Today on the Evangelist Podcast, we're speaking about opportunities in the student world. The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. With Glenn Scrivener and Andy Brinkley.
SPEAKER_02You're listening to the Evangelist Podcast, the show where we discuss all things regarding telling the good news of Jesus Christ. I'm Andy Brinkley and I'm with Glenn Scrivener. Hello.
SPEAKER_00How are you, Glenn? Yeah, really well. Really well. Just sort of recovering from February.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because you've been away for three weeks. I know. I mean, we've had you on the podcast for the last three weeks. Yes, being.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I think you've heard a talk from me uh from uh University of East Anglia. That's right. So that was a few weeks ago, so that's in Norwich. Yeah. I gave a talk. What was my talk there on? I think it was something on um uh what was it? It's been a long memory. Uh that was Oh yeah, how do I know I'm doing this life thing right? That's right, yeah. And then uh in Reading was the next week, and there's a talk there on extremism. Who's afraid of radicals? That's right, yeah. And then uh the final week was a week up in Sheffield, and we do have a talk to come to you from that about the resurrection. But um yeah, three missions back to back, and uh yeah, quite tiring.
SPEAKER_02Pretty tiring, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean it's it's very full on. You sort of you start off with prayer meetings sort of first first thing, and then you're out on the campus, and then you do your lunchtime sort of which is a more of a Q ⁇ A feel, and then your evenings, which is a more uh yeah, you're you're sort of s talking a bit more. So a long day. So you're you're up early and to bed late.
SPEAKER_02And so were you coming home for weekends and that? For weekends I was.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. So uh Norwich was a little bit shorter, so that was a Wednesday to Friday, and then Reading was Monday to Friday, and Sheffield was Monday to Friday. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Um so today we're gonna sort of go through a little bit of um what happens in a mission and uh the various different aspects of it.
SPEAKER_00That's right.
SPEAKER_02Well why why February? I mean it's a freezing month of the year. Um, it probably couldn't be much colder. Well, they why have a mission?
SPEAKER_00And we were up in Sheffield and it was snowing, but they they even had like a proper coffee machine um that they rented for the week and they were doing proper lattes and Americanos and um but yes, your your hands were freezing off um as you were talking to people. February, I think, because students seem to believe that they're so incredibly busy the rest of the the time that they couldn't possibly February's a little bit of a lull just after you you might have had some exams in January and you're not again gonna have exams until May June.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And so February near Freshers Week or anything.
SPEAKER_00And it's not near Freshers Week, and it's not in Easter holidays. So it tends to be that every every university uh Christian Union kind of does it in February, which makes it hard because you know they're scrambling around for the same speakers, and um and so yeah, your your February fills up pretty quickly. Um and you know, but but I think more and more Christian unions are diversifying, so you'll get um a lot of CUs that are putting things on in um Freshers Week, for instance. That can be a really fruitful time for mission. Um the drawback is you can't prep it as well over the summer holidays, but students have got all the time in the world in Freshers Week, and they don't have you're not competing with lectures or anything else. So Freshers Week um missions, can I encourage people? And that will sort of uh uh release release uh some of the pressure on February's butt um but September missions in in in Freshers Week are really useful. And uh some universities also do uh November time sort of uh missions the CUs do. So but yeah, it does tend to be February.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's it's good really for for local churches to know when these events are going on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um because sometimes you know you can have a church that wants to reach out to students but doesn't communicate with the CU.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02You know, and you can have um you know, it'd be just be helpful for for both, I think, for for the churches to say to the CU when is your missions week? and can we support you?
SPEAKER_00Can you you know do you want to use our resources or and I think UCCF, that's University and Colleges Christian Fellowship, um, do a great work of trying to match up CUs with churches and usually the staff workers in a particular university are particularly briefed with liaising between the CU and the churches and making sure there's good communication. Um but I was very keen um on all three missions, really, to have churches very much involved, and a lot of churches were involved at the various missions. Um but I think I think we can do even more to make sure that church life is the pinnacle of where you want to lead someone through. You're like someone makes a decision for Jesus, great. What do you plug them into? Do you plug them into Alpha? Do you plug them into a Christianity explored course that the Christian Union puts on? Well, that's good, and that will help them with their discipleship. But what we really do, what we really want to do is plug them into church. Um so I was encouraging uh Christian unions to have the Sunday really as the pinnacle, and to say, let's all, you know, be in church on Sunday. Um so I I'd like to see that rolled out in more Christian unions because I I think that would help the churches to invest in a mission week. Yeah. If the CU president contacts the local church and says, Yeah, we're putting on this week in in February, and on the Sunday, we're very much hoping to bring a dozen new people to your church. If I was a pastor, I would be very interested, and I would be very interested not only in making sure that that Sunday was good and welcoming, but also in investing in that week. Um because at that stage um it's it's just very much more front and centre that partnership between churches and and Christian unions. And just on that note, it was it was interesting in in Sheffield, uh so the crowded house um church there, so uh that's sort of Steve Timmons and Tim Chester, um, people like that, they they um they have a really interesting outreach onto the campus, both Sheffield Hallam and Sheffield University, um, in which uh they have a number of student workers that are sort of extensions of the church on campus. They're an extension of the crowded house on campus, in which it was really it was really good in Sheffield to be able to say to people very instantaneously, a number of people came to Christ and and we were able just to say, Ah, here is Phil from the local church and and meet up with him and get, you know, hooked into the life of church with him. Um Different campuses have different openness to outside agencies and to churches, and so at University of East Anglia, for instance, like a the campus just would not allow church workers on like that. So it just it just would not be possible. Um so you've got to be sensitive to those issues. But where possible, I I do think that church-led and church-based mission in the student world um is the healthiest model. Um but given you know, given the circumstances, you just take any chance you can. Um and you know, I I'm a bit of a Lone Ranger and in I go and shoot my mouth off and leave like the Lone Ranger. But um But you take you take your opportunities where you can, but ideally you want to hook churches into this and make sure it's church based.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Okay, well take us sort of through um, you know, preparation for a mission. What would you like to see sort of prepared beforehand?
SPEAKER_00Well, this is brilliant and and I think so many CUs are in a really good routine with this, um, and it it does tend to be that the mission speaker in February will go and perhaps leave the weekend away in October-November time with with the Christian Union, and also will perhaps do the Christian uh the the Christmas Carols, you know, service um in the December. And so they've got a you know, they they get to know the CU and the CU get to know the speaker, and this is absolutely vital. Um you know, you're not gonna bring your best mates to hear some guy or some girl shoot their mouth off about Jesus if you're not confident if you don't know who he is or what he's gonna talk about, yeah. Because it just takes you saying one stupid thing, you know, and and people people are very sensitive and you know will walk away from it. You know, I I just remember I had dinner with a a bunch of housemates and there were Christians and non-Christians there, and and um I even forget the the context of the of the conversation, but I just made some stupid comment about like that sounds like communism um in a in a really you know sort of derogatory fashion. It was a joke, but but um you know, the the friend who was there who was a vegan who you know had all sorts of y I'm imagining was left-leaning and and I could be left-leaning on lots of things, but but me just making a a a silly joke, just sort of dismissing communism, for instance. You could see her just sort of switch off instantly. Right. And and I just thought, oh man, and this is just going to uh reinforce whatever prejudice or what whatever kind of image she has of Christians as being kind of fundamentalist right wing, you know, American Republican kind of types like that. Which is just an example of, you know, a single stupid comment like that can can really turn people off. Um and so if you're asking Christian members of the Christian Union to kind of gamble their friendship on introducing people to me, they they need to trust that I won't say stupid things like that.
SPEAKER_02So it's it's good basically to you'd like an invitation first before doing the mission.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. And uh and with all of them, I uh um I was able to get to meet people and and talk and talk to the Christian Union and and talk in more evangelistic settings first of all. So that's that's really key, and setting the right kinds of expectations um and the prayerfulness of the Christian Union that's really key too. Um it was very striking to me that the success of the mission weeks in February that I was a part of was directly directly corresponded to the prayerfulness of the prayer meetings. Right. Um interesting. And you know, and we're talking about Christian unions unions with comparable uh numbers of members, and yet um yeah, where the prayer meeting was lacking um so was the invertiquama's success of the mission. And and s should we be surprised by that? No, we shouldn't. Um so prayerfulness, prayerful expectation, and then prayer throughout the week. Um uh absolutely vital.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So uh a prayer it would you the mission sort of starts with prayer um early in the morning?
SPEAKER_00Generally, generally, yeah. So pretty much all the missions that I've I've done, um yeah, you'd have a morning prayer meeting, and yeah, and and again, you know, there are lots of opportunities that you could have to do admins type stuff and say who's manning the stall and who's doing the questionnaires and you know, have you got all the baguettes ready for for lunchtime? Um but really prior prioritizing prayer there is absolutely vital. Um and as I say, you know, uh a fervent prayer meeting and a successful mission week just go hand in hand. Um so yeah, absolutely give give great priority to that. And then usually after the prayer meeting, um you try and engage the campus in different ways. Um and there are wise and foolish ways of doing that. You know, you you can have you know twenty people roted on to be out there handing out flyers at 9.15 in the morning, and there's no one at nine fifteen in the morning. They're if they're out in lectures, they're in lectures, you know. And if they're not in lectures, they're not gonna be out and about. They're students, for goodness sakes. Um so you need to you need to be wise and and do a bit of reconnaissance of the of the campus and what works best. Uh but some of the things that I I've seen work really well uh have been uh the coffee stand, um, offering those free coffees and just getting into conversations, uh question boards where you just put up perhaps a question that's based on the lunchtime talk that's coming. Um so if it's suffering, you could sort of say what causes suffering in the world, or something like that. An open-ended question that people can fill out. Um in Sheffield they had um these boxes of sweets um and kind of a a bit of a chalkboard behind each compartment. And behind one compartment was yes, behind one compartment was no, behind one compartment was maybe. And there was a question like um I don't know, does God answer prayer or something? And and people could pick up pick out a sweet from yes, no, or maybe, and then you get into a conversation with people about that. Um you can do questionnaires with people.
SPEAKER_02You you put the sweet into the rather than eat it.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no. You can still eat it, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you eat it and you put the wrapper in.
SPEAKER_00No? Uh no, you you take it out. Oh, okay. So you take the sweet out. So it's a jelly baby, and you take out the jelly baby from the from the no thing.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And then the person says, Oh, so why did you say no? Interesting. And then off you get it.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00And then you preach the gospel. Yeah, okay. Why did you say no? Because I like red jelly babies. Nice. That's that's good. Um Yeah, just little gimmicky kinds of things. I mean, university time is just such uh an amazing time for mission because of the flexibility of student life. You just you don't get these opportunities when people, you know, have jobs and have to have to you know work nine to six.
SPEAKER_02And you know, often people they leave home and they're coming to university, perhaps perhaps not left home before for any time, any length of time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And uh they're questioning, you know, what do I believe about this? What do I believe about that? I mean when I was at um I was at Reading, um you know, there was a girl there that uh she became a Christian because the rest of her corridor were going out in um to the pubs and and clubs, and she, you know, would she didn't drink and and everything, so she stayed behind, and there were some Christians there that stayed behind. Yeah. Um and she got got chatting and um she became a Christian just through sort of the the fellowship while everyone else was partying.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um And that's amazing why that's that's really why Freshers Week missions are so powerful because although on the surface you feel like everyone else is going out, you know, partying and getting drunk, actually there's loads of people who aren't and aren't interested in that at all. And actually Christians having an alternative to all those things is is actually a really powerful thing. Just to put another plug in for for missions at a different time of year, but um yeah, so there's that stage of life issue, you've left home and and also you're at you're at an institution of higher learning and you're always meant to be encouraged to be asking questions and to be curious.
SPEAKER_02And then you meet people from all sorts of different um thought you know, um mindsets and you know, you're challenged in in all sorts of directions.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. And I think another thing that's unique about university is is because of the flexibility and because you're all piled on top of each other, Christians get to see non-Christians up close and personal. Um I mean right now I'm wearing a hoodie from the Reading University mission, um, and it's just got convinced, which was the name of the week. Um but you know, you've you've got a number of different Christian Union members, you know, who've got these hoodies on, and you're a presence, and people see there's Christians on campus and that's what they're like, and and you know, your halls of residence will have the Christian down the corridor and that Christian there, and you're actually seeing in a way that's much more up close and personal um people live day-to-day lives. And so that's that's just another reason why university um is a great time to engage people with the gospel. Um and and it's why these ways of engaging the campus can be can be effective. All these people, they've got time on their hands, um they say they're very busy, they say they've got an essay crisis, but you tell them there's a free sandwich, and they will be there. Everyone's gotta eat. Everyone's gotta eat.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. So tell us a bit about the the lunchtime things, because a lot of them are question and answer type things. You give a little talk, and it does that seem to work best, as it is sort of a question and answer.
SPEAKER_00It seems to be the law. I don't know who made up the law. I mean, there've been times I I remember um Bristol University um doing a November mission with them, and and actually the lunch times were really fruitful times. People you like were becoming Christians during the lunchtime, and you know, you've almost got the sense of you're not allowed to, you're meant to wait until the evening. That's the So I mean somehow we've we've learnt that lunchtime is the time to um do the QA stuff. I'd be very interested one of these days to maybe flip things and maybe have the lunch times as the more um let's just tell a story from the gospels and maybe the evenings as more QA. I don't know. I don't know. I don't see any reason why necessarily that wouldn't work. But it just tends to be. So that's so the lunch they call them lunch bars, um, but nobody understands what a lunch bar is. Um and so it's just one of those Christianese things that it's best if we you know. I was um at the coffee stand in Sheffield and somebody said, Um, oh yeah, come to a lunch bar and the person was like, Oh, what's a lunch bar? Oh yeah, it's just like a lunchtime talk. And then this evening someone is giving their testimony. He's like, What's a testimony?
SPEAKER_03This is like oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, uh our language is is full of of those kinds of uh Christian e so they they yeah, so Christians call them lunch bars, I told them lunch talks, and they tend to be on more hot potato issues like God and suffering, god and science, god and sexism, um what about judgment and hell, what about Old Testament and wars and things? So you tend to have those sorts of things. Um and I mean it's interesting, people kinda say you need to do these more apologetic-based lunch times because people are so far back from the gospel, they really don't know anything about Jesus, and so you've just got to start with Um issues to do with science and is there such a thing as objective truth and all these things. Um whereas I I tend to think because people are so far back, you just need to tell them the gospel because their questions are terrible. You know, the questions of your average non-Christian are dreadful because they don't know enough about Christianity to actually ask a decent question. Um so you actually you know, so they they think that all their peripheral issues are central to Christianity. Why do they think that? Well, because they haven't heard about the centre of Christianity and we keep giving them peripheral issues like feminism, etc. So yeah, so I don't know, I I I think I mean I think there are ways of you talk about God and suffering, God and science, god and feminism, etc. And there are just ways of focusing on Jesus and how he answers those questions. So, you know, I'll take I'll take whatever question and preach Jesus from it. Yeah. Um but what I really love about um university missions, and and I guess this has been going I mean, I was I was at university, um my undergraduate degree last century, as were you, aren't you? Last century. Um But even then they had sort of gospel projects, and I remember it was Mark's gospel in in my year. It was this impossibly funky, groovy, trendy kind of publication that was in your hands, and it was meant to look like a C D case. Remember those C D? And uh and you could never tell which was actually Mark's gospel and which was the testimony and which was, you know, a little bit of blurb to explain the text and those sorts of things.
SPEAKER_02Disguised it up, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But these days, um, just very attractively produced John's Gospels and Luke's Gospels that are going out tens of by the tens of thousands onto university campuses. And I just love like even at the lunch times, I'm giving a talk on um what about Christians and hypocrisy? And just opening up and just saying, okay, everybody, let's open up John's Gospel and let's turn to page 100, and that's uh John chapter 13, and oh look, you've now broken the spine, that's yours now. You've got to take that gospel home with you, and you better read it, that would be rude not to. Um and so I uh every time I get up to speak, I'm just wanting to get people to open up God's word, to tell them to take it home, and say, Look, I've given you the introduction, you just keep on searching yourself and shoot up a prayer and say, God, if you're there, show me. And so just was just able to do that with hundreds of different people in February. Um and I think that's that's probably the most useful thing that can happen. And then in the lunchtime, you give your talk for maybe twenty minutes and people have the QA time. And I think what I've learnt more and more is in that QA time, the questions that arise aren't generally that representative of the non-Christians in the room. It's only representative of people who are bold enough to take the microphone and speak their mind.
SPEAKER_02So the It's probably helped, isn't it? By I mean, I you know, I saw the videos from from Reading. You know, they have a text number or you know, a a Twitter or something like that they can respond to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um and I think I think that's quite interesting because you can you know, where where someone Hears a talk, then they can, you know, there's somewhere to respond, say their little uh ask their question and whatever, and that and that can almost come off you know offline and uh you know people a bit more happy perhaps with a one-to-one over a coffee than uh standing up in front of a a room of fifty people and asking their question.
SPEAKER_00And it's it was noticeable that in Sheffield the place that we had didn't have any mobile reception, and so you could only ask live questions and the Q ⁇ A sessions were a lot more adversarial because the person who's going to ask the question is the person comfortable taking the microphone and speaking loudly, you know, in front of the room. So um so yeah, text messages can diffuse things a little bit. Um although I you know, I d I do like to be face to face with the questioner, and I always I always fear that a question's being asked. I've misunderstood it and I've just witted on for three minutes, um, completely missing the points, and then I move on. I just I imagine that if I had asked that question I'd be very frustrated. So yeah, Q ⁇ A times are are tricky and I I you know, one one of the very popular events that happens at um university missions is uh gorilla Christian, which again is a bit of Christianese that non-Christians have no idea. A gorilla Christian? Is that is in Gorilla Warfare or is that is in Gorillas in the Mist or no GRILL, a Christian. Bring your own charcoal. Yeah, that's it. And toast them. And and in these events it's it's basically you have a panel of Christians and lots of questions come from the floor. But again, I don't know. Um It's hard to do those well, I think. And I I I'm almost always on the side of the questioner. It's funny, like like even if the question is a strident atheist or something, I'm always on the side of the person who's asked the question because if the if I sense that someone on the panel has not actually dealt with the question, but has sidestepped it and just told a f a funny story or something, like I get upset on behalf of the questioner. And I just see that happen too often in Gorilla Christians and and Q ⁇ A time. That yeah, we've got to keep thinking about what's what's the best way of having fecause having that feedback is really good and useful. Um But I think I think what I'm learning more and more is that even if you might have a difficult QA time and there are a couple of strident questioners, that is not what the rest of the room is f is feeling, by and large. By and large, you know, so I I was um I went up to Sheffield with Martin Povey, a great evangelist who lives down here in Eastbourne, and and um he was doing uh the lunchtime talk, and I was just sitting in the audience, and I was just sitting next to a guy who um heard his story a little bit as we began. Two months ago, his grandfather had died, and he just started asking the big questions in life, what's it all about? And he was just asking the most sweet, beautiful, Christ-centered, um searching questions. And at the same time, the Q ⁇ A time was just dominated by a couple of strident atheists talking about genocide in the old testament. And it and um and the room atmosphere at the end was was a bit prickly. But he just like he just wasn't really interested in that. And he just turned to me and we just continued the conversation, picked up where we left off before the talk started, and he just kept on talking about um you're like who is this Jesus and and how can I know him? You know. So I I think I'm learning more and more that okay, you sow the seed on all the soil types, and maybe the maybe the rocky path is, you know, really angrily kind of rejecting. But that's okay. There's good soil out there. And don't don't think that the person who's got their arms folded giving you evils is speaking for the room. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um sometimes I think w when when you know the the angry atheist, if you like, is responding to you, there are people in the audience who are feeling sorry for you as well and say, uh, I'm I'm quite interested in what he wants to say.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02Um I'd like to speak to him afterwards or whatever.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it's really important at that moment not to become like strident in the same way.
SPEAKER_02Respond like with like.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, which you know, which can be tempting, but then how is how is then the guy who lost his grandfather two months ago, is he g then gonna come up to you and ask a question after your talk? Like you've just and you I mean you might feel like you've just flamethrowered this guy and you've just like scorched the earth with him and ha, you know, I've completely wiped the floor with that atheist. Well, okay, but what about all the other people who are much more sensitive to the gospel? Are they now gonna approach you and talk about Jesus? Maybe not. So yeah, so it's absolutely vital. The the tone that you strike in all those things. And you and so, you know, I went away from so many lunch bars just thinking what will someone walk away with? They'll walk away with John's gospel in their pocket. That's good. And maybe they'll remember I said Jesus washed his enemy's feet, and he's like he's who God is, right? And if I think they're gonna go home with anything more than that, I'm and and they'll go home with either I liked that speaker, I could I could hear him again, or I'm not really fussed, to be honest. And you know, like literally that's what they're gonna go away with. Yeah. As as meticulously as I might prepare, um, and as many points as I want to cram into my twenty-minute talk, that's what they're walking away with. So that's what to pray for.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So then you um usually the evening happens. What what anything happen in the afternoons? Nah. So it's kind of a downtime.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and you know, so the afternoon can be a time when you offer to like have coffees with people, um, you know, so after you've had the lunchtime talk and maybe you're getting into conversation with people afterwards, and and um sometimes those conversations can go long into the afternoon, or um sometimes you can schedule a another coffee with people for for later on, but I I tend to rest. Yeah. Because it's a long day. Yeah. Um and then the evening, yeah. And again the evening is open up the gospel, point to Jesus, and say, Look, what do you reckon? Pretty much that's it. And um and I'd sort of drilled the CUs that I um had uh prepared with just to say, Will you please, when you're thinking about what to put on in the evenings, will you not just fill the evenings with stuff? Um because that's easy. You want to fill the evenings with stuff, okay, we'll do a Grilla Christian Monday, and we'll do a pub quiz on Tuesday, and we'll do an acoustic night on Wednesday, and we'll do a pudding and something on Thursday, and we'll do a, I don't know, a formal you know, dinner dance or something on Friday or and then hey, well, there you go, you've got it you've got a packed schedule. Looks like you're doing stuff, and that that and that can be cool, but don't start with that stuff. Start with I want to see people trusting in Jesus. Therefore, they need to hear enough about Jesus so that they can actually choose to receive him. Therefore, you need to give decent amount of time to gospel proclamation, and that that time of gospel proclamation needs to be undistracted. Um and then, okay, if you can do a pub quiz and if you can do a whatever else, an acoustic night and all the rest of it. Um if that's the best setting for that, then great. But don't just put on an acoustic night and think, oh, when can I slot the speaker in? Yeah. You know, somewhere in between the bagpipes and you know, like that's not a good place. So yeah, so but because I'd sort of um bored them to death with that point, the the the Christian unions were really good about just clearing good space. Um and I was just able to get up and and preach Jesus and and by the grace of God we saw numbers of people um trusting him for the first time. A lot of a lot of people returning to the Lord. Um maybe there were first years that had they'd come up to university, but they hadn't really plugged into church or anything yet. Um and they were very ropey with their faith, and then they hear of Jesus and they come back, and um so yeah, some trusting him for the first time, some returning to the Lord and and and I think, I hope, Christians built up and fed and just reminded that Jesus is good news, that the good news is powerful to save people.
SPEAKER_02Um Yeah. So yeah. And what would you hope to see sort of in follow-up? You know, you you've come, you've you've done the week, and you've gone back. Yeah. What would you hope sort of happens to those people afterwards?
SPEAKER_00Just so vital. And um and and yeah, so I mean the the way that some of these meetings are finished is really important. So at the lunchtime in the evening, like for someone to really grab people by the scruff of the neck and say, if you've been moved by any of this at all, then I urge you to come to this next thing. I urge you to give us your details because on Tuesday evenings, henceforth, we're going to have this follow-up course, or um or on Sunday we are meeting outside the chaplaincy and we're going to a number of different churches and we want you to come to church with us. So to have someone really grab people by the scruff of the neck, to have a feedback system with cards, I think um I think with with feedback cards they should be as absolutely simple as possible. I think um Michael Utts and Michael Green um really are champions for a a a a feedback form that just has two boxes, one says count me in, one says tell me more. And you just say, look, if if you want to, if you've prayed to receive Jesus, then please do tick the count me in box. And if you just want to find out more, tick the tell me more box. And then you deal with where you feed them onto in the follow-up phone call, follow-up email. And make sure that somebody is tasked with following them up and following them up within the next 24 hours. Um so yeah, I mean the the unis that I've I've been to, they have been good with that. And um in fact I just um yeah, I just discovered that um like six people had become Christians on uh follow-up course at Reading. Um so that's just beautiful to hear, isn't it? Um and uh yeah, so at Reading they they tended to do Alpha, that that's just sort of what they always um do. Wait a minute, no, I'm thinking of UEA. Do Alpha. Um at Sheffield they were doing 321. Um but yeah, what whatever you do, uh don't make Friday nights on the mission week the pinnacle and the end. Yeah, yeah, need to um it's a step on the journey. Yeah. Good. And I think and and that just just to finish, I I think that is that's why I you know I don't tweet out at the end of a Friday night, you know, seventeen more people in the kingdom. Or, you know, we like five five new people who've become Christians. Like, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Some people might have prayed a prayer and ticked a box. They might have done that. And praise God for that. But you know, in the Bible, the number that is important is not like the number that you want to put in your prayer letter. The number that's really important is the church. And you know, in in Acts chapter two, um they're added to the number, which is the church. They're baptized and added to the number. And this this activity of of praying a prayer and signing a card um is important for follow-up. It's as an administrative thing, it's great. The spiritual significance of signing a card is is close to zero. The administrative benefit of it is huge. So keep on having feedback forms, but don't, you know, don't claim 17 new Christians. Um What the Bible wants us to see is new baptized members of of worshipping communities, and that's that's when we start to really rejoice. Um but this this is an important stage along the way, and let's let's be prayerful and let's be thankful for the opportunities God has, uh, but let's not oversell what we've done.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Sure. Well, uh that gives us a good sort of picture into CU missions and student evangelism. What are we going to speak about next time?
SPEAKER_00We're gonna do what I promised we were gonna do a month ago, uh, which is we're gonna talk about angry evangelism and how to do it. No, how not to do it. Um so yeah, yeah. Uh I've I've just noticed a lot that um some of the people who are most keen to get out there and share the gospel are actually there's there can be some anger motivating them. And what's going on there and what's going on in our own hearts um and how we can get the evangel, the gospel, to actually minister to our own hearts so that we don't do angry evangelism, but we do do urgent and um zealous evangelism, but heartfelt and loving evangelism.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay, something to look forward to for next time. So if you'd like to get more of these episodes of the Evangelist Podcast, you can easily subscribe at speaklife.org.uk slash tep.org.uk slash tep.
SPEAKER_00And if you're not already uh tuning into Reading Between the Lines, that's our daily vlog. Um taking you through the Bible phrase by phrase, uh, then you can go to the show notes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and there's a there's a link on uh speaklife.org.uk slash tep. Excellent. Okay, uh that's it for now. See you next time. See you later.