I think we still have 35,000 minutes. So I have to five minutes. That's the oldest.
SPEAKER_01So before we go off to first stories to do with 45, we're going to do this first video. That's right.
SPEAKER_05And we'll get to the first three. And we'll get started. So getting around expiring. If you go for 55 stuff, 50, 125. It's very expiring. A couple of months ago. And if we're in three chapters, Job chapter 1. And it was really arresting. I mean, it's in the power of the word of God and Job Chapter 1. Modern listeners. And he's taking a strike to open the little right. And yet he's reading a story and you could hear a picture of it. And then he creatures about suffering from the book of Job. And so here is uh an incredible creature and communicator who believes in the power of the word of God, who's been doing it for decade after decade, who's seen it all before, and uh who has lots of wisdom to to pass on. So I was really pleased to be able to spend some time and interview him.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. Good. So uh let's take a listen then.
SPEAKER_06We've got with us uh Roger Carswell. Fantastic to have you with us uh up there in Leeds. How's the weather up there in Leeds?
SPEAKER_02Well, it's always colder up here, but now it's great to be in Yorkshire and breathe good, healthy air. Good to be with you.
SPEAKER_06Yes. Now you have been an evangelist for how many years?
SPEAKER_02Well, full time for oh, I don't know, about thirty-two, but um really I was a school teacher for eleven years beforehand, I've got to say all my life really uh i in whilst teaching was very much involved in going around preaching the gospel, running evangelistic events and missions, etcetera. It has been my life's work and uh it's a joyful work to be involved in.
SPEAKER_06Wonderful. Can you tell us a little bit about your conversion? How did you come to know Christ for yourself?
SPEAKER_02My mother was brought up in the Middle East. Um, she she w um was half Greek and half Armenian. In nineteen fifteen there was a genocide against the Armenians, her parents fled and cutting a long story short, eventually settled in the Lebanon. And um my mother grew up there, I had relatives there who ran a Christian hospital in Beirut. Um I was born and bred in in in Yorkshire, but uh we used to go on holiday there as a family. But when I was fifteen, I went for the first time by myself, stayed with my uncles and aunts and cousins and grandma, and they were very fine, fervent Christians, and I noticed the difference in their lives compared with uh the way I was living. Um I wasn't a wild rebel or anything, but I was just a typical um teenage boy and very much going my own way. Um and then actually after a game of tennis, one of my uncles, bless me, was far too old to be playing tennis, um, uh volunteered to play tennis with me really to get alongside me. And after the game, he began to talk to me about the things of the Lord. Eventually we sat down in a little clearing in the woods in the mountains of the Lebanon, and he opened his Bible and he went through various passages from the Bible which showed me, yes, there is a God. I have sinned against him. I knew that. I was a teenage boy, I knew I'd sinned, but I'd never understood what he went on to explain that when the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, he was carrying not only the sin of the world, but my sin. He was paying the penalty for my wrongdoing, and he died so that I could be forgiven. And of course, he went on to explain the resurrection and the need to trust Christ, and he challenged me. Roger, have you ever come to a time in your life where you've asked Jesus Christ to forgive you and become your Lord and Saviour? And I knew I hadn't, but I felt if Jesus really loved me enough to die for me, I should trust him. So that very day, as a fifteen-year-old in the Middle East, I prayed and I asked Christ to wash away the past wrong and become Lord of my life. And it really was the hinge which changed the whole direction of my life.
SPEAKER_06What a wonderful uncle. Yes, that's yeah, that's that challenges me as an uncle. I'm thinking now of my nephews and yes. 'Cause it's interesting, tennis, because Rico Tys says that um a tennis a tennis game for him was very uh very significant. Did you know the story of uh Psalm Psalm hundred and three?
SPEAKER_02Yes, it was a very amateurish. I'm sure Rico's would have been much more professional, but nevertheless.
SPEAKER_06No, well this this is how he he he was converted by uh by someone yeah, playing a set of tennis and then in between sets uh took him through Psalm hundred and three and that was uh that was the hinge point for his life. So I'll have to get into more tennis. Obviously a good evangelistic sport. Really? So what was your sort of first taste of evangelism? When did you start to get the bug?
SPEAKER_02Well, uh I remember my uncle for the next few days he met with me in the Lebanon and told me, you know, how to start going on and growing as a Christian. I remember he said to me, nobody else has ever said this, but I've heard Roger, have a time to meet with God and a place. And he said, and never keep God waiting. It hasn't quite been like that, but it's a good principle. And he he encouraged me to read the Bible and to pray and to share um Christ with my friends. Um I really feared that. I thought, Oh, I don't know that I could ever do that with some of my friends. Um, we were quite mischievous. We weren't criminals, but we were mischievous. But you know, when I got back to England, went back to school and it was a very good school, I have to say, and um uh there were high standards expected of us. But do you know I found the most natural thing in the world was I wanted to share with others what Jesus Christ had done. And I presumed that just as I trusted Christ, realizing that he died for me, they would as well. Of course, it wasn't quite as simple as that. And I got involved um very quickly. I started a Christian union at school, and I I sort of limped along for a year. I didn't find a good church, I didn't know what a good church was, to be frank. But I didn't find a good church, and then through an amazing series of providences, God brought me into the it was then called the National Young Life Campaign, Young Life Now, an interchurch Christian youth group, um run in those days by the professor of medicine at Leeds University, Werner Wright, and it was incredibly active. So Friday night there was a main meeting where there was Bible teaching, Saturday there was a Bible study prayer meeting and open air meetings in the central leaves, Tuesdays and Thursday lunchtime. There was an open air meeting in the central leaves, and then there were regular evangelistic events going on. It was very, very um fervent really in sh in in its desire to reach out, and I got involved and loved it. And um I think that's when I got the bug, if I can put it like that. And um I was just thrilled to be involved, began to in the open air meetings, share my testimony, then give a little word and then etc. Um but I also when I was seventeen, I read John Pollock's biography of D.L. Moody. In those days it was called Moody Without Thank you. That great American evangelist from the nineteenth century. I loved the book and it was to change my life because I read there that Moody, who of course was preaching to thousands, but nevertheless Moody never let a day go by without speaking to at least one person about the gospel. And I read this, and as it happens, I think I was only, as I say, 17 doing my A levels. The next three days I had three conversations with different people. I remember two of them very distinctly, and I just felt at the end of the third day, well, with God's help under God, I'm going to make this a principle of my life, try and talk to somebody each day about the Lord. And that has been an immense blessing to me, and it's sort of made evangelism i it made it become my lifestyle. So I was looking out for opportunities to share. Eventually I went to university. The most natural thing for me at university was to build what we used to call in those days a little soapbox. I used to go into the centre of Southampton where I was studying every Thursday and Friday with a group of students. We did open air work, and it became the passion of my life really. But I have to say, Glenn, as well, I do believe that much that is God's gifting. I think uh God does give gifts, and I think for me He did give that uh the only gift I got, I'm afraid, the the um sort of ability to share the gospel with others, and I love to do so. Uh and it gives joy to my heart to do so.
SPEAKER_06Well it's a very considerable gift. Um is is it something you can learn? And um I'm thinking in particular of sort of preaching and preaching evangelistically. Is it something you can learn and if if if so, how?
SPEAKER_02Well, I I believe I don't believe every Christian is an evangelist. I believe every Christian is a witness. And some people are given the gift, uh, you know, who i everybody would admit, say Billy Graham or Eric Hutchins from Eastbourne. Uh, you know, they have this particular gift of being able to preach the gospel. But we are all to be witnesses, we're all to share what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. And I think probably the way to learn it, I think a few things if I can be very practical, Glenn. I think get involved with people who are evangelizing. So I went with United Beach missions for 30 odd years. I spent every summer with UBM, and I learned so much from them and watching others and being with others, listening in on conversations when they were talking to people about the Lord. But being with an evangelistic group, get involved in evangelism at the church and through the church or whatever it is. Secondly, I think it's very helpful to read evangelistic books. Now, clearly they're written for non-Christians, but see how these people who've written these books have expressed the gospel and and sort of try and adopt some of those lines. Um, and then don't be intimidated by the fear that people ask you a question that they may not you know you may not know the answer to. Basically, they only ask about seven questions and learn how to answer their questions. Obviously, you're talking to individuals, but nevertheless, there are standard ways to answer standard questions. I think that's that's helpful. And and then I like to pray every morning, Lord, would you lead me to somebody with whom I can just share something significant today? So, just a couple of days ago, uh, we haven't got much of a garden, but I was in the liquor garden on the front where we've got a sort of circle of I like to have lots of colour, I was planting some winter pansies. There was a guy across the road, probably only in his early twenties, plotting and planting, doing door-to-door work, and I said, Oh, do you want a cup of tea? And he was thrilled. Eventually got to my house, gave him a cup of tea. He said, You know, I've done this for a few years, nobody's ever offered me a cup of tea before.
SPEAKER_06So he was doing door-to-door sales work, he was he was in the world. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And um um so we began to chat, then he just said, What do you do for a living? I explained. Then he said, Um, um, I've always believed in God. So I was able to share my my my test. Eventually we had quite a long conversation and he asked me to pray for him. Now, though there are people like this once in a while. It doesn't happen every day, but once in a while, if you're looking prayerfully, God has a way if I can use a phrase from the book of Ruth, he drops handfuls of purpose is how the Bible puts it. I think he just drops in somebody who's really going to encourage us. And I've been praying for this guy. Now, yesterday I talked to somebody, but it it wasn't easy at all. He didn't want to know. But I said a few sentences, I left him with a little gospel tract, and who knows? But once in a while there's a real gem. Um so I think just do it. But ideally, if you can get involved with others who are doing it, it helps you.
SPEAKER_06Yes. And I think in terms of dropping handfuls, you know, in Mark chapter four, Jesus says we drop handfuls of seed and we and we scatter it everywhere, whether it's whether it's on the path or whether it's among the the rocky soil or the thorny soil. But yes, you do get that good soil that kind of gives you the gives you the encouragement to keep going with the harder soil, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02And Absolutely. Even with the harder ones, and sometimes it can be discouraging and a and a little bit hurtful. I don't know that it's hurtful to us. We are, as Elijah said, we we're concerned for the honour, the glory of God's name, and when people are very dismissive, it does hurt us. But nevertheless, the Lord Jesus himself is described as a man of sorrows. He knew what it was to to look over Jerusalem and and yearn for them and cry for them. We will feel the same, but we are following God's agenda if we're involved in making known to our neighbors and the nations the fact that Jesus suffered, he rose from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. What gives you greatest joy in evangelism?
SPEAKER_02I think it's har it I don't want to sound over pious, mm, but but I think this is genuinely, Glenn, what I uh I think is the answer. I do love the Lord Jesus and I love the fact that he loved me and gave himself for me. And to speak warmly, and I hope winsomely, but warmly of him in a world that basically is saying, We don't want to hear, I think that gives me the greatest joy. Just to speak of the Lord Jesus in a world that is ignoring him, yes gives me great joy.
SPEAKER_06Yes. And you remind yourself how wonderful Jesus is, don't you? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Expression deepens impression, so as we express it, I think we feel it more ourselves, yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. And what's hardest in evangelism?
SPEAKER_02Um I think discouragement. Um we long for a greater harvest. Things are not easy at the moment, as you know, Glenn, in Britain. Uh there's incredible secularism and cynicism and um and sort of spiritual apathy, which is actually based on a spiritual ignorance. It was well illustrated to me. This is absolutely true. You may not believe me, but it is true. A friend of mine, two Christmases ago, sent out a Christmas card with a nativity scene and arched over the scene were the words, until as a child is born. And a few days later he got from down the street a card of congratulations. Yeah, there there is tremendous ignorance about all things to do with the Lord Jesus. But when people don't want to know and are dismissive, I that that is it does hurt and it is hard. Um, but I keep reminding myself this is the day and age into which I was called to witness. It would have been nice if it was a Victorian era when there was much more interest. It it it it's not. It's two thousand and fourteen or fifteen or whatever it is. Um, you know 14.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_0214 and about I don't know when this is gonna be broadcast, sorry.
SPEAKER_06Um, well it will it it might be twenty fifteen and and greetings to you in the future. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Um um but this is the day um when a we we're we're we're called to witness and the Lord knows and the Lord still is reaching out to bring individuals to himself. It may not be a massive harvest at the moment, but nevertheless there are ones and twos, which is really encouraging.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. And that's how you keep going, is it you sort of remind yourself of the the call of the Lord on your life here and now, and um Yeah, how may how how do you sort of keep going with in the midst of discouragement?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think I'm sure what you just said is correct, but I think probably in my early days as a Christian there were instilled into my life principles, habits that have actually moulded and made me me. So uh one lives out what one has become, I suppose. So the Lord saved me, the Lord gave me a a sort of glimpse, a vision of the Lord Jesus. I don't mean that literally, but a uh a passion for him, his death, his resurrection, his exalted, his coming back, and a desire that everybody should know. That is very much a part of me. So um I just want to live being true to what God has done within me, what God has made of me, and I want till my dying day to make Christ known.
SPEAKER_06You mentioned um earlier about this door to door salesman, because you you you told me the story yesterday, which is um which is very interesting to me because uh uh to begin with, this door to door salesman described himself as an atheist, isn't that right?
SPEAKER_02He did. He said when I'd explained my testimony, he then said, and he was quite courteous, he just said, uh, I don't want to be offensive, but I'm an atheist. But then it turned out it uh all sorts of tough situations in his life in in the past and in the present. And he just said, Will you pray for me? And I felt at that moment, Glenn, that actually people now are using as their default position Yes. Atheism and you pointed out in the past they probably said they were Christians and that was just as meaningless. And just because they're now saying they're atheists doesn't mean they actually are. It's just the default position because inwardly everybody is aware of God. Nobody's born an atheist. They have to become atheists. And there is this an aw awareness that behind all is designed around us in the world, there is a designer, it may be corrupted design now, ruined design because of our rebellion, but nevertheless it's it's it's it's very clear there is somebody behind all of this, and I think there is an awareness of God.
SPEAKER_06Oh yeah. And do you so that that would be one thing that I suppose you'd say w has changed since when you first became an evangelist? When you were first into evangelism, people would have made the default thing I'm a Christian and it wouldn't have meant anything, and now people are saying I'm an atheist and it doesn't really mean anything. What what are some of the other kind of changes that you've seen in the spiritual scene in Britain?
SPEAKER_02I'm I'm sure that is one. I think it's the the increasing ignorance about all things spiritual. I think um the acceptance of um uh ungodliness and unrighteousness and immorality and drunkenness. Interesting, I read just a little while ago in my devotions this morning from Isaiah chapter five, where um Isaiah links drunkenness and immorality with uh refusal to hear God's voice. And yet these are sort of characteristics of the day and age in which we live. And uh so I think this this um almost fundamentalist secularism and atheism I think they're they're the main things and and an an unwillingness even to listen to the word of God these days. I've been a Christian for forty-nine years. I don't know that it was easy when I was first converted, but we're we're much further back in awareness and knowledge of spiritual things now. And then I think as well when I was converted as a teenager, uh if one said one was a Christian, it was sort of well respected and well viewed. I don't know that it necessarily is nowadays, as a sort of suspicion.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_02Um and uh f I I don't know, almost a hidden smirk, you know, that you believe in fairy tales and fantasy rather than truth and following the right way. Um and I do think uh throughout my years, I'm afraid, successive governments of all colours have legislated against God's commandments. We've seen one after another of the commandments being undermined by our politicians, and yet there's still something within us that sorts of sort of wants to respect them and trust them. But it seems as though government after government has legislated against and therefore made it more difficult for us. But um this is nothing new for most Christians in the world, it's just a little bit new for we who've had a hundred and fifty years in the UK where Christianity has been accepted as something that is of high regard.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Well, and what do you take as the sort of the the answer to that? I mean, it's sort of successive waves I'm sure you've seen in your lifetime of of the uh the old crusades of Eric Hutchings sort of time, and there was the friendship evangelism, and then there was the sort of the seeker-sensitive services, and then the sort of the evangelistic courses were the sort of sort of the answer to uh encroaching secularism. Uh what do you what do you think today uh we should do as evangelists in in in seeking to roll back the tide?
SPEAKER_02Well, we mustn't be intimidated into silence, and we mustn't um uh sort of come up with the notion that if we just compromise a little bit and sort of adopt some of the attitudes of the um world outside of Christianity, then perhaps they'll listen to us. I don't believe that at all, and I do think the church has been guilty of both silence and compromise. I believe we need to be more winsomely bold in making known the gospel. Now you went through various trends there, and I think you're right to to analyse what's happened over the last fifty years in in in those ways. I think at the moment it does seem as though one-to-one Bible studies are proving to be quite effective. So taking time and going through with well, people have used um Luke's gospel, the students have used Luke's Gospel, there's the one-to-one um John's gospel, this sort of thing. You've got your own uh three, two, one, this sort of thing where you're taking time with an individual and and opening up the Bible and going through um uh passages or whatever, a whole gospel and explaining the gospel. That seems to be effective. The only problem with all of these things, valid and right and good as they are, and enthusiastic as I am for them, is that the vast majority don't even have a Christian friend who is able to do this with them. So I do think we've got to devise means whereby we are publicly proclaiming the gospel and putting on evangelistic, we don't call them crusades these days, but missions, whatever it is, evangelistic weeks. Um where when I'm doing missions like this, I like to call them real lives and basically two ingredients. I interview somebody for 35-40 minutes who tells their story as to how they were converted, and then I speak, and I find everybody loves a good story, everybody's interested in everybody else, and that's quite a draw. And then having heard a powerful testimony, um, and it needn't be of a celebrity, it just needs to be a gripping story, um, then one can go into go on to preach the gospel. I find that works, but I I think we need to be um as it were redoubling our efforts, not hiding uh away and keeping the gospel within our four walls, but rather getting it out to people. Um so we need to be on the streets. We need eyeball to eyeball evangelism, and we need to try and get people to hear proclamation as well as doing the personal friendship evangelism.
SPEAKER_06Can I ask what you do on on the streets these days? What's your approach in in that kind of evangelism?
SPEAKER_02I was brought up with open air meetings. Um now I I had to stop my involvement, basically I still do do it once in a while, when I had quite serious surgery on my larynx. I think I'd wrecked my voice through open air preaching and I was told never to speak again without amplification. Now, obviously I do sometimes, but but I'm a lot more careful. But I still regularly go on the street and I seek to um I I try and find a place which is not too crowded but certainly not isolated. I try to find a uh a place as well where people are not rushing too much. And then I use tracks. I don't call them tracks, I call them a Christian leaflet. Sometimes I even call them a gospel leaflet, because I think the word gospel, because of gospel music, still has quite positive connotations. And I just uh as it were, I I don't at arm's length, I don't do it like that, but I sort of nicely intercept people if I can, and say, I'm sorry to trouble you, but I I wonder if I can just give you a little Christian leaflet, and it depends how they're reacting, but I'll try and say a little Christian leaflet, it's just the ordinary Christian message, it just explains how Jesus came into the world to save sinners. If I can go one step further, I like to say how Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I look them in the eye and say, I'm sure you degree you and I qualify. I use that method quite a lot. And I see where it goes.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um I find personal work is hard work until the person with whom we're speaking asks a question. Once they ask a question, they're inviting us to carry on speaking. Even if they say, Oh come on, you don't believe that, do you? I hear that as feel free to cut. I think they're opening up the conversation. Now, I do do it on the street, um, and in the winter especially, that's the best place for me. In the summer weeks and months, certainly where I live, but I suspect throughout the UK, there are loads of agricultural shows. There are the big ones, for example, the Great Yorkshire show, hundred and fifty thousand people attend that every day. But there are smaller ones, uh, where you perhaps just get a couple of thousand in a village. And they they're quite quick, you have egg and spoon races for the children, those sort of things. But I find if you can get them in a place where they're s the the people are standing, such as standing all around to watch their children in races, and I just uh go up to them and say, See, this road, trolley, can I give you and I I've got a particular tract I use for that situation, etcetera. So I do think we need to be doing that with the y usually I I use the track as the key to open the door of conversation. But then I also use tracks in ordinary conversation as the key to close the door of conversation. I maybe have had a conversation and I might like to finish by saying, I was limited to chat. Can I give you a little Christian leaflet? You you might like to read it later on, it just explains what I've been trying to chat about. Um so uh I don't think we we we mustn't just confine the gospel to within four walls. We have to take it out. And it might be the person we're sitting next to on a bus or a train or standing next to in a queue, it might be the person we're chatting with in a supermarket, if there's you know, they check out there's nobody behind us. But as well, there are neighbours and colleagues and friends and relatives. For those, I think we need to pray for the right moment when we can talk. And ideally, that will be one to one. I find if it's one to a bit of a crowd and it may happen like that, you know, refectory or something, they can sort of gang up as a facade they want to put up on and they want to gang up a little bit against us. One to one, I find people are much more open and um uh I don't know, but I don't want to use the word vulnerable, but uh because that we we're not out to abuse people, we're out to point them to open.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Sorry. But but they're open in those in those. Yeah, they are open, yes. And the greatest act of friendship we can show anybody is to introduce them to Jesus, isn't it? And the greatest act of tyranny is actually to keep quiet about the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_06Wow. Let me ask you about tracts. Uh do you have any idea how many tracts you've authored? Must be hundreds, must it?
SPEAKER_02Oh no, not hundreds, but prob I don't know, probably published about um seventy, eighty or something. Um I've learned a lesson through tracks. So many of them are available and and Glenn, if if people got in touch with you and you sent on their email or their address, I'd gladly send them a sample pack of them.
SPEAKER_06Okay, we'll we'll put details of of how they can get hold of your tract on the show notes so so that anyone listening can can click on that and yeah, great.
SPEAKER_02That's great, thanks. But what I've found of late, most of them have been quite general ones. Some of them have been very popular. I do one called Just a Minute, and it's the various things that can happen in just a minute. Uh and of course some of them are quite flippant, but then some of them are very serious. But you can be born again in just a minute, etcetera. And I've got various tracks like that that are general. I've found of late uh I'm still writing general ones, I've just done one in John 316, but I've found of late if I can tie it in to a an event, um, it can have um that they become very popular. For example, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, yes, within six weeks, uh we got rid of a hundred and seventeen thousand tracks.
SPEAKER_04Goodness.
SPEAKER_02When at the time of the centenary of Titanic, I forgot how many numbers, but big numbers went. In Yorkshire we've just had a few months ago now, uh the Tour de France in Yorkshire, and within uh um within two, three days, uh um seventeen and a half thousand of the tracks went. I called it Le Grand Depart and um uh etcetera So I got one on the commemorations for World War One. My Christmas one this year is um is called the Christmas Truth, because this Christmas it's a centenary since the two warring factions in the First World War stopped fighting, sang um Christmas Carol, then played football together, and of course the next day they went back to fighting. Um so it's looking for some s sort of way in that naturally uh relates to what people are thinking about. The one I use in the agricultural shares, I have a tract called A Little Bit of Heaven on Earth in Yorkshire, and it's all sorts of facts and figures about Yorkshire, but then it goes on to talk about the testimonies of some of the uh Yorkshire Christians, John Wycliffe or Wycliffe, uh Wilberforce, Hanson Taylor, and the Brontes, and Samuel Marsden, who took the gospel to New Zealand. Incidentally, he arrived in New Zealand, the first man to ever take the Christian message to New Zealand, on Christmas Day 1814. So it's two hundred years ago this year, and he preached on I Bring You Good Tidings of Great Joy, which is a tremendous text.
SPEAKER_06Wonderful. I I often see, you know, people disparaging tracts and and saying, Why bother? Um, why do you bother with tracts? Do they work? Do people come to Christ through them? Uh ha ha how did how have you seen them work in your ministry?
SPEAKER_02Um, it is just scattering a tiny little piece of gospel feed. Um uh it it is only that. Um but I get a steady response of people who receive tracks and either write to me or contact me for more information. But I have this lovely story. Um my wife and I were taking our eldest son down to Leeds railway station and um um he's going back to his final turn i in university in Aberdeen and I was waiting and my wife had gone to see him to the platform. Guy came up from Rail Track to say to me, Roger, you can't park we didn't say Roger, sorry, he said you can't park here. And uh anyway, I got talking and this man just said, I've seen you before somewhere and I said, All right, where might that have been? He said, I don't know. I said, Well actually I'm a Christian preacher, so maybe it was in a university or church and he said, No, I remember and he said, Three years ago you and your parents were with um your wife in Harry Ramson's fish and chip shop, seated at table three, and I waited on you, and he said, And you spoke to me about Jesus And he said and he went into his top pocket and he pulled out of his top pocket a tract and he said, And you gave me this.
SPEAKER_06Wow.
SPEAKER_02So I said, Oh right, okay. I said, That's more than likely. I said, Why have you got that which you put in your pocket now? And he said, Oh, I just love to read it. Amazing. Well, we talked then and later on, it's a long story, um it seems as though he trusted the Lord. Um it's not been straightforward since uh uh to be fair to the story, but nevertheless, how interesting, here's a man who kept the tract and um uh had correspondence for quite a long time with a guy who was a British rail cleaner and uh during the night shift he found a discarded tract on a c on a table in a carriage. He sat down, read it there, and then he prayed to the Lord and he wrote to me to say he'd been converted through this track. I could tell many other stories, yeah, but I don't think they're the most significant thing in the world, but they are something.
SPEAKER_06Well, they are to them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely, absolutely that. And um and they do for me help opening up some conversations, and as I mentioned earlier again, they do for me help me to close down some conversations with leaving them leaving them something a little bit more permanent than just a conversation.
SPEAKER_06Yes, yes, yeah, you definitely need something to give people at the end of that conversation. Yeah. Let me ask you about a couple of uh other things that are very distinctive to you. You mentioned your real lives uh missions, and uh I think they're terrific. Um you get uh a Christian with a very interesting story, uh people come along, you interview them, and then you preach the gospel uh at the end of the meeting. Um why do why do you think people are drawn to those interviews? Why do you think they're drawn to real lives?
SPEAKER_02Um I've always used testimonies in missions, but in the early days when I began, it seems so antiquated now. We used to sing a hymn and have a Bible reading and prayer, etcetera. I still have a Bible reading, but I incorporate it in my message and I still have a prayer, but it's the closing prayer at the end, which is in the really a s uh sort of prayer of commitment of repentance and faith. But I found that you know you can't these days invite people to a uh quote unquote rally like we used to do. Um so there needs to be some sort of bait. I don't want the bait just to be a quiz night or uh even just food. Don't misunderstand, I believe in quisnights and I believe in meals with a message at the end, but I found they're not great reaping opportunities, and I think it's because the people who attend go with without the expectation that the Lord Himself might speak to them. So I want them to come and hear a direct gospel presentation, but I want there to be a bait. And everybody loves a good story. Everybody loves stories about other people. That's why we buy magazines and read the sort of biographical sections of newspapers and the interviews of of celebrities in news. Everybody loves a good story. And uh interestingly, the Lord uses biography as he communicates his truth to us in the Bible. Interesting as well, four times in the book of Acts, the the Apostle Paul gives us, or we have his testimony, his conversion story, written down, and I'm sure that's the Lord's saying, uh use testimonies. He used his own testimony evangelistically. So to have an intriguing story, an interesting story that relates to people or is so sensational, it doesn't particularly relate to people, but it's very gripping, is in itself a little bit of a bait, and yet it's useful evangelistically, then we go into the gospel. So, for example, I've interviewed your Emma in her story that she's written about in in in in her book, and um the the issues which she's tackling are not unique to her, uh and therefore there will be others who face similar issues, or Christians who know people who face similar issues, who can say, Emma on Tuesday night, for example, we've got this girl, uh um, Emma Scrivener, she's been through issues to do with anorexia and self-esteem and etcetera. I think you might enjoy. We didn't interview her, then there's gonna be a talk. Or um I've interviewed, I think, well over sixty, seventy times now. John Mosey, he's not well known, but his daughter was in Pan Am Flight 103 that was blown up over Lockerbie. So we call the evening Lockerbie Father grapples with tragedy. And then we go into a talk dealing a little bit with the issues of why does God allow suffering. Uh, but an evangelistic, straightforward gospel proclamation talk, or another chat well, a couple of uh ex-UVF terrorists, both converted in prison, serving time for murder, who've been dramatically converted. These both of these two are now uh pastors of churches, but they're very powerful stories and it shows God's ability to change people, etcetera. So you need a a good mixture over a week of different stories, male and female from different backgrounds, not all suffering, not all tragedies, but issues. Um and I find they they work. My experience is in doing missions like this, numbers increase during the week because they uh Christians feel actually I could bring along a friend to to this. Um we may have a little bit of music before uh the testimony or between the testimony and the message, but not music that we're asking the congregation to participate in, yeah. But rather we are presenting to them a programme that may include a singer. But the interview and the message are the two main things.
SPEAKER_06And you're I mean you're exceptional as a preacher, Roger, but you're very, very good as an interviewer as well. Do you I mean, are you uh do you reflect much on that? What's your what's your secret as an interviewer, do you think?
SPEAKER_02Well, I don't know that I am. Uh but um I do enjoy interviewing. Um and I think I mustn't give away my secrets. I think really I'm just nosy. So I I try to ask the questions that I'd like to know and I suspect the that I'd like to know the answers for. And I suspect most people are like that. I don't need to know much about the people if I've never met them before, just quarter of an hour with them beforehand, so I just know uh a little bit about them and then I don't plan my questions. I really do just go with the flow. And again, I'm perhaps saying too much now. Sometimes I start the next question, I start talking, and I don't know actually what's gonna come out my mouth and what the question's gonna be. But so far, praise the Lord, uh that method has never let me down. Um but the important thing is um in in the interview I it's not about me. It's me trying to draw out about them. That's the important thing. They uh somehow the questions we've got to allow them to elaborate their story.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and I think it's part of that winsome boldness that God's given you as well. It sort of helps you be helps you be nosy in a in a fruitful way.
SPEAKER_02Yes. There is um there's a helpful little book which uh I've only ever dipped into, but uh if people were doing uh this sort of thing, um uh it's from Larry King, who's not a Christian by any means, but How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere. And it's a helpful, useful little book as to how to get the best out of people. And again, I'm probably saying far too much, but sometimes when I'm just tired uh and yet you're having you know, you're having a a a meal with somebody, etc., and you're just too tired to talk, all I do is ask questions. I get them to talk, it's much easier for me. And uh everybody enjoys talking about themselves anyway.
SPEAKER_06Wow, that's true, that's true. A another distinctive of yours is books. Um writing books and and you're a brilliant kind of promoter of books and and getting books into people's hands. Why do why do you believe so much in the in the published word like that?
SPEAKER_02I do, you're right. Um since um well, for forty years I've I've run a bookstall and tried to get out good gospel literature. Books have influenced me. I I wish I was a much more voracious reader than I am, but I do enjoy books. I enjoy biographies, missionary biographies have impacted me. I mentioned the old Moody, uh the biography of Hudson Taylor and his passion for uh seeking to win people made a big impact on me, etc. I could go on. Um so I've always felt, yes, if they hear me, great. But if they go away with a book that they read, who knows? That might have a huge impact. And with the gospel, um um great to hear a message, but do they remember, do they take it on board? But if I can get out um an evangelistic book that people will read, who knows? So I meet every week if I can, um, with a couple. Um he's an accountant, she's a doctor, they've been married about a year, and I do a Bible study with them. Uh sometimes I'm away week after week, and I can't do it every week, but otherwise I'd do it uh every week. He was converted to a book. Uh as it happens, it was something I was uh I'd written, but um when he was a sixth former, a girl in his sixth form tried to witness to him and said, uh, I think you'd enjoy this book. And she gave him an evangelistic book, he read it and was converted. And uh so I sort of feel a little bit of a responsibility to try and follow him up, but I love being with them and sharing you know, looking into the Bible together with them. But I I know of many people who are converted uh through gospel literature. And we've done a whole series, my wife and I, of books of people's testimonies. These are all people I've interviewed. My wife has sometimes written up the stories, um, perhaps I have as well, and um and we give them out and we get we get a very steady trickle of um emails saying you know so and so was converted through reading this book or that. So it is yet another way of getting out the gospel. That's my passion. I want this wonderful message of Jesus Christ who crucified and risen to get out, and literature is a way. Now I haven't got the skills you've got of producing videos and DVDs, etcetera, but we use what we've got, don't we, to try and get out this message.
SPEAKER_06Oh, I don't have those skills. Other people point the camera at me. They they do all the magic work, but um we'll have to Yeah, we could we could we could uh point the cameras at you. Roger, that'd be that'd be great, actually.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I could never come up with your wonderful Halloween DVD on a Christmas one, etc. They're marvelous. But God does I think the thing is, God gives us different gifts. So you have that ability, and somebody else will have another ability, etcetera. But let them all be working together for the proclamation of the gospel. God will use them.
SPEAKER_06Absolutely. Now, Grilla Christian did brilliantly well as a book and continues to do brilliantly well. Um so that's sort of fifty questions that Christians are commonly asked, and and you give sort of little bite-sized answers to that. Why why do you think that book did so well?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sixty-five questions. Sixty five, so yeah. But actually to be fair, Glenn, there were only about seven questions I think that that non-Christians ask Christians, you know, why doesn't God stop the trouble is the is the most basic one, but then you get who made God and isn't the Bible full of contradictions, and does science contradict the Bible and uh etcetera. Seven basic questions. But uh I wanted to answer these and I first of all produced a little booklet that answered seven of them and then made it into a into a book. Um I think it's helpful because not everybody's can read a book, uh, starting at the beginning and going to the end. But because this is sixty-five questions of a sort of with bite-sized answers, people can dip in. So, for example, the guy I mentioned the the whom I met the other day, the atheist, I didn't think he would read a book from beginning to end, but I gave him Gorilla Christian and I said, Look, you're asking about God uh allowing suffering. I said, if you look at page such and such, you'll find that I answer that. It's just two or three pages, and then you'll see the other questions as well. That was so for that sort of person it's ideal. But I think it's also helpful to Christians because it helps us to be equipped in giving us an idea as to how we might answer the questions um that we're asked. Um so I think it is useful like that. Um I know uh uh as well, a leading clergyman's wife apparently always has a copy in a handbag to give away. And um uh I like the idea of having something, having some booklets, having books with us ready to pass on whenever.
SPEAKER_06Yes. And is your your latest book um Before You Say I Don't Believe?
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_06That's that's kind of uh the the flip side of Gorilla Christian, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02It's exactly that, yes. So in it it it it's right that we should try and answer the questions that we're being asked, and that's what Grilla Christian is. But I don't think we should always be on the defensive because the non-Christian has certain questions they need to answer. You know, uh so it has um it has a thing I've forgotten 36 questions, and there are things like, Do you really believe that life is meaningless? Um are you happy to accept that all that there is around us came about from nothing? Have you ever looked at the evidence for the resurrection? How do you explain all the fulfilled prophecies of the Bible? So it's being sort of nicely offensive uh instead of being defensive, and it's asking them to um you know, to think through that we let's be honest, Glenn, the the the nation is being hugely brainwashed against Christian things from the media, in the educational system. Um I do feel that so much of um education these days is almost becoming social engineering. It's it's very troubling. I was talking to the chaplain of a private school just a few weeks ago and he's despairing of what's happening in the school. He said, All um inquiry, all imagination is just being pushed to one side and they're really teaching the kids how to conform to the secular standards of society. Quite frightening, really. But we need to challenge the um assumptions uh that people have made to say actually we do have a lot of reasons to believe, and it's not just uh fanciful.
SPEAKER_06Yes. Yeah, and and it challenges that whole mentality that the that the salesman had on your doorstep who just instantly and by default said he was he was an atheist. Without ever having had his, you know, foundations challenged, without ever questioning any of the beliefs that he had, without ever ever, you know, even realizing that he had beliefs. Um it was it it was just obvious to him that he was an atheist, and so that's what he said.
SPEAKER_02And Yeah, absolutely. For him, the opposite I s I think of being religious was being an atheist.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so yeah. And so his only escape from religion in that negative sense was atheism, and and uh we have a much better escape called the gospel. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, if I can quote what you said to me when we were talking a couple of days ago, um you you'd met somebody who said, um, you know, y y y you'd never they said to you they'd never met a Christian quite like you.
SPEAKER_06What was the wording out and they they say you're so different from all the other Christians I've spoken to.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly and then it turned out they hadn't actually They've never spoken to a Christian in their life. So they've got um um a um a straw man as far as a Christian is concerned in their mind. They imagine what one's gonna be like and probably it comes from the soaps and I don't know, the caricatures they receive from I don't know, school or whatever, but when they meet a real Christian, there is going to be something different about us, isn't it?
SPEAKER_06Well we hope so, we hope so. What do you hope this book will do?
SPEAKER_02Well, I hope it might first of all make Christians aware that we mustn't just be on the defensive. We're not quite as stupid as we're portrayed as being. But secondly, obviously, Glenn, I would love people to be converted through it, to read it and come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus. Um that's what I'd really like. I don't know how many were printed uh initially, but I know the first print runner's gone and no reprinting, which is is good because it's about just ten weeks or so ago that it was published, so that's encouraging.
SPEAKER_06Wonderful. We'll we'll put links to that in the show notes so people can get to that and to grill a Christian uh and to and to your tracts as well. Um thank you. But just one one last question. What uh what one piece of advice or what what pieces of of advice would you give uh for a younger evangelist who they love the Lord Jesus, they want they want to share him, uh they could get fearful about uh an increasingly secular world. What what would you say to them?
SPEAKER_02Um I think keep the walk close with the Lord. Keep that daily well, I call it the daily dogged delightful discipline of meeting with God. Keep close to the Lord and then really go out with your eyes open for opportunity. Praise God that there have been reapers, such as, as you mentioned, Harry Cutchings, um Billy Graham, Dale Moody, Spurgeon, etc. Most of us are not great reapers, we're gleaners in the harvest field. Again, a little bit like the uh the Book of Ruth. She gleaned, didn't she? But a gleaner has to go out into the fields with eyes wide open and each little piece adds to the bundle, and a gleaner is as careful to keep to retain what he or she has obtained. You know, you hold on to it. Um and at the moment there isn't revival, there isn't harvesting in a huge way, but we can all be gleaners, and uh one here, one there, but it builds up and um uh the Lord still is in the great work of um bringing men and women to himself, rescuing the perishing, and we want to be part of that. And I think if we pray day by day, Lord, I'd love to be able to speak for you today. Uh I'd love to be able to maybe drop a little note to somebody, a postcard, a letter, some email, text, uh, to point them to the Lord Jesus. Would you just help me in this great work of um of spreading the gospel? It's so encouraging and it makes every day count for eternity.
SPEAKER_06Yes. Amen to that. Well Roger, thank you so much for for joining us on the programme.
SPEAKER_02Privilege, thank you for interviewing me.
SPEAKER_06Oh well, as well. I'm I'm interviewing the great interviewer, so uh I have much to learn, but um I I think we'll all have learnt so much. I've I've got a whole A4 sheet of paper in front of me just filled with uh notes from what you've said, and I'm sure everyone who's listened will be uh greatly inspired and and equipped through what you said. So thank you so much for for sharing with us.
SPEAKER_02Bless you.
SPEAKER_06Thank you. Bye bye. God bless.