The Speak Life Podcast, sharing Jesus in everyday life.
SPEAKER_05Well, hello everyone, welcome to the live cast. Good to see you. My name is Paul and I've got with me here today Kevs.
SPEAKER_03Hello everybody.
SPEAKER_05How are you doing, Kez? All good.
SPEAKER_03Thank you. Yes, how are you?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I'm not too bad.
SPEAKER_03Good weekend.
SPEAKER_05Yes. Yeah, it was kind of a busiest weekend, kind of lots of kind of family bits and bobs, but uh it was it was a good time. And uh one of the one of the things I did though was on Saturday evening uh I went to a production of the ScrewTape Letters. So if you don't know Screwtape Letters, uh Screwtape Letters is a it's a book by C.S. Lewis, um and the kind of premise of it is a kind of senior demon, uh Screwtape, uh kind of training up sort of two younger junior demons, so to speak, um, about how to kind of tempt people away from the enemy as they refer to God. And um basically you see them kind of being trained up on you know how the kind of ways they might use to tempt people away, and there's a particular character that they're you know, a particular guy they're trying to tempt away from kind of a faith and things like that. Um and so it's a really fascinating uh thing and very, very funny as well. It's a great little comedy. Um I'd not read the book. I mean, I knew kind of basically what it was about, but I'd not not read the book, and a few people I know had read it. Um I think you said you might have to.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I've listened, listened to half of it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, yeah. So um, but maybe, you know, I know for some people not big readers, so you can, I think you can go and see this still. So it was this was actually a production at the church I was at um at my kind of home church. It's a travelling theatre company called uh Searchlight Theatre Company, so you can find them online. I did have a look to see if their screw tape letters is still if it's touring. I can't see particular dates where they're going, but it says it's in its 12th year of touring. So they're probably still if you if you see it come up in your area, do go and see it, because it's definitely good to see. And it's only a kind of four, I think it's only about four people in it.
SPEAKER_03Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_05So it's a little kind of production, one set kind of you know thing. So um cool. Yeah, it was a really good little thing, so I'd highly recommend it. Uh stuff. So yeah, it was good. What about you? What have you been up to?
SPEAKER_04Uh pretty chilled weekend. I went to London, went to Kew Gardens on Saturday, which was very nice. Had got a bit of sunshine before the storm hit. So it was nice, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so it's been pretty grim the last day or so, hasn't it?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so did a bit of drawing in the sunshine, nice plants, nice nature to draw. So yeah, it's good.
SPEAKER_05Good. Okay, so who were you catching up with Yeah, catching up with uh with a fellow illustrator actually.
SPEAKER_04So studied with her at university, so nice to catch up with her.
SPEAKER_05Nice, and doing a bit more illustrating then.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, a bit more illustrating, yes. Good inspiration from the plant life is plant life, good things to draw green green things to draw, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. Good, good, good. So you've been uh you've been keeping your eye in there a bit, but you've been doing a bit of illustrating anyway. Yes because you've been working on uh a video video. A video, yes.
SPEAKER_04So recently um Matthew had come up with a script um about following your heart um and kind of looking into that. Is that a good thing? Um, and so you did a bit of drawing to accompany that, and I think we're gonna watch a bit of the video now.
SPEAKER_00Follow your heart. We hear this constantly in our culture. It's this idea that our heart is a guide for our life. It makes some sense. The heart is an important organ, it keeps us alive, and it's become a metaphor, a symbol for life, love, happiness, and freedom. We hear about following our hearts and relationships, of course. The heart wants what the heart wants. The heart is a great way to pick a career, too. If you find a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life. In fact, the key to true happiness is to chase your dreams. Like somehow, the sleeping heart, wandering through our daydreams, is the guide to follow to get to happiness. The heart helps us with our food choices, our school choices, where you live, and what you do with your free time. The message is clear. Happiness is the paramount goal, and the heart is the guide to get us there. Reality screams a different message.
SPEAKER_05So that was just the first kind of minute or so of that video. It is a little bit longer there. Um if you're listening on the podcast, you will have got the audio of that, and you would have heard Matthew, one of our interns, uh speaking over it. But it is worth checking out the whole video because um, as we kind of briefly alluded to, Kez has been doing some illustrations that go with it. So if you haven't been able to see it, um you do want to go and see those because it really adds to it. Um so that video is going to be released today, I think. Is that right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, four o'clock. Four o'clock on YouTube.
SPEAKER_05And what's the full title of it, Ian?
SPEAKER_04Follow your heart.
SPEAKER_05Follow your heart. So that'll be on our YouTube channel. So if you're watching this on our YouTube channel, this channel, stick with this channel, okay? Um and we'll post it out on Facebook as well to see because it's going to be a great little thing. Just tell us though, um, tell us a bit more about the thought behind the video, kind of works for you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so I think we we were thinking as Matthew was writing the script, this kind of we we often say follow your heart, follow your dreams is kind of quite prevalent in our society as kind of the the thing to do, and kind of as most people would think, is the yeah, the positive way to go about life. Um and yeah, we were just kind of exploring actually what does that actually mean? It's quite an abstract concept following your heart. What is your heart? Um is it a good thing to follow? Um, so through the script, we're kind of um exploring that.
SPEAKER_05And yeah, so I guess like that, yeah, the follow your heart, or you know, it it is uh it is a kind of really common idea in our society, isn't it? Or a kind of follow your dreams, it's that kind of thing, isn't it? And this idea that if you're following your heart, you're kind of being true to yourself and you know, go into all these kind of um great things. But we were kind of, you know, we were chatting about this a bit, weren't we, and kind of saying like it's always spun as a very positive thing, following your heart, but actually following your heart might not necessarily always be positive, you know. And I I think I I was saying that, you know, I can certainly I can certainly think of occasions in my own life where if I just did exactly what I was feeling like I was doing, that wouldn't be a good thing. But I you know I can think of people, you know, kind of more serious situations, I guess, where I've known, you know, people who've maybe just walked away from their families because you know they say it just feels like the right thing to do, you know. Um actually just doing what our heart wants to do isn't necessarily always kind of a a good thing or a right thing, I suppose.
SPEAKER_04And we were, yeah, exploring kind of different areas in our lives where we kind of strive for satisfaction. So kind of this idea of like jobs following our heart and jobs and relationships in our career, in our I don't know, food choices, work choices, etc. And kind of actually ultimately these aren't satisfying things, like we kind of strive for these different things we're kind of climbing and reaching, and actually ultimately they don't truly satisfy. Um so I think I don't know if there was a Jim Jim Carrey quote where he was talking a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, Jim Carrey's kind of famous quote is is along the lines of like he said something like I wish everybody could get rich and famous and have lots of money so they would see it's not the answer. Um which is just a really striking kind of statement, isn't it? Like somebody who you know, someone like Jim Carrey, you could I think you could say he pretty much had reached you know reached the top, you know, didn't he? Like he's a very, very successful actor, um, but actually not not really a happy person, surprisingly. You know, actually struggled quite a lot with a lot of issues around that. Um and I think I think as well there are lots of cases, aren't there, of where you hear of people who have who have aimed for something, you know, this is the following my dream, following my heart type thing, and they kind of get there and go.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so I think there was like the was it the rower Steve Redgrave when he was saying that he'd kind of accomplished this kind of gold medal or he'd kind of reached the ultimate kind of level of being an athlete, and actually he woke up the next day being like, what now? Yeah, what do I do now that I've kind of achieved this pinnacle?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's like now I've reached the top where where do I go? And like that wasn't it, you know, it wasn't the whole thing.
SPEAKER_04But no.
SPEAKER_05And so I guess like it like I say in society, often we society will s sell following your heart as a a kind of entirely positive thing, but it there's the assumption within that that following your heart is always a good thing, that the heart therefore is is good. Um but you know, I think in s what we see in scripture is you know, and it's alluded to in the video actually, I think, in in Matthew's narration, he he talks about the heart being deceitful, and you know, I'm I'm guessing there there's an allusion there to Jeremiah 17, verse 9, where it says the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure, who can understand it? You know, and the the the sense people sometimes have the sense, don't they, that if you if you're following your heart, you're not being constrained by other things. This is that's what freedom is to go and be free to be you and do whatever you want to do. But if our hearts are deceitful and we're following that, you've got to question whether you're really free. And I think Glenn uh used a helpful illustration once about um you know, like an alcoholic. How free is an alcoholic? Well, you know, they're free to choose beer or wine or spirits, but you know, is that really being free? And I think we'd say, no, not at all. There is an enslavement there. Um, yeah. And I think, you know, we see it with Jesus, the same thing, don't we? Jesus', you know, very famous um words in Matthew 15, um, where he says, For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. Um, you know, Jesus is saying that's what the heart is like. And we go, hey, follow your heart. You go, I'm not sure that maybe not the best thing. That would be the best thing. Yeah. Because the heart isn't always uh kind of bang on the money and stuff, is it? So and the heart changes, I guess. You know, I guess you've I guess you've kind of experienced that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um whether that's through life, I can certainly look back now at my old age as I am now. Uh the my heart, I'm sure, when I was 17 would have been the things my heart wants to follow would be very different to what they want to follow now, and I'm sure you know another kind of however many years down the line it would change. But we were talking earlier and saying you just wake up in the morning, yeah, and your heart can be, you know, desiring completely different things. It's it's completely changeable all the time, and so it's not necessarily kind of a good thing to be following.
SPEAKER_04No. So it's constantly moving around.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And so you know, we need something really that is better to follow.
SPEAKER_04And grounded and anchored in Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And the video just starts to touch on that a little bit. So, I mean, what is that then? What is the thing that grounds us a bit more?
SPEAKER_04Well, we talk about Jesus is the ultimate good thing to follow. Um, it's not he's not a changing person in reality, he is God who is unchanging. And actually, yeah, so we we talked briefly earlier about how actually Jesus is someone, he's not an abstract notion, he's not a concept, he is he was someone in in history in reality who is who says to follow him, and if he's God and unchangeable and who has made me, then he is the person to follow, not my heart. So yeah, so yeah, Glenn talked about that about that briefly actually um in Edinburgh. We were there a couple of weeks ago at the Edinburgh Uni Mission Events Week, um, and the theme was something more. So Glenn spoke on the theme of something more than success, something more than a good person, speaking about Jesus, um talking about something more than oblivion, is there life after death. Um so yeah, it was a really great week of talks and events and chatting through some of these concepts and ideas about life and how Jesus is relevant to us. And I think we're gonna watch a video now of Glenn talking about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01Great. So tonight we're thinking about who is Jesus? Uh who is Jesus? Born in a shed, laid in a feeding trough, from the earliest age, he was a refugee. He grew up in poverty. When he came of age, he entered into his father's trade. His dad was a builder's laborer, so Jesus was a builder's laborer. He never went to the right schools, he never entered into political life, he never entered into religious orders, he never entered into the military, he never founded a school, he never wrote a book, he never founded a dynasty, didn't even start a family, he never had a penny to his name, he had no earthly power or prestige. He had a ministry of three years in some northern backwater of Israel, uh, a country under the thumb of mighty Rome. And after just three years of shooting his mouth off, after just three years of surrounding himself with no hopers, losers, and outsiders, he was butchered as a criminal, an enemy of the state of Rome, and considered by the Jews to be a blasphemer against God. Aged 33, he is a human sacrifice, dying in the most ignominious way, dying the slave's death, dying the death that the Roman Empire placards before the rest of the country, saying, do not walk this way, do not follow this man. He had appointed the lowlife, the scum of the earth, the lowly, the despised, to be his chief spokesman when he died. And having been crucified, dead, and buried, that should have been that for the Jesus movement, don't you think? Why on earth have any of you heard the name Jesus of Nazareth? That is bizarre. And yet you haven't just heard the name Jesus of Nazareth. You know all about the Jesus movement. That Jesus movement has built your world from the ground up. We live in the year 2020, or to give it its fullest title, in the year of our Lord in 2020. And you gotta ask the question 2020 years since what? Since him. That is who Jesus was. How do you explain the phenomenon of the Jesus movement? Because you've got to. You've got to have an answer for this question. Who is this Jesus?
SPEAKER_05So lots of interesting stuff there in that video. Now, if you're if you're watching, you'll probably be thinking Kez looks slightly different than she did a few moments ago. That's right. And her voice is a lot deeper as well. Uh that's because Kes has uh stepped out now and Dan has jumped in. So uh Dan, good to have you uh here with us. So we've had you on before, haven't we? Yeah. So Dan does work here. He's here all the time. But um so the great video there about this who is Jesus uh, you know, the the question. Um and you Glenn has kind of thrown out kind of lots of good kind of food for thought, and you'd kind of had a few uh thoughts off the back of it as well, haven't you, Dan?
SPEAKER_02So Yeah, it's a good clip. And and some it's a good question to ask friends who aren't aren't Christians um, you know, how did this guy 2000 years ago have such a big impact? Um because like Glen says, you know, most people will know his name. Yeah. He's he's shaped a lot of Western culture in terms of his teaching that his followers have then put into practice, in terms of building, you know, hospitals, education, governments. Um what happened?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and it it got me thinking, doesn't it? It's one of those things where I think you it's that you can't see the forest for the trees kind of thing, isn't it? That that Glenn effectively says, Well, why do we know who this guy is? You know, like because everyone there in that room, and probably people listening in as well, we will know, or they will know, the Jesus story. They will know who Jesus is, they'll have heard of him, they'll probably have a rough idea about who he is or said he was and and things he may have done. Um and the question is like why? Because you know, there are hundreds of different kind of people who rose up at different times claiming to be kind of messianic figures, who you know, maybe he got a following and then disappeared, you know, died, and then we heard no more of them, and and people don't know their names, you know. I can't think of one name off the top of my head, really.
SPEAKER_02Um and there's no reason, you know, so many reasons why Jesus wouldn't be known. You know, he was penniless, he didn't travel outside of his country, he wasn't a king. Never wrote a book, all those kind of things. Well, all of the things that Glenn was saying. Yeah. It's it's extraordinary that we still remember him.
SPEAKER_05Stuff like he's written the book Dominion, it's about how kind of how our world is built on Christianity, and it's it's so the case that our society and our framework of how we look at life is built on that uh that we don't quite realise it. You know that Jesus and the Christian story is so much part of the fabric, yes, we don't really realise how strange it is that we do remember Jesus given that he was like you know what Glenn just described.
SPEAKER_02I agree. And and I want to say to non-Christians, I want to say, well, surely something happened after Jesus' death. Like if Jesus just died, you know, that that slavery death that we just heard about in the clip, then that would have been it. Surely. Yeah. But but you know, his followers got so much guts and boldness, they then you know, they they they then risked their lives, and many of them died.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think eleven of the eleven of the twelve eventually died, I think.
SPEAKER_02And the only thing I can think of is is you know, there's validity in the resurrection that that it actually happened.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and I guess regardless of what people regardless of how people might respond to that, it it's a question that demands to be thought about, doesn't it? Like, well, who is this Jesus? Why? Why has this story persisted?
SPEAKER_02We were up in Edinburgh last week and we actually had a blackboard. One of the questions we were asking people is, who is Jesus? And we just got people's thoughts, and you know, um, some people wrote down didn't even exist or imaginary leader, um, just a great person, um, good teacher. Some people put down son of God, um, but those were the sort of things that people were writing.
SPEAKER_05I find it fascinating that in this day and age people will still say didn't exist or you know, imaginary teacher, because you know, no historian worth their salt would would say that. You know, you would be laughed out of an academic institution, even if you were, you know, even by an atheistic historical department in a university would probably laugh you out of there for saying things like that. Um As you said, you were up in Edinburgh, so all that all that kind of clip that we saw there was um from uh last week, the Edinburgh University Mission Week. You were there with Glenn and a couple of the interns and stuff. That's right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Some people will be very clear when we say you're at a university mission week, they will know exactly what that means, but there will probably be some people who've got no idea really what that means, what it looks like. So can you just give us a sense of kind of what what you were doing up there and kind of what it looks like?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure, a sense of the format, what we were up to. Yeah. Um so each morning we would head out with the students and that we were actually working in five different universities. And Edinburgh I I didn't know Edinburgh had five universities. No, that's an incredible amount of university. Are they all like actually all in Edinburgh? Yeah, yeah. I mean, some of them are on the outskirts in different campuses. But the students under a great job of organizing a week of events that they were inviting their friends and other students to. They were they were really brave, and uh we were just we just had the privilege of getting involved with what they were doing in the mornings. Um as I said, we'd have like a blackboard out talking to some of the students and saying, look, here's a here's a question. They always linked into the lunchtime events or the evening events, and we had a table that had some free tea and coffees and some biscuits.
SPEAKER_05Always good students, free foods, yeah. Um and then we were Did you find people were quite happy to stop? Yeah, and they're like, because I think we have an exception, don't we, that people don't want to be bothered by stuff. But how how do people respond to having these kind of questions there? They want to stop and chat.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, a lot of the students were willing to. Some of the students were like, Oh, I've got to get to a lecture because they were late.
SPEAKER_05Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02It's amazing how many people come for a 10 o'clock lecture at 10 past ten. Um but no, no, no, surprisingly, students were willing to chat and to think about these questions, and we would be giving out some small flyers that invited them to the lunchtime events. So the lunchtime events were on the little campuses, on the smaller campuses. Um, some of the students would organise some pizza, uh, so there'd be pizza and food, then a short talk, and then a time for people to add in their objections or their comments or their questions. And then the evening events, there was one at five o'clock, and these were central events in the sort of in the city centre in Brussels. So everyone would be able to get into it. That's right, all of the five universities. And it was it was brilliant to see them jam-packed um most of the evenings. So 5 pm, you had uh an event for internationals. Yep. So the talk was just a little bit simpler um to understand.
SPEAKER_05And that's quite common, isn't it? It's quite common to have an international track on mission weeks um where the international students have a separate thing, often a separate speaker as well, isn't it? Like that's right. Yeah, and I remember I went to well, I'm trying to think where we went, somewhere with Glenn, I think it might be in Southampton. No, I'm not sure it was that one, I forget where it was. Um, but um there they had an international track and we went to one of those, and actually the speaker himself spoke, I think he spoke Mandarin. So he was he was a British guy but had lived over there. Okay. He'd married a lady from over there as well. And um and these you know a lot of kind of students who kind of spoke Mandarin or kind of thereabouts who were just amazed. I mean he didn't do all the talks in Mandarin, but he but also he had a knowledge of their culture, yes, yes, which helps, doesn't it? So he talked he talked a lot about kind of shame and honour, which is obviously a cultural difference between kind of the kind of British culture and kind of more the kind of Asian communities. Um so those kind of things worked really well because it was connecting with them brilliantly.
SPEAKER_02So that five PM, that that internationals thing, we would have a meal, they had tables sort of in banquet style. Yep. And then we had different uh different cuisine from around the world each evening. Um yeah, so short talk, time for time for QA. Great. And then seven PM there was another event. Um this one was hosted in in a larger larger venue and there would be some music playing. One evening we had a j a jazz band. We'd have like one evening we had some desserts, one evening we had cheese and biscuits.
SPEAKER_05That was good. Quintessentially British there as well.
SPEAKER_02And then and Glenn was speaking at those and he was opening up Mark's Gospel. So going through snapshots of what we see about Jesus from Mark's Gospel. And one of uh yeah, he would interview um some folk. So he interviewed some of the students.
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_02One evening he interviewed um a doctor who had sadly struggled with brain cancer and and you know that had been life-threatening. And so that doctor told his story of how his faith in Jesus um brought him through that. So yeah, brilliant. Really good events. And it was just great to see students bringing in on their friends, being being bold, being courageous. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_05And any sort of um any sort of particular highlights for you, kind of encouragements from the week that stood out?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh lots, but one one particularly was you know, as we were giving out these teas and coffees to people and as we were getting them to answer questions on on a blackboard, I was thinking, look, there's no reason why uh my church uh down in Eastbourne couldn't do this as well. Yeah. You know, we we have like a pedestrian area outside, um not far from the church. You know, why not do that one Saturday? So I in fact I I just spoke to some at church, um I'm part of a growth group, and I said, Look, what do you guys think of this idea? And I think people were were up for trying it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Well, yeah, and I think that's the kind of thing that could work in lots of different locations, couldn't it? Like, you know, in wherever you're a town or place is there's probably a central spot somewhere you can find. And you know, like I said before, you know, we maybe have a perception that people don't want to stop and talk about things, or but I think if social media has taught us anything, it's that people do have opinions and they do want to share them. And then and also it strikes me that you know when you you sit there and you you put those big kind of questions up, yeah. For a lot of people, um, well, maybe it's easy for us to forget doing the kind of stuff we do. A lot of people don't think about those big questions that often. There'll be some people who who do, yeah, yeah. But the average person is just caught up in daily life, they're not thinking about you know just what happens when I die, or what am I really putting my hope in? Yeah, the business of life. And actually, that you know, one of the things in the screw tape letters, you know, it talks about distraction. You know, that's one of the that prime weapon of the enemy is we keep them distracted and not thinking about these things. Um, just life. Let them do life and get in the way. Um, so that yeah, that can be that's kind of thing can be done. And I think as well, you um you had an opportunity to meet a couple of your one-to-one, is that right? That's right, yeah. That's one of the things we want to talk about, kind of one-to-one stuff as well. So you have an opportunity to do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, one of the guys that I got chatting to on one of the first evenings, um, we had a wonderful chat for sort of 20 minutes or so, but but by then it was quite late. Sure. And so I said, look, what would you like to go and grab a drink and uh chat through things more we we could look through Mark's Gospel um because you see the the Christian unions had this book called Uncover which goes through Mark's Gospel. And yeah, so we did that one afternoon. Um we we met up, went through this little booklet, it was brilliant. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And so you've got an uncover here, haven't you, Istra? Yeah, here's the thing. So just talk us through because I think some people maybe like the idea. We probably we probably, when we think about it, we go, oh yeah, picking up the Bible and opening the Bible with someone. I mean, I always think to myself that it's a really good thing because, in a sense, you can just let the Bible do the work. It's not really hugely reliant on me saying the right thing. You're like, let's just read some Bible and let the word speak. Um, but you might be kind of a bit intimidated by just you know, you let's imagine you've sat down with someone, you've got a Mark's gospel, you open it and then you go, Well, now what do I do? Yeah, um, you freeze. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, how are these a little bit different? How what what's different about Uncoverer?
SPEAKER_02These are a little bit different. This is the one that goes through John's Gospel. Okay. But the one that um we were working through in Edinburgh goes through Mark's Gospel. That's the latest one that UCCF have released. But they're a bit different. They have got the Gospel here. John's Gospel, they've got a space for you to write down thoughts and notes. Um, but towards the end, they have a whole section here of a whole load of studies. And the idea is that you don't have to do a whole load of prep, you don't have to be a genius on John's Gospel, you don't have to be able to answer every question that they might ask you. Um you just sort of simply with with your friend over a cup of coffee or hot chocolate or whatever, um, you work through some of the questions that they've got here that tie in with some of the bits in John's Gospel. So it'll say, you know, read John 20, 30 to 31, and then it has some questions. Um it has a bit of a bit of information here about historical context. Uh and the idea is that it just helps you to help your friend get into one of the gospels. And and I found when I was working through the mark one, I I I did I did about 10 minutes sort of prep looking through the questions beforehand, but I I didn't feel like this was too difficult.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And sure um the chap had a few questions that I didn't know the answer to, but that's okay. I can just say, oh good question. I I don't know the answer to that. But you know, had I been sort of able to meet with him each week, um, then I I could have come back with some thoughtful answers, having you know asked asked my pastor or looked online.
SPEAKER_05So I think so it kind of gives you a so obviously you've got the whole text of the each gospel, because you can get different ones, can't you? So but I guess it it just give with those questions and it just gives you that those moments where it makes you kind of stop and just gives you a conversation starter, perhaps, or something. Whereas you know, maybe if you've just got the text, you might be thinking, What do I say? You know, I know I should ask something about this, but I don't know what to do. So that's right. Quite a good little structure. So they you they get used a lot in universities, don't they, uh mission weeks, but you anyone can pick them up, so I think you can get them in online. So you know, ten of those or good book company or wherever you get your books from, you're probably able to pick some of those up. Um and I I think you know they're quite they're quite cheap, aren't they, as well. So it's the kind of thing you could get a few copies of and easily give to someone, yeah. You know, so yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and I know it's just a case of I suppose it's just a case of saying, well, look, you know, I've got this book here, uh you know, it's something really special to me. It's talking about who Jesus is. And look, have you thought about who he is recently? Look, we could just try it as a one-off. Look, I know this sounds crazy, but why don't we just go for a coffee? Saturday afternoon, um, we'll work through this. If you don't like it, then we'll never do it again. But but they you know they might.
SPEAKER_05Absolutely, and and it was funny, I was thinking over the weekends, uh, just popped into my mind. Um, you know, you know, there may be people who kind of say, Oh, I've oh I I I no, I don't really am not interested in that. And there are people who kind of say things along the lines of, you know, and I used to go to church when I was eight or something, um, but you know, I've not been since then, and maybe they're now kind of you know older than that, but they will be older than that, adults. And it just struck me there was a it's something Glenn's some someone said something to Glenn at a previous mission week where they they said, after listening to Glenn, they said, Oh, it struck me that you know they studied physics or something. They said, I have a twenty-year-old's understanding of physics. Yes, yes, but I only have an eight-year-old's understanding of Christianity because they've not looked at anything since they were eight years old. Yes. And actually, just it just struck me over the weekend about there's loads of people who have those kind of churchy kind of background where they used to go to church when they were younger, that kind of thing. And they go, and what they've still got in their head is a a child's understanding uh the child's understanding of Christianity can be great. You know, obviously we've come like little children, but often you can just have a lot of confusion. So just getting people to open up a Bible and say, well, now as an adult, have you ever read this as an adult? Let's do this. I think that can be a great thing.
SPEAKER_02And this one is great because it gives you questions to go through. Now it might be that your friend, you know, is the sort of person that is is happy to answer questions and and and think through things and happy to give their thoughts. But equally, this one is slightly different. It's called Word One-to-one. Okay. And this is more of a presentation style. This also goes through John's Gospel. The idea is that on each page you've got a bit of John's Gospel, just a few verses, um, and then here you've got some explanation. So if I was sort of working through this with you, then I would I would read through this and I'd then read through some of these slowly. And and sort of, you know, taking you know taking time to check that you've understood what I what I mean, and you know, you might you might have like you might have an odd expression on your face, so I might go back and recap something. That's very likely. And I might further explain it. But but this is different because it's kind of like a presentation. Yeah. So the idea with this one is I don't fire lots of questions at you that you then feel you have to answer. So this would be appropriate for some people, word one-to-one, but the uncover stuff might be appropriate for different people.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah, and that that's the I guess and that's a really important thing to highlight, isn't it? I guess there isn't a way to like the one way to do one-to-one evangelism, and there will be those. I can definitely think of people who are the kind of people who in who want the conversation, the backwards and forwards, and they've got questions, and there are others who are interested, but when you try and do the back-and-forth conversation thing, it can be like getting blood from a stone. Come on, help me. Um so actually, something like the you know, the words, sorry, word one-to-one, um, where you can just present people with these kind of outline of bits of the gospel as you go through, and they can just absorb that information and then do with it what they want, maybe come back at a later point. You know, that could be a really useful thing as well. So some really good resources. Resources there, great.
SPEAKER_02And this week, this week, Lenin is up in Dundee.
SPEAKER_05Yes. With with Ben, Max, and Nick. Yes, so they managed to get there. That was the first challenge, because I think they were due to fly yesterday.
SPEAKER_02Did a couple of them get up there yesterday? No, no, no. They were due to fly yesterday, but the plane was cancelled. Right, okay. So Nick left, uh Nick left this morning, I think about sort of five o'clock. I heard him have him sort of just leaving out the door. So they've made it though.
SPEAKER_05We know they've made it to Dundee. Um, and so they've got another mission week uh going on, University Mission Week. So do be praying for them. Um I'll be speaking at various bits and bobs, and there'll be lots of opportunities like Dan was saying. I'm sure there'll be similar things, you know, kind of conversations around whether it's a blackboard or whatever, but just around big questions with people. There'll be people who have you know an interest already who are being invited, and we want to pray that they would accept invitations. There'll be people who are just wandering past events and kind of go, oh, free lunch and wander in. And you know, those can be really fruitful opportunities as well. So do pray for that and pray on you know in an ongoing sense for that, because once the week is over, the work isn't really over. Uh, in a sense, it's just beginning and people are following up, so do keep praying for that. Great, great. Thank you, Dan. Thank you for joining us on that. It's been good to have you and good to think a bit about one-to-one stuff. Like we said, that you can get the uncover. Uh, so uncover there is a UCCF uh resource, but you can pick them up at various places, and then you've got word one to one as well, which you can also pick up online for kind of different uh different audience there. Great. Thanks for joining us, guys. We hope that's been helpful and interesting, and uh we'll catch you again next week. Take care, bye.