How to Talk About God & Not Sound Like an Idiot with Andy Bannister

Jeff is joined by Andy Bannister this episode! Andy talks and teaches all across the UK, Canada, and America, and is the Director of Solas.. an evangelism and training organisation based in Scotland. Andy is an author, he has produced curious religious books and also stays up on his blog. He holds a PhD in Islam and teaches at many universities about the religion and philosophy. Andy loves discussing faith, philosophy, culture and just general life questions.. Jeff and he discuss being able to ask God questions and not being scared to seek more knowledge.

👇 In this episode:
Sharing Your Faith
Getting Comfortable in Your Own Knowledge
Admitting When You Don't Have All the Answers
Fellowship
Sharing the Good Word
Being a Good Person

How to find Andy Bannister
Instagram: @andygbannister
His Website
Get His Books Here

🎧 More episodes: Who Gave Jeff Allen a Podcast?
🎟️ Tickets at JeffAllenComedy.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Which is the better answer to suffering? The Christian answer or atheism? Allowing some holes in either case. Let's be generous to each other. Atheism says your life is completely irrelevant. To go, suffering, yeah, it's inconvenient to you, but there's nothing wrong about it. It's nothing wrong about somebody dying. That's just the way the universe works. In fact, actually, it's evolution and action. So, for all we know, your you know, your son's friend, for all we know, he had some genetic condition that would have polluted the gene pool, and Mother Nature actually did the human race a favor by finishing him off. I mean, that's horrific, all that kind of basket of things. Over here we have Christianity that says that actually, you know, if we want to, you know, if you think that you're upset about the death of your friend, God is even more upset.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Welcome to Who Gave Jeff Allen a podcast? We're looking for you. There's six billion of you out there. We're gonna find you, and uh we're gonna hold you accountable for this uh um debacle we call a podcast. Uh and uh today's guest, um, well, first of all, I would like to say uh to the uh people out there, my my movie, uh our movie, uh I hate saying my movie, uh all I did was deliver lines in it. There was a whole crew behind it and the actresses that really carried me along, uh Candace Kirkpatrick and um uh Kate Larson. Uh My Seven Grandmas is on Amazon Prime. You have to uh uh you can't just put my name in for whatever reason. The algorithm doesn't identify me with the movie, so you have to type in my the number seven grandmas, and uh we'd uh love to uh uh to hear your thoughts on it. Watch the movie and uh negative, positive, it all moves the algorithm, and that's all we're looking for. And uh please subscribe to this uh this uh podcast. Uh just it's up there somewhere, wherever. And uh and let's grow this thing. Uh Nordic Wave, uh, my only sponsor is a cold plunge, and it turns out none of you people want to dip in cold water because we haven't sold one in over a year. So uh not exactly. We're now we're looking for actual sponsors that pay. You know, so it would be nice if you have a product that we could push that's more affordable. We would uh we would love to have you. Uh maybe a hot plunge. Maybe we could sell a hot plunge. Um Nordic wave. Um anyway, today's guest, I was looking forward, I have been looking forward to this. Uh, I met uh Dr. Andy Bannister uh a number of years ago when he was with another organization, and uh I just really, really uh love this man. Uh he's um uh engaging, he's smart. I love people that are smart and have a sense of humor and don't take themselves all that seriously. Uh Dr. Andy Bannister is a Christian apologist, um, and we can explain to you what that actually is. Uh speaker and director of Sola Center for Public Christianity with a PhD in Islamic studies. Uh Andy has spent years engaging skeptics, uh, which I uh belong to, atheists, I belong to that for a while, and people of other faiths and conversations about Christianity, speaking everywhere from universities to churches to media outlets around the world. He has taught extensively on Islam and philosophy and is passionate about helping everyday Christians talk about Jesus without sounding weird, angry, or afraid. When he's not debating the big question, he enjoys uh hiking, mountain climbing, photography, and spending time with his wife and two children in England. He is uh kind enough to join us uh from England, and everybody asks this question what time is it where you're at? I'm gonna guess six hours from from here, right?

SPEAKER_03 3:52

Yeah, I could return the favor. What time is it for you, Jeff? So here it is ten past three. Oh, okay. And it's uh it's quite it's quite hot. We've got a heat wave going on. So, quite frankly, I look quite like the idea of a cold plunge pool, but I'm probably not the thing to buy, not outside my budget.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

It's a big Yeti cup, is all it is. It's a big plastic cup that I see sitting in the.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

Maybe you should have like tried sold more if you'd rename the podcast. I don't know, uh Jeff Allen's Cold Plunge or something.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Cold plunge. There you go. Then then I would just draw people who enjoy dipping the cold water. That's exactly it. Um let me ask you this. Uh you you told me a story years ago of how you got into all of this. We were a young lad, and you felt I still am a young lad.

SPEAKER_03 4:34

Hey, give me a lot.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

What is the what is the place in uh London where you go stand on a box and just debate um so yes, so my my journey into like talking publicly about my faith and doing all the kind of crazy stuff I've been doing for the past 15 years, Jeff.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

So it started at a place in London called Speaker's Corner. So that's part of Hyde Park in Big Park in the middle of London. And at Speaker's Corner, it's been going for a oh, I don't know, well over a hundred years. And on particularly on a weekend, you can go down there and stand on a box or a stepladder, and um you can talk about anything religion, politics, sport, you get a crowd. And a friend of mine was going to witness to to reach out to Muslims because lots of Muslims go there to talk about Islam. And my friend Jay, who is actually American, American living over here at the time, went, Well, why don't we just go and preach to the preachers? And he sort of uh he sort of um tricked me. I was supposed to be going down to Speaker's Corner to see it, and the first day I went, he had a spare ladder, and he was like, Come on, get on a ladder, you know. And I went, I've never I've never spoken on the street. He went, any idiot can do it. I said, I've never talked to a Muslim. He went, Oh, they're easy. Both those statements, Jeff, were utterly wrong. Because I got up on that ladder and the Muslims then knew what they were doing, and they took me to pieces. And it took about three months of really working hard to be able to feel that I had had begun to get a grip and be able to kind of engage well. But I loved it. It's a bit somebody once said, and you know, that the speaker's corner in some ways is a bit like stand-up comedy, kind of right, which is your you know, your area, right? Because there's that excitement. Yeah, you can go in a studio and record something and it's more controlled, but you kind of get out there and it's uncontrolled and you don't know what's coming, and gosh, it's quite scary, but it's also quite exciting as as well. And you really, in the speaker's corner thing, you can I think sense God at work because you're having to. I you really feel I've got to pray because if the Holy Spirit doesn't turn up, I'm toast.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Yeah. And did your parents think you got dropped on your head or something? Why would you do that? Did were your parents were your parents into uh obviously where they were believers as well?

SPEAKER_03 6:31

Yeah, so I was raised in um I was raised in a good Baptist family, and so which is better than a bad Baptist family. And so raised in a good Baptist family, and um interesting, I mean I loved to go into church as a kid, but I didn't it was ri I aged about 13, 1213 was when I realized this is my mum and dad's faith, not my faith. And I really kind of sort of felt that was the time when you know God wanted me to sort of decide for myself, is this is this stuff true? And so I did that age called, yeah, 12-13. And then yeah, didn't really think I I think about the more intellectual kind of explaining, engaging my faith with others until yeah, my mid-20s. So I think my parents, bless them, they're still both alive, and um I think they they would say they're both proud of what I do, which is amazing, it's less of parents who are proud of what you do, but also look at it and go, what is he doing? I mean, why would you do that? Why would you go and stand in front of a bunch of you know Muslims who want to do nothing, throw questions at you? Um but I'm very grateful to them.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

I'm very grateful. And is that what led you to Islamic studies to get your PhD?

SPEAKER_03 7:33

Yeah, so what happened at Speaker's Corner was I began kind of reading basically, Jeff. I I when I went back from that first time at Speaker's Corner, really kind of my head reeling, thinking, man, is there like nothing that I can say to defend my faith? They seem to have everything. But I went to the local Christian bookstore next day, and uh the guy behind the counter heard my story, and he said, Well, Andy, what you need is you need apologetics, that word that you said in the opener. He said, You need apologetics. I never heard that word, so I said, Well, what is that? It sounds like a breakfast cereal, quite frankly. Um, but no, it's not, as you know, it's the branch of Christian theology concern we're giving reasons why we think these things to be true. So he sold me some a few books and I read, went back to Speaker's Corner with answers to a lot of the questions and just got a whole load of new questions. But for the next three months, I would go to Speaker's Corner on the weekend and then kind of read during the week. And what that did, I didn't I hadn't come from an intellectual kind of family, or certainly not a university going family. My dad was a teacher, but he'd he'd kind of learnt on the job the way he did in the old days, they just threw you in a classroom and gave you a book and a sharp stick and you know it was sink or swim. Um, and so after about sort of two, three years of this, really beginning feeling God's sort of laying on my heart, no, you need to study this more seriously. And uh we kind of prayed about it and gave it a go. So I went and did an undergraduate degree to start with in theology and philosophy, but then carried on through and went into doing a PhD and did the PhD in Islamic studies. Because one of the fun one of the interesting things about Islam is um Christianity has generally, we you know, we've had our moments where we've gone wrong, but mostly throughout history, Christians have looked at the tough questions. They haven't run from the tough questions, they've kind of leaned into them and gone, okay, let's explore this. Islam, by contrast, has tended to go, there's a tough question, right? You mustn't ask it. And so vast amounts of information and and stuff about early Islam, we just don't know. So if you want to do a PhD and do some original research, there's so many things you can dig into. So I did some work looking at the origins of the Quran and had uh had a blast, and uh that kind of set me up then for the job I'm doing now.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Well, that's great. You taught uh the book I've uh is this your most recent book, um, How to Talk About Jesus without sounding like an idiot? I love the title.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Well, just on the title, I mean I love the title too.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Did you wrestle with the publisher on the title at all?

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Or did you just Well, yeah, I could say that with um with with all confidence with no with no sort of fear of like lack of humility because I didn't come up with a title. I'm I'm terrible at titles, Jeff. I I think I can write alright, but titles, I just go to pieces. And it had some ridiculously long, unwieldy title. And the publisher, I think, just said to me something like, Well, you know, it must be a better title. And then I went, Well, I did once do a seminar in Alberta, Canada called How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like an Idiot. And the publisher, Tyndale out of Chicago, were like, That's it! That is the title. We're using that, not this like monstrosity that you've got, and it really worked. Um, it's not the most recent book, funnily enough. I am I'm two books beyond there. Oh my god. I know, amazing, right? So we I did a book called Um He says reaching over off his desk. Um I did a book called Have You Ever Wondered a couple of years ago, uh, which I co-wrote with nine friends. So that's that was really fun. That's basically 28 really short chapters designed for for folks who are not Christian but not angry skeptics, they're interested in spiritual things, they just haven't put all the stories together. And it and it begins with things like, you know, have you ever wondered why we get passionate about justice? Have you wondered why we love music? Have you wondered why stories move us? And the list goes on. And it looks at 28 of these little clues to a bigger story and then leads them all together and says that hey, maybe the Christian faith actually explains all those things you care about. And then last year I did an update of the first book I did that I think you may have looked, you may have seen them with this one, The Atheist Didn't Exist. Oh, my kind of comedy apologetics deal with atheism book. So we we updated it and rewrote it totally and looked at put stuck two new big chapters on looking at what happened to the new atheism. You know, 15 15 years ago, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Dan Dennett, they were like rock stars. Um now they're like they're either dead or decrepit. Um what happened? Where did where did it go wrong? And then we also looked at why is there this great awakening in belief in God again? I know the the US is lagging a little bit behind the UK on this, but the UK we've hit peak secular. We hit peak secular about two, three years ago, and I saw some recent stat now only 13% of under 25s in the UK are atheist. Vast majority of young people are discovering faith again. Now they're not all discovering Christianity. There's a lot of work to do. You've got an awful lot of spiritual but not religious, an awful lot of um, there must be something. Um, but you're not hearing this kind of there is no God, get on and enjoy your life.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Well, that's funny, but the guy that discipled me cracked my mind by just saying, Why don't you know, uh, you're not smart enough to be an atheist, why don't you just go for agnosticism? I love that. And I said something, what does that mean? He goes, uh, well, that's proven my point. If you don't know what the word agnosticism means, you probably can't understand the entire workings of the universe. So uh just crack your mind, is what he said to me. Open it up.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

Well, I I Jeff meet a lot of people, I don't know if you run into these ways, I meet a lot of people who think they're atheists, but within about, yeah, exactly, within about 15 seconds, they're agnostic. Where I often get it is someone says, Oh, they're an atheist. So I say, Oh, so you believe you know the universe came from nothing. You believe you I you belie I you believe that you're worth nothing more than any other collection of atoms, be that a table, a chair, or a dog turd. Um, and you believe that when we die, you go in the ground and you're worm food, and then one day the sun's going to expand and wipe everything out, and it's all toast. So that's is that what you believe? And usually I get, oh no, no, well gosh, no, no, no. There has to be more than that. Right. So you're probably not an atheist then. You're probably, as you say, an agnostic or uh a curious but open. We get a lot of that over here, particularly younger people, a lot of university students are in that kind of they're curious, they're intrigued.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Well, I love to hear that. They want to know more. I love to hear that. I think that that's happening here in the States as well. They had a um kind of a revival in Kentucky last year, the year before, that went on for went on for weeks, weeks at a church, just this big prayer meeting. People started coming in from all over the country to keep uh, you know, people would leave, people would come, and and it was all young people, all young people. And um, I I just think that uh um it it doesn't take a lot of self-reflection to look around and go, I think we've been sold a bill of goods. There has to be more.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Um, and that would create the curiosity, and then at least uh the answers are out there. And uh uh your book, I love the uh I'm on the what and why chapters right now um in the um in the book, the questions that we ask what and why. Um uh expound on that. Well I also wanted to talk about the original apologies. The way I I look at it, the original. It's not the original. I mean, these uh the apologists have been around for centuries. But they have a bit, yeah. Yeah, but uh and C.S. Lewis is probably the the one that uh even non-believers may have heard of. Um C.S. We were talking off-air a little bit about this. Um I had a hard time uh uh understanding uh what I love about your work and the way you write is that it's uh it's for somebody that's a layman like me, um, it's it's accessible and understandable, and you don't need a degree in Islamic studies to understand you.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

I was gonna say that's my one my one regret whenever you people ask me that story, you ask me, is it makes it sound like you need a PhD to talk about ordinary stuff. But the other thing as well, I mean we probably talked about this at some point when we when our parts used to cross in person. One thing that's helped, and it's very kind of you to say that, is I think a couple of things really helped for me. One was coming up the you, you know, what I did my first kind of six or seven years working like out in the kind of regular regular job, nothing to do with church stuff. I worked for a local hospital for six or seven years. So you just learn to hang out with ordinary people and talk in a way that makes sense. Then I did three years of doing kind of youth work, and that taught me if you can't explain an idea so that a 12 or 13 year old can understand it, go back and try again. Um, and then also I did a bit of stand-up comedy. So my first ever public speaking was doing magic and stand-up comedy in my late teens. Oh wow, I didn't know that magic. Going around kind of scout scout meetings and old people's homes and you know, doing stuff, and it was probably totally, utterly rubbish, but again, you learn to think on your feet, right? And you learn to kind of move fast when things go badly wrong, like when a card trick goes wrong, you've got to quickly like backfill before you look like an idiot, and that helps. Um yes, I was gonna say that so that so the big idea in the in the book, in a nutshell, is that sometimes for for Christians listening to this, I don't know you know whether you how much of a mixed audience you have, but like for Christians listening to this stuff, probably most of us have run into that problem of going, we think we want to talk to our friends and our colleagues and our family about Jesus. We know we should do, we feel guilty we don't do enough of it, and often what holds us back is fear of what might go wrong, and then feeling we need to have all these expert like knowledge and answers worked out before we God can use us. And then you go to the Bible and go, Well, do you know what? The greatest communicator we have in the Bible and in history is Jesus. And Jesus spends most of his time asking questions. He asks 307 questions in the gospels, so maybe one takeaway from Jesus is what about if we thought more about questions and less about like downloading stuff onto people? And so in the book I teach four questions, and you've mentioned the first two. So what do you mean by that question? Just as what it says on the tin. If someone throws something at you, just pick up on something that they've said and dig into it. So if someone says to you I'm an atheist, just start by going, Oh, that's interesting. What do you mean by that? When you say atheist, what do you mean? Um, and you could use it in other faiths too. Someone says, I'm a Muslim, or you know, I believe in God. Oh, that's interesting. When you say God, you know, what what do you mean? Tell me, tell me the God that you believe in. And suddenly you've got a conversation getting and you haven't had to learn vast amounts of information, you're just digging into their story. And normally, if we do that, you find if you listen to the other person and ask questions and show that you're listening, they are probably going to be very open, or even they'll turn to you and say, So, what do you think, Jeff? Because you've listened to them, you haven't gone banging them over the head with the Bible. So that's the what do you mean by that question? Right. And why do you think that question is just very similar. If someone says something, you ask them to give the reasons. So if someone says, Oh, you know, I can't believe in religion, you know, science has disproven God, you know, again, you might get scared by that and go, Ma, how do I answer that question? Or what if you just started by going, that's a really interesting idea? Um just out of interest, why do you think that? What is it that you've read or studied that's kind of led you to that conclusion? And one of two things will happen. Either you find they've got nothing, they've got absolutely nothing. They were on YouTube and they saw, I don't know, Ricky Gervais said it in a comedy set or set or something, and they're just repeating it, and you've exposed they've got nothing, or they'll tell you a bit more, and now you'll get into the underlying kind of issue. And sometimes things go off in weird directions. I've had examples where someone said perhaps raised the science question, and I've asked, Oh, you know, so tell me, you know, why do you think that? They've gone, well, well, it's obvious, right? Because you know, how can God be good when there's suffering in the world? Oh, well, interesting. So we're not actually talking about science. Your big issue is that you know you just lost a loved one and you're angry at God. So you started on science, but that's not the real issue.

unknown 18:48

Right.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

And questions get you there, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Yeah, and uh one of the things you said in the book that cracked me up was uh the um the employee that uh brings the Bible to work and um has the thickest, fattest Bible they can find. And uh and I don't know, wooden stand and you know and uh the wooden eagle. The wooden eagle stand, yeah. And uh I I just um it's it's interesting. I think the the opposite of that is true in most places. Um most people are afraid to come out of the closet because they don't feel adequate enough to answer those questions. And one of the things you said in the book that I found it it's true is to say, I don't know the answer to that, but I if you don't mind, I will look it up. I I guarantee you there's an answer. I used to tell my son that when he would come to me when he was walking away from the faith. And I said, you know, son, I don't have an answer to that, but give me, give me, give me a week and let me look it up. And I'll I said, trust me, that's not a new question. There's no new questions, there's no new responses. And I agree with you. I think a lot of people walk away from my son walked away because a friend of his died, uh, night 19 years old. And uh his friend was very funny. 13 years old, he'd come in the house and go, Mr. Jeff, I'm an atheist. And I and I would repeat what my friend told me, you're not smart enough to be an atheist, Austin.

SPEAKER_03 20:12

So Yeah, I hadn't heard that line. That's a real that's a really good sorry.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

You're just not there, you're not there yet intellectually, but you could be, you know, just keep working. Yeah. So anyway, he died tragically in a in a uh in a glacier. He was a hiker, and he was hiking a glacier in New Zealand, I think, or somewhere out there. And he fell into a crevice with two other guys, and they were down there for eight, ten hours before he passed away. And my son comes to me and he says, Uh, Dad, is is Austin in hell now? And I said, Well, first of all, heaven and hell are not my domain. Um, but I said, Here's the good news. Uh, we looked it up on the the you know, New Zealand media covered it, and those two boys that he was down there with for ten hours were Bible-believing Christians. So there's every chance they So you have no idea what was discussed, and I can tell you this the there's a truism in life. There are no atheists in foxholes. So when you're looking death right in the eye, um, and I said, uh, so rest assured that um I guarantee you those boys disgusted with them. And uh your your your friend maybe were uh a chance for you to see him again, you know, but you you don't you don't know that, so um you know don't uh but he walked away, he just he could not reconcile why God would allow that, you know. And um so that is a big one. Your your friend John Lennox um uh had a really great YouTube video on uh suffering and death.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

Um yeah uh John Lenny. Yes, he has comes with some great stuff. I I think the other thing, Jeff, and you may have said this as well. I think I think this I mean I think the suffering question is really tough, isn't it? Because it combines things. It's not just an an intellectual answer. Sometimes it's not even an intellectual issue, it's a it's a heart. kind of issue. So you're trying to balance a pastoral response and a spot of counseling and all that other stuff with the with the question. What I have found helpful, and again this ties in actually to your point about saying I don't know. I think that the older I get, I get I get nervous about sometimes Christian answers to tough questions where we give the impression that we know everything.

unknown 22:19

Right.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

And so on the suffering question, I'm much more comfortable now saying things like, look, I don't have every answer to suffering kind of thing. And I think Christians have some questions to answer. I said, but let's rephrase it this way. Which is the better answer to suffering? The Christian answer or atheism? Allowing some holes in either case. Let's be generous to each other. Atheism says your life is completely irrelevant. To go suffering, yeah, it's inconvenient to you, but there's nothing wrong about it. It's nothing wrong about somebody dying. That's just the way the universe works. In fact actually it's evolution and action. So for all we know your you know your son's friend for all we know he had some genetic condition that would have polluted the gene pool and Mother Nature actually did the human race a favor by by finishing him off. I mean that's horrific all that that kind of basket of things. Over here we have Christianity that says that actually you know if we want to you know if you think that you're upset about the death of your friend God is even more upset. God is even more angry at death and injustice and we know that because God paid the price of Jesus to deal with it. Now why that means your particular friend fell into that particular crevice on that particular day I can't answer that question. But I can tell you the suffering isn't irrelevant, that his life wasn't irrelevant and that God cares deeply and that I also believe there's coming a time when there will be no more suffering and no more death and no more pain. Have I still got some questions? Yes, absolutely but I'm much more comfortable with that answer than the atheist one even though I still have some gaps. And I think as Christians we need to be comfortable going sometimes our answer only gets us so far but it still gets us a long way.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Right and you're right when you say that you're dealing with a psychological I don't want to say psychological issue but there's a there's an existential part of that where you know if there's especially if the wound is still raw you know my father pounded the table for years um you know it's very very funny. He would when I when he found out I became a believer um you know he would throw out these things he never once asked me why probably the most profound decision I've ever made in my life and um never bothered to ask why but uh he would throw out these things. Every hair on your head is number and I go it is leave it at a crime scene yeah you know but uh he um he used the suffering you know um as his I would I don't want to call it a crutch for atheism but that's certainly what he used to justify his atheism.

SPEAKER_03 24:45

Uh I believe in hindsight he was harmed at church as a young boy by somebody um yeah there was a wound there was a wound so deep in there that the wound exactly yeah the interesting thing as well um I always think with the suffering piece is the other thing that shows that with every respect to your father there is it's not that simple is if it were that simple everyone who suffered you'd expect to naturally become atheists. But that's not what happens um some people do some people lose their faith um but others don't there was an amazing book written a few oh I want to say 20 years ago now there was a a psychiatrist did a study looking at people who'd lived through the Holocaust who'd been inside the camps it was called the faith and doubt of holocaust survivors and it's interesting because he's looking more at Judaism than Christianity so I've got I've got an axe to grind in that particular battle. But what was interesting he went he looked at what happened to people's faith and it was interesting some people lost their faith inside Auschwitz that the experiences they'd been through they came out and they walked away other people ironically lost their faith not inside Auschwitz but after because they'd hoped that when they were released everything would go back to normal and you could never there is no normal after suffering like that. And so the expectation gap was the problem. Lots of other people held on to their faith but the most amazing category some people came to faith through Auschwitz they came to faith inside the camps because there was that sense of realizing if there is no God there's actually nothing wrong with what the Third Reich are doing. You know if there is no God you can do exactly as you want because the universe doesn't care there is no justice it's just us um and actually that realization for many people is the light bulb moment. And yes people would still protest against God and by the way protesting against suffering and shouting at God is not new go read the Psalms but is the fact that if there is no God there's no one to shout at you've got an empty universe that doesn't care any more for you than it does for the life of a gnat. So I think yes Christians help our friends listen to our friends share some things but also say look rather than look for which is what's the magic bullet answer let's think about which answer is the most coherent and know that we may not get all the way but we can get along part of the way yeah so what was the first question that made you realize I need to get when you were on that soapbox uh the first oh how did you start the first question how did you start it the most common questions yeah just uh okay Muslims I'm here and I'm gonna I'm gonna dazzle you with my oh my word yeah now were you cocking were you cocky I mean were you were you like confident in what you what you thought you knew oh it wasn't well not at first at first it was a We don't know what we don't know so how how long did it take you to realize you don't know a lot oh that took me about 30 seconds when I first went to speakers corner and they fired questions and I went oh hello we're not in we're not in Kansas anymore because I've got no idea how to deal with those ones then it took as I say I said earlier about three to four months of kind of really hard work to get to grips and then I I then I think I hit the dangerously cocky phase where you're like well I've mastered it now I've been going to speakers corner for six months I know what I'm doing and I think two two dangers with that one is that you'd come up you sometimes come across somebody who had a new question and you'd look like an idiot but the other Jeff looking back if I could give some advice to my you know my 25 year old self is you're you start treating people as if you're trying to win the argument not the person because you'd hear a question and go right I've got this one I can sort this guy out rather than going no my job is to persuade this guy right and maybe I need to slow down just a little bit and be willing to just listen um and sometimes by the way be willing to walk away one of the most amazing lessons I ever saw in that wasn't at a speaker's corner but there's a really really quite well known American apologist I'm sure you've heard of him William Lane Craig very well known yeah so Bill is an amazing philosopher one of the one of the world's top philosophers I mean not just in Christian philosophy but one of the world's top philosophers I remember him being over here in the UK about 20 years ago 15 years ago doing a debate at Sheffield University. He was debating a guy called AC Grayling very well known British philosopher and very hardcore atheist and it was a formal debate so you did like your opening statements your main statements your closing statements by the time we got to the end of the main statements Bill was winning. I mean he he was his arguments are more persuasive it was far more coherent you could sense the audience was with him. Then it gets to the final statements at least you've got your final two minutes three minutes to to to to wrap up Bill stands up and gives his testimony he gives his testimony and invites people to consider Christ Anthony AC Grayling gets up and just ridicules him and just mocks him for three minutes and then they have the foot the vote it was a debate the vote at the end and Bill lost that debate by about two votes so on paper you know you'd go what what have you done you've lost the debate well three people gave their lives to Christ that night wow three people because Bill was willing to be mocked and ridiculed and lose the argument on paper because he was playing the bigger game and he he he had his eyes on Christ and wanted people to see that. And I remember watching that I must have been about 35 40 when that was going on. That was a big lesson to me because I came away going oh hello I've learned something tonight because there's a real art in going okay I have all the information to answer this one but maybe I need to do something a bit different. And that again it ties into the suffering question right sometimes it's right to give an intellectual answer. Sometimes it's right to go look I could give you a long rambling answer but what do you want us a beer? Because actually what you've been through sounds terrible and I'm I just if you just need to sit and tell somebody what you've been through I'll buy you a beer and I'll listen. And that can be as powerful as going let me give you my 17 point carefully worked out philosophical argument.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Yeah that's almost like you know I asked you what time it was not how the watch wore was built you know and yeah and by the way I was thinking just a moment you know Jeff this this links into you mentioned dear old C.S.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

Lewis we were talking about earlier and to go one thing one reason why I've often asked myself why is Lewis like still quite influential today because his writing style is quite dated right you said you found him hard yeah going I think it's because he is so unusual and he combines those three things he he could engage people's minds brilliant philosopher so he could write books like Mere Christianity that were really kind of quite tight and technical he could write books that engage the heart think of the screw tape letters that's a that's a that's a heart book or um it's funny I prefer that one over um yeah one of my or agreed observed the book he wrote when his wife died favorite lines from screw tape was the subject is becoming truly humble well then make him proud of his humility so yeah but Lewis could engage the heart and then he could also engage the engage the imagination you know he wrote the Narnia books he wrote the cosmic trilogy he wrote So We Are Faces and so for Lewis to be somebody who could do the heart the mind the heart and the imagination is very very rare and I think that's probably why we are still talking about him even though he died you know 1963. Yeah and speaking of that you are um you're uh you're connected with the C S Lewis Institute out of Chicago is it out of Wheaton I am so um so well the C S Lewis Institute are are across the country in um in the USA well actually they're in they're in the UK now they're in in they're in Scotland and they're in Northern Ireland because I'm doing a thing for them in Northern Ireland in about 10 days time. So they for those who don't know that they they they grew out of um Washington DC I forget when they started 30 years ago or something and they are basically a kind of small group kind of discipleship movements they get together Christians often Christians who spend their day their weeks in the world of work and it's a one year program it's called the Fellows Program and you meet together with a cohort of people a bit like you once a one once a month through a year and you yeah you dig into apologetics you dig into the Bible you dig a bit of theology and prayer and all kinds of things and it's basically designed to kind of sharpen you up as a Christian so that you're really ready to go you know out there in the workplace the university wherever and so I've known them for years because I've got friends who are involved in them I'm friends with the guy who's now the director and then actually last year Jeff I had the privilege of being in the USA for three months I did a sabbatical over there and I did a a lot of that time I was doing stuff at the C.S. Lewis Institute I spoke in about 20 kind of locations um for them and in between got in 12 national parks and all kinds of fun USA stuff we brought the kids over for three months and just yeah what parks did you know man you've got an you have an amazing country over there.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Yeah my son lives in Montana so we've spent some time at Glacier National did you get up there?

SPEAKER_03 33:19

I did get to glacier I did um well I went list them all I mean the highlight for me my favorite American national park I know it's a bit sort of sort of sort of uh this everyone's answer but Yosemite I love Yesem and particularly the up part the upper parts Tuanome meadows at the top is just whatever my my my daughter's a mad keen rock climber so for her going and standing at the bottom of El Capitan and seeing where Alex Honnold went up in that movie free solo I mean that was like she dining onto heaven. So we had a blast and um so no we like that one and uh Bryce Canyon is another one we went to Bryce and there was snow so you had this the green of the snow you had the white of the snow the green of the pine trees and the red of the rock it's unbelievable unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

So you are very lucky three months and you never called you never wrote I know well I I yeah I spent three months going oh I hope I'm not gonna bump into Jeff because it was your podcast so to to circle back to uh one of the things uh we were just talking about about uh discipleship um discipleship is about the heart and the mind and um you just I think the days of um giving just a personal testimony it may it may you know um connect with somebody uh but I think that taking the time to sit and have coffee or a beer with somebody um and and really just trying to find out where you know because I think a lot of people and my father being one of them was just wounded deeply um uh Tammy my wife when I told her I I when I told her I said I'm a born-again Christian she says what does that mean I go I really don't know I just heard the term you know I don't know what that means so so anyway she bowed up and got defensive and um I find out that uh her parents were churchgoers on Sunday and they were abusive Monday through uh Saturday. So um her idea of what a Christian was uh was not a there was not a good picture. So until you get to that and those were those what and why questions come in why do you feel that way? And you get to the wound maybe and um uh and and and get to know people. You know this is where social media I I made a comment last week I said you think grock could just go through the social uh through X and eliminate the ad hominem attack and uh just if you took that out of the debate uh you'd probably knock off 90% of um the the conversations on X. But you know I used to have when I when I started on X or Twitter whatever it was um I got out of it really quick because I realized I was good for about two engagements and then it would descend into the name calling and I just wasn't going to buy into it you know and my comment was always I are you trying to change my heart and mind because you're going about it the wrong way you know calling me a a a douchebag is you know it may make you feel better but it really doesn't move the discussion any farther. And I had one guy was an apostate really smart guy wait you know I could tell in the the two or three volleys he was raised in the church very steep you know very knowledgeable of the Bible and um and my last comment to him was I believe what I believe because I believe it to be true and he said preach it brother and I never heard from again and I think yeah and I found that interesting I I I didn't get to the point why did you walk away? What happened you know uh that you would be steeped into this take the time to learn it and um because you know it's not a scientific argument. You know that I mean you can't look at the human genome and think for a second that that just came about. There has to be a mind behind it at some point.

SPEAKER_03 37:06

Well exactly and I mean a a couple of things there. I mean the first thing is I think you're right I have come across so many people like you who when you dig into it that that you know excavating the wound or the way you phrased it there's been a bad a bad experience either with a genuine Christian who's done something really stupid or they've come across a sort of weak watered down version of something done in the name of Christianity. What I find interesting though is when Jesus comes into this because I remember a few years ago now I was speaking out in Vancouver um when I like when I lived in Canada at a conference and I was then sick outside when it was a session that wasn't one of mine drinking coffee and then one of the sound guys came out to speak to me and said oh you've got a moment and we got chatting and basically although he was working at a Christian event he the company wasn't a Christian one and he then he talked about the fact that he had been a Christian and walked away. So like you described there, you know I've always learned to go you don't jump on them you go oh that's really interesting. Would you mind telling me your story? And his story was he grew up in a very fundamentalist church you know where everything was if you asked a question you got shouted down you know the the pastor says it so it's true and so forth. He got to like 1920 had had enough walked away jacked the whole thing in then go go went and joined up local with the local atheist group to hang out with a bunch of other skeptics and he goes to me he said they were as bad they were also fundamentalists. If you dare to question any of their authors if you dare to say well actually I don't agree with Richard Dawkins and everything they would you know be rude about you and belittle you and so he said so I left. Yeah he says where are you now and he said looks at me Andy that's what I'm gonna ask I just don't know I don't think I fit in the church I don't fit in with the secular people what do I do and I remember looking at him Jeff and going I said oh mate I this is awful I can understand you feeling all over the place but I said look can I ask you a question you talked about the church and and fundamentalism and all those things and I agree with 99.9% of what you said but you haven't mentioned Jesus where does Jesus fit into this and Jeff it was really interesting he looks at me and he goes well he's that's a great question he said I I actually quite miss him that was his answer I remember looking at him and saying okay that's a good starting point why don't we start with why don't we why don't you sit down and crack open the Bible of an evening with a coffee or a beer whatever it doesn't matter Jesus doesn't mind start with the gospel start with the gospel of Mark read it through slowly at your own speed and as you go pray and go God I don't know what I think about you quite frankly but I want to know and would you show me who you really are and then I was also able to hook him up with a pastor friend of mine who had a he had a group used to meet with Starbucks once a mate once a week they called it St. Arbucks his church at Starbucks and it was full of waifs and strays so it was great because I was able to connect this guy when my mate was a pastor in Vancouver who said yeah send him along you know I I have 20 of these guys on a Sunday morning and we just sit around and read the Bible and talk about what we see and uh and see what happens. But yeah the Jesus thing really interested me. So I often come across people who had a real issue with the church but sometimes underneath it there's still that attraction to Jesus and if we can like reintroduce people and say can we just put the church thing to one side and perhaps get you and Jesus chatting again and and then see what happens. Yeah my daughter in law was the same thing she um got hooked up early as a young woman with a church that said her hair wasn't long enough to you know and that's see that was that was my response was like you know come on that has nothing to do with Jesus you know I mean and that's kind of what I told her I said why don't you seek Jesus and then leave all the other stuff oh it's just things like that just I thought the funny thing is to lighten it slightly one of the funniest stories I've heard I got I had a friend of mine some years ago who who was in from Northern Ireland and went to a very very conservative church in um in in Belfast and then she uh and her friend one day turned up the church without any head coverings on we're told you cannot come in you can't come in without head covering you can't come in without your head covered so they went away following week they came back with comedy headgear she'd got a baseball cap with a like a rubber axe embedded in it and the other one had like I don't know Viking helmets and she said it turned out she said actually not all head coverings are created equal because we were permanently banned. Praise the Lord Claire's still a Christian but it was like it was touch and go.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

That's that's that's very funny. You know it's funny my first thought of a Belfast church was did they have a class on bomb making but uh that's uh oh there you go so I like that yeah politically incorrect let's go right politically incorrect so uh you're gonna come back to the States uh in July um I am so yeah the um so the C.S.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

Lewis Institute who we mentioned earlier um are um well this goes back to when you and I met you and I met didn't we at a summer at a summer school at Wheaton College so the organization I was working for back in the day was organization now that you mention it it's got it's uh it doesn't exist anymore reputation was in tatters it was called Ravi Zacharias Ministries it was an amazing group of people but the guy who led it had a had a spectacular moral failing the whole thing came to an end praise the Lord I left kind of five years before any of that stuff but very sad but but they used to do these amazing summer schools very sad because of uh it was a very profound and uh effective uh ministry it's very yeah and very sad what happened but we met at their summer school at Wheaton uh because used to come along and and do various things including stand-up comedy for us and um and then but what was interesting when RZM folded we had loads of people used to come to those summer schools you know would reach out to myself and other former team members and go, oh we missed them they were amazing times to come together and learn and just build community and then the C.S. Lewis Institute who now have picked up some of the old RZM staff about three or four people working for C.S. Lewis Institute had the vision of going well why don't we try and restart something so it's not at Wheaton it's at a school not far from there in July they are having their first summer school so we it's a five day thing um I'll um if I send you the link you can stick in the show notes yeah we'll stick it in the show notes in July 11 I think you said July it's great we got we've got about we're in about 70 or 80 people and it's gonna be I think five days of really nice mixture of teaching and QA and discussing together just hanging out with like minded people with the goal that you go back feeling empowered and equipped and the theme really is how do we bring I think that this year's theme I'm not I've got the title quite right but the whole idea is how do we bring hope to world in chaos I mean everything is in chaos right you know politics is in chaos the economy's in chaos the environment is in chaos everywhere you look it seems the world's gone mad and it's easy as Christians to either run away from that or shout at it and I think as Christians we're called to do something different. We're called to bring hope into those places. So we're thinking together this year as a bunch of us how do we do that? What does that look like in your workplace in your school and your family?

SPEAKER_01 43:46

How can you be someone who brings hope into really troubled places yeah that's what I see um uh it's um you know I I had been there in my life that that um what's it all about what's the me the the pointlessness of life you know I mean by the time Christ got me I was a full-blown nihilist so I mean I I understand that that mindset you know uh I can remember Tammy shaking me you don't care we're losing the house you know and I go I don't I'm trying I want to but I just don't understand why any of it matters so I see that in a lot of young men at the airport just looking at their devices and you see you can it's just almost like this thing that emanates from your soul you know and you want to walk over and give them a hug and go there is some there's another answer. I mean with living food um I I've always admired people you know I've I've seen this we we were talking about it in our small group we do small group at our house on Tuesdays and um uh honoring that voice inside of us you know God will move us but you know I used to say it would be a lot easier in my life if God spoke to me in a Spanish accent than I know it was him okay it's you Lord I got you but I've seen people I'm like getting on an airplane more than once where a woman will stop or a man will stop and look at the flight attendant and go, God just put it on my heart that you need prayer do you want me can I pray for you or and and more than once you see the tears well up in their eyes and they say some of a family member is just going in for surgery or whatever today. But honoring that that that inner voice uh to step out of your comfort zone um you know it's easy to go to the holy huddle and just sit there and be around like minded people whether you're an atheist or whether you're a a Bible believing Christian or whether you're you know a spiritualist or whatever. It's easy to just sit around with like minded people. And I think the social media helps call all those people together so you you're always getting the what do they call it confirmation bias. You're always getting the confirmation bias and I and I think the calling from God but I think the nervousness what I love about the book you wrote it it gives you um a tool. You don't have to be a a a a scholar and you don't have to be uh if your heart is pure and you're working from a mode of of just I want to share with you one of the most profound things that have ever happened to me.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

I mean I I understand uh pain we all especially I'm seven years old I've I've I've had pain and suffering in my life um you know when when Tammy went through cancer I remember friends of hers going how could you believe in a God that would allow this she goes I couldn't get through this without that relationship there's a sense of peace and calm that came with knowing that this isn't uh she felt um people laid hands on her and prayed and one night she said to me she goes I I heard I heard from him it's not going to be fatal um you know and 25 years ago so um you know um but that peace that comes with that so um my question is how do you what's the difference between sharing your faith and sounding like a malfunctioning salesman at a mall kiosk you know you know you know oh what a brilliant question or I suppose in today's day and age sounding like a really sort of low grade version of chat GPT right where you're just kind of splitting the answers out. I think we've partly touched on this Jeff like the big idea in that book was if we can be leaning more into the whole question thing rather than thinking what is the one liner I should be using in my friend here because if I use this magic one liner, you know suddenly they'll become a Christian. And you know God can work that way but doesn't often choose to work that way in my experience. If we're instead thinking what's the right question I could ask here how can I crack this conversation open and do you know one thing that that's interesting about doing that I've reflected on over the over the years I think sometimes we don't trust God enough which is that we know we say we do as Christians but then we try and control all the variables you know we try and manipulate conversations and and like play games with our friends that you know we say this thing they got to say that thing um you know our pre-package little testimonies and whatever once you start asking questions and allowing the other person to speak up oh gosh now it's risky because who knows where it's gonna go but if you trust God you you don't have to worry you can say well I'm gonna ask my friend this question I think is the obvious question and I'm now gonna while they're speaking I'll pray quietly and trust the Holy Spirit that I'll either say something wise or if not I can say something at least friendly. And I think you know particularly in early days of evangelism if you're sharing your faith with friends, family, neighbours, colleagues an early win is your friend going away going, I enjoyed that conversation. I went for a sandwich with my workmate who's a Christian and we talked about family and a bit about spirituality and he talked about his church a bit and you know what it wasn't weird it was fun and actually do you know what I wouldn't want doing I wouldn't mind doing that again rather than they went for lunch with you and you just like threw apologetic arguments at them for half an hour and like maybe you score a win but more likely they're gonna go well I'm not gonna talk to that loony again. So yeah maybe it's something about learning that question conversational kind of approach so we can begin just opening conversations up and being more more natural. I think a big a big win in evangelism is is is behaving naturally rather than weirdly. And the goal maybe being more than one conversation you know rather than just one conversation and also the humility the other thing as well it takes humility right is going you may not be the guy or the girl that gets over the line. Maybe you know maybe God wants you to start a conversation with a taxi driver next time you're on your Uber or whatever Jeff and and that's only going to go so far but then God knows in a week's time that guy's going to bump into someone at the bar who's going to pick it up and go a bit further and then it's gonna be a whole series of things and most of us if we look back I don't know about you I look back and go you know my coming to faith in Christ there were multiple people involved it was my mum and dad there was my youth leader there were friends probably seven eight nine ten key people um and that's often the case for most of us very rarely is it a person goes from like complete atheist to Christian because they have one encounter right with somebody. Yeah with me as the Bible one person one person plants one person waters one person harvests so just relax and if God tends to use you to plant seeds and other people harvest them that's okay because it's not a competition.

SPEAKER_01 50:22

Right. Yeah with me it was a year and a half friendship. Right. And my question inside my you know all the time was why does he care? You know he would say I pray for your marriage why you know while we believe marriages are ordained from God and he didn't put you two together to to breed children and then for one of you to move on that those children need two parents you know and all of that you know and um my question was always why does this guy I mean he was everything I wasn't I was loud obnoxious uh foul mouthed you know uh cynical and um I watched the way he treated his wife and the way he treated his family and the way he lived his life and it was there was a kind of a an aroma to it that was appealing to me as a as a man who was not any of those things.

SPEAKER_03 51:08

So sometimes it's just a life well lived is your apologetic, you know just uh yeah be the be the one thing in a person's life that's full of chaos and and um uncertainty and just be the one thing that looks certain and and not chaotic you know I think so and I think that also means that for you know people listening to this who are sitting thinking well even the question thing I'm not that good with with words because not everyone's the same right you you and I words are our business but not everyone finds words easy. If you start thinking about how can I care for people and show people their values that opens up interesting possibilities. I got a friend of mine who you know works for a local government office uh in part of the country and his evangelistic strategy for years has been to be praying every day for opportunities to just show random acts of kindness to people like if someone's having a bad day leave a gift of chocolate on their desk you know make wash up all the coffee cups without being asked look look for those kinds and then people notice and they'll say what's different and he said then the scary bit comes because you don't duck it then you go well I did that because I'm a Christian and I believe in a God who loves me unconditionally and so I try and sometimes demonstrate that in my personal relationships he said some people look a bit weird but you if you've just done something nice for them and you consistently do nice things to people he said then people start going okay tell me about this Jesus thing because I don't get it but it clearly there is something about you and um I think it was him I owe the point actually that you know that famous line of Jesus in Matthew's gospel chapter five where Jesus said you know you're the salt of the earth to Christians in the ancient world salt was a preservative so salt had to be in contact with the thing it was trying to preserve so Christians we need to be in there with our friends and our colleagues you know at the gym at the sports club and the workplace and whatever mixing with people and then praying that God gives us those opportunities to show what it is like to be different and then people are going to be far more willing to listen to your words if they've seen the actions yeah I agree 100% um that um what did they say um live it use words if necessary but um live well that's a misquote if you read on in my book you'll get to that because that's often attributed to Francis of Assisi but he actually never said it. Oh really I love where did it come from then uh a bumper store in the UK it got hung around his neck but actually it's really interesting because he was a guy who did lots of acts of compassion but he's also famous for being a preacher. He would walk into the society parties of his day and stand there and and preach against the rich people who were like you know trampling on the poor. So Francis was pretty capable of going for it when he wanted but he was also somebody who also was known for compassion and care whether it's for human beings or or animals I I think Jeff I've got a theory and I talk about this you'll find this later on in the book that sometimes those of us who are a bit more nervous and I was nervous I mean I I come across as like a loud and confident but I'm a shy extrovert I'm an unusual mix. Shy extrovert which means you know you're great when you've got a platform but put me in a room with strangers I hide. But that quote the danger of that quote it gives people to get out of jail free card because they can go well don't I don't need to say anything I just need to be kind and the problem is if you're just kind to someone like my friend Steve if he just left if he just left the chocolate if he just made the coffee and said nothing all people are going to do is they're gonna go oh Steve's a nice bloke and he's drawn attention to himself and increased his reputation and no one's ever made the connection to Jesus so you've got to make the connection to Jesus and it might be scary to do it. But again trust me if you've just been kind and nice and generous to somebody somebody is going to be much more open to listen to you at least tell you why um that you're doing that in the name of Christ than if you you know you've spent the previous half an hour being rude and negative and cynical.

SPEAKER_01 54:55

Yeah it's funny I did a lot of work years ago with uh an organization called Worldvision and uh I wanted to go down I said before I get involved with you I want to make sure the kids that I'm sponsoring are actual children and they're not just a packet of picture you took or whatever. So Tammy and I flew down to Nicaragua along with a group of other people and we got to meet the the the the children and it was interesting the conversation Tammy had with with the mother of one one of the the girls that we sponsored and I looked over at one point and they were hugging and crying together two moms you know and um when we got in the van to go back to the hotel I said to Tam what was all that all about and she said her daughter that morning the mother said that when I was a little girl I went to my father and I said I want to be a nurse and her father said get over it. You were born in poverty you're gonna live in poverty and die in poverty. So get over the notion that you could ever become anything. And that morning on the way to meet us um her daughter said to her she was probably eight or nine years old said to her I want to be a nurse and the mother said to her because of this organization and the people we're gonna meet today you can be whatever you want and um the question was always why are you doing this?

SPEAKER_03 56:17

World vision used to go in most of uh evangelical um uh charities would go into these third world places and then just hammer them over the head with you need Jesus you need Jesus you need Jesus and at some point they came to the the realization that you know what we just need to be kind and and elevate their life and then they'll ask why are you why are you doing this you know well because our Lord and Savior has basically commanded us to to do this you know and then you can tell them about this the this um this man Jesus and um it resonates because they've seen it you know they they have a reference point and my wife is interested uh about a year ago she's 65 so 64 years old we've been walking with Jesus for over thirty years she said Jeff I think I finally understand it I what that my heavenly father loves me and I said uh really she goes my earthly father did so much damage to me that it was so hard to really get in my heart that there was a there was a father out there that could love me unconditionally and um you know it it it's heartbreaking to hear that but it's also what a great revelation um yeah that she can now live the rest of her days knowing that uh she is loved unconditionally you know um by our Heavenly Father and that is just a wonderful message to give to a hurting world that um because it's the history and the wounds go deep um and um discipleship is not a one and done it's not I believe it's a uh it it's at Starbucks it's at the pub it's at the wherever and people are watching people are watching you know and that's what's hard for me because I'm a golfer and I I I I hold all my profanity for those 18 holes I wasn't gonna say a word I could I could guess where this was going yeah I said if you followed me on the golf course you wouldn't have think I had a piece that surpasses all understanding but but the last thing is you can you can say to people you can say if you want to see what I was like before I became a Christian think of the golf course across the entire of life right entire been doing a work and now it's just on the 18 holes when when when you're in a place in your life when your eyes open in the morning and you go crap another day you're not in a good place.

SPEAKER_01 58:43

You know you're not in a good place.

SPEAKER_03 58:45

Andy Bannister um I think we we told you we would do an hour so um we'd want to tie up all day um let me ask you this uh what would you say to the average Christian who loves Jesus deeply but is terrified of looking stupid when faith comes up in a conversation um what kind of again it does you know you don't want to take an apologetics class at the university you don't want to you don't need to take an apologetics class at the university I mean obviously you need to read that bright yellow book called how to talk about Jesus without looking like an idiot we will have that in the show notes so oh that's amazing Jeff I'd say a couple of things firstly I'd want to encourage you and go you're not alone because one of the things that you often think because I was that I was there my first job when I worked for the for the hospital I remember spending six years feeling utterly inadequate and terrified and I wish I'd known that actually it's quite normal. So you know it's not unusual to feel that is the first thing. Secondly though it's interesting to one of the things I I took a bit longer to work through Jeff was realizing you know our fears there's the the side we do need to lean into is our fears can also expose where our idols are right the thing if you're afraid about something or if you're afraid of losing something that thing maps matters too much to you. So if you you know if you're afraid of losing a particular standard of living be a little bit careful because actually now that's become the be all and end all. And if afraid of looking a bit silly could it just be the case that you know sort of a nice comfortable middle class lifestyle while everything's nice and comfortable has actually become God to you in which case maybe the next step is to go into your room in private and pray to your heavenly father and go, Lord I'm really sorry that maybe that fear isn't just nervousness. Maybe I things are too easy. Could you shake me up a little bit? And that's a dangerous prayer to pray. Wow. And then the next thing I would also do when praying is pray Lord I want to be bolder can you create some opportunities for me? Because one of the things we get tied up in knots is how do I create opportunities faith-based conversations and if you go I'm not gonna try and force them I'm gonna pray the I'm gonna pray and ask God to do it. And if he doesn't do it today that's all right I asked he didn't do it. So clearly it wasn't the he wanted it. And then but then when it comes up to go well I prayed this morning at breakfast this would happen and now this person like at the bus stop or at work has said to me you're a Christian what's all that about then well maybe I probably want to go for it. And then the last thought I'd I'd throw into the loop there is remember it's not all about you. We talked about this sometimes we can think and this is one of the lies the enemy likes to whisper into your ear or into screw tape territory right of going if you screw up and you don't get it right and you phrase it slightly badly and it could have gone better that you know these this person is damned for eternity and it's your fault. God doesn't work that way. So go unless you are a complete jerk and a and an ass and really outrageously rude the worst you'll do is have someone going away going well that wasn't the world's greatest answer. And then you can always go like I'm sorry there are better answers than that one I've given if that question you asked me really matters to you like you said earlier on would you give me a week 10 days because I know there are people who are better than me and I'll do my best to help you out. Most people if you do that with a smile and uh and you're willing to sort of you know humble yourself and self-deprecate a bit and take one on the chin most people are going to go yeah go on then yeah I'd love to see what you've got you let's talk later. So yeah those those four bits of advice together I would say to anyone listening to this going I can't do it you can and um yeah God can work God God can work through totally useless evangelists is my experience both personally and through history.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:17

Yeah that's great. I I brought back a memory of back uh back in 2000 we were pitching studios for a sitcom pilot and one of the guys that we were pitching had met me in New York uh years earlier um uh when I was an angry bitter guy and uh we were sitting there and at one point he says are you some kind of Christian or something? And I said well since you brought it up yeah actually and um you know in Hollywood you don't walk with that on your sleeve you know yeah anyway he says how did that happen you know and I look at my manager and they go tell him so I do my five minute elevator testimony and it was still new to me. I mean I'm I'm crying you know it it it it again it was so profound and I got tears you know anything and he looks at me he shrugs his shoulders and goes ah I don't get it okay what's the show idea you know and we're we're walking out and my manager says to me what the heck was that and I go I don't know but I'll tell you this who knows maybe 10 years from now he's on the hills in Hollywood with a gun in his mouth and suddenly that comes back and that story comes back I said it's not my domain my job is to be honest and and true with what he's done for me and um and also by the way I think the other thing in that story that that I reflect on hearing that Jeff is that there's something about for us guys we're not very good at going that story moved me.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:48

We're quite good at someone tells a moving story and as a guy your natural response to go oh okay right now the sport it doesn't mean you aren't interested it means you're not willing to admit that you're interested yeah so sometimes I just like the shoulder shrug the shoulder shrug yeah you know the shoulder shrug and uh okay sometimes yeah yeah didn't do anything for me okay yeah I think it's kind enough to listen didn't interrupt me you know and uh and I had experiences of saying stuff to people and you think nothing's affected them and you hear years after someone say hey you know what you said that time was really really helped me thank you but that's a little I wish you said that the time not ten years later.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:21

Yeah but uh again to uh to all the listeners out there uh you know we we are called to step out and but maybe get out of our comfort zone and whatever that looks like for you you know just um having a cup of coffee with somebody and and listening to their story you know and then uh if you get Andy's book um uh the when you get to the what and why questions so important to ask those questions Jesus was very very clear uh you know with the uh uh the most famous one is probably um you know give to Caesar what is Caesar's who's whose image is on the coin you know and um I had heard it um also you know it would have been nice if Jesus had asked whose image is on your heart um so um we are image bearers um and um I think we need to reflect that the best we can and um uh you know with this culture that we live in today is so divisive but I was so encouraged to hear that in the UK the young the young people are seeking you know and that's that's where it begins. God can move God can move great with an open mind and an open heart. So um if you're listening today and uh you're um you you you have questions there are answers and there are people out there and um but uh you go to a church and you ask a question and they tell you to don't ask questions find another church um there are there are churches out there where people welcome the questions and um and they have the answers but the answer is Jesus and uh Jesus alone can change your heart and your mind.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:58

Andy Bannister thank you so much uh for Jeff Allen thank you for time and uh we'll be in touch because uh you can run but you can't hide man I know how to get a hold of you now I you well yeah I'm gonna be very afraid very afraid never we must we must do this again and uh and sooner than the previous the last gap we had and amazingly this time you remember to press the record button which is a well I didn't do it Christian our our production guy over there yeah I yeah again where you're inadequate you find places people that can do the uh do the hard exactly find people who know how to press a start button pushing that button was just so difficult for me so God bless you man and your kids now they gotta be growed man because when we talked last year were they were little and they my kiddos they are well they are growing yeah my daughter's 13 and a half and my son is 11 so it's uh they're big man wow that kind of thing but uh but but but parenthood parenthood's great in every every year right is fantastic because every every age is different so it's uh they're they're they're they're a fun age right now so um but they keep me on my toes any skeptics in there or uh no it's interesting isn't it with your own kids you watch what's going on so we're very blessed at the moment they're very open uh they love going to church they remind me of what I was like at that age I don't think the penny has fully dropped on what it means for this to be my faith rather than mum and dad's faith but there's no pushback there's no challenge they're both thinkers so we trust but you know it's every parent's prayer if you're a Christian right that your kids are gonna are gonna follow the Lord that's kind of thing and we're in a great church that they love going to so you that we're blessed by that on a Sunday morning our kids are like if we were to go let's sleep in they'll go no we're going to church got to go to church dad it's great man that's great well God bless you man and the work you too and uh we'll we'll talk we'll be we'll be in touch fantastic all right bye bye