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With Andy Frost
225 Plays16 days ago
At Solas, we love learning about (and working with!) others who share our passion for equipping Christians for evangelism. Today Steve and Gavin discover how Share Jesus International is working with churches to help unlock their outreach potential, through resources like their Prompt Cards and Sharing Jesus course.
Andy Frost has been the Director of Share Jesus International since 2008 leading scores of projects ranging from London’s Pentecost Festival to national tours. He presently heads up the London Mission Collective; works with Care for the Family on the Kitchen Table Project and Gather on church unity and mission. Over the years he has worked with a variety of organisations including More than Gold, Big Book Media and C3 Global. He is a Methodist Local Preacher: has an MA in Applied Theology and has authored a number of books and presented the Jesus Series. He is married to Jo and has two daughters.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast from Solus. I'm Gavin Matthews from Solus and I'm joined as ever by my co-host Steve Osmond. Steve, how are you doing?
00:00:20
Speaker
I'm doing very well, thank you. it does It does feel like someone's opened the fridge again here in Scotland today. You know, the sun came out for about two days and then it was all a trick. So here we are, freezing cold.
00:00:31
Speaker
You put your voice back. Last time I spoke to you, you'd just come back from the campus mission at Glasgow and your voice was shredded. You sounded a bit of a lot. Yes, it has recovered. It has recovered. You know, I'm able to sing again on Sunday morning, which is great. So yes, it's back. Wonderful.
Guest Introduction: Andy Frost
00:00:48
Speaker
Pep Talk is always about the guests that we have on and the way that they are sharing the Christian faith in our culture and our society today. And meeting new guests is always the the highlight of these programs. And I'm really delighted to introduce this fortnight, Andy Frost. Andy, how are you doing?
00:01:02
Speaker
Hi there, guys. s Great to be with you. Thank you for having me on the show. Great. Where are you dialing into us today from around the country? In South London, so at London borough of Merton, ah kind of Wimbledon area, yeah so I should be good at tennis, but I'm not. But yeah, that kind of region of the country.
Discovering Andy's Work
00:01:17
Speaker
Now, somebody sent me your ah link to your website a few months ago, said, have you seen this? And I hadn't. And when I clicked on it, that the Share Jesus International website, thought, wow, this is amazing. We need to get this guy on pep talk because the stuff you're doing was really encouraging and really exciting. But For people like me a few months ago who had never come across Share Jesus International, who are you, what do you do, and what's your role within the organization?
00:01:42
Speaker
I'm director of a charity called Share of Jesus and basically try and communicate the gospel message relevantly and faithfully. And recently had bit of a change in how we do things. Historically, we've done lots of kind of one-off training days around the country in different places.
00:01:54
Speaker
But the last couple of years, been working much more intentionally with churches over a two-year period help them really explore and contextualize what gospel sharing looks like in their community. So it's been bit of a shift for us recently.
00:02:06
Speaker
worked with nine churches so far. We've taken another five churches in the last few weeks. so and to go on this two-year journey. been really encouraging, actually, we work alongside a church over a couple of years, just to really see how we can shift the kind of culture around the church.
Discussion: Aligning Missions
00:02:20
Speaker
Great, great. Yeah, so, I mean, Gavin passed on your ah the website to me as well just recently in the last few days um in and leading up to this podcast, and I spent a good long while just clicking through things. I was like, this this is brilliant. This is just so in line with them what we at Solus are all about as well, just, you know, really trying to equip people, you know,
00:02:39
Speaker
And I think one of the things that that we've seen is a lot of, maybe and looking around at the culture, looking at the state of the world, looking at the state of the church in many instances, and people finding themselves in this place where it seems the church in many ways has lost its heart for mission.
00:02:57
Speaker
um it's It's gone cold in some ways. And so the question kind of comes about, you know, how how can we reignite that? Can that be reignited? um And I think that's very much in line with what you guys
Emmaus Road Project Overview
00:03:07
Speaker
do.
00:03:07
Speaker
ah One of the projects that I came across is the Emmaus Road project. um that That seems to be sort of in line with that. Could you um sort of explore that a bit and tell us more about that? Yeah, that's this is this is kind of two-year journey we're doing with churches. We often to find that we work in churches that are either ah kind of stagnant or kind of slowly growing or in decline. So if you're already booming, then it's not for you.
00:03:28
Speaker
But it's really to come alongside those that kind of got a bit stuck. and I think over the last 20 years, the church has taken a very few knocks in different places. and I think 20 years ago, the new atheist thing was a massive thing that knocked a lot of confidence.
00:03:39
Speaker
And i think even recently, kind of and there's been other challenges in the church and the headlines and things. So lot of it's about giving the Christians confidence to work out, actually, how do I share my faith? What is the right thing to be doing and saying? And so launched our church down in Yeovil on and the weekend. And then I spoke very briefly about the idea of breathing in and breathing out. I love the idea that in Luke 4, 5, and 6. Jesus does some incredible, miraculous, and beautiful things, but he also spends time alone with the Father. And this simple idea of breathing in being alone with the Father, remembering who we are and whose we are, and breathing out, looking for opportunities in the everyday.
00:04:14
Speaker
I think a lot Christians feel a lot of pressure that it's all about them, but really, actually, we can't convert anybody. Only God can transform and change someone's life. But our job just to really share at the right moment what we've personally discovered about God and what it means for our own lives. And as we drop these things into conversation, we just see where they go. But lot it has been about how we encourage Christians to become more intentional in the everyday to look for those opportunities.
00:04:39
Speaker
So the Emmaus Road Project is a two-year project with churches and you've got nine. but How far through the journey of two years are you with those nine and how are things looking? So the first nine almost finished now. So, I mean, the first three we took on, I mean, across the nine churches over the last year, there were 65 baptisms, which is really encouraging.
00:04:56
Speaker
and people who are coming to faith. And a lot of it, the church already doing some incredible things already. It's just helping to join things up a little bit more. So we often talk about two things. First of all, is how do we do kind of cultural change?
00:05:07
Speaker
So how do we encourage every Christian to work out how they can become more ah kind of intentional and faithful in sharing their
Church Scaffolding and Faith Sharing
00:05:14
Speaker
faith? And the second thing, that we call it scaffolding. when you have some work done in your home, you might have scaffolding put up. It's very expensive normally, and they fix different parts your home and they rearrange it accordingly. Well, the scaffolding is the things that we do as church. It could be a social action project. It could be an event we run, parent and a permanent toddler group.
00:05:31
Speaker
And think through how do we create pathways or journeys for those who want to explore the Christian faith. There's a very kind of clear way forward so they can do that going forward for themselves. I remember reading a book years ago called called outgrowing the ingrown church. It's the story of and an American pastor called Jack Miller who had a church which had kind of like an ingrown toenail gone the wrong way and how God turned it and around and and made it an outward-focused growing church have you seen that sort of thing happening yeah we have i mean of course all different churches so far the ones we start with now again i think even just by talking about evangelism talking about faith sharing it just kind of raises the profile that simple thing we often do a survey with the church before during and afterwards just kind of trap the change people's opinions and understandings of faith sharing and again just bring that initial questionnaire it sparks them thinking oh yeah i should be doing more with this and yeah what could i do differently one of the game changes has been a real simple thing called prompt and
00:06:25
Speaker
I like the idea of of habits and that culture is shaped by our habits. And our habit is three things. It's the cue, the action, and reward. So when wake up the morning, the cue is wake up. The action is I put on the kettle and I have a coffee.
00:06:38
Speaker
The reward is I feel awake. have a very simple thing of cue, action, reward. When it comes to faith sharing, I'm not always sure we know when is the cue, What is the action? What we actually say? And what is the reward? What is success? and So very simply, with the single prompt, it's basically a question each week. On a Sunday morning, you take out these cards you've created, and there's 52 different cards there, one for each week of the year.
00:06:59
Speaker
And somebody from the congregation chooses one of those cards. It's got a challenge for the church to do. And so during the week, everyone in the congregation has a go at doing that thing. Then the following Sunday, you share how it's gone.
00:07:10
Speaker
So the cue is these cards. The actions during the week, what might I do to begin to respond to this card in some way? And the reward is sharing, not necessarily someone coming to faith straight away, but what have you done to become more obedient in looking out for that Holy Spirit prompt to see how you might share something of the gospel?
00:07:27
Speaker
That's fantastic. And um ah yeah so you mentioned you do these questionnaires. And so Solis, you know, we do the same kind of not not the questionnaires, but training and trying to get people more um equipped for evangelism, growing their confidence. um But from those questionnaires, assuming that that you know this info is in there,
00:07:49
Speaker
ah What are some of the big hurdles or the big obstacles or or the
Research on Faith Sharing Methods
00:07:53
Speaker
fears? What are the things holding people back from sharing their faith more readily? um And what, through your time spent with churches, equipping them, are some of the the most successful ways to help people overcome ah those fears and anxieties?
00:08:09
Speaker
I mean, every church is unique and different, really, and depends on kind of whether is a congregation. So some it's been about actually how to put my faith into words. So one of the things we've done recently is a big piece of research looking at practicing Christians and how they share their faith.
00:08:25
Speaker
ands piece of research And a called Faith Sharing Profiles. What we've done is we've we've kind of dug into some of the undergirding kind of challenge people have around all. Is it about someone saying yes to Jesus or it is about a journey they could gradually go on?
00:08:39
Speaker
The second one, is it my personal role or what we do as a corporate body? So is what i do by myself is it do when I'm with the church congregation? The third is do we start with the message or do we start with the person? So do I work out the message? How quickly can I get the message over to the other person?
00:08:54
Speaker
Or am I trying to work out what is happening in this person's life and how I might begin to relate the gospel to them? And the fourth thing is, is it in words or is in action? And we all say it's all four of all for these kind tensions, both ends. But actually, we tend to have a leaning either way as Christians. So do a little quiz online.
00:09:10
Speaker
and you find out what help will normally approach faith sharing. And from there, we can first of all say, you haven't got to be somebody else. God has created you who you are. Don't try and be Billy Graham, or don't try and be like somebody else, but be who God has called you to be.
00:09:24
Speaker
But when you work at it, how will generally approach faith sharing? There's something always there to celebrate. there's also something there to kind of challenge them on, think about how they might do things differently going forward. So within this kind of piece of research, really helpful, would help people understand what perhaps is their general way of approaching faith sharing and how can it become slightly more intentional going forward. So that helps to eliminate some of those fears and to give us an understanding of what it might mean for them personally to share their faith.
00:09:50
Speaker
And so if somebody listening to this says, oh, i need to do that, where can they find that faith-sharing questionnaire and how can they fill it out? And what's the most useful way to sort of use the results that come back from that?
00:10:01
Speaker
So on on the website, if you go to the faith-sharing profiles on sharejesusinternational.com, you can do the quiz yourself and see how it goes, and then you'll get your profile back. we can also download the other five profiles. It actually comes up six different profiles, really.
00:10:14
Speaker
It'll look at how you're doing it, and it'll give you something to really celebrate, something to challenge you, perhaps, going forwards. and Then we've done it as a church. We, again, see as a church, you begin see different shapes of different churches. It's that certain churches have – more of one type of personality than another or vice versa. So again, having an understanding actually who's in your congregation is really helpful. Do you think through what is the best way to equip our church in being faithful and sharing their faith?
00:10:40
Speaker
ah In terms of sort leaning into your strengths rather than beating yourself up about who you're not. Exactly. So the one church, they they did loads of great stuff and events every year, and they're really into their events. And they found it very hard getting people from the church to invite their friends to these events.
00:10:56
Speaker
And we discovered we did this kind of profile test is that the the the mission team who organized all the events, all of them were team players. So all about the corporate activities, how they saw faith sharing. The rest of the church wasn't like them.
00:11:08
Speaker
And so that's why there was a kind of disconnect because those who really liked doing events and towards being a team exercise were different to the rest of the congregations. Being able to unpack those nuances that begins to give people permission to work out actually how do we best support those who don't share their faith in this way with the right tools to go and do that.
00:11:25
Speaker
um That's very, very interesting. Yeah, that makes me just think of um what you see through the the book of Acts and the way that, you know, so Peter, when he engages, i think it's an act too, engaging the Jews, um the Jewish audience anyway, he he approaches them in a very specific way. And then later you get to Acts 17, where Paul is there in the Areopagus, speaking to and the Greeks.
00:11:48
Speaker
um And again, a very different approach. And then even later on when I think it's Paul before the king and he's in that legal setting. and he's He's contextualizing the message. He's understanding his audience. He's listened to what's going on around him.
00:12:03
Speaker
um and it makes you just think of something you mentioned a moment ago where it's not, you know, here's this message I have to quickly just try and leap into here it is this, you know, cookie cutter, one size fits all.
00:12:15
Speaker
Um, what, what is the, i mean, have you, have you seen, or in what ways do you think we can better be doing that? Just understanding the culture around us better so we can connect with people, find, you know, touch points, points of contact to share the gospel.
00:12:29
Speaker
I think a lot of is just about asking better questions. I think generally and we don't just come at it with actually what are we going to share. But how do we, first of all, really pray for the person? Second of all, how do we really love the person? And then third of all, how do we ask better questions that are really interesting about them as a person, what's going on in their lives?
00:12:45
Speaker
and So just sort of, you know, met the guy the bar the week and just um asked him what are hopes and dreams for his life? suddenly unpacks a whole bunch of things about his upbringing, about his aspirations. And but you begin to work at how, well how does the gospel connect to him in this moment? And it's great to pray with him after that conversation. So it's looking for those things that ah take us deeper. and So people of other faiths, I love to ask them you know, how do you pray and what happens when you pray?
00:13:10
Speaker
And normally it gets the response back, well, how do you pray and what happens when you pray? So begin to have then a conversation about prayer. So i think a lot of it is about working out how do we begin to go beyond the superficial stuff, beyond and how bad our weather is and how bad Man United are doing, and thinking more about actually the kind of deeper things of life. So and i think a lot of is about being bolder in our questions and just seeing what God might bring to the surface.
00:13:32
Speaker
And you mentioned prayer. I saw on your website there's a whole tower, a whole sort of ministry of prayer, which you call Pray for Five.
Pray for Five Initiative
00:13:39
Speaker
what's What's Pray for Five and what's the role of prayer and evangelism and sharing our faith? Why is that so important? And ah and how do you try and develop that side of work? Because obviously skills and questions and talking is one side of it, but you mentioned at the start of this podcast that conversion isn't of other people isn't down to us, it's the work of the Holy Spirit. So talk to us about Pray for Five and what that is about.
00:14:00
Speaker
Yes, really. It's kind of seven different touch points that we think about with the church, seven different areas to explore, and one of them is about prayer. So are we regularly praying for people to come to faith? I find that in many churches, we're really good at praying for big things. We're good at praying for government or politics or world issues or or somebody in the church is struggling with a health thing. really good at praying for that kind of stuff. But how often are we praying by name?
00:14:21
Speaker
people to experience God. And I think, so the I pray for five is a very simple thing. It's having five people to pray for regularly. People are doing all over the place, very common. But i've also discovered that many Christians don't we know how to pray for five.
00:14:33
Speaker
What does it mean to really pray for for somebody? Am I praying they become just like me? Am I praying they believe everything just as I believe everything? don't think we are. think praying that ultimately they have an experience of who God is, an experience of what Jesus has done for them. And so for me, it gives you a few different ideas what you might do practically around that to really you help them to work out how can I pray regularly and make it a habit of praying.
00:14:54
Speaker
and So again, the idea i shared earlier one about breathing in and breathing out, as we're breathing in, and spending time with the Father, actually, how are we also praying for our friends, our neighbors, our connections? And how do we make this part our church culture by even on a Sunday morning or at house groups, we are bringing these up again to kind of pray for each other as we're praying and just to encourage each other on that journey as well.
00:15:15
Speaker
you You mentioned a moment ago, um the the engaging with culture. And, you know, so were we're creating a culture of evangelism, but that's meeting sort of the culture of the world around us.
00:15:27
Speaker
And, you know, a few years ago, maybe 10, 15 years ago, there was, you know, the rise of a lot of that that's very strident atheism, very antagonistic. and And it just seemed like people were just, there there was no way way through. People were not interested um But it seems that there is some kind of ah cultural shift um that we're hearing about and seeing in many places, a kind of new openness to the gospel. you know, people just kind of walking into church and and they get there like no one's told them about anything. They just felt this compulsion to to come to church. So it's the spiritual openness.
00:16:03
Speaker
Do you think that there's, I mean, are you seeing that or is it over-exaggerated? Could you maybe give us a few thoughts around
Cultural Shift in Spiritual Openness
00:16:10
Speaker
that? Yes, i was with the church again last week and they've had people turn up at church just randomly. and So that's definitely happening more and more so.
00:16:19
Speaker
And there's piece research done by the Evangelical Alliance which comes out in June, which has found two of the major things are, first of all, it's people having spiritual experiences. and just wanted to understand what's going on.
00:16:30
Speaker
was even chatting to lady other week and her husband died recently. She talked about how she felt his presence go through her at the grave. I mean, really interesting kind of conversation on the back of that. What does that mean? And what's, what's that?
00:16:40
Speaker
How do we unpack that? But it's definitely spiritual experiences. and second of all, it's people reading scripture. and So we're just actually launched a based in London, we just launched a new Mark's Gospel with Hope. I said new Mark's Gospel, we haven't rewritten it, but just kind of re-designed it with some pictures of London and things to really help engage.
00:16:56
Speaker
And we're finally just having a stand on the street saying free Bible. People are actually pick them up and read them and engaging. So it's an exciting thing happening there. So there's definitely something happening. I think the challenge is how do we then as a church community really welcome people in and how to unpack these spiritual experiences or unpack what the word of God means for them.
00:17:15
Speaker
and And I think we've often haven't worked out what does that discipleship journey look for them going forward? How do we really come alongside them to nurture them in that journey as they discover more of who they are and who God is? Wonderful. And you've been involved in leading this ministry. Is it is it since 2008? Is that when you... like Yeah, yeah. So a good few years now. Yeah, yeah. That's a long shift. that That's not a kind of ah ah try it for a couple of years and back out. That's that's serious. You've seen a lot of cultural change, a lot of shifts, the new atheism rise and falling, but you're still going.
00:17:44
Speaker
That's what keeps you going in evangelism because it's not always easy. It's hard to do it. It's hard to fund it. It's hard to keep pressing on. There's some discouragements, there's spiritual warfare. What has kept you going and the long haul in this mission. Why haven't you dropped the ball?
00:18:01
Speaker
I think, so during COVID times, ran something called Pray London. We prayed across the capital for all kinds of things. We prayed for, and yeah, doctors and nurses, for the police force, for all kinds of social needs.
00:18:14
Speaker
And if you end up praying for things, you you end up, well, at the heart of all, you've got pray for people to come to know Jesus. And to be honest, want to see our nation transformed and changed. We do all kinds of nice things and great cultural shifts. We can do all kinds of things politically and and and other ways as well. But,
00:18:29
Speaker
actually people's hearts aren't being shifted and changed. We're never going to see this nation changed. And so for me, that's the core kind business. And so ultimately, as I discovered for myself, refresh each day what the gospel means to me is how do I share this good news message and then allow others to have their lives turned upside down and because of that, then shape the world around us.
00:18:46
Speaker
Very good. Very good. So there's so much you guys do. um I really encourage people to go check out the website. But um what are, maybe if you could just share one one of the things that you're involved with at the moment um that is, you find most inspiring um to you and to to the team you work with?
Upcoming Inclusive Mission Week
00:19:08
Speaker
i think one of things I'm enjoying now we're in London, we're doing something called a mission week in June, July time and this this year across London. and It's about 140 churches so far, so not to be involved.
00:19:19
Speaker
And what's really exciting about it all is that it's been born out of and these regional kind of meals. We've brought together different cultures in London. So and my friend Gorma Bishaw from the London Project has brought together leaders from and Southeast Asia, are based in London now, from South America, are based in London now, from across Europe, and and basically just kind of wrestle with what it means for them in this kind of context and doing mission.
00:19:42
Speaker
So we've committed to doing a week of mission together in June, July time. And what's beautiful is it's all these different cultures in London working together. And there's something really powerful when you have Nigerian church and the Hong Kong church, as well as the traditional Methodist church or Anglican church working collaboratively in faith sharing. Because it paints a picture, I think, almost of a revelation of that picture of every knee and every tongue.
00:20:06
Speaker
And so for me, there's something beautiful, think, as we come together as different churches from different streams to work collaboratively. in sharing who Jesus is. That's great. That's wonderful. And a really good note to kind of bring things into land on. Our 20 minutes has gone.
00:20:19
Speaker
um Before we hang up the call though, tell us, remind us again of where your website is, where we can find all the stuff about you. And also you mentioned earlier on those prompt cards. If people were to get those prompt cards for themselves or their house group or their church,
00:20:32
Speaker
Or if they are a pastor who's listening today who says, I actually need to get on board with this. I want the Emmaus Road stuff to turn my church around. Where can they find you? Prompt cards, the Emmaus Road program. Where can they go to find all that?
00:20:44
Speaker
Everything reads on the one website. So it's sharejesusinternational.com, sharejesusinternational.com. And there, you'd find different things we're doing. So you've got three different icons on the front. If you're an individual, if you're a church, you click on those things and we'll get our best we can serve you.
00:20:57
Speaker
We've got a new course called Share Jesus coming out in a few weeks time again, which Andy Bannis has written for as well. It's fantastic. So looking forward to having it out there. That's terrific. Thank you so much. That was a really excellent, very helpful and encouraging 20 minutes. do appreciate so much your time in joining us.
00:21:12
Speaker
but God bless you in your ministry and your work. It's terrific. It's encouraging, really good stuff to be involved with. Go across and check out the website, sharejesusinternational.com. um Andy, thank you so much for joining us. that That was terrific. And thank you, Steve, for steering us through the last few minutes. We will be back in a fortnight with another exciting guest to encourage us and inspire us to share the gospel with the world in need. Thank you for joining us and see you next time.
00:21:36
Speaker
Goodbye. Goodbye.