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Addressing a Crisis of Confidence
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What is it that holds you back from sharing the Gospel? For most of us, it boils down to a lack of confidence. We don't have confidence in our knowledge to field difficult questions, we don't have confidence that we won't get 'cancelled' and we might even lack confidence in our own faith itself. So you're not alone! That's why Solas runs 'Confident Christianity' training across the UK to help churches regain their confidence in evangelism. Gavin Matthews and Steve Osmond explain how it works and who it helps.
To find out how Confident Christianity can help your church, visit the Solas website here.
Gavin Matthews is Solas’s Assistant Director (Scotland) and does a wide variety of work for the organisation. He speaks for Solas in churches and at conferences, co-ordinates the website, writes articles and other Solas communications and presents webinars and podcasts. He also loves networking for Solas and speaking with church leaders about our work. Gavin has been married to Elaine since 1996 and they have three adult children. He has been a member of Perth Baptist Church since 1999.
Steve Osmond is a full-time speaker and writer for Solas, focussing primarily on Scotland. He is enthusiastic about evangelism and regularly speaks at universities around the country on the big questions of life and the truth of Christianity from a range of perspectives. He also spends much of his time working with churches and other Christian groups, both to grow their faith and equip them to share their faith in Jesus persuasively.
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Transcript
Equipping Christians through Practical Outreach
00:00:00
Speaker
It was brilliant. What was really great was the way it equipped Christians. I added an outreach event as it's always good to put in practice what we were taught. And it was so positive and encouraging.
Introduction to Pep Talk Podcast
00:00:20
Speaker
Welcome everyone to another Pep Talk, the Persuasive Evangelism podcast from SOLAS. I'm Simon Wenham and we're going to be doing something a little different in this episode.
Phil Brown's Positive Experience at the Conference
00:00:30
Speaker
The quote we started with was from Phil Brown, a pastor of Cow Plain Church, on his experience of running a Confident Christianity conference from SOLAS.
Introducing Guests: Gavin Matthews and Steve Osmond
00:00:39
Speaker
So that is the topic of today's discussion.
00:00:42
Speaker
And to hear more about that, we've gone to great lengths to source two very special guests this week. at The first of whom is my colleague Gavin Matthews. Gavin, how are you doing? we Find a special link to a bargain bucket. like people Well, I thought it that sounded sounded a bit better, but yes, you're right. and Perhaps that was another way of putting it.
00:01:01
Speaker
and And it may not surprise you to hear that our second guest is another colleague, Steve Osmond, who's just returned from ministry in Northern Ireland. Steve, how are you doing? Are you suitably recovered? i'm I'm alive and maybe not not so kicking, but alive.
00:01:15
Speaker
um I'm kidding. I've had a a good weekend away in Northern Ireland and yeah, happy to be part of the chat today again.
Transforming SOLAS Conferences for Accessible Evangelism
00:01:22
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, Gavin, I'd love us to sort of start with the beginning and perhaps just could you tell us something about why SOLAS started doing Confident Christianity events in the first place?
00:01:32
Speaker
Well, we used to do a Solus conference in Dundee every year, and you know in the early days of Solus. And the the model there was to have sort of ah really sort of impressive speakers from around the world and bring people to our event in in Dundee. And every year, there'd be a different theme. We'd go quite a deep dive into ideas and apologetics.
00:01:47
Speaker
But around the time when Andy Bannister took over leading Solus, and don't ask me what year that was in, he kind of remodeled our Solus conferences. And instead of doing a kind of a deep dive into one topic and inviting people to come to our event and travel from around the country to Dundee, He said it more useful to serve the church by taking some practical tools for conversational evangelism sort of on tour around the yeah UK. And instead of asking people to come to us, we should go to them from, you know, the southeast of England, the west of England, north of England, to the islands and highlands of Scotland, but take the material to where people actually are. And then you actually reach a lot more people and mobilize and a lot more people for evangelism. And the other thing was in those early conferences, we'd be doing a really deep dive into a different topic every year.
00:02:29
Speaker
ah That was really good as far as it went. But actually what was more important was taking those basic tools for conversational evangelism and making it far more widely available to Christians up and down the country.
Choosing the Conference Name: Alliteration and Focus
00:02:40
Speaker
Thank you. and And also obviously Confident Christianity is quite a catchy name. um do you Do you know, Gavin, why that was chosen as opposed to something like Apologetics 101 or Evangelism for You or something like that? ah Do you know what what the reason for that was?
00:02:57
Speaker
Alliteration is always alluring. I think that it's not an original title. I think there's been various books and other people in other countries have used that title um because it really kind of focuses more on the fact that what we're trying to help people to do is to share their faith naturally with friends and colleagues and family rather than kind of come away with an intro level kind of degree module in apologetics or hermeneutics or whatever it is because it's really about equipping people for the practicalities being able to engage with the people that they're sitting alongside at work or the questions that their kids have or the questions that their neighbors have and being able to be a little bit more confident, and a bit more articulate in the real world. You know, catchy title, it works, probably not original, but I think it says, you know, ah much more about what we're about than, you know, if we called it apologetics 101.
Inclusivity of SOLAS Events Across Church Sizes and Denominations
00:03:45
Speaker
That's not really what we're doing. and And if it's about mobilizing the church, Steve, could you perhaps say something about, I mean, is it for particular types of church? So i was thinking perhaps, is it for churches with a ah big evangelism budget, for example, that are able to run these kinds of things?
00:04:02
Speaker
o Yeah, I think one of the things that really attracted me to Solus a few years ago and, you know, when I was thinking about joining the team was that Solus works with with just about anybody, um really. So, I mean, if you think about what what C.S. Lewis described as the ah the mere Christianity, if you will. So, um when I say just about anybody, I mean, really, what are like the fundamental core tenets of the Christian faith, a biblical Christian faith?
00:04:31
Speaker
and say, listen, if if you're in that camp, well then um obviously yeah we will happily come along and partner with you as we look to share the the the best message in the world. And that is the the news of Jesus Christ, the gospel. um And so, yeah, we will happily you know go just about anywhere um in the UK. I think we've we've crisscrossed all the way up and down. I mean, I've been east, west, north, south, um multiple times as of you, Gavin. it I know, Simon, you you get to tour around a little. um and And so, yeah, one of the things that I love about Solace is that it's not saying, hey, you have to fit this very tight mold.
00:05:09
Speaker
We're saying, hey, let's have a great conversation.
Tailoring Conferences to Community Issues
00:05:11
Speaker
Let's talk about this. How can we best serve you um in in, you know, communicating the gospel? And that's really in in the context that that people are. So maybe it is ah a very big church in the city center somewhere, say, maybe in the heart of Edinburgh or something. um and and resources are or maybe not that tight. We can really partner with with them and um look at you know contextually what's going on and how can we assist. But at the same time, i mean,
00:05:39
Speaker
Gavin and I have both been to many, many much smaller churches, say smaller ah rural village churches where, um you know, there's ah ah a good faithful contingent that is, you know, week in, week out, a church of, you know, 15 people um who who don't have a lot of, say, resources in financial sense.
00:06:00
Speaker
um And we absolutely love going there because we're saying, hey, the gospel is ah for all. So we want those people to be just as equipped in reaching their local communities.
00:06:12
Speaker
um And Gavin mentioned, you know, in the the early days of Solus and the the way the conferences were done, i think it was, hey, here's this conference and people descending from all around where our heart is really to be going ah just about anywhere. um Yeah, one of the things I love is that it's it's got some good flexibility to it.
00:06:31
Speaker
yeah and And the range of denominations we work with is ridiculous. mean, we work with various kind of pentecostals. I think also seven different types of Presbyterian i counted you know earlier in the year. And in the last few months, we've been as far south as, I think, Cowplain in Hampshire and Wick in Sutherland and countless places in between. It's fantastic to meet the range of people there are in the church, all with a heart to share Jesus with their friends. It's great.
00:06:57
Speaker
And Kevin, could you say a little bit more about, ah as Steve, you obviously alluded to the fact that there's quite a lot of different churches and and you've reinforced that, Kevin. I mean, is are they all the same sorts of event and is it sort of one size fits all or is there ah ways in which it's sort of shaped to the church in question?
00:07:16
Speaker
It's very much shaped to the church in question. one One of the things I love doing is chatting to pastors and setting these conferences up. And one of the conversations we always have is, what are the issues going on in your community? What does gospel work look like in your community? And really helping people exactly where they're. I'll give you a couple of examples. I was um speaking to a pastor of ah a church in a very wealthy ah area of Aberdeen.
00:07:37
Speaker
And he said, well, the biggest spiritual challenge we face in our community is apathy. So what what material have you got on engaging the apathetic? on And he's got a whole session on how to engage the apathetic in spiritual discussion. So that was on the agenda there. But they have a church plant in, they said, one of the poorest postcodes in Aberdeen. And then speaking to the pastor there, he said, well, finding hope.
00:08:00
Speaker
is the biggest question that I'm facing in my day-to-day ministry in my community here. So what material have you got on sharing hope with people? So that was on the agenda there. And then later that week, we were speaking to a church, I think it was in Derby, um where the the pastor had said, well, there's a new mosque opened in our street, literally over the road from the church. Have you got anything on understanding Islam?
00:08:22
Speaker
He said, well, we've got Andy Bannister. He's got a PhD in Islam. So obviously, um the the material on understanding and engaging Muslims was on their conference. So it's very much tailored to you know the the needs of the specific church in question. I mean, we always usually start off with some stuff on conversational evangelism, some principles from the Bible.
00:08:42
Speaker
But then when we get into the the guts of the the the Confident Christianity Conference, it is very much you know so tailored for the specific needs of that congregation, just because there is such variety across the country, as those examples, I think, kind of um illustrate.
Equipping All Christians with Conversational Evangelism Skills
00:08:58
Speaker
Thank you. and Obviously, if you're doing that you're tailing them to different churches, I suppose someone might say, well what can training actually achieve? Steve, I wondered, could you speak into the question of, some might say, look being an evangelist is for certain types of people, maybe very extroverted people, and so actually training is more for that kind of person. so actually what What could an event like this do for most people in the congregation? Isn't it just for a few that are like that?
00:09:26
Speaker
Yeah, good question. um I think that question comes up quite a bit. And i go straight, my mind goes straight to 1 Peter 3.15. Always be prepared to give a defense for the reason, for the hope that you have. um And that's obviously one of the classic go-to apologetics verses, you know, coming from that Greek word apologia for defense there. But I think what often that can do is is miss the point that the the hope is the big thing. So it's like, hey, we want to be communicating persuasively the hope of the gospel.
00:09:56
Speaker
um And that call is actually given to everybody. It's not just some select evangelist who feels a ah very strong calling to do that. You know, like, hey, the church needs to have their tick the box, have their one evangelist.
00:10:08
Speaker
i'm Sure, you have people who are maybe perhaps more gifted or feel more called and just find themselves in those situations all the time. Absolutely. But all of us are called to be able to be sharing that hope. And that means um not that you need to go off and get a PhD in apologetics, although they do that.
00:10:25
Speaker
if the Lord's calling you to that. um But it means having good conversations, right? um So all of us have conversations all the time. The question is I think, like, are we having good conversations that um lead toward, you know, a step in the direction of a spiritual conversation with people um And then on to opening the door to sharing the gospel.
00:10:47
Speaker
And so that I think is is really one of the the big points for saying, okay, well, what is it that the confident Christianity is trying to achieve? And the way I like to think about it is we want to give people or sort of help them take a a a step in the direction of having good conversations, better conversations, not not a fight, you know, not a massive debate, but hey, having good constructive conversations where we can more readily share the faith. And so and that means actually learning how to step into those conversations. think oftentimes we just take it for granted that we're just going to be able to, know, something will come up and we'll be in conversation. And so,
00:11:28
Speaker
One of the great things about that is that we can all learn to be better conversationalists. um That means opening the door to conversation or being able to respond to tough questions or objections in good ways that don't shut down conversation but open it up.
00:11:44
Speaker
um And so that to me is really, you know, Gavin mentioned at the beginning there, how we, at the beginning of the conferences, we'll always try and share something about the practical side of things, practical conversations, and then moving on to specific kind of questions in the context someone is in.
00:12:01
Speaker
And there, I think the, what what you really find is people come away from being with ah the some of the simple techniques that we can teach. is walking away with saying, oh, wow, I just, I've had heard people say, even if if it's not in a um sort of evangelistic context, how the training has really helped them just have nicer, better conversations.
00:12:23
Speaker
um Because it seems like we don't we have those skills. And so that that's one of the big, big things I think that we can take away from it. um I could, yeah, probably say a lot
Catalyzing a Culture of Evangelism in Churches
00:12:32
Speaker
more about that. But one thing that I think stands out for me a little, And then I'll sort of ask everyone to share one or two thoughts as well, um is that it the the conferences can really act as a great catalyst um in helping churches create more of a culture of evangelism. I think maybe sometimes people might think, hey we're going to put on one event at some point.
00:12:55
Speaker
um And then that'll be it. And we do that for the year where evangelism is is part of discipleship. we're all if If you call yourself a follower Jesus, you you're called to be a disciple. And part of that is ah being an evangelist, being able to share the hope that we have. And we want to do that persuasively. And that takes actually quite a bit of time. and It takes intentionality. And so what ah the the Confident Christianity Conferences can really do is help i don't just give an injection, um or like an adrenaline shot, if you will, to like say, hey, here you let's highlight this, let's think about this, um and and help people take yeah one step in that direction.
00:13:36
Speaker
Yeah, Kevin, I know you probably have quite few thoughts. Absolutely. And the whole thing about Lausanne Covenant that says, the whole church taking the whole gospel to the whole world, and that's why you bring people together. One of things I love is the way that when you bring people together to talk about evangelism, we mutually encourage one another. Because there's so many of us find evangelism difficult. And just to be with other people who say, yeah, I really want to talk about my faith, but it's hard, isn't it? Let's do it a little bit better next week than we did last week. One of the things we never do at Confident Christianity is kind of lay on a big guilt trip on people and make them feel awful for all their evangelistic failures. It's not about that at all, because the gospel is a gospel of grace.
00:14:14
Speaker
when we are forgiven, even for our evangelistic failures, even for the times when we bottled it and didn't speak well. And so it's not about kind of a guilt trip and making really heavy, but kind of almost sort of putting our arms around each other and saying, okay, this is hard. How can we take a step forward together as the whole church, taking the whole gospel to the whole world? And and that's correct quite good, I think. There was one pastor put it down in and London. and He said, I use confident Christianity because I want evangelism in my church to be on the front burner.
00:14:39
Speaker
not on the back burner. So he kind primed the church for e evangelism in that sense. And that that's quite good to be part of that, actually, because it's not easy. If evangelism was easy, we wouldn't do confident Christianities at all. we wouldn't need to.
00:14:52
Speaker
We do it because it's difficult. But actually, we can really help and encourage each other to step forward. Yeah, I think you one more thought is like that we know and we acknowledge that ah church life is very, very busy. um And so as you say, it's not a guilt trip, but it's saying, Hey, what things can you be doing as a church thinking about evangelism? What things could you be doing sort of looking at the year calendar to just keep evangelism popping up at least onto the radar?
Positive Attendee Feedback on Conference Techniques
00:15:18
Speaker
um And that's one of the things I think the confident Christianities are great for that. um as it But as you said, it's not like to lay some some burden of guilt for saying, hey, how can we come and help you and and keep evangelism in in the sort of the mind of all of the congregation?
00:15:36
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Pep Talk podcast. We hope you're enjoying today's episode. So last week, there's live events in person in churches all around the country, equipping and encouraging Christians to get a little bit better at sharing their faith. And we've worked from the south of England to the highlands of the islands of Scotland and all kinds of places in between.
00:15:54
Speaker
If you'd like us to come to your church and do a confident Christianity event, get in touch with us through the website. And now back to the program.
00:16:05
Speaker
um good Gavin, i wondered if do do we know ah what impact Confident Christianities have had on people or congregations? Is there any way of of knowing that? Obviously because Solas goes in, does the training and then might not be back for a little while.
00:16:22
Speaker
It's hard actually to gauge it, but we do know that pastors seem encouraged and keep inviting us back. So it must be doing something worse. Well, otherwise they they wouldn't be wasting their precious time and their precious budget on, on training that didn't work. But I mean, one of the interesting things that I noted was that when Andy first took Confident Christianity on the road, you know, he does this, the the talk that we often start off with, uh, entitled how to talk about Jesus without looking like an idiot. And in that he he rolls out three questions for opening up or starting or different, you know, defending yourself in, um,
00:16:51
Speaker
spiritual conversations. and And a lady was on holiday, I think, in in the highlands of Scotland And she got the flight home and was sitting alongside someone. She thought, I'll try it out. as She flew back down south and then excitedly emailed the office afterwards to say, those three questions, they actually worked. I've struggled to share my faith for a long time, but I've tried Andy's method and it
Addressing Challenging Topics in Christianity
00:17:10
Speaker
and it works. So you get kind of like ah drip feeding things like that coming back in or or the the the the conversation we had, um one of our speakers, Dave Hutchings, had on last weekend, in fact, down down in Hampshire, where someone came and said, oh, my...
00:17:24
Speaker
child tried out what you said in an re lesson when turned out was the only person in the whole class who believed that god created the world And then the teacher said, okay, then justify your belief. And I'd been to a solace conference on the Saturday and recited a whole load of the evidence that David worked through on science and faith and the origins of the universe and why belief in God is a reasonable and sensible proposition and rolled this all out to the amazement of the teacher who phoned this kid's parents to say, this is amazing. This is, know, quite incredible. And it also meant that that child's faith was built up, you know, the The whole class didn't hear the whole gospel, but heard a reasonable and evidence-based defense that the Christian faith makes sense, is coherent, is logical. um
00:18:06
Speaker
And I gather that that youngster now a student is still going on with the Lord and still sharing the faith. But that was a decisive breakthrough for that one young person. Now, clearly, that's not the case for every person who comes to a Confident Christianity event. But there are enough people from churches coming back to us and saying,
00:18:21
Speaker
Actually, that was useful. Actually, that testimony we heard from someone who's walked through a particular issue was helpful because we you know we cover issues, science, suffering, sexuality, other topics that don't begin with us. you that's what we say But when we work through the reasonableness of a biblical approach and how to articulate a defense around difficult issues,
00:18:42
Speaker
people come away saying, actually, I'm not afraid of that issue anymore. I'm not afraid of the subject of suffering or sexuality or Islam or something coming up. I understand that the Christian faith now makes sense and I know how to articulate it just a little bit better. and So people go out with more confidence.
Improving Family Faith Conversations
00:18:57
Speaker
And if we can do that multiple times across the country, that can only be a good thing. and And some of that is dealing with difficult questions. I wondered, Steve, I mean, is that is that a part of what is happening at these um events?
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think that is, it's definitely one of the big things. um You know, be it um questions that we ourselves as Christians maybe haven't thought through that much. I think what ah some of the takeaways are that I've, you after doing many of these things and chatting to people, um obviously we, the goal is we want to be Training people too to be sharing their faith more readily and better and being able to answer these questions. But oftentimes, there are questions that people have for themselves that maybe haven't thought about for a long while. And so much of the feedback off the back of speaking about you know the problem of ah ah suffering, and problem of evil.
00:19:52
Speaker
um or and is the evidence for for God's existence or something like that, as Gavin mentioned. um The feedback afterwards from people saying, oh, wow, they like they just feel that their own faith has been built up so much. And just by doing that, um they feel that they can actually be a bit more on the front foot in terms of knowing, hey, there are very good answers to questions out there. Because I think ah all too often,
00:20:14
Speaker
ah We just don't know where the answers are, where to find them, what the answers might even be. And so the the feedback so often is really, really encouraging in that sense. Just people saying like, oh, just knowing the stuff is there is really, really encouraging.
00:20:28
Speaker
I was speaking to a lady. and recently and and often speaking to family members i think it's one of the hardest things family members who aren't christians um and that it just seems quite difficult um and after the um training it was actually a church we've been back to a couple of times so and it was from the last training we did where it was on the the practical conversation side of things and she had said to me how It always used to just very quickly go to being a fight. you know, this person had lots of questions and she would try and just answer things as quickly as she could. But with the training, she said how she learned how to actually just ask better questions and actually sit and be a good listener and how that completely changed the dynamic of those conversations where suddenly this family member of hers felt that she was actually sitting and taking the time to listen and and actually unpack and engage ah her questions properly. And that almost did more than having the right answer or having a good answer. Anyway, it was that other person felt listened to. And that just by nature, that opened up the the opportunity for much better ah constructive conversations. um And so that that kind of feedback oh just hurt so many times.
Evolving Conferences to Meet Diverse Church Needs
00:21:40
Speaker
um And I think that that's a great first step anyway in the direction of having good conversations.
00:21:45
Speaker
That's actually an interesting point, isn't it? It does make me wonder actually sometimes whether actually families are in a really sort of separate category, aren't they? Often very, very difficult to talk about faith, especially if it's someone you've grown up with or they've seen you at this point or that point and and might be more cynical or, you know, if it's a A parent or a child or siblings it is quite tricky. I was struck. we We were at an event where we got to pray with someone about a family member. and And that was actually another element that I hadn't expected from from one of the events. Someone asked ah you know mentioned a family member and we were able to pray with them, which was ah a really precious moment. But just a reminder that these are real sort of discussions going on. and I wonder, Gavin, if you you might say just a little bit about whether Confident Christianities have changed at all through time. i yeah
00:22:32
Speaker
um Steve mentioned different questions is one thing, but are they done in a different way now than they were back whenever they started? Yeah, because when we moved the conferences out of Dundee and around the country, um the idea was to be kind of like dealer take the material to the people where they were. But then we found that um different churches have different needs. So The original conferences were long day Saturday conferences, but that doesn't work for every church. So we've developed a much more flexible model. So sometimes three or four churches will get together, huge conferences all day long on a Saturday. Other churches say that's too much for our folks, half a day on a Saturday.
00:23:08
Speaker
So we do half a day. Other churches have said, no, that doesn't work for our model. For instance, you know if you're in a farming community and all the farmers work Saturdays, not possible. So we might do some evenings or we might ah adapt it again for a Sunday or one church in Glasgow did it as a Sunday after lunch. They did the Sunday service, had lunch together, and then um it was Confident Christianity afternoon. and And then we've started to do them more recently and more bite-sized ones with much shorter talks, with much more interaction between, much more discussion. So we mix it, match it, make it fit the people. And the other big way that things have changed is that we're increasingly being invited to a whole soulless weekend. So if they, you know, booked us for a,
00:23:44
Speaker
a conference on the Saturday, what sometimes happens is they want an evangelistic meeting as well. So, you know, we've got great evangelists who like Steve and Andy and also associates like Dave Hutchings that work with us.
00:23:55
Speaker
Why would you not want to do a gospel outreach meeting when you've got a really good evangelist in town? So when Steve and I were up in Wick, The church up there booked hotel and they did kind of a meal and a message thing on the Friday night and they did beautiful food. And then Steve was able to share the gospel with, don't know how many people were there, Steve. Was that sort of 70 or 80 folk came in? Yeah, must have been. You spread a blinder message you gave that night. It was terrific. and then loads of Q&A with non-Christian people and then I spoke on the church on the Sunday where we kind of drew some of the threads together so you know they've paid our travel so why not make us work when we're in the town so that's been one other development as well the development of a kind of a whole solace weekend which Andy and Dave Hutchings did down in Calplain as well in Hampshire two weekends ago they did an evangelistic meeting on the Sunday night a church service on the Sunday as well as the conference that we were all involved in on the Saturday so that's kind of changed but The principle behind that is really pivoting and flexing to serve the needs of the local church.
00:24:52
Speaker
You know, parachurch organizations like ourselves are not the biblically mandated thing. The local church is the thing you find in scripture. So our job is always to serve the local church, benefit the
Personal Highlights and Encouragement from Conferences
00:25:02
Speaker
local church. And so we have to be as flexible as we possibly can so that what really matters is that the local church, the body of Christ on the ground, is blessed and nourished and built up. And we basically will do whatever we can to make that happen.
00:25:15
Speaker
I wondered if we could just ah finish off the discussion with just, I'd love to hear what you both personally think is the best thing about Confident Christianity is, or perhaps a highlight for you, perhaps starting with Steve.
00:25:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think but what what Gavin just said there is really, I think the the great highlight for me is the the flexibility and the heart of being all about the local church. I think that to me is a it's very, very unique thing.
00:25:40
Speaker
in many ways of saying, hey, what are your needs? Where are you based? what are How can we make this work and fit for you? And then the the second is the the level where the conferences try to meet people is trying to understand, okay, and this this isn't sort of some hardcore academic thing that we're doing, you know, like reading reading a big systematic theology textbook or something. No, this is real questions, real needs, real people. And we very much want to be in that space to to make it as impactful as possible. and And it works. It really does. I think, well, um can always lead it up. And I think we're we're doing doing some great work. The Lord has blessed us.
00:26:20
Speaker
Yeah. I've loved meeting people from all kinds of churches all around the country. We get to meet some brilliant people, um you know, not just church leaders, but church members who are sharing the gospel in, don't know, accountancy firms and schools and councils or on oil rigs or, in insurance companies and yeah or they're out doing street work or door to door work or do passion for life events running Christianity explored or alpha. And they come with their real life questions. Some of the Q and a sessions we have on, um, confident Christian events are amazing when, The questions that come from the floor are brilliant. I have to say, it's slightly intimidating sometimes being on a Q&A panel the likes of Steve and and Andy. I mean, Andy Bannister, when he gives Q&A answers, they come complete answers with footnotes and references. That's so true. Seriously, the yeah the really good thing is hearing people
00:27:13
Speaker
when they come with their real stories, you know, they might say after one one of Steve's talks, oh, someone said to me this, that I don't think the Bible's got, you know, there's no good manuscript evidence, right? Is there any evidence that what we read in scripture is what they originally, and then Steve will unpack a brilliant answer or someone will say, oh, I sit across a desk in my firm with a Muslim.
00:27:32
Speaker
How do I explain the the Trinity to a Muslim? And then Andy will unload an answer that's really, really helpful, but it's engaging with people in their real lives. And as they sometimes stand back and just admire the breadth of the church around the u k the loveliness of the church, meeting good-hearted Christians, doing great work. I mean, just just brilliant people.
00:27:52
Speaker
and And meeting them and working with them is is actually a huge privilege. Fantastic. Well, I think you've both summed it up better than I could, but I i love the point yeah about both the church and the questions. I remember in one of the events I was at, someone asked about manifesting, and I remember thinking, actually, I've got no idea what I would say about that. But of course, it led on to a great um discussion about that and and an answer to a question. so but But in terms of reflecting for me, i'm i'm relatively new to Solas, and I've been quite struck by actually how exceptional and the events were. And I don't i don't say that lightly. they're They're quite different from some
00:28:25
Speaker
I've been to sort of longer apologetics conferences and often they can be quite weighty or lengthy talks and sometimes on the slightly obscure subjects. And what I really liked is that combination of being sort of short and punchy, but both encouraging and practical. and And also, actually, you both mentioned this as well. One thing I hadn't expected is just how encouraging they are to do them. And it's not just encouragement for the church, it's actually encouraging for us as a team at Solas. ah I think there is something very moving and biblical about believers sort of being in it together, supporting each other and um encouraging one another. And that was really moving to me. So so I do hope all of you listening will be ah encouraged to consider one. Do have a look on our website. So that's solas-cpc.org. And if you go to events under Confident Christianities, you will see the information there. So please have a look at that and perhaps pass the information on to your pastor to see if ah you might be interested in running one at your church.
00:29:27
Speaker
So thank you, Gavin and steve Steve, for being with us. Thank you all for listening and do come back in a couple of weeks for another inspiring guest on Pep Talk, helping us share our faith with those around us.