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With Matt Chapman
707 Plays2 years ago
Get ready for some real inspiration from today's guest! After years of keeping his faith quiet, he's found incredible liberty and opportunity to share Jesus within his workplace - a modern and sprawling local council. Many would say it's an environment pushing "inclusion and diversity" policies that sideline Christians, but Matt explains the incredible openings this gives for the real message of the gospel.
Matt Chapman is the Training and Development Group Manger for the fire service at Oxfordshire County Council. He serves on the Diversity and Inclusion Group and runs the Christian Network Group at the council.
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Transcript
Introduction to PepTalk Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to another exciting edition of PepTalk, the persuasive evangelism podcast. I'm Andy Vanister from the Soul Asset Center for Public Christianity, and joined as ever from the other end of the country by Christy Mayer. Christy, how are you doing today? Hey, Andy. I'm doing all right. Thanks. How about yourself?
00:00:26
Speaker
Oh, it's good, it's sweltering here in Dundee. It doesn't really happen that it gets hot. Are you sweltering? Is it hot down there in London? Real feel was 27 degrees yesterday, if you can believe it. It was really good. Well, you see, there's a really dodgy link here because it's sweltering. Sweltering means heat and fire and flames and those things. And we have on the podcast today, we have Matt Chapman, who is a fireman, a fire person.
Matt Chapman's Role and Anecdotes
00:00:51
Speaker
Matt, how are you doing today?
00:00:52
Speaker
Yeah, I'm doing very well, actually. Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, firefighter, I suppose, is the sort of terminology at the moment, but head of training development, actually. So I can't take credit for actually going out and putting any fires out at the moment. Well, I said that word, because, of course, we got young kids and my son is really into fireman Sam. And of course, we have that language ingrained. And of course, it's firefighters.
00:01:16
Speaker
oh yeah my children are utterly disappointed with me these days because their friends actually said oh your dad's a firefighter and they said no he's the head of training and development and it was a little bit of heartbreak where i thought oh 20 years in the job and i this is what i've achieved is disappointing my my sons and they they don't tend to make exciting children's cartoons around people who are working in the office i always think exactly yeah yeah yeah there's not much excitement goes
Challenges and Changes in Inclusivity
00:01:41
Speaker
on
00:01:41
Speaker
But Matt, as a Christian fire service, let's dive kind of straight in. What is that like? Is it a tough place to be a Christian? Is it an easy place? How have you found being a Christian in that environment? I would say it's 20 years ago when I started. Yeah, it was absolutely. It was a very tough environment. It's obviously very male dominated back in those days. It was very kind of a masculine role traditionally. And it was a tough place to stick with Christian values.
00:02:08
Speaker
freely put my hands up and say I failed massively over most of my career in representing Jesus the way I should. However there's been an enormous sea change in terms of the way the fire services are now run, the way they're operated, what the level of acceptability is and actually they're so forward-thinking in terms of encouraging Christians in the workplace, Muslims in the workplace, emphasising staff networks from a range of different backgrounds and protected characteristics that actually
00:02:38
Speaker
It's a really exciting place to work as a Christian, and it's quite a free place to represent Jesus, I'd say. That's really cool. Matt, before we ask you a little bit more about what you're doing, just what you said there,
Christian Values in the Workplace
00:02:49
Speaker
I'm just really interested. Why do you think that the Bioservice has suddenly recognised the need to support Christians, Muslims, people of faith in their work?
00:02:56
Speaker
Well, actually, I was talking to one of our senior team the other day and we work underneath the county council and the county council has got five core values. And I said to them, look, actually, by encouraging Christians in the workplace, you're onto a winner, because if we're wrong about the fact that there's a God,
00:03:13
Speaker
Well, then in that case, we are all a little bit crazy. We're a little bit misguided. But by the fact that our book, our Bible tells us that this is the way we should behave, you've got a workforce of these people that by their nature will follow and adhere to these values. So if we're wrong, even if you encourage Christians in the workplace, you've got a group of people that would adhere to your values.
00:03:35
Speaker
And if we're right, well, man, we're going to bring the God of the universe into your organization to bless it. It's a no-brainer, really. And so actually, I think that people are cottoning on to the fact that being a Christian in the workplace doesn't mean you're dragging a Bible with you and bringing a cross in and hammering everybody around you that they need to believe the same. I think it's actually starting to show that
00:03:57
Speaker
Christians are people who are humble enough to accept they need development and help and support, but are also willing to say, actually, I think there's right and wrong and I want to act and live in a certain way. And I think that's quite a positive thing to have in the workforce.
00:04:11
Speaker
That's
Diversity and Engaging with Communities
00:04:12
Speaker
fascinating. I'm also the other thing as well actually that that intrigued me and maybe this is a way into some of the sort of sort of deeper discussion on what it is you know you found works and is effective. You mentioned like that range of diversity there there's you know other faith groups out there you've got the various protected characteristics you've got all of our you know our friends and those different communities like the LGBT groups and all the others
00:04:32
Speaker
I know Christians can sometimes get afraid of the whole diversity thing and go, oh gosh, we're going to get shot down because we have exclusive beliefs or all this other stuff. You see that as positive, that it gives you a great canvas. Talk us through that a little bit.
Christianity and LGBTQ+ Perspectives
00:04:49
Speaker
Yeah we started this group with three of us last January and our senior management team have been so supportive about setting up this group but one of the things they said is look why don't you go to the LGBT group to see how they've done it and see what you can learn from them.
00:05:04
Speaker
So I went along to the Rainbow Cafe meeting and initially it was a relatively frosty encounter for about five or six minutes until one of our transgender firefighters said, Matt, can I ask a question? I said, yeah, go for it. And she said, well, how are you going to practice all this lovey-dovey stuff if you think people like me are an abomination? Talk about a hard start to the thing. And I sort of paused and all I can say is,
00:05:31
Speaker
I then just went on to hopefully explain that there's quite a misnomer about this. And I think this is maybe where Christians have kind of got the wrong end of the stick. I used the example of Jesus when they dragged the adulterous woman before him. And I said, look, actually, this is a story of somebody who, you know, was not adhering to the rules of the time and the laws of the time, was brought before Jesus expecting judgment.
00:05:54
Speaker
and expecting rejection and instead actually Jesus was quite open to saying look actually he who is without sin cast the first stone so that's the first part of it is that actually I believe that anybody can come to Jesus I think the whole message of Christianity is that he is open and willing and able to love and forgive anybody who comes to him and I said look let me let me sort of highlight some of the sins that you've committed have you loved the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your strength and
00:06:24
Speaker
She sort of looked at me on this meeting and said, no. I said, well, in that case, we don't need to go any further. We don't need to go further down the list of any more sins. Actually, you in the Christian eyes are a sinner. But actually, Jesus isn't going to turn you away from that. He's going to say, actually, you can come to me or who are weary and my burden is light. The second part of it, though, is that Jesus then said, now go and sin no more.
00:06:47
Speaker
And actually, having met Jesus, there may be a way that he asks you to live. There may be things he asks you to do. There may be a lifestyle change that he asks you to make. And you may decide that Jesus is not for you. But that is nothing to do with me. That is entirely between you and Jesus.
00:07:06
Speaker
And so from my point of view, all I want to do in the workplace is say, come and meet Jesus. Come and meet Jesus. And if you meet him and you decide he's not for you, well then I'll still love you and I'll still work with you and I'll still support you. And if you decide he is for you, well then I'll love you and support you and work with you as well. But really that's between you and Jesus. For me as a Christian, I just want to point you to Christ.
00:07:30
Speaker
And having kind of said this, I got a little round of applause and they sort of said, I've never heard of it like that before. And I didn't realize that actually we as lesbians could, you know, whether Jesus would be interested in us.
00:07:43
Speaker
He said he's joking, of course he's interested in you, he loves you, he died for you. He died for all of us, actually. It's not that Jesus will ever reject you, it's that you may choose, you don't want him. And that's a completely different spin on it. And over the past year, that has worked so effectively in actually showing those two aspects of the faith. One, come and meet Jesus. I think he's got something for you and I think he's got something for the world. And two, it's up to you what you then choose to do with it, not down to me.
Collaborations for Inclusivity
00:08:13
Speaker
And so that kind of takes some of the burden of evangelism off me, and some people may disagree with me about that, but in terms of the workplace, it certainly made it a more level playing field to actually say, for all who sinned them, fall short of the glory of God. And actually all of us need a Saviour, and I think you only find Him in Jesus.
00:08:33
Speaker
So yeah, it's been a fantastic sort of journey, culminating last week in us actually doing a joint network event with the LGBT group, the Reach group, the Dawn group, Unison, the Neurodiversity group in the county hall in Oxfordshire. And actually working alongside colleagues who have vastly different backgrounds and experiences and saying, actually, we love you all and we think Jesus has a place for all of you.
00:08:56
Speaker
Well, that's amazing that. I mean, it sounds like you're, you're missional and you also kind of support Christians in the workplace. What are the kind of values or kind of the raison d'etre? What is the raison d'etre for?
Christian Support Group Charter
00:09:12
Speaker
Obviously we formalised our group a while ago and we created a charter and our charter has three aspects to it. The first key aspect is we want to support Christians in the workplace. And we've grown from probably three members in January to 52 people now in the books from across the county council, not just the fire and rescue service.
00:09:29
Speaker
And one of our key aims is actually just to support people, just to encourage people to let them know they're not alone, to encourage them by meeting twice a month and having times of prayer and worship to kind of
00:09:42
Speaker
rejuvenate and motivate people in the workplace and actually that's culminated in us connecting with the wider church network across Oxfordshire so that if we've got members of the network group that have issues they can simply fire an email to our email address and we will then within 10-15 minutes connect them with a church that's nearby to them and an individual who can help them and tie them up with their problem.
00:10:06
Speaker
So we've had members who have said actually works okay but I've got an issue with my child or my son or my daughter or I've actually moved into a new area and I don't know anybody and very quickly through our church network contacts we can just connect up to someone local who will then speak to them.
00:10:22
Speaker
And that's a key part of it, is we want to encourage and support Christians in the workplace. The second bit, though, is actually we just want to give people an opportunity, regardless of whether you're a Christian or whoever you are, to discuss matters of what we call spiritual wellbeing. And that's the key part of it, really, is that we don't want this to be a private little club for Christians. Actually, what we want is for anybody to come along and talk about matters of spiritual wellbeing.
Spiritual Wellbeing Initiatives
00:10:48
Speaker
This started early on last year with it was the International Day of Prayer for the emergency services and our chief actually gave me a five-minute slot in his streamed live event to the county where we said actually look we would like to just offer prayer to anybody and after that I thought I should probably take the plunge here and directly email some people to see if they want prayer and so we emailed about 120 managers from across to the fire and rescue service and just said look this is the strangest email you'll ever receive
00:11:17
Speaker
how can we pray for you? For an hour on this day, during our lunch break, we will be praying, what can we pray for you for? And I'll be honest, my finger hovered over the send button, because I thought, oh man, we're about to commit career suicide here by kind of doing this. And actually I thought, oh no, what's the worst that can happen here? I'm not doing anything bad. I'm just offering to pray. The worst is people will think that I'm a bit mental, but I'm okay with that. And so I sent it out, and within minutes, the replies started coming in,
00:11:46
Speaker
And we had some that were kind of like, can you pray that we win the lottery? And there were some, you know, can you just pray for COVID and the general situation? But we also had some that were clearly people reaching out for help. You know, I've attended an incident and I can't stop dreaming about this thing. I'm having a really hard time at home financially. I have a parent or an in-law who's really sick, please help.
00:12:12
Speaker
And so we prayed, we had about 30 responses in the end. And so we just met and we just prayed and we just trusted that God would come through. And from that we've done more
Donuts and Disagreements
00:12:21
Speaker
events. We've done prayer for Ukraine where we've had people who aren't even Christians just coming along and getting involved. And finally we decided we need to do more. And so the way to a firefighter's heart is through their stomach.
00:12:32
Speaker
And so we realised actually what we can do is we set up something called donuts and disagreements. And this was the simplest thing we could possibly think of. What it is, is I arranged to go out to speak to a watch of firefighters and I take with them a big tray of donuts and some really good quality coffee. And I turn up and I say, right, I've got you for an hour, but I'm only going to talk for two minutes.
00:12:57
Speaker
And so I sit down with these firefighters and I say, OK, for two minutes, I'm just going to tell you what we as Christians believe. And we sum it up with these five colors to make it as simple as possible. We say, OK, we only really believe, you know, once you get under denominations and viewpoints and stuff, actually, Christians generally just believe five things. Green, we believe God made the world. Black, we believe that through free will, sin separated us from God.
00:13:21
Speaker
Red, we believe Christ had to die so that our sins could be forgiven. White, we believe that anybody can come to Jesus for a new start. And gold, we believe when you die, that new start continues forever. So for two minutes, I'll just talk to them about this very simple idea and I'll tell them a little bit of my personal testimony. And once the two minute mark goes up, I say, right, you got 58 minutes, disagree with me, go for it.
00:13:49
Speaker
And I have never ever had tumbleweeds. I've never had a pause. I've never had a moment at which we've not had anything to talk about. The first time I did it, the second I finished, one of the crew turned to me and said, we've just pulled the girl out of the river who's died. Where's your loving God?
00:14:09
Speaker
And I said, that's a brilliant question. And we've gone to these wonderful discussions about why do bad things happen. And then somebody has chipped in and said, actually, I've had a really bad experience about Christians growing up. And I use the example of Millwall Football Club. And we get into a huge discussion about that. And then people will start bringing out their ideas about heaven and life and death. And I attended this incident and this person died. And where do they go?
00:14:32
Speaker
And what generally happens over the 12 times, 13 times that I've done it is it gets to the end of an hour and I have to say, guys, I've got to go. But let's continue this. And if you want to know more, here's a couple of Bibles. And you can only do one of two things with these Bibles. If they're rubbish, if they're wrong, then you need to chuck them in the bin because they're trash. If there's a chance, even a tiny little chance that they could be true, then you need to read it and you need to see what you think about it.
00:15:03
Speaker
And these have been so well received by the organisation because actually none of this is about conversion. None of this is about me turning up and saying you need to believe what I believe. It's conversations. It's me turning up and saying actually I really care about what you believe and why.
00:15:18
Speaker
And the value of this is so integral with even the simple concept of network groups and inclusion. Actually being able to sit with somebody and for an hour absolutely disagree with their fundamental viewpoint of the world and then still say, I love you and I respect you.
00:15:39
Speaker
then what a wonderful witness that is. What a wonderful witness is a Christian to the organization to say, actually, you don't need to believe in me. I'm not going to take a photo of you in front of a cross. I'm not going to put you on social media. I'm not here to get anything out of you. I'm just here to talk about things that matter.
00:15:55
Speaker
And these have been really, really good. And then the last thing I guess we do is we just try and show love. And so we've tried to show love to the organization through, we've thrown cakes at everybody, not literally, we've just taken them out to departments, we've done mince pies at Christmas, we've done an Easter egg hunt, we've just generally tried to show that Christians are not there to take.
Personal Trials and Faith
00:16:20
Speaker
Yeah, we don't ask anything from anyone. We're not asking people to sign up to anything. We just want to say thank you and be a positive force for good in the workplace. And that buys you the credibility then to be able to say that actually there's something about Jesus that you might want to read it to.
00:16:38
Speaker
We're running rapidly out of time, but one question, there's so many questions, one question I'd love to ask you is obviously you come across, you're super confident, you're loud, you're kind of bold, you know what you believe. I think a lot of Christians would find what you're doing quite nerve-wracking. How did you get there? Did you literally the day you walked into the fire service, you're like, right, off we go, or is it in a learning curve for you? How do you learn to do what you do? Because I'm sure others can learn to do it, and I'd love to sort of...
00:17:07
Speaker
reflect a bit. So how do you get to where you are? OK, you're going to have to bear with me because this is going to cover brain surgery in Spider-Man. Oh, fantastic. Two topics we always love to have on the show. So the kind of more sobering element might.
00:17:22
Speaker
I don't have anything. I don't have any special skills. The only thing I have is that I'm kicking myself for 18 years. I didn't do this earlier. And actually my personal situation sucks. I have a wife that is in constant facial pain and she's had brain surgery last year and it hasn't worked. And so actually I have quite a challenging home situation. Things are not going well at home. I don't have a natural sense of optimism or buoyancy in me. The only thing I have is Christ.
00:17:51
Speaker
And actually, being able to come into the workplace and say, I don't have all this covered, I don't have all these answers, I don't have the solution and a happy clappy life.
Spider-Man Analogy and Faith at Work
00:18:01
Speaker
I was talking to some guys on Monday about this and saying, look, the most I have is that I have an answer to that original question, is there a God, yes or no? And I think the answer is yes. And if you say yes to that, there's a series of questions that come off that are yes or no that I don't have all the answers to.
00:18:20
Speaker
I don't understand why my wife's not been healed. I don't get why these bad things are happening. Where Spider-Man comes into this is an example that I used recently, which is in one of the...
00:18:31
Speaker
Pretty rubbish Spider-Man movies. There's an example of a small child that at the start of the movie, Spider-Man kind of rescues him from these bullies. And right at the end, you know, there's this big bad guy and this little kid steps out in front of everybody. And he just steps out in front of this enormous great big machine bad guy robot thing. And he stands there in complete defiance and opposition of this thing.
00:18:57
Speaker
And the best bit in the movie is when the bad guy looks up and takes a step back. And the reason he does that is because actually stood directly behind this kid is the real Spider-Man. He's turned up, he's arrived, he's there. And the fact is the kid knew he was gonna be there. He knew he was gonna come back. He even says, I knew you'd come back. And as a Christian,
00:19:25
Speaker
The most I can be is that little kid. Yeah, I can't be Spider-Man. I've got nothing. I've got no special gifts. I've got no special abilities. I'm not trained. I'm not being to theological college. I read my Bible and half of it I don't even really understand if I'm honest.
00:19:41
Speaker
But I know that if I step out in the workplace, He's got my back. I know that He's going to be right behind me in every meeting I go to, in every conversation I have, in any project I'm involved with. If I ask Jesus to come into the workplace with me, He's never going to turn around and go, nope, I'm only with you once you clock off at 5.30.
00:20:05
Speaker
And so actually, I don't think you can learn anything other than ask Jesus to come into the workplace and trust that he'll always be behind you.
00:20:16
Speaker
Matt, this is so encouraging. Thank you so, so much. You've really warmed my heart, and I'm sure many of those who are listening right now, we've really appreciated your time, and I've really enjoyed chatting with you. Thank you. I'm sorry that that is the end of our interview with you, and we'll be wrapping up now, so thank you ever so much for joining us, Matt. It's been a real pleasure. Yeah, likewise. Thank you very much.
00:20:37
Speaker
And to all of you listeners, we look forward to joining you in a couple of weeks time with another person sharing about their experiences of life and faith in the world. We'll take care and we'll see you soon. Bye.