Today on the Evangelist Podcast, talking to strangers about Jesus. The Evangelists Podcast. Encouragement to speak life to a needy world. With Glenn Scrivener and Andy Brinkley.
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. We're talking to strangers, or we're at least thinking about strange about Jesus.
SPEAKER_02People are strange.
SPEAKER_01Well, you're a strange.
SPEAKER_02This is kind of about uh street evangelism and door-to-door and just talking to people you don't yet know uh about people who don't yet know Jesus.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well before we do that, just give us sort of a a quick uh update on where we are at uh Speak Life.
SPEAKER_02Speak Life. We have been known as Revival in the past, and we're transitioning to being known as Speak Life. Just to put front and center that we are a charity that seeks to proclaim the good news of Jesus. And so put that proclamation speaking life thing front and center. So that's one of the things that's that's happening. We're sort of uh rebranding, we've got uh a WhizBang new website you've got to check out speaklife.org.uk and uh some new publications. Um so uh please do write into us and get our glossy uh daily uh prayer guidance that you can get uh where we tell good news stories about the the gospel going abroad, but also give you some uh encouragements to evangelize and uh updates on what we're doing here at Speak Life. So that's kind of new. And uh one big development is that we're going to run from here in Eastbourne a uh a learning hub for union. Now, union is uh the brainchild of Mike Reeves, who we've had on the show in the past, and he's there at West Wales Evangelical School of Theology, and they're really wanting to unite theological college with church so that you get trained, not you know, off somewhere else apart from church, somewhere in an ivory tower, but you get church in you you get trained in context in church. Um and so how do you get the best of theological education, but also the in-context, practical, hands-on training of a church context. And the way they've come up with it is by having learning hubs around the country, and we're gonna be one of these learning hubs where we're gonna have uh four different guys who are studying uh at a graduate level, they're studying a postgraduate diploma in theology, and we're gonna be doing it together. So that's starting in September. So we've got four young guys who are uh very keen, and uh so that'll that'll be great. Uh guys who want to get better at proclaiming Jesus into the world, who want to go deeper in their Bibles, and uh so we'll uh we'll be doing that as as part of our ministry, not only to evangelize but to train people for evangelism.
SPEAKER_01And they'll be sort of going alongside you sometimes to missions and things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. So I looked in the diary, I think I've got seven week-long missions uh happening in in the sort of the academic year 1516, and and uh for most of those I'll I'll have at least some of those guys uh coming along with me, a little team.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. Good. And uh you've just recently just today you've been at the um lunchtime The lunchtime concert.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so in Eastbourne we have uh lunchtime concerts at All Souls Church, which is my church and um church I go to. And so yeah, we had uh a lovely bat a lovely batterone singing um some very moving songs, actually. It was quite nice. And then halfway through, um you can tell I'm not very cultured. At half time, I get up, you know.
SPEAKER_01Share an orange.
SPEAKER_02We eat some oranges and we change ends. Uh interval. That's the that's the phrase. At at the interval. Um I get up and share a share a lovely word. I some some people call it the God slot, which is just uh horrendous, isn't it? You know. Slotting God in to our concert. So yeah, I d I spoke about uh hypocrisy. And uh isn't the church full of uh hypocrites? No, always room for one more. That was that was basically my talk. And uh and it was yeah, it got into some really good conversations afterwards. So just having a look at Matthew twenty-three and a little five-minute uh slot. So just trying to take every opportunity I could. Most people were not Christians there, and uh yeah. People that you'd seen before at the church or just kind of friends and I mean it's interesting we we have seen people come like from nowhere spiritually, they've come to the concerts, they've then started coming on on Sundays, they've come to Christ. And and um so that's really gratifying to see. And and other people, um, they kind of stare straight ahead when you speak. Um because they're there for the music, they're not there, you know, fair enough. They're not there to listen to me. But um uh yeah, one of the one of the guys who was fairly towards the front who was just sort of staring straight ahead and and not meeting my eye. He sort of he he laughed at one of the jokes I told, so I thought getting getting through a little a little bit. That's um yeah, it's a good opportunity, and um oh you sow the seed wherever you can. That's right, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Good. Okay, well, uh we're gonna look at uh sort of open air and uh more public evangelistic type things. Um you had an evangelist from Australia come recently to train people in street evangelism. Yeah. Jeffrey Hilda. Yeah. We spoke a little bit about it in a previous podcast. To remind us who he is.
SPEAKER_02Um he's Australian, so you know he's good. He's uh from Sydney. And uh that wasn't a joke, actually. That was that was serious. So he um currently what he does is um he's retired, but he uh runs tours at uh St. Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney and takes people around the building and just uses the building as a way of preaching the gospel because actually the architecture of these buildings is meant to be preaching the gospel to us. And so he's just sort of articulating that. Um but he's been doing uh he doesn't call it open-air evangelism or street evangelism, he calls it Christian street conversations because that's all it is, and he doesn't want to put people off. Um because you know, there's it's it's i it's a real um competition to see who is more put off by evangelism. Is it Christians or is it non-Christians? Probably it's Christians are most put off by the concept of evangelism. So he just calls it Christian street conversations, and uh and all he trained us to do was we came together for three hours. One hour of training, one hour going out on the streets, and one hour feedback and prayer. And uh and the one hour was just so simple, and um and uh you know, he's been doing this stuff for decades, you know, thirty years, and he's been training people to do it, uh both here and in uh Southeast Asia and in Australia. Uh so it's kind of his life's work to resurrect this. But um his his training is simple and it's replicable and s it's doable. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and so that's what's so good. So was it sort of you know uh how to start a conversation and what sort of things did he teach?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think people came expecting him to sort of g give us a whole bunch of silver bullets so that we can lock and load and you know, hit Eastbourne with our guaranteed to work phrases. It really wasn't. Um you know, he basically said uh don't go for people in groups because they don't open themselves up. Um uh go for one-to-one conversations. Although he doesn't he send us out in pairs, but he said, go go for people by themselves because then they share their heart. Um go for people who aren't walking, um running away from you. Um if they're running, probably just let them go. Maybe catching a train. Just you know, and if you want to shake the dust off your feet later, that's fine, but just let them catch a train, you know. Um so yeah, go for people stationary, go for people by themselves, and interestingly, I mean he he said, you know, strike up rapport and then at some stage say, Hey, me and my friends, we are from such and such a church, and we're asking people if they have a faith or believe anything, or and he he would you know tell you to offer them at least four or five different ways of asking the same question, just to give them thinking time and to help them process things. So his sort of method was very much um build rapport first and then you know, at some stage introduce highway Christians, and this is what we're doing. Um which is interesting. I I I I don't know. Um personally, you know, when I get a phone call and someone says, Oh hi, how are you today?
SPEAKER_01Like, what do you want?
SPEAKER_02What do you want?
SPEAKER_01I must admit, when I walk through the the town centre and you know the pedestrian area and uh somebody with a clipboard and a and a jacket says, Hi, how are you? I just really want to know. All right. Small small hand wave and uh smile and very, very busy.
SPEAKER_02That's right. I'm off to pound land and nothing's getting in my way. They're doing Toblerone for a pound. Get out of my way.
SPEAKER_01But like they're ultra friendly and they're ultra in your face. Yeah. What are you listening to on your headphones?
SPEAKER_02Well maybe we can learn from that one. Yeah, because I don't know, I d I don't want to get put off by someone you know, if someone's wearing if if you never talk to someone because they're wearing headphones, you probably will never talk to anyone. Um and you know, and if someone's on their phone I i.e. if they're if they're talking on their phone, leave them. But you know, if they're just tapping on their screen, they're probably just scrolling through Facebook, aren't they? Um so I don't I don't mind interrupting that. And I don't mind interrupting people with their headphones on. That's a good question to ask, though. What are you listening to? Yeah. Um I said what are you yeah. For what it's worth, my tuppence on it is just to in introduce myself straight off the bat and say, hi, I'm Glenn, and this is Jenny. We're from All Souls Church, and we're just out and about with a few others of us, and we're asking people who they think Jesus is. Do you have an opinion yourself? You know, some people think he's a good man or a prophet or what is it that you think? Um and I just sort of go straight into it because I I don't know. Probably because I'm not good at small talk. Probably and probably because I don't want it to look too forced. Yeah. Um Yeah, but but some people are very good at that and being very natural with uh hi, how are you today? Are you just waiting for your wife as she goes into the shops? You know. Um some people are very good at striking out rapport like that. So do that. But I think yeah, uh I'm I'm more into just first first off the bat, just say, yeah, we're Christians and we're which is kind of a natural thing anyway.
SPEAKER_01You know, i you know, if you try and be like like these sort of clipboard people, if you try and be too friendly, too loud, yeah, it you know, it comes over as fake. So sometimes it is more natural just just introduce yourself when you approach them and Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean I I wonder if what are they what do they call it? What's the derogatory term for those people? Let's try and think of the derogatory term and then say it and slander them with it. No, what's the what's the uh jum what are they called?
SPEAKER_01I don't know.
SPEAKER_02If you know if you know what I'm thinking about. Um comment on the show notes. Um Juggers. Chuggers! Chuggers, they're called. Yeah, have you never heard that?
SPEAKER_01I've never heard that note.
SPEAKER_02I'm pretty sure it's chuggers. Um and now I'm really nervous about like googling chuggers. In case it's incredibly rude. But uh no, I'm sure I yeah, chuggers. But I I wonder if, you know, chari people raising money for charity like that, if they were more. Hi, we're just on the streets talking to people about Oxfam, do you know what we do? I don't know. I I might respond more to that than Hi, how are you today?
SPEAKER_01Like Hey, we're from Oxfam, do you know what we're up to? Most most of my time anyway, I'm I'm rushing for the trade anyway, so that is my response anyway.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01One one time though, I saw I've often thought this. Uh there was somebody that they were doing what was it? I think it was Foster's.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01And they were doing tiny cans of the lemony, the lemony one? Yes, yeah. And they were just there and like there was always a queue to pick them up. Yeah, exactly. I've often thought, why doesn't a church, you know, buy loads of cans of drink and just people be queuing for them and sell a tape a tr a tract or an im an invite or something.
SPEAKER_02Or just yeah, or just give them and then see what happens. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Why are you giving this away?
SPEAKER_02You know, we do do that in the town centre at Easter. Uh free Easter eggs. Um so maybe, yeah, maybe something that and in fact I I know that another church in the town sometimes does that with bottles of water. Um so yeah. Yeah, that's a good thing to do. Lollipops everyone loves lollipops.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Sometimes people they're handed sort of like this badly printed tatty tract. Yeah. That's the kind of quality that they're faced with. And I think sometimes if you know, if something was given of more value, they might uh appreciate the the real prize.
SPEAKER_02Like the 321 tract, which is the Rolls-Royce of tract.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yes. It's a 3D track.
SPEAKER_02Yes. It makes every other tract look flat and two dimensional.
SPEAKER_01Available from tetavos.com.
SPEAKER_02Ted of com. And if you uh order before the twenty end of the twenty fourth of July with Twitter 3000, you'll get a three pound uh discount. Really? Really?
SPEAKER_01They only cost 50p then.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I know. So you get two fiftyp. I I'm not sure what happens with that. But yeah. I don't think they reimburse you money. When you I think I think just buy by a bunch of.
SPEAKER_01Just buy in bulk and then you get a discount. Buy a bunch. That'd be good.
SPEAKER_02Where were we? What were we talking about in the street conversations? Street conversations and just being up front and just saying, Yeah, hi, we are Christians and we're talking about who Jesus is. Do you have any opinion? And that's usually that's my opener. Uh Jeffrey's opener is do you have a faith? And they pretty much can get you in the same place, but that's that's what we kind of do. But he just sort of taught us that, and um and then in our training times we're saying, Oh, but what if they ask you about suffering? Or what if they ask us about this? What if they ask us about that? He said, Yeah, I just bring her back to Jesus. I just, you know, you know, and I'd say to people, look, there is there is a longer answer to that, and I'd be really happy to sit down with you with a cup of tea and and talk about that answer, and maybe we could go to Costa now and and have a talk about it. Um But here's what I know about Jesus. He claimed to be the Son of God. Now, if I claimed to be the Son of God with you, would you think I was mad? And now you just get it back to Jesus and uh and I I I think that that is good advice. I obviously, you know, in the moments you're gonna be flexible and uh you're constantly praying for Lord help, Lord help, Lord help, Lord help. You're constantly praying for wisdom about how to answer people along the way, so there's no hard and fast rule about it. But he was just yeah, hard questions will come, just bring it back to Jesus. He said, you know, he will introduce into the conversation at some point the Bible talks about this word sin. It's a word you never hear outside this church, isn't it? No one ever talks about being a sinner. What do you think it actually means? And um, you know, because he's he's saying, well, look, unless we understand the there's a problem we need saving from, we're never gonna understand who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01Weight watchers. What's that? That's it. The sin. Oh yeah, the sins.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's what people think of sin is that's right. You're allowed yeah, you're allowed certain sins, aren't you? If you've been good with your diet. But it's it's it's like an S Y N spelling, isn't it? Yeah. Because I think they're shortening some other word, but yeah, it's that that is what people say.
SPEAKER_01I mean So who w what sort of people came to the um Jeffrey Hilda thing? Was it sort of a cross?
SPEAKER_02Oh the first time around, we got thirty-two people from dozen different churches, and so we we split up then into sixteen different pairs and off we went, and he sent us out with pretty much what I've said is you know, what Jeffrey told us, and he you know, told us to talk about sin and then talk about you know there's judgment for sin and there's Jesus who took the judgment so that we wouldn't have to, and and that was literally all he gave us, and he just sent us out, and lots of people were feeling very underprepared. And um one guy even said, We are not prepared at all. Glenn, can you come to our church next week and can you give the proper training? I was like, No, that is the proper training. That's that's fine, that's all you need. Really? Yes, really. And so I put that guy with Jeffrey um as they went out, and he just had the best time. And they they ended up having four different conversations, one of them with a girl who was just, you know, telling them, Look, I think you're you're sent from God because this is what I've been wondering about, and she prayed to receive Jesus on the streets, and they were, you know, trying to get her hooked into a church, and and so I mean they had about four conversations. Me and uh the other person I went out with had about three conversations. Everyone had at least one, some as many as five different conversations in an hour. So we come back, all sixteen pairs of us, and we have just had scores and scores of gospel conversations, just an hour in Eastbourne. And and so that's just stunning to me to think that you know the Lord has a harvest field and he tells us, you know, it's it's not as though the harvest field is lacking, the workers are lacking. Yeah. You know? And and that's that's Matthew 9, you know, and Jesus doesn't say, you know, there there isn't a great harvest, pray for a great harvest. He says the harvest is white. Yeah. Pray for the Lord to raise up workers. And actually, 32 people came forward and we got into scores of gospel conversations. Two people ended up praying on the streets on that on that day. And and yeah, so just a real eye-opener for us all because none of us felt very clever or polished or prepared or anything, but out we went and the Lord worked.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you've been out sort of since then. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um what happened on the subsequent Yeah, so just this last Saturday we went out and um and we got six people coming along, 'cause you know, I'm not Jeffrey Hilder. So Jeffrey Hilda gets thirty-two and then uh but his it's interesting, his his sort of parting words to us was you just need somebody to keep Ging you up to keep, you know, f fanning the flames, 'cause otherwise the flames go out the and the and the embers die down. And and that's certainly that rang true for me, because we used to go out, you know, years ago here in Eastbourne and and you know, the numbers dwindled and dwindled and dwindled and at some stage it just, you know, the fire goes out. And um and Jeffrey it was it was good to hear Geoffrey say that look after after thirty years that's just the case. It's it's not like the fire's just always going to be stoked. Somebody needs to stoke it. And so I just uh trying to g people up and and get people along. So we got six people coming along on Saturday, and so we went out three different pairs. Um uh me and my partner went out and we got into three different conversations, two others went got into four or five conversations, two two others got into four or five conversations. With one of them, again they prayed with the person to receive Jesus, and again he said, I think your God sends. Um I've been thinking about exactly this this kind of stuff. And so again, a a massive eye-opener. To all of them we we managed to give some kind of appropriate gospel literature, whether it was just a a little tract or a gospel, or um I mean the guy who prayed on the streets, they gave him three two one and and encouraged him along to one of the local churches and um so I mean that's that's just amazing to me, just in one hour, just six of us going out and we have a dozen conversations that really matter. Um So I I offer that s to the Evangelist Podcast and say, Well, what can you do? You know, where where you are. It it doesn't take being clever, it doesn't take being polished, it doesn't take the the sort of person with a megaphone who's you know stands on a soapbox in the streets. It does it because that's not what it is, it's just Christian street conversations. And you can have a conversation, can't you? What can you do in your area? It would only take two of you to go out and and in in fifteen years of me doing it, I can think of maybe only one time when I've gone out trying to have a gospel conversation with people and failing to have any gospel conversation with people. Every time I've gone out pretty much I've had some kind of gospel conversation with somebody. Let's get into it. Good.
SPEAKER_01Uh I mean do you you you think every Christian should be doing this?
SPEAKER_02Uh no, I don't think every Christian uh I don't think this is the cup of tea for every Christian, but I think a lot more Christians than are doing it could do it. And and I think maybe we've got to break the the mould in our head of what street evangelism looks like. Um because when you look at the street evangelist who sort of springs to mind in your head, nobody thinks that nobody wants to be that guy. Um and so it's not a particularly popular pastime, but maybe maybe we just need to break down the image of what uh I was gonna call it stranger evangelism is or yeah, it doesn't have to be strange, it c it could just be first contact evangelism, it could be what open air. We just need to break down our our our thoughts about what that could be, and I think at that stage a lot more people could be doing it than uh than are currently doing it. But like I said, you know, this is this is not the law that everyone must go out into their streets and and do this kind of thing. But I'd be very surprised if in your church there weren't a bunch of people who, though very nervous to do it, could do it and at the end of that hour would be thrilled that they had done it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well what if, you know, like someone's you know, really busy with family or whatever. Yeah, you know, what could they do in their own contexts?
SPEAKER_02There are stages of life, aren't there? And um and so, you know, this kind of thing means that you know, Saturdays are a good time for this kind of thing. And for some people their stage of life just means they're ferrying the kids around to this sports thing and that music practice and that, you know. And so it's it's just that's just not the stage of life they're in where they can do that. But there will be contacts that you can make in that in that stage of life. You know, what about the other dads that are ferrying their kids around that you know, what about the other dads that are watching the sports game and th that you know that the kids are going to and I yeah, whatever whatever stage you're of life that you're at, I can't believe that the Lord hasn't given you some kind of mission field. Yeah. Because he says you will be my witnesses. So if there's nobody to witness to, well, maybe it's just your neighbours, maybe it's maybe it's just your family, I don't know, but that there's some kind of mission field and and pray about what that might be. And if you're in the position, why not open your eyes and see, oh my goodness, the high street of my local town or city. That's that's a mission field that's completely unconsidered. Yeah. Um and it is white for harvest. It's not a case that the harvest needs to increase, it's the case that the workers do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So what would be the next step if someone wanted to do this?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if you feel like this is something you want to do, um get in touch with us. Well, I'd love to I'd love to help. If if I'm in touching distance, I I could come and give some training if you'd like at your church or in your town, whatever. Um be happy to do that. Um, but do get in touch with us. Um there's a there's a few articles I've written on my blog that perhaps we could link to in the show notes. Um and you know, really I'd just say get onto ten of those.com and order a hundred John's Gospels and order a whole bunch of tracts, doesn't matter what tracts they are, um uh have your resources up your sleeve. Yeah. Get it get a few people together, pray, and go out and and just give it a go and and see what happens. But um yeah, if the if there's yeah, if if you really want to do this, then go on and do it. And uh and if you want some help, get in touch and we'd love to help any way we can.
SPEAKER_01Okay, great. Well, thanks very much for listening this week. Uh we're gonna go on next week to uh look at uh related subjects.
SPEAKER_02Everything's related, Andy. I know. No, Andy. No, I don't.
SPEAKER_01The web address for this episode is speaklife.org.uk slash tep103. Wow. And uh find the links there to Glenn's blog, tenofthose.com, and anything else that we mentioned.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, what else do we mention? I don't know. Chuggers. A definition of chuggers. As long as it's not rude. In which case that will be sliced out of the podcasting. Yes. Thanks very much, see you next time. Bye.