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00:00:01
With Carl Porter
123 Plays2 years ago
Andy's just moved house and discovered a new neighbour sharing the gospel on his street! They meet up in a local cafe to discuss evangelism, spiritual MOTs, church planting and encouraging others to share their love of Christ. Eavesdrop on their conversation in this unique episode of PEP Talk.
Carl Porter is married to Sarah and has two daughters. Carl became a Christian in 2014 and since then has been passionate about personal evangelism and trying to help others grow in their own evangelism. From October this year Carl will be leaving secular employment to allow him to go full-time into evangelistic ministry in both his local community and more widespread by providing practical evangelism training to other individuals, groups and churches.
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Transcript
Technical Mishap and Karl's Local Advantage
00:00:10
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to another exciting episode of PepTalk. I've had an unusual episode of PepTalk because last week, myself and my co-host, Kristy Mayer, tried to interview today's guests using all the technology of the internet and it failed spectacularly.
From Non-Believer to Evangelist
00:00:25
Speaker
But it turns out that Karl Porter, who was our guest last week, lives in Ralton, the same place, the same town I live in. We are just around the corner from each other. So Karl, we're recording in person. Yeah, nice to be here. Thank you.
00:00:37
Speaker
I'm not actually used to looking a guest in the eyeballs across the kitchen table, so the dynamic's gonna be interesting. We have no Christi, I could be trying to do a Christi very refreshing, but we won't. But Karl, why don't we start with a little bit about your story, because now you're an evangelist and a church planter, and we'll come to evangelism and stuff in a moment, but you haven't always been an evangelist and a church planter, because you haven't always been a Christian, so tell us a bit of the story that you were sharing with me when we sat down for a cup of tea a wee while ago.
00:01:05
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. So I've been a Christian about eight years now. So I grew up in this little town called Ralton, met my wife Sarah here. And in 2002, we moved away to London and we moved back to Ralton just last year. So we've been back here one year now.
00:01:25
Speaker
When we left we were not looking for God at all but God in his kindness came and found
Personal Turmoil and Spiritual Awakening
00:01:30
Speaker
us. So I think we enjoyed the work hard play hard lifestyle that you get in the city and that was good for a while but like any of these things in the end it kind of caught up with us. So around 2009 when our first daughter was born
00:01:45
Speaker
I found myself in a very difficult position at work. We'd just moved to a new town called Sittingbourne so I found myself away from home for long hours and Sarah was at home with a poorly baby and all on her own and it was at that point the work car play hard lifestyle caught up with me so I was
00:02:05
Speaker
you know, working 14, 15 hour days and then drinking all night. So our marriage was about to end, my career was about to end and we ended up meeting a Christian who effectively shared the gospel with me. He told me there were two eternal destinies and what you do with Jesus will decide where you end up. So if you trust in Jesus for forgiveness of sins then you've gone to a glorious future with a God who loves you and I have to die for you forever
00:02:30
Speaker
If you ignore what I'm telling you, then actually you'll be carrying on under God's judgment and you will be away from all that is good forever. And I thought that's quite a big claim. I should probably investigate
Life Transformation and Church Planting
00:02:42
Speaker
that. I'll give it 30 minutes and three years later.
00:02:47
Speaker
I've been thinking, I won't just look at the Bible, you know, that would be a mugs game. Of course, they want me to do that. I'll look at what atheists think, what Buddhists think, you know, what Hindus think. But I got to the point where I could see Jesus was a real person who lived in a real place at a real time. And you could look at what he said. And I started to read the gospels for myself and knew I was a sinner in need of forgiveness immediately because of how I treated Sarah, how I'd been at work.
00:03:11
Speaker
but struggled to give Jesus the lordship of my life, primarily because I didn't want to stop drinking. And I got to the point where I was out of work in the summer of 2014, reading Romans in the garden. God shows his love for us in this, that Christ died for the ungodly, and it just hit me. I knew I needed Jesus as Lord and Saviour. I knew I needed to treat Sarah the way she deserved to be treated. So I was sorry, and I prayed to Jesus. I basically said, you win. I can't do it on my own anymore. Will you help
Launching a Hometown Church
00:03:38
Speaker
me? And I'd become a Christian.
00:03:40
Speaker
What an absolutely amazing story. And now, of course, you're sort of going out and replicating yourself because you're stepping out of the world of, you know, insurance and you're stepping into the world of church planting in a sort of smaller kind of village just outside the town of the city of Swindon. So tell us a bit about the church planting and what you're excited about doing here. And then what I'd love to do is talk to you a bit about how you go about
00:04:03
Speaker
evangelism because you're very natural having these kind of conversations. I think a lot of Christians struggle and find conversations hard so I want to sort of pump you and pick your brain a bit for things that you've learned. But tell us a bit about what you're doing here because I think that's quite an exciting story.
Success in Door-to-Door Evangelism
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah we're really excited to be home. It's a town of about 11,000 people. It's the place where I went to school. I've got family here. I've got lots of old friends here and you know they are all
00:04:27
Speaker
under the judgment of God. So my heart and my concern is for them to at least have an opportunity to hear about the Lord Jesus. So the way we want to do that is by starting effectively church in our home initially. So we're looking to create a church that will meet during an evening and then Lord willing as that grows and we see people come into faith and we start to disciple people, we'll be able to train up leaders
00:04:56
Speaker
and we'll be able to expand these home groups throughout the community and then Lord willing once a month or once a quarter begin to gather them for a big worship celebration. But we are right at the start of that process. All we have right now but it's a good thing to have is prayer and the gospel and love for the people around us.
00:05:21
Speaker
I mean, I love the fact that when we were connecting the other week, it turned out that I think four days before we moved into our house, you've done door-to-door evangelism down the street. Actually, perhaps as a way in to talk about evangelism, you know, you talk about how you've done it, you do door-to-door and go visiting. I think some people perhaps might have a perception that that is so 1970s, can literally door-knocking work today. But you're excited. You've seen fruit from that, right?
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, we were really excited. It's the first time I've done door knocking in this community and in an hour and a half we knocked on 16 doors and all we said was that we're from a local church and we want to care for our community. Is there any way we can pray for you?
00:06:00
Speaker
And from opening up the conversation with that, we had 10 different conversations. We had four people that we were able to pray for, one who was able to share the gospel with and three who invited us back. So in the next couple of weeks, we'll follow up and go back. So, yeah,
Preparing for Evangelism
00:06:17
Speaker
it was a pretty good hour and a half's work.
00:06:20
Speaker
So let's dig down some nuts and bolts here. I think one thing I noticed, Carl, is I teach and train people on evangelism. There's a lot of fear. I think people just don't know how to start. So when you are encountering somebody, either you boldly knocked on a door or somebody in your community or the next door neighbor or whoever, how do you begin? How do you begin getting into the whole process of sharing Christ with them? You were sharing earlier how you've thought some of this stuff through and how to teach and train others. So how do we get going on evangelism? Where's a good place to begin?
00:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think the best place to begin first and foremost is our own heart. So you think it's natural, actually I've had to work really hard at this, but I think the way working hard at it on our own behind a closed door shows our love of God and our love of others. So I will
00:07:13
Speaker
try and think through. So I do a couple of things. The first exercise I did was think through what's going to motivate me because evangelism is hard. It is scary. My love does run cold. I do drop off. I have busy periods. So I've got a couple of big Bible truths that from my own personal experience
00:07:31
Speaker
helped to warm my heart up for God and for others and I've written them down and when I know I'm going through a dry patch I'll go back to them and then I can I can work on that but I also do what I call my spiritual MOT about once every six months I will write down on a piece of paper what's stopping me from sharing the gospel.
00:07:53
Speaker
and I will just have a real honesty session with myself. So what is it? Is it I'm scared of people, they'll talk about me behind my back, I don't know what to say. Recently at work it was the LGBT movement. Because what I find is every six months it changes. So I write that down, then I'll think of what category that is, what does it reveal about my relationship with God, and then what can I do to help myself persevere. And I think that spiritual enmity is so, so
00:08:20
Speaker
helpful because then it will give me things to go and work on. But then I also worked really hard at learning a gospel framework. It sounds really basic but I wanted to be clear on what I had to say. So I picked two ways to live and I learned how to share the gospel
00:08:40
Speaker
within 40 seconds to a minute and I practiced it in front of the mirror. I filmed myself doing it because I know that if I've prepared hard I'm more likely to use it and I also had a couple of guys in my last church before I moved who we could knock each other on the elbow every now and say gospel in a minute go just to keep each other sharp for it. So I think preparing your heart and getting yourself ready is the first thing.
00:09:05
Speaker
And that's super helpful. I think the other thing that strikes me immediately that you say that, that if it was something else we were passionate about, if we were working for a company that involves selling a product, you would put the time and the effort into something as insignificant as double glazing. Something as important as the gospel, we somehow sort of think there's something strange about taking the time and effort to prepare.
00:09:25
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Whereas, you know, you look at the New Testament, I think Paul and Peter and the other apostles of the book of Acts, they worked hard. They put the time and effort in. In fact, first Peter says, always be prepared. Yes. So, okay. So you've got your heart, right? You've done that spirit. I love the spiritual devotee, by the way. That's genius. You've got yourself a walnut. Then where'd you go from there? What's the next
Integrating Faith into Daily Life
00:09:45
Speaker
step?
00:09:45
Speaker
Yeah, so then I try and think through. So somebody once said to me, talk about spiritual things naturally and natural things spiritually. So I thought spiritual things, that's everything I've got going on in church, in my church life. So how can I just drop that into conversation? So I can be a kind of, if you like, a truth dripper.
00:10:06
Speaker
So if I went to church on a Sunday and I've heard something in the sermon and somebody asked me how the weekend was or what I was up to, I can talk about all the great things we did for the kids and maybe went to the football, but actually on a Sunday morning I went to church and I learned that you're either in Adam's family or you're in Jesus' family.
00:10:21
Speaker
And people are going to look at me as if I've got two heads or walk off or they're going to start to ask questions. And then as they start to ask questions, I can begin to engage a little bit more. So if you're meeting someone on a Thursday morning who's in a Bible study on a Wednesday night, talk about your Bible study on a Wednesday night. But unashamedly, happily, knowing that what God has to say and what you've learned is not just for you to keep,
00:10:42
Speaker
but it's for you to pass on and it's the best thing that they can possibly hear. So it's the most loving thing you can do and the natural things, there's so much openness at the moment. So I'll think what's the big thing in the news that people are likely to be talking about? So we've had the pandemic, we've got a war,
00:10:59
Speaker
Those are the two primary things. We've got Boris Johnson and the leadership challenge and dishonesty in elected officials. So I can simply say something along, if we're talking about Boris Johnson, you know, I've been praying that our government leaders would have a heart like God's and that they would care for the oppressed and the poor and the widow and the refugee. Wouldn't it be amazing if we had a leader who was honest and really cared for the most vulnerable in society, had a heart like God's?
00:11:27
Speaker
Wouldn't that be incredible? And then you just see where the conversation goes from there. So speaking about those things naturally and unashamedly, how can I just drop a Bible truth into the conversation and then see where it goes?
Inviting Others to Experience Jesus
00:11:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think the other thing as well that's so helpful in what you share there, Carl, is I mean, speaking positive about church, you know, I think a lot of our non-Christian friends, either nothing about church or have quite negative impressions, but I've become more and more convinced, one reason is as Christians, we clam up, we just don't talk about it. And the more that we talk positively, people are gonna go away going, well, I'm gonna go to church, but Carl obviously goes and he loves it. And I've heard from this person and this person, and I think the more we can gossip positively about church, it'd be amazing.
00:12:09
Speaker
I completely agree and even your church prayer meeting to tell people the amazing things that you are praying for your community and for your town, for your neighbours. I think people will be blown away by just, there's a group there that really cares for us.
00:12:24
Speaker
Yeah. And then the other thing as well, actually, I think, is those of us with kids, our kids catch this, you know, in the neighborhood we used to live in before we moved. I was really encouraged to watch my six-year-old, you know, have some sort of six-year-old gospel conversations because Chris would, you know, be listening to what his friends were saying. And then he would say, oh, I'll pray about that at bedtime.
00:12:43
Speaker
I was like so proud of him because he'd caught that from us but that started little conversations with his mates because you're then teaching your kids to talk naturally about faith rather than you know I think we've made the mistake in the British church sometimes a church becomes this thing that happens privately this world out here we need to reconnect those worlds so I think what you say
00:13:01
Speaker
Helps out. Yeah, absolutely. So you've got yourself prepared, you've then done that, kind of, you know, finding those connecting points in the conversation. What comes next? If someone just expresses an interest and says, hey, that's interesting, how do you then take that further? What are you going to help for?
00:13:16
Speaker
Yeah, so to move the conversation on, it depends on the topic. I'll do a myriad of things. So the Samaritan lady in John chapter 4 is my hero in evangelism. So she's got a two-step approach. She makes a claim about Jesus and then invites people to come and meet him to come.
00:13:32
Speaker
hear from him. So come meet a man who told me all I ever did could this be the Christ. So I've made a claim now I want and they're interested now I want to invite them. So it could be that we were talking about a particular topic and I'll say I know a great Christian book on that topic do you mind if I give you a copy and then we can get together and discuss it or I heard a great sermon on this topic can I send you the link.
00:13:54
Speaker
and then we can talk about it. I might give them a gospel and say, hey, why don't you read this gospel? It should only take an hour, two hours, and then why don't we get together and discuss through, you know, any questions you might have, anything you might have disagreed with. Or another
Directing Others to the Bible
00:14:09
Speaker
thing that I like to use is a resource called The Word Once You Are, and I'll say, look, I've got this great resource that takes you through the gospel of John. It's an eyewitness account of Jesus's life, death and resurrection. I think you'll enjoy it.
00:14:20
Speaker
why don't we just look at the first 18 sentences together and see if you like it. And if you enjoy it, then we can keep meeting or invite them to church. You might have a Christianity explore course coming up, alpha or whatever it might be. But what I want to do in all of my evangelism is get them hearing directly from Jesus in his word. So learning
00:14:43
Speaker
from the Samaritan lady. She knew she had to get them directly to Jesus. And as soon as I've got them somewhere where they are engaging with the Word, I can back out of the conversation and I can allow them to speak directly with Jesus. And then my job is simply to just be a loving page-turner. As long as I can love them and keep turning the page on whatever book of the Bible we're reading, then they're fantastic.
00:15:06
Speaker
I mean, I have to say we've had, you know, we've talked about word one to one on the podcast before and I, you know, I can't commend it highly enough. We had it. Let's start with this, um, this personally, Carla back in, uh, back in Dundee, one of my, my wife had a good friend of hers who has had no, no faith background at all. And so as Astra was praying for her, she felt convicted to try and invite her friend to do word one to one and Astra had said that, you know, she would have got quite nervous about this invitation thinking it would go badly wrong. While she finally plucks up the courage to ask her friend if she'd like to do Bible study, her friend was a bit of handoff.
00:15:36
Speaker
So, looking at Jesus has been on my bucket list for years. I'd love to, when can we start? And it was just so easy, and then the word one-to-one was just such a natural resource. It really is a great resource for folks who will put a link in the show notes for people who are working on it. The way I got started in Bible sharing was I was meeting with a colleague, and I'd been sharing the Gospel with him, or trying to share with him for two years, and I tried everything. I'd kicked him, I'd cuddled him, I'd argued with him, I'd bought him drinks and dinner.
00:16:02
Speaker
He kept arguing with me about creation. So after two years I said, why don't we look at the Bible together? And he said yes. And I was a new Christian so I had a complete panic. Oh no, what am I going to do? But I knew about the word one-to-one. So we went to PrEP on Eastcheap and I ran the worst one-to-one ever. I didn't pray. I hadn't looked at the books. So I opened the cellophane. I gave him a copy. I had a copy.
00:16:22
Speaker
Dryly read through the first 18 verses and all the notes and everything. He said one thing in 20 minutes, Jesus has always existed. And I was in full on panic mode. Jesus always existed. I think we just read that. Yeah, Jesus, I kind of nodded at him. We came back the next week and God had turned all his lights on. And I thought, Paul, you're an idiot. You've been taught every single year, week for the last two years, that the word of God is living, active and powerful.
00:16:46
Speaker
why don't you use it in your evangelism? So again for me either speaking truth or getting people into the Bible is the absolute key.
Structured Evangelism Methods
00:16:55
Speaker
So there's a huge amount of wisdom you've shared in the last 15 minutes. Really appreciate you taking the time to do this. So, you know, get our hearts ready, you know, find those connecting points in conversation, get into the Bible and introduce people to Jesus. We've got about three, four minutes left. Is there anything else based upon all your experience in sort of just being the kind of natural Jesus talker that you are, that you would want to share with people? What have you learned, Carl, that you think is helpful for others to hear?
00:17:21
Speaker
Yeah, work is going to sound really tragic. I see it as ministry work. So, it's equipping the saints for the work of ministry. So, I should see it as work. So, on a Sunday night, when I remember, I do my administration in evangelism. Okay. So, I will sit down and I've got a... I'm a finance guy, I'm really sad. I've got a spreadsheet for evangelism. I was going to say, this is going to end up in an exile spreadsheet. Yeah.
00:17:45
Speaker
And I've just written down the names of everybody that I know. And then I write down, do they know I'm a Christian? Yes or no. Have I shared the gospel with them? Yes or no. Have I offered to read the Bible with them? Yes or no. And then next steps. And then I can look at my diary on a Sunday night and see if those names. Who am I going to be seeing next week?
00:18:05
Speaker
and then I can begin to pray for that meeting. So if I meet Paul, he doesn't know I'm a Christian, I'm just going to share that I'm a Christian. If that's all that happens in that meeting, that's great, but I've got my flag in the ground. And then I'll think hard about what it is that I'm going to say. So I'm not natural, so I have to put a lot of work in to be able to get it done.
00:18:30
Speaker
And I think getting into that sort of rhythm of really thinking hard about your mission field, having a plan of action, praying for it, but then having at least one evangelism partner or a group that you work with together.
00:18:45
Speaker
that you all know each other's lists, you're all praying for one another, for the other people and you're sharing everything, the ups, the downs, the difficulties, so that you know you're not doing this, not doing this alone, but then expect
00:19:04
Speaker
People to drop off, people to be flaky, people to stand you up, people to blow hot and cold. That is hard. You have to track people for a long period of time. You have to really stay engaged in their lives. So the big key for all of it as well in every relationship is making sure that person knows that you're on their side.
Prayer and Partnership in Evangelism
00:19:25
Speaker
that you love them, that you're interested in them and that you care for them. Because as you're kind and as you serve and as you love, it will give you a much better platform to speak of Jesus. I think although you laugh about, you know, being the finance guy and doing it through exos preachers, I think that being methodical
00:19:44
Speaker
is also a key. We had J. John on the podcast of the week and one thing he talked about, which I think was interesting and kind of connects with you, he hasn't got a spreadsheet, he's not a spreadsheet, but he talked about how he'll sit in bed with his wife each morning and they will pray through, quite deliberately pray through their lists of contacts. He will pray for, I think that's 20, 25 people at a time and then exactly like you were saying, being intentional, what are the next steps? I can pray for those next steps.
00:20:09
Speaker
Because I think sometimes I think people worry that this can be a bit too mechanised, but if it's all done with baptised in prayer, then you're leaning on the Lord, aren't you, saying, God will you open the next opportunity with this person? But just randomly assuming it'll happen, I mean, God can do it if he can.
Community Building and Engagement
00:20:24
Speaker
But I think when we start praying, you know, like the parallel persistent widow knocking on the door of heaven and saying, can we get a breakthrough with this person, Lord?
00:20:32
Speaker
And then as you say, not doing it on your own, getting a buddy. Because evangelism can be lonely. But if you've got a mate, then if things go well, you've got someone to rejoice with, things go pear-shaped, you've got someone to commiserate with, and you've got someone that you can be praying for each other. So I think there's some great stuff there.
00:20:48
Speaker
Great. Karl's been a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time. And if people want to find out kind of more about what you're doing or pray for you, is there a way they can connect? What's the best way for people to find out the stuff that you're doing? Yeah, I mean, I'm happy for people to get in touch, whether they do that via my email address or not, whether that can be hosted. We can put on the show notes and I think we're on social media. I stalked you on Facebook too.
00:21:13
Speaker
to find out what you're doing. I was impressed as well as the evangelism. There were also apparently large cooked breakfasts involved on your Facebook feed when I stalked you this morning. There was a picture of bacon and eggs that you'd share from your friends that you've been doing evangelism with. I'm looking for a blank item.
00:21:29
Speaker
I must have it too often. I can't remember the bacon and eggs. Good stuff. And bowling was involved as well somewhere as well. Oh, that's right. Yeah, we had a group come over and they were giving, they were doing trials at the local boss club. So a couple of the guys went in and had a trial. So I'm actually going to pop down there and see if I can get to know them next time they have some trials as well.
00:21:49
Speaker
Brilliant. Well, we've covered everything in this podcast. But anyway, Karl's been correcting you on the show. And if all of you are listening at home, we'll be back in another two weeks with my co-host, with Kristy Mayer, and another guest from another episode of Pet Talk. Thanks for listening.