Today on the Evangelist Podcast, we're talking to Andrew Wilson.
SPEAKER_00The Evangelist Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you. With Andy Brinkley and Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. I'm Andy Brinkley and with me is Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_03Okay, thank you. Thank you for just uh giving me the plain introduction. Yes. How are you all Glenn? I'm doing alright. Yes, yeah. I've uh had a good time in uh Herefordshire. So I was um uh helping out with a weekend away for Cardiff University Christian Union, and uh they're gearing up for lots of mission stuff. So that was last weekend, and then this weekend I'm gearing up for uh the South East Christian Unions. So people like Southampton and Reading and uh Canterbury and all over the place. It's quite a busy time, isn't it, for for university student work and loads of weekends away, s some missions, and then actually uh Christmas carols uh services are just massive. And uh next week we'll hear from Adrian um uh Holloway about some of the carol services that he speaks at and just the opportunity that Christmas really is.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean at Reading University we used to have about nine hundred at the uh Carol services.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It's a major Well Adrian Adrian was saying that like two years ago um Newcastle University had about 100, 150 come to the carol service, and then the following year they had a thousand. Wow. Because they just started to think big and they just thought, well, why don't we flood the university with you know eight thousand invites? And and they did that, and you know, only one in eight responded. But um yeah, it's such it's such an opportunity, so it'll be good to be thinking about that next year. Next next week, rather.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. And uh this being the Halloween sort of week, um people are starting to share the the Halloween video and Yeah.
SPEAKER_03The award-winning Halloween. Andy, how could you forget that? They keep reminding me. As if last week wasn't a reminder enough. Yeah. So that's going out around the place, and so yeah, so that's interesting. So just today I've recorded two different podcasts um about Halloween. Okay. Um so people getting interested about that. Yeah, how do we engage with it? Um without capitulating to the darkness, without simply running from the darkness, how do we shine a light into the darkness? Yeah, that's the that's the trick.
SPEAKER_02Excellent.
SPEAKER_03Good. Or is it the treat? Never mind.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so uh Andrew Wilson, uh local minister here in in Eastbourne. Yes. Um He's written a book called Unbreakable. Yes. What the Son of God says about the Word of God.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Tell me give us a teaser.
SPEAKER_03A teaser. It's a great book, and it's from ten of those, so you know it's good. And it's in the same series as Mike Reeves' book, Enjoy Your Prayer Life, which we've spoken on before when Mike was on the program. Uh so Mike's the editor of this series. Short little books that just prime you uh to be thinking in the right sort of categories for for big issues in life, like prayer or like the Bible. And I think Andrew's angle on this is exactly right and and beautifully put. Um let's let's figure out how Jesus handled the Bible. Uh and if he thought it was the unbreakable word of God, then should we think of it as any less than that? Yeah. Um very, very, mm, very well written and uh punchy and helpful, and it makes that one point brilliantly well. So I I heartily recommend it.
SPEAKER_02Okay, well uh let's let's take a listen then.
SPEAKER_03Well, welcome to the Evangelist Podcast. And um here we are with uh Andrew Wilson, Eastbourne's very own uh pastor, husband, father, author, blogger, tweeter. What else are you, Andrew?
SPEAKER_01Well, many things, but I don't normally talk like that. So is that do I have to I have to explain myself? It's wonderfully breathy, Glenn. You have the voice for radio.
SPEAKER_03Oh my thank you. Yeah, it's that spacey kind of nasal twang. That's that's the idea. Brilliant. So you are Eastborn born and bred, is that right?
SPEAKER_01Well, no, not really. Uh um I well I've been at I was at boarding school here, so I lived here. So I was born in Bridge. Bred in that sense. Bred in that sense, and it is a breeding that we receive at boarding school. Um no, so I was born in South London and lived in Mid Sussex for and uh f till I was about twelve and then went to boarding school here. Okay. And then moved, went to uni and then came back and have been here as a sort of pastoral intern through to now I'm a pastor full-time, um probably for about fifteen years now, over that price of sunner.
SPEAKER_03All century you've been yes. Pretty much, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I moved down here in 2000 for a gap year and then back two thousand and three permanently.
SPEAKER_03Yes. And the whole time with King's Church, Eastbourne. Yes. Yes. And you're now an elder there. I am and you preach there, and you're also involved in sort of theological education around the new frontier. I double, yes.
SPEAKER_01I I run it so I run a training course. We have um a sort of leadership training course of at the moment we've got about fifty l church leaders and leader type people on it, um, which is based up in Milton Keynes, and so I do that as a part-time thing. Um I s I do some writing and I'm studying a PhD at King's London, and I'm an elder in the church. So those are the main Okay.
SPEAKER_03Let me ask you about your writing, because you've just you've got a uh a new book out called Unbreakable. I have. What's the subtitle of that?
SPEAKER_01What the Son of God Said About the Word of God. So the concept is what what does Jesus think about the Bible?
SPEAKER_03Yes. Because that I mean that came I mean, I I sort of tracked with you with some debates that you had with Steve Chalk. When was that? Was that earlier in the year?
SPEAKER_01I think that was probably January or February, somewhere around then, it feels like it.
SPEAKER_03Um debates about the Bible. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Things to do with So yeah, we had a we had one I can't remember actually. We had one on is the Bible all true or infallible or something. Then there was one on the Old Testament and sort of difficult passages in the Old Testament. Yes. And then there was one on homosexuality and one on the atonement.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Okay. And I I remember in those debates you were sort of talking about in fact you were you're both saying, okay, Jesus is our key to the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03Did you at that sense sort of at that time sense a difference in the way in which you were saying that truth? So so Steve Chalk says, you know, I have the Jesus lens. Yes. And then I remember you you wrote uh quite an interesting sort of post on is that the Jesus tea strainer that you're using to sort of filter out the stuff you don't like from the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01I it's difficult to know of any individual whether that's actually what they're doing. I I and in a sense, to you you can't see into somebody's heart, so you don't know. But to me, often that move, which I I I see it as, you know, we are reading the Bible through the Jesus lens, I I would want to affirm that 100% if that's if what it means is we want to see Christ in the whole Bible, and you and I both preach on that, and that's a very very important for you know conservative evangelicals, I think. But I think it can sometimes that it can sometimes be used as a smokescreen for and if we can if we manage to construct the right kind of Jesus who fits the way we see things, um we can then use him as a sort of a mesh through which to squeeze the whole of the rest of the Bible and some bits of it won't measure up, and obviously we can then just lay them to one side. And I think that's now I I don't it's very difficult to know the motive of any individual, but it reads that way to me. So when I was talking to Steve, I I thought it it sounds like what you're doing is fashioning a selective Jesus from the gospel accounts. Um and to a degree, I suppose we're all doing that to some degree, but I I just feel like his doesn't really stand the test of scrutiny, in my view anyway.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um and then having formed that Jesus, you then check the Old Testament to see if it works, and of course it doesn't, so you then large swathes of the Old Testament are deemed untrue or unreliable or old hat or whatever.
SPEAKER_03Yes, chop off the bits you don't like that don't look like the Jesus that you've you know, where and where has this Jesus come from, you know.
SPEAKER_01Well that's the question is is that the Jesus I think if if I thought it was true, as in if I thought there is a Jesus in the Gospels, there are ways in which of course Jesus does um sort of not just fulfil, but actually in some ways directly Yeah, he does directly subvert certain um ways of reading the Old Testament, certainly, and and uh many of them. And I think that's really important to recognise, and I don't think we do any ourselves any favours by backing off and saying, No, no, no, you read the whole Bible flat as if it's all sort of a law book for today, it's not at all.
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_01But I do think that the the Jesus that is constructed sometimes in that sort of conversation um is the Jesus who couldn't possibly have said Luke 18, or who couldn't possibly have told the story about the guy being thrown over to the torturers or the guy who goes, you know, eternal punishment for to be honest. I think it's that that's the challenge for me, is it just it the Jesus looks a little bit too like the kind of person that a certain type of modern Christian would like to see.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_01And I think the real Jesus unsettles all of us, including that kind of person, and really unsettles me, and there's a lot of those things I find challenging too.
SPEAKER_03I sense that there was a there was a one there was one-way traffic in terms of the Jesus Bible kind of dynamic that we have this Jesus, then we go back to our Bibles and figure out who this Jesus is. You know, in John chapter five, Jesus says, These are the scriptures that bear witness of me. So it's all pointing to him. But but he then you know goes on to say, Moses wrote about me. And he you know he goes on to say, if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. Which is not the way around Steve Chalk would want Jesus to have said that line, is he? He would he would want he would want Jesus to have said, you know, you will believe Moses once you believe me.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I see what you mean. Yes, you could have got to believe in me simply by reading Moses. That that sort of That's what he says in John 5.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I hadn't I hadn't really seen that as in in the conversation with Steve. I hadn't really thought about that particular parallel, but I think there's certainly as you say, the one-way traffic thing, you want a view you want a high view of the Bible and a high view of Jesus, and the high view of Jesus will require you to have a high view of the Bible because Jesus himself did, which is the whole point I'm making in the book. So I I think it it's odd if if you end up with Jesus sort of giving you license to say that large sections of the Old Testament weren't true, I think you end up thinking, well, how on earth what kind of Jesus do we think we've constructed from the historical record then? Because the Jesus that it seems we have, historically and obviously biblically, is a Jesus who is highly affirming of the whole Old Testament. And while I don't think he would have used categories like you know, without error, I think that certainly the way he spoke about it indicated, you know, this is unbreakable, it's true, it's reliable, it's the word of God, it c you know can't be broken, it is written. And I d I just don't in that I don't sense a sort of a looseness to whether or not some of these things actually happen. So when you get people saying, I don't really think the I don't really think the flood happened, I don't really think the Exodus happened, I don't really think this, that you think, well I'm not quite sure how where we're going to end up with this, but it doesn't seem like we'd be in the same place as a first century Jewish teacher like Jesus would have been.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um and that's I think the the the main concern when it comes to Jesus versus the Bible.
SPEAKER_03Yes, exactly. And I I think you you know you put those points brilliantly and succinctly in in the book Unbreakable. What did you learn as you were writ as you were writing the book?
SPEAKER_01I think I'd uh fun funnily enough, I I think content-wise, uh not a huge amount, because it's quite a short book. So I don't think I discovered things that I'd never expected to find while writing it. But what I did discover and was really pleased to was actually that some analogies and metaphors and ways of speaking about what scripture is, which really helped me and have have since kind of illuminated my own sort of spiritual life as well. So one in particular I I'm thinking of is that there's I wrote a chapter which is now called True Light Jazz, uh which is a riff off of a book about ten years ago called Blue Light Jazz. And I was basically exploring the metaphor of how inspiration works, exploring a metaphor for inspiration. So you have the breath of one person coming through the medium of another, and trying to think how would I illustrate that. And began thinking about musical instruments and playing jazz, which in itself I don't think is particularly revolutionary. But what happened is as I was writing it, I began thinking this isn't simply the case that the divine breath, if you like, is like the trumpet player and the human author is like the trumpet, but it's actually that the divine player is playing through multiple instruments over the course of many hundreds of years. Yes. And as a result, you can, like you do with jazz, you can end up with some discordant sounding clashes between different writers at times. And what you have to when that happens, and I think this is something that you know in conservative evangelical circles are often very quick to sort of batten down and say, no, no, no, there's no no clash here. And I think actually it made me realise, no, this is the jazz metaphor helps me with that because it helps me think there are times when there's a a clash between teaching and you think, what is that noise? But if you trust the trumpeter or trust the conductor or whoever, you come to think actually you would expect there to be moments like that, but that they resolve and that they may not have resolved yet, or they may resolve later on in the performance. And that so that, for example, was something which I just started off trying to think of quite a simple analogy, and I realized I think it had more legs to it than I than I'd thought, and I now have used it a number of times even since teaching on authority and inspiration, because it's one that baffles people. Is it if it's God's words, it can't be human words. And you still get that in the media sometimes. People forget the Bible as a human book. I think I don't forget the Bible's a human book at all. It didn't fall from the sky, but yeah, but the fact that it's human doesn't offset or erode the fact that it's also divine in origin. And I found that analogy for a musician and an instrument really helped me with that.
SPEAKER_03And it would be a strange music student who complained about a certain piece of jazz music and said, that's that's discordant, that doesn't work, it can't be right.
SPEAKER_01And I I think that's it, is you have to put yourself then in a position of saying, it may be that I don't have the whole picture, or it may be that the composer or the m musician is doing something I'm I I've not seen before. Um and it may be that that that particular discordant noise is going to be resolved in a subsequent part of the piece, and it may be that I'm waiting for how that resolution is going to be achieved. I was just in our you know daily Bible readings the other day, reading the classic example in Proverbs where um you know do you aren't don't answer a fool according to his folly, and then next verse answer a fool according to his folly. And you think, well, that's hard not to see as a contradiction in it, but of course it's a very deliberate one, and it's one that's meant to make a clashing sound to kind of awake, I suppose, the listener, in the same way that jazz musicians do that. So it was just it's just an analogy, but it it did make me think there is yeah, that I think sometimes analogies can be helpful at unlocking the way you see things, and for me in that particular case that was one thing I I learned during the process.
SPEAKER_03Very good. Now you've been which book of this is yours? How many how many how many books have you written now? It's the fifth book I've published.
SPEAKER_01Um I've got a sixth one which I'm reading with my wife, which is much more um uh specific to our our sort of personal situation as a couple and our parents and our children. But um no, it's the fifth one. So I've written a book on God, a book on the gospel, a book uh arguing for the Christian faith from a more secular point of view, and a book responding uh well, the first one I wrote was responding to Richard Dawkins back in 2006, I think. Okay.
SPEAKER_03What are you seeking to do with your books? Like what do you what do you hope for as you sort of send that final draft off to the publisher?
SPEAKER_01Which at one level was a Um I don't know. I I think it would the answer's different for each one, probably, or although two of them are very similar in what they're achieving trying to achieve. So I bumped into somebody just the other she might be from your church actually. She's married to the curate. Anyway. Oh yeah. I think anyway, she stopped us in the street and she I didn't I hadn't met her before, but she just said, you know, thanks for your book. It it really helped me have quiet times when I had a baby. Um which was uh pretty much was the goal I had in writing my books Incomparable and God Stories. It was I want to try and get theology in simple terms break down the character of God and the gospel into a form that people who don't have very much time to engage with theology can be edified and nourished and see God in their daily lives. So that was the goal of those two. Then I've written two more apologetics e-books, one quite negative, the Dawkins one, and one quite positive, if God then what. And both of them, the dream is that they get into the hands of people who are not Christians, who are and it has happened quite a number of times, yeah lots of um. So people who are not Christians are reading them and considering and wrestling with the arguments and beginning to think, is this something I need to look at more seriously? Um, and if I was going to, where's the place to start? And where's how does the knowledge trail work round here and and what do I need to know and what do I need to think about?
SPEAKER_03That must be very encouraging.
SPEAKER_01It is really when that happens, it's it's really encouraging. And I've had that I've had that quite a few times of stories come back to me, and sometimes it's personally, you know, you give it to somebody and they go away, and then you realise they've never really thought through uh a kind of any sort of rational case for Christian belief. Um and there's loads of books that try and do that, and I just found mine is a s in a style, um, it's quite conversational and and quite sort of um trying to break down big ideas into the sort of conversations you have in normal life. Uh and I found that there's a type of person that that's really helped. So that's the goal with that. With Unbreakable, it's a very different book again, it's much smaller, um, and it's really designed, I think, primarily for people who are either new to Christianity or who don't particularly read huge amounts of books but want you know, or Christian books anyway, but who want something which will help teach them very simply what do we believe about the Bible and why. Um and there are lots and lots of books that do that at a lot more length. Um but I think this book is attempt both to be a quite a short and concise way of doing it, and particularly a way of doing it that pegs the whole thing around the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because I think if I can convince a Christian Jesus thought about the Bible this way, the the the next line, therefore I should, is actually not very difficult.
SPEAKER_03You would hope so.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's not always as simple as that, but uh that I think that's what I'm that's what I'm hoping for with this.
SPEAKER_03And what's what's interesting about Unbreakable is it's very similar to your other books in that you didn't think, okay, I'm only writing a short book, so let's just pump out the 17, you know, points beginning with P about the scriptures. And you know I've never never been that kind of I'm just not that good at alliteration. I don't have I don't have your I don't have your gift. So what what are you trying to do? Because like I mean, I still remember a line that you used in If God then what? You you spoke about you know looking up in the sky and the and the clouds were playing kiss chase across the evening sky. And I still remember that line. And that's quite that's quite sort of uh emblematic of uh of your writing. You you go for evocative phrases. Is that is that something that you work hard at, think hard about?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it depends on the writing again. So I think I think I've tried in Unbreakable I probably have a lower and less ambition for um for the sort of phraseology of what I'm doing, because I'm I'm trying in some ways the whole point of the style of the book is to be quite paired back and quite simple and quite punchy. Whereas with if God then what I I thought I could be a bit more flowery and enjoy the writing process a bit more. And I generally think the stuff that I if I enjoy writing is the chances are somebody will enjoy reading it. And if I'm just turning the handle, people will probably think it's a bit dull and a bit flat.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um now, but I'm I mean I started doing started writing when I was 27 or something, and I don't think or no, probably younger, and I I don't think I'd had I hadn't got had very much experience at the time of how to write a book that people might read, and I still haven't had very much now, but it's it's growing, and so I'm kind of exploring the ways in which I enjoy writing. I think if God then was certainly the book that I enjoyed the writing of the most because it because I thought it was a more creative series of ideas I was trying to I was trying to bring about. Um but actually there's something very satisfying about writing a book like Unbreakable as well, because it's almost it's like the I've heard it said, I don't know if it's true, that the g the political editors who write for the sun are the sharpest guys in the entire business and that they they know more about politics and they're better better acquainted with the facts than the guys who write for the broadsheet. I don't know if it's true or not. But there must be something quite fun for guys like that to think I've got to write this in Sun language and I can't spare myself the amount of time it takes to make a fully orbed argument in The Guardian or something. And I suppose without saying that it's a sun book in every respect, in many ways it obviously isn't, that is what I'm trying to do with this book. I think is write it in a way that that is no thrills. Yeah. It's the easy jet of books, I suppose. As almost the cover gives away. Um it's just this is plain and simple, and I'm trying to get straight to the point and and not waste time and waste words. Yes. So I don't know if that answers the question.
SPEAKER_03No, I think it does. And and I yeah, I I definitely got that sense with if God then what, that you are you are painting pictures, uh here's a gallery that you're inviting people into spend some time, have a look around, see if see if the the the atmosphere changes you almost. Um Is that uh like what's what's your anthropology, what's your doctrine of humanity as you as you write and as you speak, what do you think is actually gonna change people? What is gonna connect with them and move them?
SPEAKER_01I think Well, that that's an interesting last word you use there, isn't it? I what's gonna connect with them and and move them and what's gonna change them? I think obviously what what writing at its best, and I'm in obviously nowhere near this, but at its best I think you can find yourself reading Chesterton or something somebody like that, and you find yourself thinking, even where I strongly disagree with what you're saying, I really want you to be right. I I've you have you have written that in such a way that the desire in me is awakened. Yeah. Um and I want that to be true. And I think it goes I think the most the best expression I've heard of it is from Pas in Blaise Pascal, who I think said, Well, before men are prepared to consider whether or not something's true, they have you have to be prepared first of all to show them that it's worthy of respect, and then to show them that it's desirable, and only then are they in a position to consider if it's true or not. And I think a lot of Christian apologetics, and I know a lot I've done a lot of this, certainly with the Richard Dawkins response. Which I I wouldn't probably write the same way now, if at all. I'd do a blog post on it all time. Um that what you're doing is trying to engage with whether or not it's true. You think, but for an awful lot of people, they're not prepared to stop and think about whether or not it's true if they don't think it's worthy of respect or desirable.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_01And so I don't I think Pascal's framing of it's incredibly helpful. I think Chesterton, Lewis, there are guys like that who have written in such a way that you think I mean he Chesterton just slams Protestantism sometimes and just lays into Calvinist thinking about all sorts of things and Protestant thinking. And you find yourself going, Well, I'm a Protestant, and actually I'm broadly Calvinist as well, but I still find myself really enjoying what you're saying because you're writing in a way that makes me want to believe what you're saying.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_01Uh Lewis is the same. And I think that's the that's the thing I'm you'd be shooting for. Obviously, I'm nowhere near that, but I think I I do believe that words and stories and questions and ideas have a the power to shape the imagination and the desire. And then in doing that, they open somebody up to consider the truth or not of what you're saying. And I'm gl I'm clearly not petting them against each other. I don't think you should say because it I want it to be true, therefore it doesn't matter whether it is, but I think having both together rather than just going down the more propositional lines is is very helpful.
SPEAKER_03And we need that so much. We don't we don't need more paperbacks that are turning the handle, do we? We need we need pictures painted, we need people invited into the strange new world of the Bible and shown shown the beauty of it. Yes.
SPEAKER_01And I think there's still a lot of work to be done on that actually. I think there's a lot of areas where uh uh kind of of Christian belief and Christian practice, which are right under the microscope today, which don't have an advocate yet who has managed to create an imaginative world the like of which the Naniya stories or The Lord of the Rings or Chesterton or many others have done. You think that we need a vehicle for Christian thinking on that topic, uh human sexuality or whatever, and you think I that's not to say that writing about what's true doesn't matter, of course it does.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um but it's unlikely to arrest and seize the heart of somebody who doesn't agree with it unless it's done in a more imaginatively powerful way.
SPEAKER_03A beautiful view of of Christian sexuality. That's uh so that'll be your seventh book.
SPEAKER_01Well, I the thing is I'm not sure I'm the guy to write it. I'd but I when I think about what needs to be done, you know, where where would if if you got some I I think there is actually, I mean uh in in some ways, but it was much more it's much more personal. I think um uh Rosaria Champagne Bosterfield's book, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, she tells her story and writes beautifully and tells her journey from the you know lesbian feminist women's studies professor through to Presbyterian pastor's wife. And it's an astonishing story and she writes it very well. But I think I made me more mean even the fiction, which I don't think would be my gift, but there's in some of those narratives, you know, as I said, the Lewis talking Chesterton guy, they were able to grab hold of fictional structures which would enable some of those ideas to be expressed. And in some cases very obvious, like in Lewis you read and think, I know who you are, I don't know what you are. With Tolkien, it's much more subtle and you can just see under the surface a lot of stuff about the power of sin and good and evil and so on. I th I do think something like that needs to be written.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So if you're offering. How many publishers have you worked with now? Four different ones? Yes, it probably is, depending on how you count, which sounds silly, but the guy individual-wise, there's actually only been three. So I've If God then what was with IVP, I'm writing this book with uh Unbreakables with ten of those. And the other books so far have all been uh well what was Survivor then Kingsway and is now David Seacook. So I think it's really three companies, but but under five, probably five different imprints.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Well, we'll uh we'll we'll make you the offer for book seven. Revival Revival Publishing. We'll ask you to do though though I yeah, I I do think a beautiful uh vision for human sexuality. Yeah. Um let me ask you, because you're on the evangelists podcast here. So let me ask you about evangelism. I was speaking to uh Adrian Holloway on the weekend. So he will be next week's uh podcast. We've uh we've already recorded that uh that interview. Um but he is an evangelist working within New Frontiers, and it was really interesting to talk to him, because obviously New Frontiers, you have a very strong ecclesiology, a really a real sense that you know we are God's people in this town to reach, you know, um great on leadership, um, on worship, Sunday means a lot to you. Um where then does the work of the evangelist fit in? If you if you if you're thinking as a as a New Frontiers kind of person, um how do we fit together the ongoing life of the local church and whatever it means when Ephesians 4 talks about the evangelist? What do you think?
SPEAKER_01Do you mean what does it mean or what should it mean?
SPEAKER_03Both. Go on. Go go for what does it mean. Do a do a law gospel on it.
SPEAKER_01Do a low gospel. Nobody said that to me for a while. Um I think what it at its worst, I think what it means is we don't really know, but we know we're supposed to have them, so we'll bring in some guy to do a guest event once a year. And if we're lucky, we might get him to talk to some of our people about evangelism on a Saturday morning special event or a Tuesday evening or something. Um I think that's in an uh in an its sort of extreme form, and I think that would not be a million miles away from the experience of a lot of churches. I doubt that's just New Frontiers, but that that's what I know, so I but I know it's true here uh quite often of the time, quite a lot of the time. I think at its best what happens is you have the gift of the ascended Christ to the church is not just in the church, but actually doing evangelism, but is actually amongst the people, equipping all of the people to be more evangelistic in the way that they shape individual lives and the culture of the church and the culture of the leadership of the church so that evangelism is on everybody's agenda and the church becomes much more fruitful when that's happening than if it's just and there's always that famous example of you know you bring a thousand people a night every night and you see them saved. Uh one person does that, it takes you I don't know, ten million years or something to see everybody on earth saves or something. So there's some fact like that. But if you if you bring one and then they bring another one the next year, and then they everybody brings one the next year, and you do that, you keep growing, in 32 years or something, the entire world's a Christian. And I think it's it is a very obvious point to make, but it's n it's important nonetheless that I think the evangelist, as he or she is serving in the midst of the people, is you hope, preaching and embodying um a l an evangelistic life, but is also equipping people in such a way that they go, I can do this. Just before I left, actually, literally the last thing I did before I left the office to come here uh was going through the feedback forms of an evangelist who'd come to speak at an event I was running on this leadership training course two weeks ago. And it was the most encouraging thing about it was just reading personal leader after leader who was writing. He made this guy called Duncan Podbury from Newcastle, and he was just he's made evangelism seem so simple. I know I can do this, I've been really refreshed and encouraged, I know I'm gonna be able to do this, and I'm gonna talk to my wife about that, and we're gonna be able to have these people around for dinner, and it was just very, very equipping and releasing. And I think when the evangelist is working well, the people of God are getting, I I can do that, and you can do I can't do what you do, so maybe there are times when we'll bring people to hear you because you answer that question better than me. But the culture of the whole church is a place of of excitement or mission. And uh so I think that's at its best, and I think in reality, um the the more that evangelism is part of the everyday culture of the church, the less the goodness we must wheel in the guy from the outside to come and do it for us becomes a a necessity. But I think even just this last year, uh see we as a church and and probably many others, I think in the last few years, you're more conscious that for us Sunday is a very good evangelistic context. That there are that there are a lot of people who aren't Christians who are happy to come along on a Sunday morning, which is that sounds surprising, but it's we've definitely found it to be true, and also found it to be true obviously of something like Alpha, which is the course we use. And given that, um, a lot of people in the church find it most equipping when they're able to bring somebody to an event and they find that easier than saying, Let me tell you about Jesus. They find it say, Come with me to my church, they find that less offensive, and so then the person is hearing about Jesus, but in a context where they know exactly what they're in for. Oh, it's a church, right? Fine. And sometimes they dress up and they come in and they're oh goodness and all that. But your church, well, and that's what you always can tell the visitor because they're just smart and they're there on time. Um but you but you do find there's a lot of people for whom that's actually the most best way you can serve them, is by having an invitational event that is of a good enough quality. And when you came to speak for us, for instance, back in March, there were a lot of people who were able to say, Yeah, my friend does ask me that, and I'm not confident of answering it. But if I invite you to come to this, then you might really.
SPEAKER_03I think that's changed in my thinking as well recently. I was I was getting my hair cut recently, and and uh in the middle of the conversation, there was sort of one of those moments where he's from a Greek Orthodox background and he said something that was a, you know, in technical terms, a denial of faith alone. And I thought at this point, um I could I like instantly sort of time slowed down, and I thought I could take the conversation into this direction and and correct his theology in this direction, or an opportunity has arisen for me to invite him to church on Sunday because he mentioned um a friend of mine who also goes to the church, and I said, Oh, did you know he's actually preaching on Sunday? Why don't you come along? And it was just it was uh an interesting moment where I think a few years ago I probably would have wanted to convert him in the spot in the barber shop, as opposed to I want to hook him into the life of the church and say, come along on Sunday and why don't you meet Jesus in the community of his people? Um and and I'm I'm seeing that more and more sort of door knocking, you know, as as I knock on someone's door, do I want them to convert on the doorstep? Well, yeah, but what's my front foot is actually, would you like to come to church? You know, would you and and doing it uh in church is just such a such a huge thing, I think, in in in evangelism, getting people's thoughts um into the the the church being the evangelistic body. Tell me what was it um on the other day where you you said that the uh this evangelist equipping people in uh Milton Keynes was helping people to be released and and think they can do it.
SPEAKER_01What was it that he was I think there was a lot of things, but I think it was it was a lot of very normal examples of of what he does, which you you immediately think, actually that's that's not difficult. I think there are some people have the grace of God to be able to I've seen uh a guy called Alex Loisides, who I don't know isn't known to you or any of the any listeners, but uh he's out in Cape Town now, but he helped us plant the church in Eastbourne in the uh late 80s, early nineties. And he's the kind of guy who would walk in, he'd start preaching in a bank or on a bus or in the you'd just start in the town centre, and people would come and they'd respond, and you'd it was an astonishing gift. You know, he had it was had a saw a lot of people physically healed as well, which meant that he was unable to preach off the back of that. He was just a remarkable gift, and he still is. Um but I think when I if I would observe him and I hear the stories, I kind of it's almost a little bit like hearing the great epic legends of Yore. You think, well, of course, when Lex was here we did this. But I I would hear it and think, I can't do that. Yeah. And actually what's really liberating, Lex was very good at doing this as well, is just saying, Here's how you do it in normal life, but I think that's what this guy Duncan was doing. A lot of very tangible, everyday, real-world examples. I think coupled also with um the the you know the Engels scale idea, the idea that you've got, you know, people are on a scale from one to ten, um, and that if you move people from point two out of ten to point three out of ten, you've actually achieved as much as you have if you move them from nine to ten. Um and that whole concept, I think, of i there is something very valuable about you spending time with people and bringing them a little bit closer to demystifying the gospel or knowing another Christian person who's fine and not weird or whatever. I think a lot of that stuff, people then go, actually I'm not as hopeless as I thought because if I now look at my life through that lens, I'm doing an awful lot of that sort of thing, or I could very easily do it. It's just made a big difference for m for me, and I think even thinking that way, just the I leave the house to walk the dog and the way I think about what I'm doing is a bit is substantially different, really, when I'm thinking about it, than it would have been if I thought my the only bit that I'm actually technically I think evangelism is preaching the gospel rather than you know befriending and so on. But I think when you see the per a person coming to faith as part of a larger scale process, um I think a lot of people are very good at that. And actually there's diversity in the body, which means that if I I've got people in my church who are brilliant at bringing getting people to the point where they might want to come to church, but have no idea what to say then. And I think, well that's fine because I can do that, and I really enjoy that. Yeah. But because I work for a church, I find it harder to have lots and lots of contacts with people in daily life that who aren't believers, because most of the people I meet are, so I have to work at that. And I think Duncan was probably doing a lot of things like that, just helping you see your place in the team, helping you see your your styles and your roles, and and in I think just liberating people through doing it.
SPEAKER_03Brilliant. Brilliant. Two questions to close with. One is what keeps you fresh and alive and full of the joys of the Lord? What what keeps you close to the book?
SPEAKER_01For me, uh so uh one one thing I one thing I do that I would make the make the goal and one thing which I realise is the biggest inhibitor, right? Um and which I need to work on. So the thing which I do, I I it's not quite at the level of mantra, but it's nearly there. Um a George Mueller line that he talks about my f that my first duty in the morning is to have my soul happy in the Lord. And Pipe John Piper has our kind of riffs off it a bit and expands it to my first duty every day is to get happy in God, because until I am, I'm no use to anybody. And that phrase has been probably the most formative sentence in my Christian life, really, because I think it just made me so aware that I need to make a discipline out of the things that make me happy in God, and to see my goal when I come before God in the morning or whenever it might be, as to get my soul happy in God, rather than to discharge a religious duty or such and such. I it's made such a difference because actually you do do that by studying scripture and praying. But just today I was thinking I was had a very difficult morning, and I thought what I really need to do before going to work is I need to get I actually use that language all the time in family, church, get happy in God. And in my case, that is actually pretty the standard way. I have a you know a journal and a Bible and I pray and I go for walks and I do the things you do to get your soul happy in God, but thinking about it that way is massive. The inhibitor for me is at the moment anyway, is lack of sleep. So I think that's where I go. I think the the warfare for me is actually making sure that I my soul is happy in God, and one of the big things there is to make sure I've slept enough. John Stott, I think, was asked once, and he was reasonably old, what's the secret of your Christian life? And he said, knowing how much sleep I need and getting it. And that I and I think that's just a wonderfully unspiritual and yet actually very spiritual response. Yes. So that's probably that's the the when I'm doing well is getting happy in God. When I'm not, it's often because I'm just not getting enough sleep, and that's a challenge.
SPEAKER_03So that's interesting. I mean I d I wonder whether the Lord sort of in a one in one sense has given sleeplessness to you. Thank you so much to the church, because I'm just thinking, if if I'm hearing you say, get myself happy in the Lord, get myself happy in the Lord, and I'm thinking, well, Andrew doesn't know. He doesn't know what I'm going through. You know, he can't tell me that. It must be it must be easy for him. Actually, you you saying that there are there are these inhibitors. Yeah, well, it's a real fight for us.
SPEAKER_01And that's actually I think what this next book is get is about, really, is how you do like our kids are both severely autistic, and it's really how you do the Christian life when you uh have a spectacular curve all thrown your way and you just have to realign everything, which is what's happened to us in the last few years. Um so our hope is I hope it could be really in some ways. I hope it does for quiet times, what I'm just saying Duncan has done for evangelism, which is in normal life. I'm not a super freak, I don't walk on air just for the fun of it. Um and I feel so and today is a weird day to have this because I just I've had a shocking three days of sleep and and it was and really my godliness was running out by basically this morning, um, and I just had a I just had a real freak out first thing this morning. I was just like, I cannot do this, I just don't know how to do this without sleeping. Um but actually even then, you know, having a good wife and having a bit of time with your Bible, and it's amazing how refreshing being with God is. Um what I should have done is done that before I had my freak out, but that's a whole other story. Won't go into it on air.
SPEAKER_03Um But that is what li that is what's liberating as people hear, you know, both the freak out and the happy time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Coming together. Brilliant. So when's the so the new book, can you say anything about this new book as we close?
SPEAKER_01Well the working title at the moment is The Life You Never Expected. Um and I don't know if it'll come out with that title or not, but it's something that Rachel and I are writing together and publishing with IVP. We've got the manuscripts due in for start of January. So we're we're nearly we're nearly there. We're probably 20 out of 25 chapters done. Um and it's th it's really trying to think about doing life while parenting upside down and trying to think rethink everything. Um and there's lots of stuff in there. Uh uh basically what we're trying to do is follow the journey that the psalmist goes on in Psalm 130, where he sort of cries out from the depths to God, and then he there's a this period where he's worships God in spite of the fact he doesn't have an answer, and then there's a period where he waits for the answer, like watchmen wait for the morning, and then finally there's a period when he witnesses to the goodness of God. And that sort of journey of sort of w weeping and wailing and then worshipping it and then waiting and then witnessing is the that's the journey the book takes on, and really how do you lament, how do you come to terms with tragedy? Um which is others have written on, but in is this very much from our story, and and then how do you worship God through it, how do you recalibrate the way you pray and read the Bible and think through your normal spiritual life? And then waiting, and really a lot in there about hope, eschatology, the future, needing to be aware that you use you know the penguins waiting for the Antarctic summer, just sitting there, you know, you see those guys with the eggs on their feet just kind of hanging in there going, Yeah, it's okay because the light always breaks. It just it sometimes it takes it's very, very, very cold in the meantime. And I think realizing that that is the age we're in, the kingdom isn't it, fully here. And then finally witnessing, let's let's give glory to God about some of the really great things we've seen in the midst of it. So that's the that's the shape of the book as we have it at the moment. Um and yeah, so that'll be around out, I guess, a year's time or something. Sounds great.
SPEAKER_03We'll we'll need that. We've got we've got a baby coming out in uh in January, so we'll we'll need Which is fantastic. We'll need your book. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, thanks so much, Andrew, for joining us.
SPEAKER_01Oh thank you. This is great. We should do it again. It's great to chat. Yeah, brilliant.
SPEAKER_02That's uh Andrew Wilson talking to Glenn earlier. So uh remind us how we can get hold of uh Unbreakable.
SPEAKER_03Go to ten of those, um, who are a wonderful publisher. Um and they they really know writing talent when they when they see it. Um and you can you can check out Andrew's book. And at the same time, you can pre-order my book, 321, The Story of God The Will. It's available for pre-order. It's available for pre-order. Yeah. So um we'll we'll put that on the show notes as well. Okay, make that easy, put it on the the web address. On the web address, so yeah, so yeah, but do do get along and uh pick up Andrew's book. And um yeah, no, it's it'll it'll it'll just help you soak yourself in that truth. How did Jesus think of the Bible? Um and if if the Son of God needed to be someone who continually said, It is written, it is written, it is written, then can I be any less Bible saturated than him? Um it's a really helpful read. Pick it up.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. Okay, so uh to to get the links then for this episode, just go to revivalmedia.org slash tep seventy five and uh you can sign up via email, you can leave us a rating and review, leave a comment if you wish, or a question.
SPEAKER_03Go on then.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so uh that's it for now. See you next time. See you next time.