Today on the Evangelist Podcast, The Evangelist and Money with Martin Povey.
SPEAKER_00The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. With Glenn Scrivener and Andy Brinkley.
SPEAKER_01That's bad. Okay, candle after.
SPEAKER_05Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. This is the podcast where we hope uh evangelists like yourself will be encouraged and uh blessed. And we've got a very special guest on today.
SPEAKER_02Yes, we have right in the studio here in Sunny Eastbourne, we've got Martin Povey. Welcome, Martin. Thank you very much. You get that wherever you go, though, Martin. Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. But you have to add your own candle after. That's the that's the trouble.
SPEAKER_03Take my little boy along with me for it. Yeah, your little boy boy Noah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Tell me tell me tell me about family. Yeah, so we've got um I'm married to Claire. Um Claire's from Claire's from Essex, and she loves me mentioning that. And we've got uh we've got Nothing wrong with that. Yeah. We've got a little girl called Autumn who's five, and then we've got Noah, who's two. But I mentioned Noah because he likes laughing at my dad jokes, so he keeps me uh well supported. Does he? You've raised him well. Exactly. Oh, okay. Good fake laugh. He's very good at that. Okay. Is it a Pavlov's bell kind of thing? You kind of give him a sweet every time and Well, I think yeah, I started with him on that way, and he's kind of weaned off gradually, it's just natural now. Really? Yeah, it's like any good habit. Poor kid, pray for Noah.
SPEAKER_05It does say train them up in the way they should go, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02The way you should laugh. What what are we talking about this episode? We're talking about uh the evangelist and money. Oh yeah. That's why Martin's here. Oh hello. Martin's back. Hello, Martin.
SPEAKER_05Linguist Martin Povey. Um I did just want to mention before we before we jump into the interview that um we've got the Christmas video coming up and uh something to look out for. I know that we've been plugging it for a number of weeks on the Evangelist podcast, but uh please do look out for it. It's gonna be quite uh uh exciting and unique.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think it'll be good. So uh the best thing to do is probably like the Facebook page. Would that be a good thing for people to do? Speak Life UK there.
SPEAKER_05Um we're gonna be talking a bit more about uh Christmas videos next week. That's right. With uh Di Woolridge and uh Dan Rackham.
SPEAKER_02That's right. They are. So they um yeah, they come up with great Christmas videos every year, and this year is no exception. So we'll be talking to them not only about their particular Christmas videos, but also what what we're trying to do uh with this form of gospel outreach. Why why are we trying to you know get out there this digestible, easily shareable kind of little gospel presentation onto Twitter and Facebook. Um what's the big idea? And how can Christians be a part of this kind of digital way of being witnesses uh these days?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I mean we've uh mentioned before we've got a number of Christmas videos now. Yeah. Um Santa vs Jesus, Christmas in Dark Places, yeah. Oh Christmas tree.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, four kinds of Christmas. Multi-award winning four kinds of Christmas. Yeah. People always forget that, but I remind them.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so uh do uh have a look at the website and uh you know you can find a a video, a good video there to share for Christmas.
SPEAKER_02Other Christmas videos are available. Yes. Actually, yesterday I had the idea of doing an advent calendar of Christmas videos. Is that ambitious? That's that's probably a little bit too ambitious, but um yeah. Well that is is that like twenty-eight is that twenty-eight windows?
SPEAKER_05How many we've got one uh at home that's twenty-four. Okay.
SPEAKER_02I think that's just because it's an even number and there are an even number of boxes on the Well you yeah, you start you start on the first of December and you finish on Christmas Eve. That's the thing about advent calendars, their days are numbered.
SPEAKER_05Oh, sorry, where's Noah? Where's Noah?
SPEAKER_02I made a way once stole the calendar. You got twelve months.
SPEAKER_04How many months? Twelve months, man.
SPEAKER_02No idea. It's early, it's early.
SPEAKER_05So perhaps we can start Martin uh asking you about uh your Christian story.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Great. Yeah, so um my parents, both Christians, um, both been involved in a lot of social work throughout their lives, working with with kids, and um it was kind of um we they always taught us about Jesus and told us loads about him, and we obviously learnt loads through church. But it's when they were going through quite a rough uh period in their work, my mum took us along to uh local church and we went along to a midweek group, so I've got two brothers, one older, one younger, on the naughty one in the middle, and uh we're all in the same explorers group at at church, and we just had a visiting evangelist guy who came to to our 7 to 11s group, and I've no idea who he is to this day, but he came along and he he just preached and told us about Jesus and he said, if you want to trust in Jesus, um come forward now and and I'll pray for you. And then he said um after off the back of that, yeah, if you really want to know him properly, then go away and talk to your parents because he knew most of our parents were Christians. So on the way back home, we were driving back in a car. My mum, well, my mum was driving back in the car, and we just remember me and my two brothers just bombarding her with questions about about about Christianity, about Jesus. And we got back, we sat around the kitchen table, and we I just remember all of us, all three of us were just crying, just kind of weeping over uh we knew of we knew we were sinners, but I didn't think we knew loads and loads about the gospel. We knew we were done wrong, we knew that Jesus had come into the world and died for us and risen for us. And so my mum said, Would you like me to pray for you? And they're around the kitchen table, all three of us trusting Jesus. So what ages were the three of you? Um six, eight, and ten. Wow. Yeah, yeah. So it was it was great, and we've uh yeah, we've I guess we've had different journeys since then as as different people, but we've all uh following Jesus to this day, and it's yeah, it's a real privilege just been having brothers who who know and love Jesus as well. That's brilliant.
SPEAKER_02I often think that the way you get converted really affects the way you go on and witness to others. So if you're converted by street preaching, maybe you become a street preacher, or you at least you like the idea of it, or you know, if you get converted reading the Bible at home, maybe you become a Gideon or that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02The way you became a Christian, how has that affected, do you think, the way you try and seek others to be c to become Christians?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think I mean I've not I've not thought loads about how that particular guy um and the way he did it has impacted me, but I think my style is pretty similar in that sense that I love going around now to different places, different groups, and just trying to present as simply the the gospel message as I as I can. So I guess it has been quite a big big impact. But I think also one of the the later influences of my life was an American chap um who just was w he was 23, he loved Jesus, he knew the Bible brilliantly, and he would just speak about Jesus so passionately and openly. And I think the way that he did that um really impacted me with a desire to kind of do the same, really. How old were you? Um I was kind of I was around sixteen, seventeen. I think I was up and down as a teenager, um, in my Christian faith. So sometimes I was really on fire for Jesus uh at times like that when I was hearing people like that, and other times I kind of just kind of give in to my sinful nature and just kind of kind of drift and drift away a bit. So yeah, but that guy, particularly as I look back, what I what thrilled me was his love for Jesus, and that was just in infectious.
SPEAKER_05When did you sort of realise that you wanted to become full-time?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I I kind of headed off really at that kind of sixteen, seventeen age, I got I got really into then um I saw a whole bunch of teenagers who uh who were loving Jesus and the way they were loving Jesus was they were getting stuck into the Bible, and that really got hold of me, and I thought I want to be someone who who speaks about Jesus and and digs into the Bible as well. And I think from there I then went off to to Bible college quite young at at 19 um to go and study. But I think in many ways God had to do a lot of lot of work in my my heart and my attitudes, and really I didn't I didn't really study that much at at college, I think I was just an i an idiot in a lot of ways, and God used that time at college to show me that I wasn't just someone who does a few bad things here and there, but actually my whole s my whole nature is curved in on itself. Um the kind of cheesy quaver, that's what the way my heart is, it just looks like that, and and God showed me for that how sinful I really was. And I think by the time I I kind of left college, it was it was then I was speaking to my dad about how how sinful I was and am, and he kind of really just pointed me to Christ, and I got gripped by how gracious God is and how He can forgive absolutely everything and the way I am and the things I've done, and that that then the gospel really started to sink in after Bible college bizarrely and then I got convinced that this gospel is so good, I wanna I want to tell people. So I went on from there to work in uh in the mighty weight raise, and I guess I kind of cut my teeth as an evangelist in Waitraze, really. So yeah. Tell me some stories about that. Yeah, so Waitrays, I was um I I worked there part-time through sixth form college and then did a gap year after that, and then I I worked there for two years after um college uh whilst doing some more studying. But it was I worked on fruit and veg, so it was uh it was good, it was a great laugh. Um working with loads of uh funny people and we always had loads of fruit and veg jokes. I think that's partly where my bad jokes come from. Yeah, that's a lot. And uh yeah, yeah, this is where it's wanted to come. Um and and really we were just you know lobbying fruit and veg away, and we'd have loads of opportunities just to talk, and people would ask me questions. And I at that time I was doing some studies in in evangelism, and because I'm not very articulate, they kept thinking I was saying vandalism. What's that? Vandalism studies. Um so I'd then be able to talk about the gospel, talk about Jesus, and and then f because we're quite open about things, you'd always get questions as you're putting things out, people ask you things as you're going along. So yeah, it was it was great opportunities about Jesus to talk about Jesus, really. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So how did you link up with Roger Roger Carswell?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so after kind of working in Waitros, I went off to work with UCCF for a few years, for five years, and I met Roger really through my work then with mainly I was mainly focused on colleges and six films. I did stuff with universities as well, but my main focus was with 16 to 18 years old. Why do you think that was? Why that age? I think they probably thought I was a bit too thick to enter the university standard. So I d I don't really know. I mean I'd done quite a bit of youth work as well, and the position I I think the lady who was in charge of the FE work at that time thought I'd be really suitable to that kind of environment. So it was great, I loved it as well. It was you're working with two or three people in a Christian union who were fearful of sharing the gospel, and the aim was to get alongside them, you know, love them, care for them, and point them to Jesus and and help them to be evangelistic through their personal lives and also corporately as a CE. And we had a great opportunity sharing the gospel, when it was through that that I got Roger Carswell across to do some training for a whole bunch of six formers, and I got to know him from there, and then we kind of bumped into each other and kept in touch and throughout the years since.
SPEAKER_02And you're now a member of his association of evangelists, is that right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so Roger's the uh the face of the Association of Evangelists. Not the prettiest face, but yeah.
SPEAKER_02The cheeriest face, though. Yeah, the cheeriest, of course. Yeah, okay. And you are so you are you are an associate with the Association of Evangelists.
SPEAKER_03Well no, you are yeah, oh yeah, there's always a bit of a confusion over associate associates and affiliates, yeah. So an associate is someone who's w with them full time, and an affiliate is someone who's who's working in another kind of church ministry but wants to be linked in with the evangelists. Okay. So yeah, so I'm an associate, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So it's a it's a collective of evangelists, and you meet up a few times a year, and what's what's what's the extent of the association?
SPEAKER_03Yes, we meet up probably once every two months for encouragement, some Bible teaching, um, but we also we meet now with a whole bunch of other evangelists from different organisations, so open air campaigners, counties evangelists, and we meet together and we meet with a good kind of Bible teachy type person. So we did have uh Alec Mateo doing quite a lot of stuff with us until sadly he died recently. Um we also had Dick Lucas um speak to us, so he shared his uh his dinner with me, which I was quite proud. It's one for the grandkids. Wow. Yeah, he couldn't handle it all, so he dumped half of it on my plate. Oh but then he shared from the gospel with John as well, which is the more the m the bigger highlight, and that was that was amazing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I could see I could see a book writing with the title I ate Dick Lucas's dinner. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Oh get ten of those to believe it.
SPEAKER_02Wow, okay. And and so you meet up like six times a year, and uh Okay, but you were all kind of doing different things. So some people work with churches, some people uh street preachers, some people work in school, some people work in prisons. Yeah. Is there any is there any kind of common theme to the associates?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the common theme I guess is one one common theme is we're all quite random and strange. But another one is yeah, we all love Jesus and we want to talk about him and do talk about him in in various situations. So yeah, there is a a variety of different uh ways in which people do that. So if we street evangelism or youth work or kids' evangelism, but the the common denominator is preaching Christ and Christ crucified. That's our that's our chief aim and that's what we do.
SPEAKER_05Uh so Roger Carswell's Association of Evangelists takes a certain view on raising support. What is it and where does it come from?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so when we I was working after UCCF, I went and worked for a church in in Hove as the students in twenties minister, and during the coming towards the end of that that contract, we were thinking of praying about what to do next, and and both Claire and I wanted to do something that was really just involved in a in evangelism, and we were struggling to kind of think about what what that could be and what that would look like. And all of a sudden we got um a phone call from Roger Carswell um saying, I've been thinking of praying for ye. Would you like to join the Association of Evangelists as an evangelist? And we we chatted a bit about what that could look like and uh we were really excited, and then he said, Oh, by the way, it's a it's a live by faith organisation, and we're like, Oh, what does that mean? And uh I thought we all live by faith. Exactly, exactly, we all live by faith. Um so it's a bit of a misnomer on one level, um, but the idea is it's more like the Hudson Taylor style thing where you don't ask for support except for asking your Heavenly Father um to provide. So yeah, so the the the whole philosophy of it is we don't ask people for for money um at all and we see what the the Lord provides. Which is very scary. We know we weren't we aren't Hudson Taylor types. We went in I've got OCDs for my budgeting, and so that was kind of giving me a lot of kind of nervous twitches hearing that.
SPEAKER_05So you're you're employed by the Roger Carswell Association, but you don't have a like a wage or no, it's an it's a network of evangelists and all of us are s are technically we're self-employed.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, so no we're not employed by the association. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I imagine I imagine a lot of evangelists are self-employed. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think different one organisations work obviously in slightly different ways. I mean open air campaigners, uh they I think are live by faith style people. Um counties evangelists, I think they get uh a certain sum, a s a minimum amount of money, and then they have to raise their own support. And so there's yeah, it's different models and different strategies, and we don't you know personally think the one that we do is the one that everyone should do. Um it's just the one that happens to be the the philosophy of the of the A of E. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02So as you started to think of Roger's um proposal, yeah. Um what were some of the sort of challenges you you had to face?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, um Claire was uh six months pregnant and um we were due to be leaving our post in about three three months, I think. Um so it's quite it's quite nerve-wracking. We had we did have, I mean, through God's provision, we had a a flat that we'd been renting out previously in Polegate of all places. So we uh we moved back.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you live in Polgate.
SPEAKER_03Oh nice. What a legendary place. You can't beat with us D I Yes product placement there. Um and yeah Fish and Chip Shop's pretty good. But we we moved to yeah, to Polgate and we're thinking about you know how we're gonna kind of live in that sense, because we thought we can't live in Hove because it's so expensive and everything, and so we thought we'd move back to Polgate and just see where we go from there, look for a church and see if we could kind of move in closer to the church that we were gonna settle in. And that's what we ended up doing.
SPEAKER_02How do you, for instance, get a mortgage when you so so you've you've bought in Eastbourne? Yeah, yeah. And of course they want to see wage slips and that sort of thing. Yeah, they're yeah. I mean, did you have some interesting conversations with with bank managers and saying yeah, we just live by faith, trust us.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's it's a bit kind of uh yeah, you're a bit nervous, a bit apprehensive when you go to talk to people about it then because uh you're thinking most Christians don't get it, and we barely get it. So the people we're gonna talk to you who aren't Christians are definitely not gonna get it. So um yeah, we we essentially what happened was we had a mortgage with um uh Leeds Building Society, who happened to be one of the only two mortgage companies who would look at and touch us with a barge pole because they required 18 months worth of chartered accountants um accounts for for the last 18 months. And um what happened was we we phoned them up just to see if it's possible to to get a you know raise the mortgage uh get a higher kind of mortgage and all that kind of stuff. And and we spoke to this I spoke to this lady and she was asking me all the questions about you know your finances, and then she said, How'd you get your income? And then I said, Oh, we uh well technically it's called Live by Faith. And uh I said, Well what that means in practice is and I explained a bit and um she didn't kind of bat an eyelid, well I couldn't quite see, but it seemed like she didn't bat an eyelid and she carried on asking questions, and then she basically said, Oh Mr. Povey, um I support some friends of mine who are uh Wycliffe Bible translators and and they live by faith. And she said the underwriters aren't gonna have a clue what you're talking about, but I'll I'll try and square it with them for you. So yeah, so we just happened to get um a Christian lady and a Christian lady who understood how we were living who could actually talk to the underwriters and uh yeah, through God's kindness and provision, then we're able to get a mortgage to move in.
SPEAKER_05So do you have l sort of like a uh a circle of supporters that kind of give regularly, or does it d is it just sort of money in your hand as you walk out the door kind of thing?
SPEAKER_03A stalk brings it in the morning and Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, you get you get some r yeah, some random examples, but you get um generally there there are there are a bunch of people who say they want to give to us regularly, so we get people doing that. Um but that doesn't provide everything for general bills and things. Um but then we get certain people who say we want to give to you at different times of the year, some people want to give one-offs and they just kind of give to us that way. Um sometimes when you go out speaking, places will give you money, uh a gift, sometimes it will just be expensive, sometimes it won't be uh anything. But we we kind of always set out in our mindsets well, I always try and tell myself, don't expect anything. So if you get anything, it's it's a bonus. So you always try to go into every situation like that, so you're not thinking, Oh, what am I gonna get here? And we just found that God's really kind, so if if some place doesn't give you anything, um another place will give you quite a bit, and uh and he will provide in lots of different ways. And and people sometimes send things free randomly. So just before Claire was due to give birth, she's got this little brace, I'm sure she all loved me telling you this, behind the front of her uh bottom teeth, and it it snapped and she needed to get it fixed, and we went to an orthodontist and they said, Oh, it's gonna be a hundred pounds. It was two days before she was due to give birth. And uh and we just happened to get a an envelope free with a with a check for a hundred pounds, and actually the day before we took it with Claire went to the Orthodontist. So there's loads of stories like I've got providing in those ways. Even we even got a dishwasher randomly through a friend who was who's a a chippy and he was doing some work on a house, and this lady was dumping all of her dishwashers and washing machines and everything. Um and it was two years old, nice Bosch dishwasher, and he said to a lady, I've got some friends who you could do that, because she was just gonna dump it, and she said, Oh yeah, they can have it. So I drove up in my Fit Punta, 1995 European card a year and put it in the boot and uh Bob's your uncle. Very good.
SPEAKER_02She's good. Nice. So tell me some tell me some harder stories. I mean, have there been some hairy moments where sort of eleventh hour and and still nothing's come through?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think di it we it's just it's we've not had massively hairy moments in the sense that oh no, right now we we can't pay um for this because what we're told from some of the people who've been living this way before is that when you get more of a a chunky gift in, put as much as you can, try and put stuff away so that in other in months that follow where you don't necessarily get so much, you've got enough to kind of spread across and things like that. And so I think yeah, God's provision has been through then the wisdom of other Christians saying how best to live this way. And so we've got an advisory board who meet with us three times a year, and and one of those is an evangelist who's been an evangelist for thirty-five years doing a lot of street work, and he's always lived lived by faith, and so we get some good and good wisdom from from them and see God's provision through through that way as well. How's it made you think of money differently? Yeah, I think I think you can i initially it could make it made us a bit kind of obsessive about thinking about you know what's gonna come in, is it gonna is it gonna come in in the first month or or two. But then uh we we started seeing money differently then, 'cause we started seeing how God was so kind in in providing and I think it made us just more trusting of our Father in Heaven to just provide for for our needs. So so in many ways now we're we're more relaxed about living this Way than when when I was salaried. And it just, yeah, God has been really kind and faithful. And and even just um the evangelist guy who's on our advisory board, he said he got to a stage where he got a bit fed up with things at times and he just started praying to God, saying, God, don't give me any more money, I don't want any more uh money because I want you to stop providing so I can't be an evangelist anyway, to be very honest. And he said then in the next two months God kept doubling up what he'd usually actually get in, and he he kind of uh shut up then and and carried on.
SPEAKER_02God was incentivising evangelism proof.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. In a non-dodgy way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Do you sort of do your own accounting or have you got sort of an accountant that works for you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so there's an accountant who who does it, who's who's pretty good with people who live by face, he's got a lot of experience with that and of interacting with the NM revenue, because again it's quite bizarre to them. So he's he's been really, really, really good for us. So once a year we just send off all our everything, information to him and he he sorts it out.
SPEAKER_02What would you say to other evangelists about this topic of money? So that's that's the the topic of today's episode, the evangelist and money. And obviously not everyone lives by faith like you, but I guess you've learnt some things about money and uh things over over the course of the last six years. What would you what would you say to other evangelists?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think I I heard you know once about money is often your you know your great replacement god in the sense that it well it's not a great replacement god, it is the God that you often go to if you if you reject the true and living God, um because you think it'll give you your significance and and your security. So it'll give you significance because you think because I've got money, um I'm someone and I've got security because I can buy my way out of anything. Um and I think there's there's that as a kind of danger for all of us, even as evangelists. And I think just kind of seeing going back each time to the gospel and and as you obviously as you're trying to preach and share the gospel, you've got to ground yourself and earth yourself in in Jesus all the time. And just going back and seeing that constantly how how Jesus is our security and significance, then helps me view money in a in a better light. And I think that w one of the verses or the scriptures that really comes to mind is in Hebrews 13, verses 5 to 6, where God says, Keep your life, your lives free from the love of money, and then he doesn't just say do that, he just tells you how because he says, Never will I leave you and never will I forsake you. I think just keeps coming back to that and realising that that God is gonna be with you and he will look after every need that you've got, and you know that you've got your significance there in Jesus, because he emptied um himself of everything for you, he came and died before you gave up the treasures of heaven for for you, and also realising then that he is is not just your significance but he is is just your security that he's always gonna be with you uh no matter what. So I think that that's been a kind of key thing, keep coming back to the gospel and then then that shapes then the way we view um money. But it is it is a battle, I think. There's it's so easy to get sucked in even as the way we live, but when money comes in are thinking, oh what can what we can can we spend it on now or what can we do with with this? And and for us we uh recently I had to kind of preach through Amos um and uh there's this a chapter there where it talks about the people of of Israel or Samaria being like the cows of Bashan and very just hoarding their money and not not giving it away. And so challenges from scripture to say even when we're living the way we are, we we need to be generous with what we've given, just as Christ has been generous um to us, and that's that's a big challenge. And then I think my parents had really set into us and instilled in us in in into my mind anyway, um from the out from a very early age, the need to be giving away whatever you're given as well. And that's been a a great um rock for us in the sense that Claire and I now think, How can we help these people, how can we um give away? And God convicts us of that um when we get obsessed with our the material values of our culture.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Because Emma and I enjoy your memory foam mattress. Yeah, yeah. Which you which you gave away very very um very generously to us. And but but it must be it must be very um it must be very tempting to think, okay, I'm leaving my faith. I've just you know, someone's blessed me with this this amount. I'm gonna need to squirrel this away. So just to be sensible, just to be a faithful steward. Yeah. I mean wha what I mean what scriptures come to mind when you think about how to how to handle those situations or what sort of wisdom do you have for 'cause naturally you're gonna want to you know stick it away for the for the rainy days, which you know are gonna come.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean does does the scriptures like the first fruits and and giving that or you know, come to mind?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there's it's things like that. I mean uh you know the whole kind of tithing um principle is something that I guess we did grow up on and with the pocket money, you get a pound, you give ten fee away. And and so that that is because it's in our minds, we don't see it as a legalistic thing, we've got to give ten percent um all the time, but we do it as a practical thing that ten percent is the minimum that we'll get. So if we get a gift come in, we'll we'll put I've got a I've got a special um giving away bank account that we put that money then into so that we you know save that or whatever for for giving away to people at uh appropriate time. So so we always give then a minimum of of the ten percent that we get um away. So that's that's what we do as a matter of course, and then it's not then such a kind of grind to do it. But also we've we found that as we give away, that the key is you give away and you as Jesus says, you it's more blessed to give than to receive, and you just experience it every time that you see the great blessing that people are really happy that they've got provision. And they don't we don't always you know say it's from us or whatever, you might do something on the sly, but sometimes you can't always do it on the sly, so you have to be quite open about it. But you see you know the blessing then of of God's provision through you as a channel to uh to other people. So I think it's just see seeing that kind of thing. But we're not we're not brilliant at being generous, but God convicts us and brings us back.
SPEAKER_02You very much are.
SPEAKER_03So what's exciting you about ministry at the moment? Yeah, I think I'll just come off the back of doing a a five-week training uh course with at St. St. Mary's Hailsham on it on evangelism, and it was really exciting just to see just a good number of people coming along each week to that. So they had around seventy people coming along each week.
SPEAKER_02And just um was it was it l did they know they were coming to evangelism training? Yeah, because that that usually halves the numbers.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no. And then when I turn up, it usually halves it again. So um yeah, it it they did know that it's uh happening and uh it was it's been really good. So they they've engaged really well and we were just looking at a lot of time at giving kind of Jesus-based answers to people's questions and trying to think about in our conversations how we can give short snippet kind of answers from the Gospels, not necessarily getting the gospel open and saying here's the answer, but trying to remember what the gospels say so we can throw that out in a given conversational situation. So I think that was a real real thrill for me just seeing people kind of learning how to try and give Jesus answers rather than going off into all the big, I don't know, philosophical ideas but going to Jesus first. Brilliant.
SPEAKER_02Can we t can we test you? No, should we test him? That's brilliant. You've done it for five weeks. Come on, come on.
SPEAKER_03Well that's one session, I should say. What about science? Have you have you got a Jesus-shaped answer for the science question? For the science one. Yeah. Well, I think we were looking at John's John's Gospel quite a bit. So I I'd often say, in terms of the evidence for God, um you go you can just go you could go with all the whole kind of cosmological arguments and all that kind of stuff. But we just said what you could just do is go straight to John's Gospel and John 1.18, and no one's ever seen God except God the one and only Son. He's revealed Him to us. So if you want to know the truth about the world and about God, then you go go and look at Jesus. And it's not the knockdown answer, but it's it's something that puts Jesus on the agenda and g keeps him central, and then you can kind of go out from Jesus rather than making him an addition.
SPEAKER_02That's so helpful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05What about what about uh you know the Bible is just just uh old documents that have been passed on, they've degraded over the years. What what do you say?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I again I go back to Jesus saying if you look at Jesus who I who I love, he everything about his life was was full of scripture, he's always talking about the how the life-giving nature of what what the Bible is actually like, and when you look at Jesus, you see the most joy-filled um person ever. So just so examples you can you know you can give is that he's even quoting scripture when he's dying on a cross. And when you're dying on a cross, you'll be in a lot of agony, not just physically, but for him spiritually as well. And yet he's quoting scripture, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And you think that's how integral it was to his life, and so he knows that the words there are are life-giving. So I'd often just go and say that Jesus loved it, and he look at look at how he does it.
SPEAKER_02Very good. Alright, final one, final one. Suffering. How can you believe in a god of love when there's so much suffering?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, if if we were going through John's Gospel, which uh that that group which we were, and even if I wasn't talking to if I was just talking to a non-Christian about it, I guess with suffering, I think I always ask people why do you ask about the suffering? Because you want to make sure you know where they're coming from. Because if it's a it could be an intellectual c problem, for some people it is, most it isn't. It could be a smoke screen question, or it could be as for most, a genuine heartfelt issue. And I think just that initial question back, just like Jesus would often ask questions back, it it unlocks for you where they're coming from. Um but if we if they then wanted more of a just a what does what does the Bible say, I'd often then take them to somewhere like John 11 and show how Jesus dealt with suffering and and I love the Tim Keller thing where he talks about with Martha and Mary, Jesus gives the truth and he gives tears. So he he he because he's God he knows there's there's hope, he knows there's an answer, he knows there's a solution, but also because he's um become one of us and knows what it is to be human, Jesus uh can weep with us and he's he's weeping and he's angry because he's gonna go and battle the root cause of all our suffering on on the cross, and he's gonna go into the I think Tim Kelly says the inexorable draws of death and he's gonna go and snap them. Um so uh yeah, so I just kind of love that, and I'll just take them to how Jesus deals with suffering in that way. And and uh you know, if people want to then talk more, you can give the whole kind of Bible overview, you know, creation full, redemption, consummation, but initially I'll go straight to straight to Jesus. Go to Jesus. Excellent.
SPEAKER_05Good advice what else to do?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Okay, well uh what's coming up for you evangelism wise?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so particularly um this next when is it, Monday? Yeah, we're Tuesday today, aren't we? Yeah, so Monday, um I'm going up to speak at uh Loughborough CU's Christmas Carol service. Right. So I'm really really looking forward to that. They've got the Vice Chancellor doing a Bible reading and they've they've managed to get a whole bunch of different students who don't usually come to the Christian Union to be part of doing the music and things like that. So it's gonna be a great opportunity. And they're always the carol services are always the ones where you get the the sheer volume of the hugest volume of non-Christians, I think, along. So yeah, really looking forward to different carol services.
SPEAKER_02What are you gonna say? What are you gonna say? Because I've I've got some carol service coming up.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's a good question. I've not I've not actually thought about this one yet. So after this I'll go back to look at it. So uh yeah, there's so many things you could say, but yeah, something about Jesus. Something about Jesus. Yeah, yeah. I thought that might be good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Well, thanks very much, uh Martin, for joining us on the Evangelist Podcast. It's been great to talk.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, thank you very much.
SPEAKER_05So if you want to subscribe to the Evangelist Podcast, you can do so by going to speaklife.org.uk slash T E P and uh you'll find the subscribe links there. Next week we hope to have uh Die Woolridge and Dan Rackham.
SPEAKER_02We definitely have Dan Rackham. Die Woolridge can only do Friday, but we we'll we'll try and make it work. We'll try and make it work so we get them both uh to talk about videos and Christmas and outreach at this festive season.
SPEAKER_05Yes. Uh watch out for our coming Christmas video and share our Christmas videos if you would like to.
SPEAKER_02Share it. Share it. Don't just like it.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_02People just like things, and then they don't share it. You're like, well, you don't like it that much, do you? Share. Didn't Jesus say share somewhere? What would what would Jesus tweet? He would tweet Christmas videos constantly. Well, I think that's it for this time.
SPEAKER_05Thanks very much for listening and see you next time.
SPEAKER_02See ya.