Today on the Evangelist Podcast, the state of evangelism in the UK today. The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world.
SPEAKER_04Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. My name's Glenn Scrivener, and with me is. Paul Feasy! Paul Feasy! Hello! As ever, and uh we are here uh in December, huddling together in our little bunker. Um you should think it it would get keep warm being um in uh our underground lair underneath a volcano in the Pacific Ocean, but uh it gets just as chilly a as though we were in uh the heart of Sussex. But uh here we are, and uh we're about to get ready for Christmas, Paul. Uh what's what does Christmas look like in the Feasy House?
SPEAKER_01Uh well, this year at least we're well we'll head off to church in the morning and then uh we'll be going spend the day with the in-laws and other people from that side of the family. Okay. Um to Cardiff.
SPEAKER_04How do you find I'm sure they're not listening, so just like feel free to share your heart, honestly. How do you find their rituals and routines at Christmas? A little little weird, a little freaky.
SPEAKER_01Uh well, I mean mother-in-law is not so big on turkey. Good thing. But I'm a bit like look, I know turkey's not the big you know, not uh you wouldn't really pick turkey the rest of the year, but it's no, and you never do. It's turkey. You should have it for Christmas. What what no, but why? Should. We should, because it's what Jesus had at the first season.
SPEAKER_03If you love cheese Um Then you'll make your mouth feel like death valley just for one lunch.
SPEAKER_01But I can, you know, I can get over it. We've had lamb and bits, but um Yeah. But the one they do have a good tradition, which actually they don't have anything like later in the day, you know, food-wise, kind of like another meal, but we have cheese, they get the cheese board out. Yeah. So that's pretty good, and it's always decent cheese, you know. Yes.
SPEAKER_04Um This is all food that you would have at other times of the year. On the other hand, turkey, which is the food equivalent of a dehumidifier, sucking the moisture out of every every molecule in your body. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You you know how to Bernard Matthews turkey drumstick.
SPEAKER_04Turkey Twizzler, I can maybe I can maybe handle. Every time I ha go on a rant about turkey, people come up to me and say, Oh, you need to know Auntie Mabel's, you know, special recipe. It's been handed down in the family. And you think if you need this ancient document that, you know, is the one key to cooking this edibly, you're onto a loser, don't you realise?
SPEAKER_01No, but my gran, the way she used to cook it, she used to properly stuff it with sausage meat and the stuffing. And when she used to cut through it, yeah, yeah. She would cut through it and and and and you'd see the layers. You get the layers.
SPEAKER_04The layers of every other kind of meat that's actually enjoyable. You could cook me sawdust and sausage meat, and I'd probably enjoy the sawdust too, you know. People always say, I mean, if you just wrap it in enough bacon. If you wrap anything in enough bacon, it's almost done.
SPEAKER_01Everything is improved by bacon.
SPEAKER_04But like basically. The thing about the thing with turkey, and this is not why I brought you all here, but the thing about turkey is like you need, alongside the turkey, you need the stuffing, and you need the gravy, and you need the cranberry sauce, and you need bread sauce. Like, what is bread sauce? It is lubricant. Just to wash down this thing. It's it's got all the texture and none of the flavour of cotton wool. What are you doing, people? Look at yourselves in the middle. Turkey brings nothing.
SPEAKER_01Everything else. Turkey is a black hole that sucks everything else into it. Why do you need why do you need Brussels sprouts on the plate? So in many ways.
SPEAKER_04For moisture. Purely for moisture.
SPEAKER_01I think you're missing a trick here, Glenn, because I think in many ways what we can say is Turkey is very much like uh a picture of our salvation. We bring nothing to the plate, to the table, but actually we're given everything. We're given, yeah, yeah. And made we're made into something beautiful.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we are surrounded by like contrary to any merit or desert of our. Yeah. Surrounded by family and food and festivities, even though we are worthless. I don't yeah. Well may maybe if it's if it's in the gospel. What do you eat? Turkey. I really hope the in laws are not listening. The in-laws do not listen to the event of this podcast.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, if if any of our in-laws are listening, we'll be spending Christmas together because we won't be allowed to go to our house.
SPEAKER_04Eating Big Max. We'll be happy at least. No, we always have turkey. And it's really late. Like we have we have like Christmas lunch at like 5 pm. I'm hungry for most of Christmas. Oh man.
SPEAKER_01So we once had Christmas at lunch at 5 pm because we had our starters at like normal lunch. Yeah. And the m the mother-in-law said it'll be about 45 minutes now. That's right. Until the next thing. Unfortunately, it was at that point she discovered she hadn't turned the oven on. Yeah. So the turkey that had been in for three hours had not really done a lot. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, we got told that our styles will be ready at about you know, by eleven thirty, and then literally at five pm we're sitting down and I'm famished.
SPEAKER_01But you know. What would you have for a start? What kind of thing? Uh pronkock. I was gonna say, see, we sometimes merged into the old uh melon and parma ham. Yeah. Yeah, we do a bit of that. That's good.
SPEAKER_04And do you do you ever have the um what were those things that had like on toothpick because you've got like cheddar jeans tubes and pineapple.
SPEAKER_01I don't really think Christmas, I think more children's party. Yeah, but it was seriously. Well, it's Jesus' birthday, so you know we should have what about the pudding? See, I'm very much down with the Christmas pudding.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it's it's gotta have brandy butter.
SPEAKER_04I like put pudding mixture, but as soon as you cook it, it's pretty horrible. Right. But like literally, like before it goes into the oven, I'm I'm all over it.
SPEAKER_01Give me some more. But yeah, see, I like that. But I'm not a big Christmas cake person. See, some people are very much into the cake.
SPEAKER_04Well, as long as there's lots of brandy sauce, brandy butter. Well, brandy butter, yeah. I mean you just eat it out at the tub. Pretty much Well you do You do if you've got to wait until you know 5 p.m. Okay. That's our Christmas. Anyway, if you want to tell us about your Christmas, do get in touch on the show notes. But uh today's episode of the Evangelist Podcast, we're actually uh dipping into the profile, which is on Premier Radio. And uh do go and subscribe to the profile uh on Premier Radio. I'm sure you're already subscribed to uh Unbelievable, Justin Briley's uh great podcast, uh which has been going for ten years now, eleven years I think. And uh in fact I'm on. I'm on Justin Briley's podcast tomorrow, doing another Christmas show. So you can subscribe to uh Unbelievable and while you're there, subscribe to the profile uh where Sam Hells and others talk to uh prominent Christians and Christians in ministry uh to talk to them about their own journey to faith and you know the state of Christianity. And that's what we talk uh about uh for the best part of, I don't know, an hour. So uh enjoy this and we'll see you on the other side.
SPEAKER_00Well, hello and welcome to the profile here on Premier Christian Radio with me, Sam Hales. It's Saturday afternoon, and that means it's time to hear from another Christian and about their life testimony and ministry. Just a reminder, this programme is brought to you in association with Premier Christianity magazine, which is the monthly publication I help edit. If you would like a free sample copy of the very latest issue of that magazine, you can head to our website. It's PremierChristianity.com forward slash free sample. Just fill out the form and we would be delighted to send you a free copy of the very latest issue. But today on the profile, I'm joined by Glenn Scrivener. Glenn is an evangelist and a speaker, and we're going to hear about his life and his ministry. So, Glenn, welcome to the programme today. It's great to be here. Thanks. So I wanted to start, as we always do here on The Profile, by going back to the beginning, asking you about life growing up. And I guess some people might be able to tell already from your accent uh that uh you may not have been entirely always based in this country, is that correct?
SPEAKER_04I don't know. I think I've been pomified a little bit. I grew up in Australia, but I've lived in the UK for half my life, no more than half my life now. So I've married uh a girl from Ireland and uh we're now living in Eastbourne in the UK. We've been there for about 10 years. But uh yeah, grew up in Australia until I was about 14. Sunny Australia. Well, Canberra uh is not so sunny. It's only a couple of hours from the ski fields, actually, and it'll snow for like a week every year uh in Canberra. It gets it gets quite cold in the in the winter.
SPEAKER_00And where did um Christian faith come into this? Was this something that was um around in your childhood?
SPEAKER_04Sure, I went to church growing up and uh I was the kid in Sunday school who was always getting the answers right. I figured from an early age, if you say Jesus, you're on to a winner. So I yeah, I think I went along to, you know, church groups, went along to youth groups, went away to Christian camps and gave my life to Jesus a thousand times, I think in my teenage years, and I was I was that kind of keen uh teenage Christian. Um but I think by the end of when I was about 17 years old, I I think I'd I had given my life to Jesus about a thousand times. And I never felt like he was buying what I was selling. I know I I yeah, I felt like I was kind of knocking on Heaven's door and he was hiding behind the couch, I think, uh, not that interested in me. Never I never got the feeling that I was looking for, I think. I think I expected there to be fireworks in the sky and the guy from X Factor saying, You're now born again. Something like that. And I never got that sensation. And so I guess aged about 17, 18, I kind of uh walked away from I left home. And I kind of left my childhood faith uh as well when I went away to university. So that that was kind of my my upbringing.
SPEAKER_00And whereabouts was university?
SPEAKER_04So university uh was over here in Oxford, so I went there uh for a few years, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Wow. And during that time you you say you s kind of lost faith?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I would have called myself a Christian and sort of defended the Christian corner. I uh I studied uh some philosophy in my degree, and I was always, you know, I did the philosophy of religion module and I was always sticking up for the notion that there's some kind of deity up there, but not really feeling it at all. And I guess looking back, I can I can see why, because I think the notion that there's some kind of a deity is not a particularly attractive notion. I think the idea that there's a big guy in the sky, um i it never actually did it for me. I still stood up for the idea. Um and so I would have called myself a god believer. But I think by the end of university, uh really my my big goal was to play cricket for the university, because if you play for Oxford against Cambridge in the varsity match, you get to play at Lord's, and you get your full blue, and it's it's yeah, it was the pinnacle. And it's uh and for for those who don't like cricket, I'm sorry. Um I really am sorry that you you should like cricket, it's it's God's own game. But um uh I was never happier than when I was chasing a little red ball around a green field, and so that was my big goal to play in the varsity game, and I fell agonizingly short of that goal in my third year. And that really drove me back to my knees and drove me back to church.
SPEAKER_00And why why did it do that? Why would um not getting what you wanted in a sporting field drive you into a church?
SPEAKER_04I think because we're all looking for gods, actually. We're all chasing gods uh with a little g. And uh cricket was my god, and uh and it became very obvious that cricket was a god that had failed. Um you know, I I desperately wanted to get into the the wisdom cricketing almanac. If if if if there are any cricketing tragics watching or listening, you'll know the wisdom cricketing almanac. It lists all the most important cricket games that have happened in that year. And uh I'm here to tell you that I am indeed in the 136th edition of the Wisden Cricketing Almanac. I'm on page 886. Wow. I'm halfway down the page in six-point font, and my name is misspelt. Oh no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00That must be gutting.
SPEAKER_04That was the gutting thing, and you sort of you see that, and this is what I've been like aiming for. This is it. You know, Chris you know, cricket is life, and then it felt like death when cri cricket didn't work, and and and I guess church is what I knew, and I started going back to church at the end of university, and I remember just hating the preacher every Sunday. And it was it was hilarious, really, because I would sit at the very back, like right at the edge, so I could slip away at the end, and I would go and I would just fold my arms and I would just give the preacher evils the whole time. And and he he tried to be really cool and relevant and hip and contemporary and you know, put in all these references to East Enders and things, and I just sat there hating him and then coming back next week, and hating him, and coming back next week. And it's very funny as a preacher now. I sort of look out at the you know, the people listening, and if anyone's sort of you know giving me the evils, I saw I think to myself, you wait, you wait, you know, God's got you in his tractor being. So I think in the background, really, was a praying mother, who for two decades is, you know, really praying for her son, and and and really I found myself drawn back to Christian faith. And then it was just a friend inviting me to open up the Bible with him, and we read through Luke's gospel, and it was fascinating for me because um the passage from my childhood that had really haunted me was always the Garden of Gethsemane. It's this scene where Jesus He's making the ultimate prayer of commitment, if you like. You know, he's he's laying it all out there for God and saying, Your will be done, face pressed into the mud. And I remember thinking as a teenager, ah, that's I need to copy Jesus. You know, I even had the bracelet. What would Jesus do? W J D. What would WWJ D? Jesus would go into the garden and he would give his life to God in this melodramatic way. And in my teenage years, I would I would literally volunteer to walk my dog to a like a foresty area, to a like a clearing late at night, so by moonlight I could do what Jesus did and press my face into the mud and say, Your will be done. And that was kind of my understanding. My understanding was Jesus gave his life to God. Now what about you? You know, you give your life to God. And so that was that was my teenage years. And so when we came to Luke's gospel, me and my me and my friends, and uh, we came to the Garden of Gethsemane, and uh and I just said to him, I I don't think I can handle this passage. I don't think I can do it like Jesus. And my friend was very wise, he just said, Glenn, do you think you're Jesus? I was like, No, not not really well, uh maybe a little, but you know, aren't we meant to copy Jesus? And my friend just laughed. He said, No, Glenn, in this story, you are not Jesus. You are Peter. And what's Peter doing in the story? Sleeping, failing, rubbish, foolish Peter, you know, who talked a big game. He was gonna follow Jesus to the end, and he fails, and Jesus prays for him. And that's what Gethsemane's about. That's what the cross is about, that's what the whole Bible's about. It's not you giving your life for God, it's him giving his life for you. And really, it was just that massive switch around. Huge shift in your thing. Huge shift. It's not my life given to God, it's his his life given for me. And I guess that's the gospel coming alive in my heart. And I guess I'd I'd date, I don't know, I you know, maybe I was born again when I was 13 and I first, you know, prayed. Maybe I was born again when I was five, I don't know. But I date the time when I really understood the gospel from uh really uh age twenty one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Because you said before that the difficulty in your latter teenage years going to university was you kind of lacked this feeling and it it just didn't all quite click together, and you were from a Christian background and you committed your life over and over and over again, but that feeling was missing. So when you found God again in that moment of being explained to you that it's not about you, it's about what God has done for you, did that was there a feeling that came then? That everything kind of clicked into place?
SPEAKER_04There was a feeling, but the feeling comes second, isn't it? The feeling comes in response to the joy of good news. If it's all about me working up a feeling, and so often we talk about faith in those ways, we we think that faith is this feeling of believingness that I've got to nurse within my heart, and that's what God really likes. So I'd better try and drum up this feeling of faith. Um, that you know, you cannot push faith out of you. You know, you can't push love out of you. You know, if I if I say to you right now, you know, love God. Come on, love, love him more. Okay, 10% more, turn up the dial on, you know, you cannot command love. Love's got to be pulled out of you by something that's more glorious. And I guess I was all the time thinking about me and my heart and my feelings, but what it is that's gonna transform my feelings is looking up to Christ and seeing him given for me, even though I'm rubbish. That good news is what actually transforms the heart and the feelings follow. So, yeah, absolutely the feelings follow. But when they come first, it can be a crushing burden.
SPEAKER_00So, what came next after this point of um you say you don't know exactly when you were born again, but let's say that was the important moment where you discovered that truth, as you say, of the gospel. What happened after that?
SPEAKER_04I uh I went into a graduate programme, I went back to Australia and uh I was trying to figure out do I belong in Australia, do I belong in England, and uh I joined the most rock and roll departments in the civil service in Australia. It's called the Public Service, it was the the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Which was even It doesn't sound very rock and roll. No, it's uh it's even less glamorous than it sounds. And I I was in the uh I was in the um uh the publications department, and I and my job was really to make sure that the manufacturing statistics from this quarter were formatted in in the tables the same way as the uh statistics from last year. Fascinating. Fascinating. Fascinating. And uh and so it did not last long. And uh and all the while I'm getting very excited about Jesus, and I'm spending my whole time telling people about Jesus, and I'm dragging people along to lunchtime services, and I'm I'm the big mouth shooting my mouth off about Jesus every which way I can. And i I'm a slow learner because it it dawned on me quite late that, hey, you can actually do this. There's there are people who do this, you know, as a job. And um, at that stage, my mother was living in London, and she was going to All Souls Langham Place, big church in the center of London, and they were looking for lay assistants. And a lay assistant is uh a glorified slave, and you just for a year I cleaned a thousand loos in one year. Uh but all the while you've got your this was back in the day when we had Walkmans. Uh you you wouldn't you wouldn't know about this.
SPEAKER_03I do, I I had Walkman. Yeah, I remember Walkman's. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And so you you remember winding up the tape with the pencil through the cassette and all of that, and and you know, when the when the batteries run out, you've got to, you know, rub them together and put them back in. So I I I worked my way through the All Souls tape library and just listening to old John Stott's sermons, and there was loads of old Billy Graham sermons and things like that. And and then you'd actually, you know, at lunch, you'd get to sit down and have lunch with John Stott and Rico Tice and Paul Blackham and Richard Bughes and all these great people on stuff. So that was a that was a massive year for me. Um I think some of that um servant uh nature of the role really helped me, uh, but also getting great theology and just seeing really servant-hearted people. You know, you uh you you know, you see John Stott, who's written 40 plus books, and and and and he lived with such uh integrity. I mean, uh y you would never know that he got a single royalty check, you know, from from the state of his flat. I mean, it was just so sparse and spartan, almost monastic. And just his his and you did come away from him with the sense that you were the most important person in that room and and he was, you know, and you almost you almost forgot to ask him questions because he was spending the whole time interested in you. And and so just just that year was absolutely formative for me. And uh and in a sense I've never looked back. I've always worked in Christian ministry uh since that time in about 2000.
SPEAKER_00Wow. I know one of your big kind of passions today is very obvious in a lot of the work you do, is is evangelism, is in sharing the gospel with others and things related to that, so maybe even apologetics as well. Where do you think that came from? Is that something you discovered during that year of listening to John Stopp, both on tapes and in person? Or was it later things where that fits into place?
SPEAKER_04All the Billy Graham sermons and and and being with Rico Tice as well, so the author of the Christianity explored courses, and and um I mean his example is infectious. Um his passion for just sitting down with other people and reading the Bible with other people, and his his passion for getting the gospel out there is is massively infectious. Um so I yeah, I think I've always had that passion for preaching about Jesus. I I I just heard a sermon yesterday from Jeremiah chapter 20. You know, Jeremiah the prophet says, you know, the word is like a fire shut up in my bones, I'm weary of holding it in. And I think I I have had that sense that it's it's more work for me not to be evangelistic than to be evangelistic. It kind of comes out of me. So I've always kind of been like that. But like I say, I'm a slow learner. It took me it took me a long time for my wife to kind of sort of say, Glenn, you know you're an ev an evangelist. I was like, am I? Like she almost slapped me. She's not a violent woman, but she's like, how can you not know yourself? How can you have so little self-knowledge?
SPEAKER_00That is really interesting, because that is often the way, not only with spiritual gifts, but just in tasks that people do where they think they're not very good at something, and it takes someone else to come along and say, actually, you know you're really gifted in that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. It takes other people to identify this. I think we're so people often talk about, you know, the call, and when did you have the call to ministry? And and quite often people imagine that you're meant to be perched on the end of your bed by yourself with your individual Bible on on your lap, and you have a private moment that's just you and Jesus, and that's the only way that the call can happen. Um and I think that just ignores the way it happens like throughout the New Testament, and it it ignores the way it happens throughout church history. You know, I think about um John Calvin, he didn't want to be in Geneva, you know, like people almost wrestled him to the ground and said, You've got to stay here. You know, that was his call, right? Yeah his call came through people, and I think that's part of what laying on of hands is all about. It's saying there is this corporate recognition of your gifting and of you as a gift. So it definitely takes other people to recognize what's what's within you, definitely.
SPEAKER_00So, how did you first meet your wife, Emma?
SPEAKER_04Ah, we were at university together, um, and I really liked. Her and she thought I was a total jerk, a total loser.
SPEAKER_00Oh no.
SPEAKER_04I know. I think she's coming around to me. I hope so by now. It's taking a while, but I I've almost cracked it. But she Yeah, she thought I was weird, and and she was probably right. We were both going out with different people at university, and uh but I I remember even praying that I would get together with Emma. Um wow, that's a scandal. Yeah, it is that is a scandal. So Mason got answered that one, eh? That's true. It is, it really is, in a very funny way. Cause yeah, so she I mean she tell tells her her own story brilliantly in a in a book called A New Name, and uh so you know I won't steal her thunder or try to tell her story. But uh essentially we we really got together when I was working at All Souls in 2000, and uh she actually ended up um having the same job as me the year after me. So she was a lay assistant the year after me, and we sort of got together, but then in that year 2000, 2001, I got deported back to Australia.
SPEAKER_03Deported?
SPEAKER_04Well, I was required to leave the country within ten days' time or face ten thousand pounds fine and six months in prison.
SPEAKER_00So why why was that? Just it's the home of the.
SPEAKER_04I had to leave with with like a couple of weeks' notice. And uh and we were kind of getting together and then Oh no, I'm going back to Australia. And I sort of thought that was it, I'm back to Australia and oh well. Um but we just started emailing each other quite a bit, and again, I'm a slow learner because at some stage, like three months in, I'm realizing that I'm spending about two hours a day emailing this one person. And judging by her output, she's spending similar time with me. Maybe we're more than friends. And so I eventually plucked up the courage and I sent the sort of the the tell all email. And uh Emma, are you sitting down? I think I love you. I said, Yes, I think I love and uh as soon as I hit send on that email, I immediately regretted it. I said, no, she probably doesn't think the same way. And I I decided to try and hack hint hack into her Hotmail inbox, you know. Oh wow. I tried every every sort of password I could think of to delete the email. And uh and then she she left me hanging right for another two days before she responds to me. You know, we'd been emailing each other days ago.
SPEAKER_00That's a long time to be waiting.
SPEAKER_04But I've forgiven her. I forgot, but it's it's just that I raise it temporarily you know, ev every now and again just to keep her on a medal. But um she eventually emailed back and said, Yes, I feel the same way. But you're relief. Relief, big relief. But then she said, You're 12,000 miles away and you have no visas, so it's your call, bro. Um and then God just opened doors in amazing way as I came back into uh to London working in churches and we got married in 2003.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. And there's no danger of you being deported now, I hope.
SPEAKER_04I've got I've got the green card now. So you know.
SPEAKER_00But that's that's not the only reason I married Emma, but you know it was helpful. You're not about to get a call saying you've got two weeks to leave.
SPEAKER_04No, I hope not. I hope not.
SPEAKER_00You mentioned actually Emma had written a book, a couple of books, I think. Right. And um I I know in those books she's been very honest about some of her own personal background and struggles, um, particularly with eating disorders. I wanted to ask from from your perspective as a husband of trying to help your wife through such a difficult um issue. How has that been for you?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you feel very impotent. Um you know, Emma suffered with life-threatening anorexia both as a teenager, and then again after we were married. Um yeah, you you feel utterly powerless and you see what addiction does to people. Um it makes you believe in what, you know, theologians have called the bondage of the will, um, which is that, you know, human nature, we go after little gods, as we've already mentioned, and those little gods are unworthy things. Maybe it's playing cricket, maybe it's being thin. Whatever it is, um, it kind of recreates you in its image and it sends you down a rabbit trail, and you your life becomes ever more diminished as you serve this little god, and that's the human heart, actually. Um and you see it really at the sharp end with an addiction. Um and you feel the powerlessness of it, and you feel once again um that it's gotta be good news from outside your loved one that's gonna turn their heart, that's gonna capture them, that's gonna give them the good news. You feel very much that. You feel very much um the priesthood of Christ was very precious to us both, the priesthood of Christ, that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, and he's praying for us both. So that even in the dark, and even when Emma feels like God is miles away, she is carried on the heart of her great high priest, and her position with God is not as good as her, you know, position in her feelings. It's not as good as her position down in the pit. Her position with God is as good as Christ. Her relationship with g with God is as good as Christ's relationship with God, and he lifts her, he carries her, and he carries me. So getting in touch with some of those truths was absolutely massive. And um and one sort of image that that really stuck with me at the time was in trying to care for someone who was in a dark place. It was almost as though we were we were in this uh dance floor, and everyone's over there, and they're having a great time in the lights, and we're sort of huddled together in the dark. And I think for a long time in that position, I thought that my p my job was just to huddle together with Emma. Um and m increasingly I think God was showing me actually really the job is to dance back into the light, to get back into Christian community. Um and really it it's it's the church together as we carry one another that helps you through times like that. So yeah, it was a big uh a big learning time for us both. There's the bondage of the world, the priesthood of Christ, and just the importance of church family, just ordinary church family that can carry you through times like that.
SPEAKER_00I guess as well as as an evangelist, one of the most common questions must be what about suffering? What about this terrible thing I'm going through? And I suppose you've had that on a personal level for yourself. This isn't just a kind of theoretical issue, is it?
SPEAKER_04Right. And and I think as evangelists, or just people wanting to be witnesses in their everyday life, we should welcome that question. We should think, oh, fantastic suffering, brilliant, we're on home turf. You know, when the Christian is talking about suffering, we're on home turf. We're not playing away from home. We're this this is our thing. We follow a crucified savior, right? Um, the entire Christian story, you know, it might begin in a garden and it finishes in the great city, but for you know, 66 books in between, it's about struggle and death and pain and how do we get from one place to the other? Through the struggle, death, blood, sweat, and tears of Christ. So to talk about suffering, I think, you're really doing business with people. And and, you know, I'm always saying to people, evangelism is just pastoring non-Christians. That's all it is. You know, pastoral care is just evangelizing Christians. But evangelism is just pastoring non-Christians. And one of the one of the huge things that I'm always saying to people in evangelistic situations is, yeah, I don't know how I couldn't could have gotten through those years without Jesus. You know? And exploring that is just huge in evangelism, and just turning the turning the tables and just saying, you know, I know in suffering that I've got a God with scars, I've got a God who has wept, I've got a God who has bled, and He promises to be with me through suffering. How do you get through? How do you do it? Because if I believed that I was just a biological survival machine clinging to an insignificant rock, hurtling through a meaningless universe towards eternal extinction, and I was having the kind of time that you're having, I don't know why I'd keep going. How do you get through? You know, so I I think when when these suffering questions come up, um, in in one sense, we should really welcome those questions, because now we're really dealing with the big issues of life, and now we can really preach Christ into that situation.
SPEAKER_00That's such a fascinating answer because I think people will really resonate with that, and yet at the same time think, oh, but I'm still scared when that question comes up. I I mean sometimes I think there are there have been so many different Christian answers to the problem of evil and the problem of suffering. Sometimes I'm almost thinking, well, which one do I go to here? Right. I mean you just very eloquently explained the the kind of apologetic of well, Jesus suffered and and went went that direction. Is that always the direction you go in, or are there other ways to tackle the same question as well?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, there's loads of ways to go at it. Um I mean, one thing to do is if you've got the time and if they'll let you, just to sort of say, yeah, no, that is a big problem, and to say um you should have the biggest problem if suffering is not a problem. Like if i if suffering is not a problem for you, you've got the wrong worldview, right? Yeah. There are two natural responses to suffering, chaos or karma. You know, so Richard Dawkins, um, the atheistic response is the chaos response, which is just to say there's no rhyme or reason to it, it's just it sucks, right? But at that stage you don't have a problem with evil, right? It just is. There's no problem with evil, right? There's l and yet everything in you is outraged at evil, which is interesting. So that's the chaos answer, and that appeals to us in the West. In more traditional cultures, they have the karma answer, which is basically that if you unleash evil, evil will come back to you. And and there's there's something built into the universe, there's this justice woven into the universe, which means there is no such thing as unjust suffering, right? Okay, so if you're suffering, you can't ask the why question. You can't ask the why question, well, it's probably you, right? It's either you or your ancestors, you know, some so with ca with karma, you can't ask the why question. With chaos, you can't ask the why question. Um let me invite you into the into the Christian worldview in which you can ask the why question. Um I think I think it's a really good thing to have a problem with evil. So with Christ, you're able to have a problem with evil. There is Jesus, and he comes to the tomb of Lazarus and he's angry and he's crying. He's angry because this is not the way things should be. He's crying because this is not the way things should be. So he's uh he's able to enter into this and say evil should not be, but he's also got an answer to it.
SPEAKER_00So again, what you've just so well put there is I guess what you spend a lot of your time doing now. Do you want to bring us up to date with your story of what you currently spend your time doing?
SPEAKER_04So I was uh ordained in the Church of England, and I did my cu uh uh my stint as a curate, which is sort of a vicar with your L plates on, and I did that for four years uh at a church in Eastbourne, uh, and we still go to that church in Eastbourne. Uh I'm no longer working uh for that church. I now work for a charity called Speak Life, and that frees me up to go around the place and shoot my mouth off about Jesus. And then I try to equip Christians in their witness. So try to train up individual evangelists, but also equip um Christians in their everyday life of witness, and then produce resources.
SPEAKER_00That's great. And I wanted to talk specifically about some of these videos, because they will be very well known to people. Um, you've had some amazing success with a lot of the videos you put out have gone, certainly within the Christian world, gone viral.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean, uh he came down and was seen 400,000 times last year, which was great.
SPEAKER_00And this was your Christmas video. Do you want to explain a bit about the premise behind this video for those who haven't seen it and how they can watch it?
SPEAKER_04We we filmed an activity where all the actors had Down syndrome. And so the Shepherds, the Kings, Baby Jesus has Down syndrome. And it was really kind of to highlight in the news this time last year, uh Sally Phillips put out this documentary called A World Without Downs, uh, in which uh she was just asking the question um do we really want to have these prenatal tests for Down syndrome? In every single country in which these have been adopted, 100% or 99% of all babies with Down syndrome are aborted. Um, even in this country without that test, 90% of all babies who are found to have Down syndrome are aborted. And there's just this this real culture of death and this real sense that we are the strong and we will determine who we will allow into our society, and we don't want the weak, and suffering is to be eliminated, and therefore sufferers must be eliminated, and there's that that real undercurrent. And I just thought, well, how do you how do you counter that very strong narrative? I thought the best thing to do is just to tell the Christmas story again, because here we've got the God who becomes weak, the God who becomes marginalized, the God who becomes a baby, speechless. Um and and let's just go one step further. You know, let's let's have Jesus not just encompassing our flesh, but let let him take on an extra chromosome too, right? Same as all the others in in this Down syndrome nativity. Yeah, like I say, about 400,000 kind of watched that. And I love that. I love I love telling stories with Christ at the center and just upending our cultural notions of things. And that's that's what we try to do with with all our videos. We've we've had uh six different Christmas campaigns, we've got one coming up uh for this year.
SPEAKER_00And if you want to hear more about those amazing Christmas videos that Glenn has been very busy creating, do stick around. We're gonna be talking more about them in part two. You're listening to Premier Christian Radio. Welcome back to the Profile here on Premier Christian Radio. I'm Sam Hales. If you'd like a free sample copy of the magazine that sponsors this show, why not head to premierchristianity.com forward slash free sample. But for now, let's get into the second part of my interview with the evangelist Glenn Scrivener. The exciting news is that you are again going to put together not just one video this time, but a whole series of videos um with this sort of evangelistic heart behind them, so people can share them on social media. I'd love to hear more about them. What have you got up your sleeve?
SPEAKER_04We've got up our sleeve. Well, I mean, a lot of people they they kind of date when Christmas begins as when the John Lewis commercial comes out. Or when, you know, when holidays are coming, you know, the Coca-Cola advert comes out. And uh this has become this really big thing culturally, the John Lewis, the Sainsbury's, everyone's in on the act. Um, can we occupy that space with really high-quality Christ Christmas films that actually preach the Christmas message and don't just sell toasters? Like, can we can we actually preach the Christmas message? So, our big idea is uh these four episodes that tell the story of Will, who is kind of this meet the parents loser boyfriend trying to ingratiate himself with the in-laws. He doesn't understand all the Christmas ins and outs of this new family. He's an outsider, and uh and yet he has an encounter with the first century nativity, and I can't say any more, or I'd have to kill you.
SPEAKER_00But uh please don't then. Please refrain from talking anyway.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. So uh so uh we're really excited about it. We've we've got uh professional directors, producers, casting crew, high-end kit, we're filming in a million dollar house.
SPEAKER_00Are you really filming in a million dollar house? Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yes, amazing. No expense spared. Uh so we're we're really pushing the boat out this Christmas. We want to reach millions. So if people can get excited about it.
SPEAKER_00I'm already excited. I'm eager to watch it. So uh yeah, how can I watch these videos?
SPEAKER_04So uh again, if you go to speaklife.org.uk slash videos uh or like us on Facebook. That's that's where it's gonna go uh first. So speaklife UK on Facebook and get sharing.
SPEAKER_00I think the earliest, or one of the earlier ones you did was called the King's English. Yeah. And if I remember correctly, this was around the time of the big anniversary of the King James Bible.
SPEAKER_042011, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You explain what you did, and then we'll hear a bit of it.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so how do you encapsulate the impact of the Bible on the modern world? And you could talk about its impact on education and healthcare and um a thousand different things, but one thing it's had an impact on is language. And uh it it seems to me that there are, you know, you cannot go a day without saying a King James phrase. You just can't. It's it's impacted our our language more than anything else, more than the works of Shakespeare. Um and so I thought, what's the best way to communicate? That fact, I thought, well, let's put a hundred different phrases into a three-minute video in a hundred phrases in three minutes.
SPEAKER_00In rhyming couplets. Yeah. Incredible. What a challenge. Uh shall we have a listen to how you did it? Here we go. This is the King's English.
SPEAKER_04God forbid the powers that be, forgetting the beginning of the KJV. Let's put words in our mouth for 400 years. Turn the world upside down. So here's my three cheers. As I sign of the times, I'll sing its praises. Shout from the rooftops 100 phrases. Miserable comforters may cast aspersions. I'll do this in remembrance of the authorized version. Like a fiery dart, I made haste to start, then fell by the wayside, was cut to the heart. In the beginning it seemed easy game. Now the mighty are fallen, I was put to shame. This labour of love turned a worldly care. My dream became my cross to bear.
SPEAKER_00Well, there you go, that's just a very small snippet of that incredible attempt to get uh a hundred phrases from the King James Bible into a three-minute video. If you want to watch the whole thing, then do go to the Speak Life website. You talk about how you utilize the calendar. And I think maybe one of the most controversial times of the year from a Christian point of view, where Christians have very, very strong feelings about how do we celebrate this or do we celebrate this, is of course Halloween. Um and you did a very interesting spin on this with one of the videos that you put out. It's called Halloween Trick or Treat. Again, do you want to just explain a bit about it and then maybe we'll have a listen?
SPEAKER_04Well, Jonathan Carswell from Ten of Those said, Um, Glenn, can you come up with a video that would be an evangelistic resource that that takes advantage of Halloween? Because it I mean it is, in terms of retail spend, it's the second biggest festival after Christmas. Uh it's become it's become huge, actually, in the UK. And so, in a sense, he sort of passed me this poison chalice. You know, how how am I going to navigate uh these different responses to Halloween within the Christian community? And I thought the way to do that is to ignore the Christian community and to make truly make it evangelistic, to truly make it something that's that's you know, try to preach to non-Christians. And so that's what we tried to do. We try to tell this uh this story of Christ entering into the darkness and the evil and coming out to feasting joy. That's the sort of the Christian story. And I think one way of looking at Halloween, and there are all sorts of debates about the history of it, but one way of looking at Halloween, is that really it is blowing a raspberry to the forces of evil and and saying, okay, let's give you one last hurrah, but you'll be swallowed up by the light of All Saints Day. And and and so I I I just kind of tapped into that narrative and said, well, that's like the gospel. The gospel goes down into darkness with the cross, rises up into light. So I I I tried to go over the Christian disputes about it.
SPEAKER_00And you you did make it, I think, um not not super scary, but you did make it scary, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting because to begin with, it was gonna be an animation. Okay. And we ran out of time to make it an animation, because that that's it just takes ages. Um and so that was gonna be quite jokey kind of so when you don't make it an animation and when you dress up kids and and you know, we got the smoke machine out, and we was we set it in a churchyard, and there's me in this sort of you know, big uh cloak. Um yeah, it it it is a little bit scary.
SPEAKER_00Did you get much uh kind of pushback from Christians saying we're not sure about this?
SPEAKER_04Not really. Really? Not really. And what's fascinating to me is is the people who are most dead set against Halloween. So often they come to me and say, I I love your video. Yeah, you're preaching the truth about Halloween. And and it's it's so interesting. You make something pretty and and it and it really uh gets to the heart of people.
SPEAKER_00But I wonder though, if that is because, as you say, it was literally preaching the gospel through Halloween. Right. So even if you're a Christian who has questions about Halloween, you can kind of see almost the greater good, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_04Let's unite in the gospel, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Well, obviously, you need to watch the video to get the full feel of it. But let's just have a short snippet of it so you can get a feel for uh the way you went about this.
SPEAKER_04In preposterous pageants and dress diabolic, they hand to the damn just one final frolic. You see, with the light of the dawn on the morrow, the sunrise will swallow such darkness and sorrow. The future is futile for forces of evil, and so they did scorn them in times medieval. But this is the nature of shadow and gloom. In the gleaming of glory, there can be no room. What force is resourced by the echoing black? When the brightness ignites, can the shadow push back? These forces of darkness, if such can be called, are banished by brilliance, by blazing enthrall. So the Bible begins with this four-resolved fight. For a moment the darkness, then let there be light.
SPEAKER_00If you want to watch the whole video, then again, do go to the Speak Life website. Um, great video to use around the time of Halloween in church, or as you say, you you you really made this with an evangelistic heart that it would reach people who aren't Christians. And another one, uh, just finally, another video I wanted to mention, and again, many people would have seen this already, but it's always interesting to hear the kind of thinking behind it for many of us who've seen these videos and think, well, why why did you do it like that? And that one is to end all wars, which of course was released um around Remembrance Sunday, Remembrance Day. Um do you want to again explain a bit of the thinking behind why you did this and how you went about it?
SPEAKER_04I think the the whole idea of Jesus being the anti-Sus, you know, um not the God with the thunderbolt, um, but the God who takes the thunderbolt um in order to offer you peace. Um I I I think that that preaches, doesn't it? Um and once again, you know, Remembrance Day is is just a a fact in our calendar, and and I just wanted to make use of that. We we sort of made the video and and it has quite an uplifting, exultant ending. And people have sometimes sort of said, um it it's unfortunate to have such an exultant ending because if you're using it in a Remembrance Day service, it's hard to bridge out of that, you know, if if you want to be somber. Um but actually all our videos are made for Facebook, they're made for Twitter, they're made for y YouTube, then they're made to be viewed online. I think we'd make different videos if we were just trying to make a three minute video for a church service. We're really trying to reach people where they are. And so that's that's why we shape our videos the way that we do. We we want to go viral.
SPEAKER_00Well let's uh again have a short listen to this uh video which was released around Remembrance Day. It's called to end all wars.
SPEAKER_04What causes war? The old book asks beyond the history beneath the masks begins a want becomes a will demands its way prepares to kill the wars we mark as long ago are close to home. They're all we know what ceases war the pressing question what can halt inborn aggression? To end all wars and retribution, war itself is no solution. Can terror end all terror now? Brute force subdue itself and bow? Can darkness drive out darkened dread?
SPEAKER_00Or death extinguish death instead so you mentioned there Glenn about social media and how that's really the main target for these for these videos. And I know it's uh Twitter and Facebook the rest of it is something you're very heavily engaged in. And I think it was actually at the um the Premier Digital conference last year I heard you speak about this. There was a really interesting seminar about how do we act as Christians online. And you made a really good point that especially with things like Twitter and Facebook when you read it through all you're seeing is ideology. All you're reading is beliefs. Here's my opinion here's what I think and you made the point that sometimes can we forget there's a real person behind those beliefs even if there are beliefs we disagree with. And this is something that a lot of Christians are speaking a lot about now about how can we change the tone of some of this online conversation? Even in the Christian world I can think of times gone by where it's got pretty nasty between Christians online. Are you hopeful about the future? I mean let's bear in mind this is quite a new medium still can we move past this not just in the church but in wider society and have more fruitful conversations online?
SPEAKER_04I hope so. It can get pretty poisonous on the scuttling underbelly of the comment sections of some blogs, you know I mean I I used to frequent a lot of atheist blogs quite a bit and and just just try to be a Christian presence and a voice just pushing back on some ideas and and and trying to be a cheerful chip but just sort of strike a tone of just joyful buoyancy in a monst but but some of the poisonous attitude there, I mean I'd I'd come away from it and just think I've I've I've wasted months in here and it's only been half an hour. But it just it it just it can feel so heavy and I think part of it is the anonymity of the web. Jimmy Kimmel the uh the American talk show host he did this wonderful um sketch uh a couple of years ago where um it was it was really a social experiment and he got this baseball player that everyone in New York hated because he left the New York Yankees and he went to the Seattle Mariners. And so you know it's it's it's like you know it's like a footballer going from you know Chelsea to Arsenal or something. You know, they they just you know hate hate each other. And uh and so what they did was they got a cardboard cutout of this baseball player onto the streets of New York and um and they interviewed all these New Yorkers and they said the Seattle Mariners are coming and this player's going to be back you know what do you what do you want to say to this player and everyone to the cardboard cutout went, boo, you suck and people were punching the the cardboard cutout and things like that. And then of course the twist is the actual baseball player is behind the cardboard cutout. No way. He steps out and what was fascinating is that every passerby then immediately switches and says oh I'm a big fan I'm a big fan can I get a photograph and you know it's like instantly because he's flesh and blood the love comes out. Yeah. Because he's just an icon, I hate you, I vent on you and I think that's that's the world of social media we just we we approach each other as these icons and we just vent on these icons and it's it's it's almost a spiritual discipline to realize that when somebody's asking me this question and they might be asking it in a really snarky way but I don't know what day they've had and you know they they might have like you know three toddlers kind of you know the whole room is full of puke and you know who knows what's going on in their life. Can I imagine that I'm actually talking to a flesh and blood person, which I actually am and engage with them as a flesh and blood person because we do treat people differently when we're face to face.
SPEAKER_00I guess it goes back to the famous New Testament quote about sharing the gospel with gentleness and respect. Arguably as you say it somehow feels harder to do that in the online world.
SPEAKER_04Trevor Burrus And we we are pattern-making creatures and so when we see something we plug that into this ideology and we think oh therefore you believe X, Y, and Z. And they've only given me 140 characters. How do I know that? You know and just just trying to stop dealing in pure ideology and start dealing in people and and sharing a bit of love. But I I I do have some confidence that there's a way to strike a tone that does make a difference. And so quite often I just say look if you want to be a presence on on online then like just say you're a Christian in your bio and don't be a jerk. Yeah all right that that's like that's 90% of the job.
SPEAKER_00Talking of of the job of being um I I mean I've I've referred to you a couple times as an evangelist. I should ask you do you like that label?
SPEAKER_04Sometimes yeah sometimes I think it can be unhelpful it can be unhelpful for me to think I am an evangelist. You know like you know in the medieval church there was the the the the very much the divide between there's the monks and nuns who are the really holy people and then there's the rest of you know and and somehow I think in in evangelical circles we can have the same splits. Yeah still suffer from that slightly and and both sides have a vested interest in the split. So I like I quite like and and other people quite like saying I'm glad that's not me. You know God bless you Glenn and all your evangelistic you know service but I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. And so if it ever becomes that it's it's really unhelpful. Ephesians 4 verse 11 says that evangelists have been given to equip the saints for their works of service. We we think the evangelist faces the world actually the job is for the evangelist to face the church and equip the church to be the evangelistic body so it so that we go together.
SPEAKER_00It seems to me like you've done quite a lot of different styles or methods if I can put it that way. So you mentioned you will give kind of big evangelistic talks publicly where you'll speak you've done the social media viral videos. Sometimes there's debates especially around the kind of big let's give a 45 minute sermon to a bunch of non-Christians that a lot of people will say that just doesn't work anymore and that was great when Billy Graham came over and did a stadium but really that's not where the culture's at. Do you have any views on that?
SPEAKER_04I believe in preaching and I totally believe in events because I think faith is an event and conversion is an event and the gospel is an event in which you encounter Christ. So often if if we just become all about process um and just let's just have friendship evangelism we just nudge people towards Christian faith and that you know Jesus is over there and we just nudge them a tiny little bit closer. If all our thinking is like that, we can start to believe that the gospel itself is a process. But the gospel itself is not a process. The gospel is death to life and so preaching and evangelistic events embody that theology and so I think there's absolutely a uh a time and a place for that and and it's important that we not lose that and that we just you know continually do the process thing. But the event does not have to be Wembley Stadium you know we've got these perfectly good opportunities. It's called church it's Sunday morning 10 a.m it doesn't have to be whiz bang it doesn't have to be high tech um God's people living out the faith pointing to Jesus from scripture that's kind of the evangelistic strategy God has given us so I don't want to reinvent reinvent the wheel and with all the social media stuff to I'm doing that's not because I don't think church is doing its job the goal of all that is to get people hooked into these local evangelistic bodies that are called churches. So we mustn't you know go over the heads of church into the culture. It's all it's always God's people en masse. You know this is why I produce the social media for Christians actually because I want Christians to have shareable content. So I'm equipping the church to be an evangelist. So now you've got something to share on Facebook instead of just the cat videos and the you know the sneezing panda or whatever. Suddenly you've got something with a bit of Jesus in it. So I'm not just going over the head of church it's it's through church reaching into the culture to bring them into a community in which they can encounter Christ.
SPEAKER_00Do you think then there's a there's too much um skepticism and cynicism sometimes towards the the bigger events?
SPEAKER_04There can be there can be and it it can go either way. You can you can sort of think I remember Harangay when Billy Graham and tens of thousands and to fixate on that methodology as though that's the thing. But you can sort of do the inverse of that and sort of say well therefore stadiums are no longer the thing and but then you can buy into this I I've there's this new strategy and it's all about you know going into a cafe and just being really relational, contextualized and missional and you know you know drinking homebrew. Like but that's just buying into another method. Right so there's no silver bullet.
SPEAKER_00There's no silver bullets arguably people are looking for a silver bullet more than ever because every survey that comes out shows less people going to church. Every survey that comes out shows less people ticking an Anglican box even though they may have done before.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00I mean people have attributed this to the death of nominalism. They've said that in years gone by you would tick Anglican because you go to church once a year at Christmas but you don't not really sure if you believe in God. Whereas nowadays people are more honest and so um they're just gonna put atheist or nuns. They call it the rise of the nuns which makes it sound like there's a number of women coming towards you from a Catholic background scary film. The rise of the nuns actually is N-O-N-E. So with the rise of of the nuns is this why people are kind of desperate for a silver bullet because all the news stories look very negative here Glenn what we're gonna do. Yeah what are we gonna do?
SPEAKER_04Well you abide in the vine and you bear fruit right you know um the That doesn't sound like a silver bullet. Well exactly exactly and I'm always I'm always wanting Jesus to give me the the brick upon brick kind of building plan you know you just need this brick in place and that brick in place and that brick in place. But that could be a very impersonal way of building the kingdom and actually what he says is abide in me and my words will abide in you. Ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you. This is to my Father's glory that you will bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples and so it is this deeply relational thing and and and that be that's actually a scary answer because the scary answer is the problem is not the nasty world out there. The problem is us, right? You know, and I can spend all my time saying oh secularism and oh the rise of this and oh the rise of that no you're the problem I'm the problem right if the church is not being fruitful like don't don't blame these other fruit trees. You know don't don't blame the thorns and the thistles that are out there. Blame the tr you know blame the branches that are not abiding in the vine. So so there is a problem here but the problem is not with the isms and the ideologies that are out there. The problem is we really need to go back to Jesus and and I think we really need to evangelize ourselves as Christians. I often say in personal evangelism training that the you know the real problem is not that you're not sharing Jesus on Monday morning. The real problem is you're not even talking to your Christian you know brother or sister on a Sunday you know after church. At the end of that service you're talking about the football and the weather too, right? The same as the rest of the world. And the problem is not that you're not evangelizing your work colleague on Monday morning. You're not even evangelizing other Christians. It is a problem but I but I think the the number one thing we need to do is keep on evangelizing ourselves and and kind of what I try to do with you know 321 is a gospel outline that I have come up with and there's a book called 321 and so often people ask me why have you written that book and the first thing I say is so I can convert Christians. You know I think we need to get back to a a really Jesus focused gospel and then we'll have good news for the world. But that that's that's my methodology.
SPEAKER_00You mentioned we need to preach the gospel to ourselves I wonder if you're up for a challenge then if I give you how how long do you need one minute two minutes?
SPEAKER_04Okay shall I time you or for the gospel? I don't know. Do you want to time you? Yeah alright let's go okay let's do it okay you ready?
SPEAKER_00This is this is Glenn's this is Glenn Scrivener with this is Glenn Scrivener with the gospel.
SPEAKER_04In the beginning there was light and life and love there was a father loving his son in the joy of the Holy Spirit and everything has come from light and life and love. And out of this has come a world that is destined to share in light and life and love but you know that this world is not like that. I know this world is not like that. I look around and I see darkness and death and disconnection. Where's that come from? Well we've turned from the light and when you turn from the light where else do you go but darkness? And when you turn from love where else do you go but disconnection? When you turn from life where else do you go but death? So this is the kind of world we live in. But what does what does love do when love sees the beloved in trouble? Love says your pit will be my pit, your plight will be my plight your debts will be my debts your darkness will be my darkness your death will be my death so who is Jesus? Jesus is love come down, the Son of the Father becomes our brother to be with us in the darkness to take that darkness on himself on the cross to take that disconnection on himself to even to take that death that we all deserve for turning from God took that on himself on the cross plunged it down into the hell that it deserves and he rose up again to light and life and love and he says you in the darkness do you want my light? You in death do you want my life you in disconnection do you want my love? And anyone who simply says yes to Jesus, we get Jesus in our life. We get his Father as our father we get his spirit as our spirit we get his future as our future it's for free and it's forever. So do you want Jesus? What was that?
SPEAKER_00That was amazing that was uh one minute and thirty seconds okay I'm very impressed. So is that I mean not only because can I can I add you to my prayer letter you know you know we've had a conversion Sam Hales has come to Christ. Yes that's it now I'm sorry. Yes I accept the gospel. That might have been slightly low-hanging fruit for you though because you're talking to a presenter on Christian radio. But no really impressive I mean I'm sure you're not expecting every Christian out there to share the gospel in one minute 30 seconds in such a poetic fashion.
SPEAKER_04You know it would be artificial to crowbar that in to most conversations but I think there are opportunities and and especially when someone asks you a question like suffering or something to say I I've got an answer to your question but can we press pause and can I go to 30,000 feet and can I give you the bird's eye view of Christianity and then can we see how your question plugs in. I don't think we do that enough.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely and I I wonder if that is because a related problem is I wonder sometimes if if the average non-Christian their perception of Christianity often they think they know what it is. They think it's you just be good and you follow Jesus and you get to heaven. Right. Yeah. Which arguably is a massive distortion of the true gospel.
SPEAKER_04Aaron Ross P it's nothing like the true gospel. And and and we spend all our time trying to clarify issues on the periphery of Christianity and we know that it's on the periphery of Christianity but they they think that's central. You know it's I mean I mean sex and sexuality is a is a big thing like a and a big example of where the culture just thinks that's the said that you know the heartbeat of of Christian Christianity is you know no to sex. And then and if we never go to 30,000 feet and tell the whole love story and you know they they never get the idea that this is peripheral you know but for a Christian like not just sexual ethics ethics are peripheral to the Christian message. The Christian message is a love story. Can I tell a love story and then can we plug your question in?
SPEAKER_00We need to do that a lot more I think can I tell a love story about God and the world. Yeah exactly. That's a wonderful place to leave it Glenn thank you so much for coming in if people want to find out more about you and your ministry and what you're up to where should they go?
SPEAKER_04Great uh go to speaklife.org.uk or you can follow me uh at Glenn Scrivener on Twitter.
SPEAKER_00And those videos that Glenn mentioned in the earlier part of today's show, specifically the Christmas videos that he's launching you may be interested to know the first one is actually due out this Monday. So if you head to the Speak Life Facebook page you will be one of the first to watch the first of those four Christmas videos that Glenn has been working hard on to put together. Just before we go final reminder that this show is brought to you in association with Premier Christianity magazine. If you would like a free sample copy of the latest issue, our special Christmas issue, why not head to PremierChristianity.com forward slash free sample.
SPEAKER_04So that was uh the profile with uh Sam Hails and uh do go over and uh give that podcast a subscribe uh it'll really uh bless you and as it goes into your uh podcast feed uh you will fill your eardrums with lots of gospel goodness. So uh go to the profile at uh premier radio and uh we'll have the links in the show notes. Uh but uh thank you very much for sitting through that whole hour. You were very patient, uh Paul, just sitting comfortably and you must have been wanting to you know object at many points.
SPEAKER_01Well I mean after hearing your thoughts on Turkey I'm not sure uh I can trust you on anything anymore.
SPEAKER_04You've gone a bit quiet since then. But uh anyway, uh let us know how you're celebrating Christmas and uh do be sharing. Meet the nativity around the place. Uh it's been getting uh hundreds of thousands of views and uh well over a thousand books have gone out to interested inquirers so keep on praying for those guys to uh really meet the true meaning of the nativity as they encounter those uh resources. So thanks very much uh for joining us on the Evangelist podcast and we'll see you again soon. Bye bye bye bye