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With Phil Knox
55 Plays4 years ago
Stories resonate deeply with human beings and we all have two powerful stories in our lives: God's story and our story. What does it mean to bear those stories through our lives in a way that impacts those around us? Phil Knox speaks with Andy and Kristi to unpack his latest book, Story Bearer.
Phil Knox is the head of mission to young adults at the Evangelical Alliance UK. He has a passion for his generation, the local church, loves learning and has degrees in law and mission and evangelism. Phil is married to Dani and they have two sons, Caleb and Jos. He is an avid runner, enthusiastic water-skier and also a performance poet. He lives in Birmingham.
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Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast. And great to be with you. I'm joined by my co-host, Christy Mayer. Christy, how are you doing? How are you there? Doing very well. Thanks, Andy. Yourself?
00:00:22
Speaker
Pretty good, pretty good. Can't complain. And we have a great guest on the show this week. Although we're recording this through the height of coronavirus stuff and Christie's in lockdown. I'm in sort of semi-lockdown and there's not a toilet roll to be found anywhere in the entire country. Pep talk goes on. And we are joined this week in the midst of all this by Phil Knox. Phil works for the Evangelical Alliance, the EA. He's head of mission to young adults based in Birmingham. Phil, welcome to the podcast.
00:00:50
Speaker
Hi, Andy and Christy, wonderful to be with you. Great to have you on the show. Really, thanks for taking the time.
Phil Knox on 'Story Bearer'
00:00:56
Speaker
And Phil, there's so many things we could say, there's so many things we could talk about over the next 20 minutes, but I'm really excited because you've got a new book out. Yeah. And many people have new books out, but what excites me is the title of your book, I think sounds utterly brilliant, Story Bearer.
00:01:13
Speaker
how to share your faith with your friends. Tell us a bit about the book, but I'm particularly interested in that in that title. Tell us a bit more. Thanks, Andy. So the book, I've always been really passionate about a few things you might guess even from the tone of my voice that I'm a passionate person. And my first passion is stories. I've always loved stories. I remember as a as a kid kind of
00:01:34
Speaker
under the duvet reading Narnia and Enid Blyton and just craving one more chapter before I went to sleep. I've always loved relationships, really passionate about friendship and connection and just love the connection moments with friends.
00:01:50
Speaker
But the thing that really drives me is a real passion for Jesus and wanting to see people come to know Him. And so the book combines the dynamic between those three things and it's called Storybearer because I believe that loads of things happen to us when we become a Christian, we become forgiven for everything we've done wrong, we enter into a relationship with God,
00:02:08
Speaker
Our place in heaven is secured. We know real life now and life in all its fullness forever. But also we begin to bear a story, the story of God and our own story. And the book is how we begin to share that story, the story of God and our own story with the stories of many other people in our lives who don't know it yet.
00:02:26
Speaker
Nice. I was having a bit of a scroll through the book. Andy and I were sent a preview of the book and scrolling through some of the chapter headings and they look awesome.
Power of Storytelling in Evangelism
00:02:39
Speaker
And one of the chapters is on the power of stories, isn't it? Yeah. How do you use these stories? How are you excavating the power of stories in evangelism with friends?
00:02:50
Speaker
I've really looked into the kind of neurology of storytelling and the stories, the way that they impact people. And when you hear a story, your brain just begins to go into overdrive in a load of different ways.
00:03:06
Speaker
So for example, the reason we were so locked in on stories is that cortisol is produced in our brains, which makes us pay attention. Oxytocin, which is the chemical that kind of bonds mother and baby. It's known as the cuddle chemical kicks in, which is why we feel so much empathy for characters in stories. And then dopamine, which is the chemical that makes us feel really good, kicks in, which is why when we turn that last page of a book or when the credits roll at the end of a film, it feels so good. And stories are so compelling.
00:03:35
Speaker
And I've always been compelled by the stories in the Bible, and so when Jesus was communicating the profound depths of the mysteries of the universe, he so often used stories. But the verse that the kind of book hangs on is that beautiful verse from 1 Peter that says, always be prepared to give an answer to anyone asking you to give a reason for the hope that you have.
00:03:55
Speaker
And so often I think what we do is we default to kind of four spiritual laws or a kind of really analytic, what I would call a left brain response, when actually if we're story people and in a world which runs on stories, my challenge to us as Christians is how do we tell a story that communicates the Christian faith and our own stories, what it means in our lives today.
00:04:19
Speaker
There's so much good stuff in there, Phil. I mean, one of the things that strikes me as interesting immediately is given that we live in a culture that seems to be ever more story based, you know, we we talk about living in a postmodern world where I think people, you know, raise questions about sort of truth claims and all this kind of stuff.
00:04:35
Speaker
And sometimes with the church, I feel that we all are doing is trying to fight story with propositions. Yeah. And there's a place for propositions that matter. Yeah. Right. But actually, we've also got to show how the gospel story is a better story. It's a better story of reality. It's a better story to live
Learning from Jesus' Storytelling
00:04:51
Speaker
by. Could you maybe say something about that?
00:04:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think we need to not throw the baby out with the bathwater with the opposition or left brain stuff as well. I think we need to be more Christ like in our communication. And what I love about Jesus is that he does both so well. So Jesus is both propositional. I am the way, the truth and the life.
00:05:10
Speaker
But yet then when he's communicating the love of the father, he says there was a father who had two sons and he tells a story. And I love that balance with Jesus. He's so rich in metaphor and narrative. And yet at the same time, so straight down the line with truth and proposition as well. And I think so often what we can do is we can default to Paul in the Book of Romans, who's very propositional.
00:05:34
Speaker
But I think Christ as our narrative and our model and our posture as an evangelist is perhaps a bit more helpful. That's so helpful. How would you actually go about kind of sharing that narrative of Christ in everyday conversations? Because you're talking about how do we live our own stories? How do we tell that story? What might that look like?
00:05:56
Speaker
So I think there's two stories that for me, there's a kind of no brainer that we need to have as our kind of baseline as every Christian. So I think one of the missions of the book and one of the missions when I do any training in evangelism is to help Christians have two baseline stories that they can communicate. And the first is the story of God. And so you'll have noticed, Christi, one of the chapter headings is around God's story. And so I tried. I did. I saw that. Yes.
00:06:20
Speaker
So I try to kind of cram and crush and squeeze the beautiful narrative of the 66 books of the Bible into a chapter and unpack that in a way that just gives an overview of that beautiful narrative, metanarrative of the Bible. So then I talk about the concepts of simplexity, that this story of God is the most simple concept in the world, but also the most complex, and we need to hold that intention as Christians.
00:06:47
Speaker
And so the first baseline thing we need to do is if someone says, what's Christianity all about? We need to be able to tell a story. And so I don't give a prescription as to how to do that. I say you might tell the story of the poor little son. You might actually do kind of full spiritual laws. God loves us. We messed up. Jesus died for us. We need to make a decision. We might, you know, we might tell a story of my own life as to how that which communicates to Christian faith. But we need to be able to do that. If someone says,
00:07:12
Speaker
says what's Christianity about and my experience is that most, a lot of Christians can't do that.
Articulating Personal Faith in Crisis
00:07:17
Speaker
Second story we need to be able to tell is our own. So I think that our own stories are how God has impacted our lives, our own experience of faith, the way that knowing Jesus gives us a way of understanding the world.
00:07:29
Speaker
real experience as to how knowing him makes a difference in our lives. We need to be able to do both of those things. And I tell a story, when I was writing the book, I was explaining it to a friend who's really mature Christian, been going to church for years. And I said, basically, it's to be able to answer the question, if someone said to you, why are you a Christian, what would you say? And he said to me, did you know when you asked that, the blood's drained from my face because I thought you were about to ask me. And the book is for him.
00:07:58
Speaker
Because I feel there's so many of us as Christians who've never given thought to those two baseline stories. And yet if the world is going to be changed, if Britain's going to meet Jesus, it's going to be for ordinary people reaching their mates. And most of us aren't equipped as we could be to tell that story.
00:08:16
Speaker
That's so helpful, Phil. I think what I particularly like, that story you told there of your friend who asked the question, you know, when you said to him, you know, how would you answer the question, why are you a Christian? And one of the things I think I've noticed in my evangelism kind of training over the years, you know, like you do evangelism and train others, is that I think a lot of Christians default to when they are asked that question, why are you a Christian? They sort of just respond with the story of how they became 130 years before. Yeah, right.
00:08:44
Speaker
The problem is I think when someone says, why are you a Christian? They both want to know why you want today. And then perhaps why you want in the face of what's going on in the world today, you know, given we are now coronavirus, why are you a Christian when there's all this kind of global chaos? And so I think helping people as you're trying to do to see that big picture of what God is doing, connect it with your story, but then bring it up to date. What is Jesus doing right here, right now? The difference he makes is absolutely crucial. So this is really important stuff, I think.
00:09:10
Speaker
Yeah, and I think for some of it, it's about the language. Language is really important. And for me, you know, the example I think I use in the book around the exact point you've made there, Andy, is that if someone said, what's your wife like, and I only told the story of our wedding day, that's how so many Christians talk about their own personal story of coming to play. Very good. And so for me, I think just having the language to articulate things like, you know, when you're a Christian,
00:09:37
Speaker
knowing freedom and forgiveness and purpose and meaning and belonging. You know, when I talked to my friends who got everything seemingly in a world sense, I had a friend come to me recently, just last November, and he texted me and said, can we meet up? I'd not seen him in six years, but was a really good mate at uni, lived a life far from God. And he said, could we meet up? And after the small talk, talking about football and stuff,
00:10:00
Speaker
over coffee. He said, I really wanted to meet up with you mate, because I've begun to wrestle with real questions of meaning and purpose and begun to think about what might happen to me when I die. And this guy has got everything, money, wife, kids, the lot, but yet really wrestles with this question of meaning and purpose. And sometimes it's just about having the language. So when our non-Christian mates ask us, we were able to say, this is what knowing Jesus gives me. This is part of the story. Now let me introduce you to him.
00:10:27
Speaker
How do you think we could best use that right now in our current cultural moment?
Christian Response to Coronavirus
00:10:33
Speaker
Andy mentioned earlier on coronavirus lockdown. There's a lot of fear, there's a lot of uncertainty. I've been in several supermarkets and at the moment we've gone from hashtag be kind to it's each man for themselves.
00:10:47
Speaker
So when those kind of towers of security and comfort come crumbling kind of down, as maybe it has for your friend, I don't know, how do you think we can best connect kind of Christ to the culture at the moment?
00:10:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. I wonder whether on one level it's about being a really non-anxious presence. And I think about, I think the example I think of is when the, when the plane's going down, you look to the person who's the calmest in the situation. And I wonder whether for us as Christians, knowing a hope that outlives it all, knowing a
00:11:20
Speaker
a love and a faith that's more contagious than any virus, knowing a security, standing on the rock of ages, all of that stuff has to mean something in these moments. Faith has to make a difference in these moments, otherwise we may as well all pack up and go home.
00:11:37
Speaker
I think communicating that somehow to our friends in whatever interactions we have. I think sensible use of social media, wanting to be connected, demonstrating love and compassion to the most vulnerable. So I don't know about you, but I've seen loads of Christians with just on our street putting notes through people's door saying, look, if you're vulnerable and self-isolating, we'd love to help you and serve you in this time. I think that stuff in the midst of panic and
00:12:06
Speaker
fear is really compelling and can tell a different story. I think you're absolutely right Phil and I know a wee while ago you did an interview with one of my colleagues Gavin on the on the solar's website.
00:12:19
Speaker
And I was kind of rereading that in preparation for the podcast. And interesting on this very issue, you know, one thing that you said that it really intrigued me is that interview you talked about the fact that I think suffering is an important topic for so many of us because it exposes the fact that for many of us, comfort has become a God. And I think I remember reading that line just recently going, I think that's so true because I think one of the opportunities for Christians now
00:12:43
Speaker
Given the living in a time, we say with coronavirus, but when this passes it'll be something else. But more than any time I know, this I think is opening up that question of where people's comfort lies. If your security is in your job and your job's in question, if your security is in your investment portfolio and the markets are down 50%, if your security is in your health and you suddenly realize, I've got a dry cough in the morning, is this the one?
00:13:06
Speaker
I think that exposes all kinds
Peer-to-Peer Evangelism Techniques
00:13:08
Speaker
of opportunities. And I guess for Christians, the question is how we make the best use of that. And I know you talk a lot about peer-to-peer evangelism is something you're passionate about. How do Christians perhaps go about using this culture to start those conversations, but not doing so in a crass way, not walking up to a neighbor and going, hey, you might be dead next week. Let's talk about Jesus. Probably not the way to do it. But what are some ways that we could be doing it?
00:13:33
Speaker
So with specific respect to kind of telling our story, there's two things that I talk about in the book that I found really helpful in my own personal evangelism over the years. And the first is that our story is both reactive and proactive. So my hope is, and my experience has been over the years, that when we live differently, when people see something distinctive with us, they will often ask,
00:13:57
Speaker
But why? Why? And so I'm telling the story, telling the book a story about when I was a 13-year-old on a bus. And as you can imagine, 13-year-olds, boys on buses on the way back from our boys' school often talked about sex. And often the question came back to me, Phil, what do you think? I think it was one of my mates saying, you know, which one of these girls do you think I should sleep with first? And I, you know, I was 13, I didn't have a clue about girls, let alone gun sex. But I kind of said,
00:14:24
Speaker
I said, well, mate, you know, I believe you need to wait till you're married to have sex. They were like, whoa! It's like 1999, Grandad. You know, it all just kind of kicked off. But that was the way it was, the way into my converse conversation with those friends about Jesus. And eight years later, one of those lads on that bus was a guy called Ads, and he became a Christian. But the start of that conversation was that moment where they ask you about a different lifestyle. Second thing about your story is it's proactive.
00:14:51
Speaker
So there come moments in conversations where our story should be so well known for us that we're able to say, can I tell you my story? There's something around meaning and purpose, like with my coffee with my friend the other day. And you just get the chance to say, can I just tell you my story? And then you're able to tell that story for people. And then the second area that I think is critical in sharing faith is not just being a great talker, but a great listener.
00:15:20
Speaker
I found I love the way Jean just asks great questions and the better we get to know people the more connection points we find between our lives and the other person's life and so let me just continue the Adam story so that first encounter on the bus when we're 13
00:15:35
Speaker
Then just getting to know him throughout our teenage years, but noticing in him that first of all, he's the most fun person to be around. He just loves life and life's exciting when you're around him. He's amazing, he still is. But the second thing is that pursuit of fun for him during his teenage years led him to want to really let him down packs of drugs and drink and all that kind of stuff.
00:15:55
Speaker
And so then he felt he needed to be forgiven for those things. So as he's made, I found connection points between God's story, that he might have life in all his fullness, but also that he might be forgiven and no forgiveness for the stuff he'd done wrong. And for him in his story, when he eventually became a Christian at 21, those two connection points were really critical.
00:16:12
Speaker
That's so helpful. Thank you so, so much, Phil. I am just taking this slightly differently. I'm asking this question really for myself. I noticed you said earlier that thinking about now, you know, wanting these connection points and how social media, for example, is a great way for us to do that. And you mentioned having a sensible use of social media. Now, I did more than just kind of scroll through the chapter headings of your book.
00:16:37
Speaker
I also saw towards the end. You're talking about tech and distractions and there's this wonderful rewritten part of Psalm 23, haven't you?
Modern Tech and Faith Connection
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah. And you put something like, my phone is my shepherd, I shall not disconnect. Would you like it? I can read it for you if you like. Oh yeah, go for it. It was great. Go for it. Are you ready? Yeah. My phone is my shepherd, I shall not disconnect. It makes me lie down in fields of distraction. It leads me beside noisy, colourful waterfalls of pixels.
00:17:07
Speaker
It covers my soul. It guides me along paths of likes and shares for my own egos sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley of no Wi-Fi, I will fear no signal for your 4G and offline features. They comfort me. You prepare a notification for me in the presence of my followers. You anoint my thumbs with apps, my cloud storage overflows. Surely your updates and new features will follow me all the days of my life and you will dwell in the palm of my hand forever.
00:17:37
Speaker
Wow, isn't that great? That's so subversive, Phil. Now, I spent on Saturday, a couple of days ago, about nine hours on Zoom on this international conference, which was amazing, I have to say. But how can we use tech, particularly now, when everyone's talking about it, you know, we're in our homes, many are self-isolating. How we use it in such a way that it doesn't become the be all and the end all, and we're not minimising God to the palm of our hands, as you mentioned there. Yeah, I think possibly the rules go out the window.
00:18:07
Speaker
I don't know about you but my screen reports from Apple have gone through the roof in the last week. I think there's a difference between satisfying our craving for connection with people and relationship and becoming addicted to our own spirit of comparison and getting our sense of identity from it.
00:18:26
Speaker
So I think there's nothing to say that there's nothing wrong with just wanting to be connected with people and having lots of Zoom calls with family, you know, all that kind of stuff. I think that's OK. I think where where we get into trouble is when we when social media becomes more important than the real life connection. As I said, the all bets are off during coronavirus because it's better to have a virtual.
00:18:50
Speaker
Um, but I think, so for me, I think I've basically put in my life a few rules. Uh, so we, you know, as a family, the phone is not, no phones were allowed out at the dinner table, including my seven year old's fireman sand plastic one. Um, we, for us as, as, as a, as a couple, we are mobile phones charged downstairs. Um, because we don't, we don't have any kind of phones in the bedroom. Um, we just have a few kind of rules really, where, where, um, we try and kind of adhere to as a family. And for me, I need those boundaries to give me a healthy relationship with tech.
00:19:21
Speaker
Hm.
00:19:22
Speaker
I think those kind of boundaries are helpful. But also, I love the point that you made there about given where we are as we're recording this during coronavirus. I think that question is how I guess we use technology of these things to bring us together. I heard somebody say the other day, I forget who first came up with this. I can't take credit for it. But I've been sharing this phrase with lots of folks, actually. And that is an evangelistic opener, actually, with non-Christian friends and neighbors to say that, look, rather than talk about social isolation in these days, why don't we talk about physical isolation, physical separation?
00:19:53
Speaker
because the media is using the social separation phrase, but we don't want, we will be socially connected even while two meters apart. And tech can help, but there are other ways too. And I think evangelistically now, there are lots of opportunities around how as Christians can we actually lean in and be more proactive than we've ever been with neighbors and friends and perhaps family members we haven't talked to in a while, even while recognizing we may have to use tech to do that. But actually, nothing still stops you knocking on the next door neighbor you haven't knocked on.
00:20:21
Speaker
in a year and gone is everything okay you know if you had any problems how can we help and and see what happens yeah that's great
00:20:30
Speaker
Phil, this has been an absolute pleasure. We've covered so many things, we could have gone down so many trails of this conversation, especially with Christie introducing technology on the end, because that's a whole other subject. No curveball there. But for listeners, Phil's book, Story Bearer, How to Share Your Faith with Your Friends, is available now with IVP and just out very recently. So Phil, wish you all the very best with that book. It deserves to do really, really well. Thanks, guys.
00:20:58
Speaker
Do check it out wherever books are sold. And if you're desperate, you can always use Amazon. And I hope it will give listeners lots of resources to think about how they could use their story and how it intersects with Jesus' story to connect with their friends and neighbors' story. Phil, once again, thank you. Thanks. And Christy, we'll be back in two weeks' time with another guest. Yeah, we will. So stay tuned and stay safe and we'll be back soon on another episode of KEPTalk. Thanks for listening.
00:21:29
Speaker
I hope you've enjoyed listening to this episode of Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast. This is a listener supported podcast where you can only make it with the support of our friends across the country and around the world. And if you'd like to be a part of that community, simply visit the website, thepeptalkpodcast.com.
00:21:45
Speaker
and click on the Support the Podcast button. If you sign up to support Solas and the podcast for as little as three pound a month, as a thank you, we will send you a free copy of my book, The Atheist Who Didn't Exist, or if you prefer, Christie's book, More Truth, as a thank you. And through your support, we can keep making more podcasts like this one.