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With Darin and Joy Stevens
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"So what? Who cares?" the battle cries of the apathetic ring out from the young (and not-so-young) people of the UK. It seems today the conversation for winning souls needs to start by convincing people they've got souls in the first place! As Christians, what can we do to stir up spiritual curiosity and show that Jesus really matters for everyone?
Darin and Joy Stevens recently launched Start to Stir, which exists to help Christians share faith in a culture that is largely indifferent towards faith and God. Fuelled by their over twenty years experience working with youth from outside the church, and training youth ministry students at ForMission College, they want to help everyday Christians learn how to stir curiosity in the gospel. Their first tool, the Stir Course, is already being used in over 200 churches and schools across the country.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guests
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Pep Talk. I'm Kristy Mayer and I'm joined by the wonderful Andy Bannister this morning. Andy, hello, how are you doing? hi i I'm doing great, Kristy. Great to be back with another episode and excited that we don't just have one amazing guest on today's episode episode of Pep Talk, we have two guests, don't we? We do, two. We've got Darren and Joyce Stevens. Hello, how are you both? Hello. Hello, yes, we're well.
00:00:36
Speaker
And you're zooming in from, did you say Whitney in Oxfordshire? Yeah, Whitney in Oxfordshire. And our accent will quickly give us a way that we're not originally from Whitney, but we've lived in the UK for 20 years now. but Oh, marvelous. Well, maybe we can start there then. So um where are you from? And how did you come to the UK? And why did you stay so long? 20 years. That's fantastic. Well, the weather keeps getting better and better. So that's why we're staying.
00:01:03
Speaker
you You lie so well.
Introducing Start to Stir
00:01:06
Speaker
Well, we came originally with a calling to into youth ministry, a local church brought us over. And we've done training youth minister youth ministers and helping to them to earn a degree qualification for the last 20 years. so But now we're just starting to move on.
00:01:26
Speaker
work in this area of evangelism and pre-evangelism. So um now we're running Start to Stir, a new charity that's just launched in the last year. Yeah, so um that was was ah such a nice sort of segue then for the next question because I've come across Start start to Stir because I met you guys in in in person.
Purpose of the Stir Course
00:01:44
Speaker
back in the summer, we had a lovely lunch with ah with a mutual friend and you gave me a copy of of of Start to Stir, so but for those who have not had the benefit and the joy of discovering it, what what is what is Start to Stir, but in particular, what's the vision behind it? Because you threw that little f phrase pre-evangelism in there, joy. So for folks who are like, hang on a minute, evangelism I know, but what's pre-evangelism? So maybe fold that into your answer about ah about what Start to Stir is. Yeah, so we really want to help every Christian feel confident in their faith. And I think a lot of a lot of the reasons why we feel a lack of confidence is just that people aren't against it. they're Most of them are just indifferent, or many of them are indifferent towards God and faith. So we're really working in that. That's why we say pre-evangelism. We have to start a bit further back. um So yeah, it's trying to equip Christians to know
00:02:38
Speaker
Why do people seem indifferent? And is there a way to kind of stir curiosity? And yeah, our our first tool that we launched is the stir course. And, you know, we call it a pre evangelism or a pre alpha, pre Christianity explored, whatever your favorite one is, whether or not can go before that. And it's kind of first thought of our years of working with youth who are really far away from God and and outside the church for many generations.
00:03:04
Speaker
So what what is the stir course trying to achieve or address? what What are the goals for it? Yeah, it's it's trying to hit the the population that isn't asking questions about God or Christianity yet.
00:03:21
Speaker
And so we started with the question, is there a way to stir curiosity? No, there's a lot of people, and you you get this all the time, say, um it's nice that you have faith, but I really can't see how it would make any difference for me. So the questions we feel like the majority of the culture is asking isn't so much, is there a God? And do I need evidential proofs for that? But they're asking, and why would it matter?
00:03:47
Speaker
And we feel like as a church we we want to be one piece to help the church to move forward in answering the question of um what difference would it make to ask God into your life to to follow um Jesus ultimately. um So we're starting way back there and trying to get people to be able to have those kinds of conversations.
00:04:09
Speaker
I think you are so on to the importance
Engaging Cultural Indifference
00:04:12
Speaker
here. I mean, we've seen a similar thing at Solas with with the have you have wondered book that is is playing in that same space. And I've never we've sort of seen a book move so fast, because I think if you can tap into that, you know, people are not, they're not hostile, are they? But they don't see any relevance, but there's their interests of kind there. One of the things that I know, pick this up, and I'd love your thoughts on this, you know, a couple of years ago now, wasn't it? The Talking Jesus Report.
00:04:35
Speaker
um which was looking at attitudes to faith and and spirituality and Christianity in this country, you know famously picked up. I think it was roughly, wasn't it? Roughly one third of people, which is still a huge number and it's still very encouraging, ah would say when asked, yeah, I think I'm interested. I'd love to hear more about about Jesus. But two thirds would default saying, well, I'm not interested.
00:04:56
Speaker
um And the temptation can be to go, oh, okay, and well, we just ignore them. um But I think there's also a huge opportunity, isn't there, to go, okay, can we do something for those two-thirds who haven't seen why Jesus would be someone worth taking seriously and taking an interest in? Is that the kind of the kind of a cohort, the group that you are trying to engage with?
00:05:18
Speaker
Yeah, exactly, Andy. And I think, I don't know, we always kind of ask the question behind the question. And and i understand I understand why talking Jesus and and Barna as well with their new spiritually open research, which is really, really encouraging. it is I think it is motivating for us as Christians to see that, you know, there are people around us who are interested in talking about God and hearing about Jesus.
00:05:41
Speaker
but But when I saw the Talking Jesus Research, the the statistic that did jump out to me was that one you mentioned, Andy. and So have you talked with a Christian friend about Jesus? Yes. Then they asked those non-Christians, did you want to hear more after that conversation you had with a Christian? And 60% said, not really. so So that's the number that really jumps out to us. And I think because it matches our own experience working with non-church youth and my own neighbors that I tried to talk with about and co-workers. So yeah, I think that really leaps out to us and it's like, well, why? Why did they not want to hear more about Jesus? And is there anything we can do about that? And then I think especially if the culture is moving more in that direction, which
00:06:30
Speaker
The statistics seem to lean that way. I mean, we can't just ignore that part of the population, I don't think. Yeah, right, right. It's it's such ah an important area to be thinking about. And you mentioned and that one of the reasons why many aren't interested is because they're thinking, well, why does this matter? And why does Jesus matter to us? um what What other reasons do you think, like, why is it that so many are just not interested in hearing about Jesus?
00:07:04
Speaker
young people that we've worked with, who are now in their 20s, because we're getting older, but they're just multiple generations removed from the church. They've learned all the little bit that they know about Christianity from RE in school, then they don't know a real Christian.
00:07:25
Speaker
And so um they don't see the model of what what difference does it make for Christians. And so I think that's the bottom line is they they they were not rubbing up rubbing shoulders against people and as and they're not meeting real practicing Christians.
00:07:46
Speaker
Yeah. as as a Well, it could be a a rabbit troll, but um some of the best conversations on this podcast are rabbit trolls. I was struck by, you mentioned r RE there. I just, the week before last, did a little mini schools mission. I was in secondary schools for three or four days. um Amazing opportunity to engage with kids, but I also came out slightly depressed because I thought RSRE does huge damage because the way that kids are exposed,
00:08:13
Speaker
things. Firstly, there's the sense that, you know, you obviously, you and you you teach pluralism, because kids just assume everything's interchangeable, you know, Christians go to church, Muslims go to mosques, you know, Christians have the Bible, Muslims have the Quran, and so you come out with your head totally confused, but then it's taught in such a dry way, no wonder if that's your only contact. So, I don't know if there's any sort of comments you'd make you'd make on that, just just to the side. By the way, if you're an RE teacher listening, I'm not having a go-up. I think it's a massive opportunity for Christian RE teachers, RS teachers do it differently. But I think you're not, you're not, you're not off the mark that that is part of the problem. Yeah, mean it's great when it's done well, but it's not done well so regularly. yeah And, you know, I've had RE lessons or helped, helped out in the schools and sometimes what they said, Christian believe if you're kind of shaking your head like, that's not really what believe what we believe. So yeah, I don't know. Is it doing more damage than good? I don't know. That's probably a different,
00:09:07
Speaker
different question for a different time. But I think also why aren't more people interested in talking about Jesus? I think one thing we found out really early on as we started working with young people outside the church is We were spending a lot of time answering questions that they weren't asking yet. That was so frustrating because because we both have theological training and we both have lots of ministry and mission experiences and learn how to share faith and go out on the streets. and you know we We could gather young people. We were good at gathering young people. and I think the church as a whole is really creative and really good at gathering people from outside the church. But but then it just seems like
00:09:51
Speaker
You know, we have all this really good information and all these really deep truths that we want to share. And it's just kind of like, what most of the youth we worked with actually believed there was a person named Jesus who lived 2,000 years ago who died. And yeah, he he probably rose again from the dead. So they accepted all the core tenets, but then it was like, but so on what difference would that make to me?
00:10:16
Speaker
um So yeah, I think we grew frustrated feeling like, man, we're we're answering questions they're not asking. And they weren't really looking for God.
Exploring Identity and Spiritual Longings
00:10:27
Speaker
And so the fact that they could have their sins forgiven, or they could be in relationship with God, didn't really sound like good news to them at that point. And I guess that's a question. it you know The gospel is good news, we know that, but why doesn't it sound like good news if people aren't yet looking for God? So we kind of go back to square one and ask a lot of foundational questions about our approach. and
00:10:51
Speaker
and ah Well, what what did you find just on that on that kind of on that note? what What kind of ways have you um moved through as you've identified that just not really answering the questions that they're asking? What do you think are some ways in which um we can start to move towards youth and young adults and adults and so on um in helping to kind of engage with the actual questions that they're asking? Do you think it it is about the questions or do you think it's about meeting them in something else. What do you think we're...
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think the first challenge is a lot of people aren't asking any questions. So so you see about a balloon have done some amazing research over the years. One of the pieces we keep coming but to is called no questions asked the short summaries that gathered a load of young people to talk with them about their deep questions of life. And they got the young people in the room and the young people were basically saying, we don't have any questions. What are we even going to talk about? And so I think I think a lot of it is people aren't necessarily asking likeity question And so we have to stir a curiosity. And then, yeah, Joy, do you want to talk about kind of our starting points that we've been working on. Yeah. I mean, what what we've decided to do with our first resource, um the stir course that start to stir, is to start with identity.
00:12:11
Speaker
And by identity, I mean helping young people, helping young adults to understand that they are first and foremost, a spiritual being. um And um we all have spiritual longings and wonderings inside of us that reveal our desire for God. And so the stir course goes right back to, let's look at these longings and these wonderings.
00:12:36
Speaker
and you know it sits right alongside Andy's book have you ever wondered it's just a course form and Andy's written an excellent book so helpful um but this is a is an experiential course so we also have really been dabbing with understanding how do young people, how do people today um decide what's true? And we believe that people decide what's true through um ah experience first. yeah That does not negate the need for evidential apologetics. It does not
00:13:08
Speaker
um It doesn't neate negate the need for truth. However, in our experience, we find often a young person could be stirred to um to understand their spiritual being, to start a spiritual journey toward um the gospel and Christianity um and become a Christian. And then a year or two later,
00:13:31
Speaker
come back around and need the proofs, need the logical explanations, A, B, to see reasons behind our faith. But it wasn't our starting point. Our starting point was there's more to you than just a body and a brain. You have a spirit.
00:13:48
Speaker
It's covered under a thick layer of dust. And and let's stir it up. and And we would take them through, the store court takes them through experiences where they experience their longing for justice. They experience their longing for um ah for to be connected with something bigger than themselves. they experience their feeling of, is there something more out there? um They experience their need for love. All those things that are buried in all of us, we're trying to serve them to the to the surface and say, consider that you're actually a spiritual being. And if you can say yes to that, could you consider going on a spiritual journey towards christian look towards the Christian faith?
00:14:30
Speaker
i think I think there's so much that's helpful in there. It's very interesting that I was ah talking to one of my ah one of my newer colleagues at Solar Steve, who's our second speaker, joined us kind of last year. And he did a lot of his training and apologetics um through places and states. And he said to me recently, he said, I've had a real crash course in the UK because I haven't been trained in the evidential approach, which was you know where he came from in South Africa. It was much more in the front. He said, you know in the UK this last year, I've really had to learn to put that further down the track. and start with those kind of those more existential questions, the identity pieces and whatever. Because I think when you do, you know, amazing things happen. And one of my because we're coming back to talking Jesus and I'd love to get your perspective on this. One of my, you know, takeaways from that was.
00:15:15
Speaker
Yes, if someone says I'm not interested in knowing more about Jesus, of course, you have to ask the $64 million dollars question. What do they mean by Jesus? What does Jesus mean to them? And if you have no content to put into that, then no wonder I suppose people would people to walk walk walk walk away. And I'm a great believer in thinking and analogies that occurred to me. I had a GP visit a couple of days ago and my GP gave me a little pep talk about I need to do a bit more exercise. And of course, if you go straight for the, here are 17 ways to get fitter, you know, I'm going to walk away. But yeah if you start with, let me walk you through why I think you might need to do a little exercise, then you're going to be ready to have the the conversation around what the nuts and bolts look like. And I think the same is true spiritually, right? Until you're attuned to spirituality is something you need to take seriously and think about. so
00:16:00
Speaker
then the evidential piece isn't going to come along. I've rambled too long. Well, it's great. It is the why. It's the answer the why question first. Can I ask the why question? Yeah, I like that. Christy, what do you think of all of this? Because I'm struck by that because you and I have talked over the years because you do a lot on university campuses. You do a lot with students, young adults. And I know you've seen some of these themes too, haven't you? I think in some of the work that you've been doing that you've talked about the shifting nature of questions and and this stuff. um What's your reflection on on some of what Darren and Joy are sharing from there from their angle? I mean, it it very much resonates with with what I and many others have been seeing as well, that there is a reordering of questions from um credibility questions. How do I know it's true to desirability questions? Is this relevant and desirable to my life? And and Joy, you know as you were saying, it's not that the credibility questions aren't important.
00:16:58
Speaker
they just come later now. There's been a reordering of those questions. and And I think the other thing that I find quite interesting that you picked up on as well is that people just don't have questions. um we're not really I guess you know that comes into a whole range of other factors. like We aren't really taught how to think well. We aren't, as you mentioned, maybe some of our school experiences mean that we may have just lost a bit of curiosity because we kind of think maybe we know what Christianity is about and its rules and rituals and practices and church and particular prayers and Jesus' death, resurrection, etc. But I also, one of the things I'm thinking about more recently is
00:17:41
Speaker
kind of bringing back some of the the historic pieces of the Christian faith that have been somewhat diluted as a result of our secular, materialistic, Western perspective, which is very much alive and well in the global, and particularly in the global South, but the global church. that um what What does it mean that jesus Jesus says that he is the name above all names? And how,
00:18:09
Speaker
And it kind of feeds into what you're saying, like, what difference does Jesus make to my life? But also what authority does Jesus have over every sphere and power and ruler and dominion and authority? And linking that with at the moment with kind of Gen Z'ers who are pretty much really spiritually interested in and that they're no longer just going to church, they're also dabbling with tarot cards and the occult and you know family members are seeking help from mediums and kind of looking to very spiritual sources for answers, but really destructive and dangerous ones. And so kind of um reintroducing, that's the word, it's not, yeah, reintroducing the
00:18:49
Speaker
one of the key aspects of our faith that Jesus jesus isn' and is the name above every other name, every other power authority that seeks to set itself up and kind of counterfeit and through kind of false counter-productions of who Jesus is. So they're just, yeah, I think there's some of the things that I'm seeing. I don't know if that spiritual, if you're seeing that spiritual peace, not just so much in terms of who we are, but the the spiritual realm um as you're considering evangelism or not.
00:19:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, first of all, i'd say I love that. I love how you're wrestling with, I would say like different doorways into Jesus. Because I think I think for many decades we have been able to start with um Jesus as our rescuer, Jesus as our forgiver of sins, and I would never want to lose that aspect of the gospel because that's a huge aspect of the gospel. um But yeah, again, in a culture who doesn't know God and doesn't know if they want God,
00:19:50
Speaker
maybe we need to find some different starting points and different doorways in. And I think that's what you're wrestling with as you talk through some of your thoughts. But yeah, I do think, to answer your question, I think there is more openness to spirituality.
Stir Course Success Stories
00:20:08
Speaker
And I know for some of us as Christians, that word alone kind of freaks us out. It's like, oh man. And we've had to do a lot of work on Because i think I think Christians do feel uneasy with even using the word spiritual because it it can mean so many different things. and I don't even think the average non-church person really knows what it means. So we normally have to work really hard in early conversations to define it. um so So we keep it simple. We just say when we say spiritual, we just practically mean as a human, you have a spirit or you have a soul.
00:20:44
Speaker
um And yeah, i think I think it has been a really easy doorway in but that doesn' that doesn't mean it's all danger free because I think as well in those early conversations we have to say there is a spiritual realm But that doesn't mean that all the spirits are good spirits. and And I think you have to load that in from the front as well, especially in today's culture, as you said, Christy, that is is maybe dabbling in some of the dangerous spiritual practices.
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah. So we've we've covered over the last 24 minutes or so, we've covered all kinds of things, your journey and the resource, some of the the sort of theory and thinking behind this. I suppose last question to throw to to to you guys, do you have any kind of stories of how some of the sort of conversations around this have worked in action? Because you've obviously done a you've done a lot of engagement with young people and and the joy of that, there's always going to be sort of stories and things to tell. I know when we had lunch together, you shared a few. So are there any kind of sort of stories you might leave us with of of how some of these this approach has worked out where the rubber hits the road in in actual conversations with is it with young people. Yeah, I mean, a big part of the stirring approach is also taking a pacing approach. And so um and yeah so we we are getting stories. The stir course has been out for about a year, and we're getting some stories back now of, I think, of Lucy Skelton up in um
00:22:11
Speaker
and cliffro and she's a youth worker there and she had had 50 young people coming to her Friday night youth club and she said they were mostly boys bless her and um and about a year ago she started to do stir material with them to try to gauge them they were just community young people who had no connection to the church other than to come to this you know and um And, you know, this past summer, after the festival's time, she she specifically wrote us and said, I was able to get more young people to come away to a to a um summer event,
00:22:49
Speaker
because of the storm material, because they're starting that journey of, yeah, I want to go on a spiritual journey. i I want to learn more about this. I want to understand who I am spiritually. And she was thrilled that several people became Christians, those boys, these 12 to 15 year old boys became Christians this summer.
00:23:10
Speaker
um and and so all that to say we're working in this on the pre-evangelism and we're seeing churches using it in places like their community meal nights where it's a big social space they've set up but have no idea how to go from social to spiritual and they're stuck and so we've got churches who are using stirred material to turn that tide to say Come to our meal night and we're gonna have this question. And it's just this really simple first step to start people to consider, am I spiritual? um what would What difference would it make to have God in my life? And do I need to go on a spiritual journey? um And so we're we're really excited about places that are using it all around the country. About 200 groups, churches and organizations have been using the stir course to try to spirit stir spiritual curiosity.
00:24:06
Speaker
um And it's it's fun to get the stories back of um places where it's been trialed in really unique settings. Yeah. That's so wonderful to hear. And I personally really look forward to looking into the STIR course. um where Where can I find it and others who might be interested? Yeah, our website's easiest place, starttostir.com. So S-T-A-R-T-T-O, STIR dot.com.
00:24:33
Speaker
Brilliant. Thank you so much. I think that brings us to the end, um sadly, of another fantastic conversation. Thank you so much, Darren, and Joy, for your for your time and for your wisdom. And it's been great to hear how the Lord's been working through you. Thanks, both. Yeah, it's been great just chatting today. A pleasure. Well, this brings us to the end then. ah Finally, finally, goodbye, Andy Bannister. And we will see you in a couple of weeks' time with our next guests. Ta-ta for now. Bye for now.