roving mic, if you like, and then everyone can hear, because sometimes that's difficult.
00:10:31
Speaker
He's gonna dine out on that for such a long time.
00:10:41
Speaker
The sound is important I think and if you can sort that out, usually churches have sound guys and usually if you speak to them nicely they'll do these things for you. That's what I found.
00:10:51
Speaker
One of my other memories of that night as well, you know, Murray, was also that during the talk, I noticed that quite a few of the kitchen staff were actually standing at the entrance to the door listening. And that's something I've learned over the years as well, but there's a whole other audience there. If it's in a restaurant, you've got the staff, if it's in a bar, you've got the bar staff. And so that's an audience too.
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah, no, absolutely. And the lady who runs the restaurant said to me afterwards, you know, that was absolutely great. So interesting. And, you know, when are you coming back? Oh, dear. You meant Murray, not me, mate, not me.
00:11:30
Speaker
Marie, one of these things that I found quite interesting with the conversation about, you know, don't bring friends or do bring friends is that sometimes I think with some events, what happens is Christians do just bring along their fellow Christian mates. But one of the things I found very helpful on that is to kind of say, even if you don't have a friend, which hopefully you do,
00:11:50
Speaker
just come anyway and own each other's friends, like get to know one another in community and really kind of invest in that. How as a church community have you found kind of events like this in terms of cultivating an evangelistic culture?
00:12:06
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think they're hugely helpful. And I think, you know, on the back of that event that we did, we ran the Confident Christianity Conference in the church. And again, I think, you know, we get a lot of good Bible teaching in our church, but sometimes it's just useful to approach things from the other direction. And I think that's what organisations like Soul Ass
00:12:33
Speaker
do very well, and I think it does build confidence in people's faith when they can rationalise and reason their faith from a non-biblical starting point. That's maybe not the best way of expressing it, but the apologetic side, I think, is very helpful for all Christians to understand and gives confidence in talking to non-Christians about their faith.
00:13:03
Speaker
One of the other questions I had about the way you did that curry event, and I know this is a question I hear others sort of say when they think about these things, is how did you decide what topic to have the speaker address? Because that's a key thing to get right too, isn't it? To make sure that one is actually addressing something that our non-Christian friends and neighbours and colleagues want to hear. How did you go about finding the topic and deciding what we should look at?
Relevance in Church Event Topics
00:13:28
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think memory, I asked you for some suggestions and you gave me a list of five or six sort of things. Andy Bannister decided. No, no, no, no, I wouldn't have said, I wouldn't have said. But I think it's useful to have a starting point. And then I kind of thought and ultimately I think we titled the night The Problem of Happiness.
00:13:53
Speaker
And I guess the area that the church is in is relatively well off and people are generally fairly self-sufficient and doing okay, thank you very much, in a way. But that only goes so far, I think. And I think we thought that that was probably quite a good approach for the area we lived in.
00:14:18
Speaker
And you've also had quite a bit of experience in terms of Christianity Explored as well, haven't you?
Online Evangelism During the Pandemic
00:14:26
Speaker
Yes, in the church we've recently run a Christianity Explored and online course and that went very
00:14:39
Speaker
very well. I mean, it was relatively small. I think there's seven or eight across the leaders. But from that, we've had professions of faith in the church just over the last few weeks. So it's been amazing how that has really worked.
00:14:57
Speaker
and it was my wife who was one of the leaders involved in that and I think she and the other leader were hugely encouraged by the enthusiasm I think as much as anything of those who participated because you kind of maybe wondered whether it was possible to generate that on a remote basis but
00:15:22
Speaker
Every person attended every week, pretty much, which is unusual for these types of events. Usually people maybe have a night or two, a night or two off. But attendance, I think, was 100% across the board. And the level of engagement and enthusiasm was beyond what they had hoped for, I think. Is it also true, Murray, that to a degree, I think things like the curry type event that you did
00:15:52
Speaker
Christianity Explored. Those things fit together quite well because I think sometimes on things like Christianity Explored or Alpha or whatever a church is using, you know, finding the non-Christian folks to come can be a challenge. But if you do like a curry event like you guys did, that's almost like a sort of pre-evangelism thing, right? You can sort of put your stool out and then sort of hoover up the people who are interested, right?
00:16:10
Speaker
Yeah no I completely agree it just paves the way and certainly we had a number of people who were at that curry event who had actually previously been to Alfa and came to curry event and came to the
00:16:29
Speaker
and actually came also to people who were nominally perhaps involved in the church, but who really deepened their faith through a particularly confident Christianity event. It was for Christians, but we encouraged the whole church to come, and I think that was hugely beneficial.
00:16:57
Speaker
What did that look like for the Christianity Explored event? As you said, it's a remote event. Things are moving online. It's amazing that you had such consistency with those seven or so people. How did you go about doing that? How did you encourage people to come? What does that look like? I think, well, generally with these things, personal invitations work
00:17:21
Speaker
work best and we've got a few people in the church who are very good at inviting people to things. I have to say that my wife is probably one of them and she I think got a number of people involved and the minister always
00:17:41
Speaker
if someone is invited by the minister, that counts for something still in these days. And I think a few came along via our minister. But it was, yeah, I mean, very encouraging and all are being followed up and looking for follow up.
Confidence in Evangelism Post-COVID
00:18:01
Speaker
And as I say, I think one or two of them professed faith in the church just three or four weeks ago.
00:18:10
Speaker
That's just so encouraging to hear that story of how it sort of, you know, begins with, you know, sort of thinking about faith and works its way down through Christianity Explored to actually making commitment to the end. I'm aware we're kind of running out of time Murray, so I guess I kind of last kind of question I just want to sort of throw out to just sort of
00:18:26
Speaker
leave you, first to leave listeners with, sometimes I think I get the sense that some Christians are a bit discouraged in even quite a secular kind of context evangelism is perhaps, you know, difficult, you've got to think creatively. But I love about the stories you've told today and having got to know you over the last couple of years. You struck me as something quite encouraged, that there's life going on, there's things happening. Would you say as you look out around you and what the church is doing, you know, you're encouraged by what's going on or where are you? But you seem quite upbeat.
00:18:55
Speaker
Yes, I think, well, certainly our church context, I mean, you know, I think it would be much better if we could all be back meeting together and the COVID situation has created many challenges, but we're back meeting in the church and I think
00:19:12
Speaker
with all our restrictions in place, but it's hugely different, I think, to being so remote from people and connecting through Facebook. But yes, God doesn't go away. And it's just up to us to have the confidence just to step out in our faith and to live it and to speak it.
Closing Remarks and Encouragement
00:19:39
Speaker
Well, thank you so, so much for your time today, Moira. It's great to hear about these different ways in which the Lord has been at work in you and through these different ways. I think I feel really encouraged just to kind of talk to friends and perhaps think about how I can make the most of spaces at the moment. Thank you so, so much for your time.
00:20:01
Speaker
I think this is it actually for us for today from Andy Banister and myself. Thank you so much for joining us and we really look forward to joining you in a couple of weeks for our next episode of Pep Talk.