Big Band Carols!
I had the privilege of speaking at an amazing event at All Saints Church, in Lindfield in Sussex. I have spoken at many carol services over the years in all sorts of places, but this one was really special. Billed as “Big Band Carols”, the church had assembled a band of over thirty excellent musicians and singers who led the carol singing with brass band, swing and jazz arrangements of the famous old classic carols. The congregation joined in, and the sound was wonderful.
Chris Steynor from All Saints explained, “Our “Big Band Carols” developed out of the pandemic, partly because we were all looking for a sense of joy, and partly because God seemed to be sending us plenty of brass and wind players! And so we set about making bespoke arrangements of the classic carols arranged for jazz wind band. 2024 was its fourth outing and the project has grown to a band of over 40 musicians and singers, and this year welcomed over 700 adults across our two services. It’s become an unmissable event in our church’s calendar for so many, but above all, we find that many of the congregation say, “I have unchurched friends that won’t come to anything… but they’ll come to this!” Each year there are so many faces in the congregation we don’t recognise, and it is notable that they are a different crowd from those who come to our trad carols the previous weekend.”
The church is very well connected in its community and they were able to draw 800 people over the services that day, including a lot of visitors from the surrounding area. It’s one of those churches who are facing the happy problem of outgrowing their building on regular weeks, so for the carol service it was a full house! They are genuinely very outward looking and have bought the pub next door to the church to use as church halls and meeting rooms, a very visitor-friendly space.
My subject for the services was “Have You Ever Wondered If Christmas Is More Than A Fairytale?” We began with all the Christmas movies which are so popular. Miracle on 34th Street is perennial classic! It’s a lovely movie – but in the great courtroom scene at the end Chris Cringle suggests that faith in God is an evidence-less claim! It’s great cinema but not good theology!
Richard Dawkins famously sneered, “Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy are part of the charm of childhood. So is God. Some of us grow out of all three.” Never mind the fact that many people such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali grow into belief in God as they think, read and study more; there’s another problem with Professor Dawkins pithy little quote. That is, that the Father Christmas legend has some truth underlying it! Saint Nicholas was a real man who lived in what is now Turkey and who was noted for his generosity, especially to children. Sometime later the legend was reworked by a brilliant Coca Cola marketing campaign; the result of which is that the actual history has been lost beneath commercialism! A bit like Christmas in fact!
The truth of the real Christmas message might be a but hidden in our culture, but if we know where to look we can see it – even in some of the most popular Christmas movies. It’s a wonderful life, is really a film about hope. A Christmas Carol is about redemption. Die Hard and Home Alone are about good versus evil – and Love Actually is about the triumph of love in the face of all kinds of obstacles. If redemption, hope, the triumph of good over evil and the perseverance of love sound familiar – that’s because all these themes are essential elements of the story of Jesus and why he came to earth.
At the end of the service we gave away hundreds of copies of Have You Ever Wondered? to all sorts of people. The church had bought a few hundred from the publisher and made use of their bulk discount, so we could hand them out to people as they left the church.
Chris Steynor concluded. “We started to connect with the work of Solas through a congregation member who has recently joined the organisation’s board. Through this connection we welcomed Andy for an evening of outreach training last year, and then again for Christmas 2024 to speak at the Big Band Carols services. Andy’s message certainly cut through – warming some hearts and challenging others. It was great to be able to hand out his book as well, as we rely heavily on one-to-one relational evangelism for the follow-up. (We are finding in our context that the days of the “course” seem to be waning.) It was wonderful to partner with Solas for the furthering of the gospel and hope we might have opportunity to do so again for future initiatives.”
My talk from the church is available to watch here, and also features my rather natty Christmas jumper.
2,000 Years On YouTube (with Oliver Dürr and Daniel Kim)
“When people realise that their questions about faith aren’t brand new in the last two minutes, but have been asked thousands of times with really good answers – that would be how history and apologetics meet.” Gavin and Simon (the resident Solas history buffs) hear about an amazing project to bring the history of Christianity to the world – via animation on YouTube!
Check out the results at christianstory.com
2,000 Years on YouTube (with Oliver Dürr and Daniel Kim) – PEP Talk
About PEP Talk
The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, our hosts chat to a guest who has a great story, a useful resource, or some other expertise that helps equip you to talk persuasively, winsomely, and engagingly with your friends, colleagues and neighbours about Jesus.
Giving Tuesday 2025
2 December 2025 is Giving Tuesday, which is a fantastic opportunity to take a break from the Black Friday and Christmas season sales. Instead, you can make a lasting difference of eternal value by giving back to charities, your church, and Christian ministries. We invite you to consider donating to Solas this Giving Tuesday, to help us mark our 15th Anniversary and prepare us for the next 15 years.
Solas helps the church in the UK respond to the great need to share the gospel in our secular society. There have been encouraging signs of a ‘quiet revival’ here, but still in 2024, only 12% of the population described themselves as Christians. Both the needs and the opportunities are huge!
We’ve spent 15 years equipping everyday Christians with confidence to talk about Christ in their universities, workplaces, communities and families. Our evangelistic tools like Have You Ever Wondered? and Short Answers are resourcing Christians across the globe. We are so excited to see the impact Solas will have in the next 15 years, as we work in an era of increased interest in the gospel.
Thank You
We want to take this opportunity to say a big ‘thank-you’ to the hundreds of individuals who have already given financially to Solas this year. As well, Giving Tuesday isn’t just about money – those who offer prayers are so important to us, along with many partners who give their time and hard work to put on events up and down the country. If that’s you – then thanks!
Your Opportunity
If you can, please join with us this Giving Tuesday by making a special gift in support of our work equipping the church with new evangelistic resources.
What is Giving Tuesday?
GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement that unleashes the power of radical generosity around the world. GivingTuesday was created in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good.
GivingTuesday is an independent nonprofit organisation that is dedicated to unleashing the power of people and organisations to transform their communities and the world. The campaign is coordinated in the UK by the Chartered Institute of Fundraising.
Solas : Light
It is probably only when we are in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland that we don’t get asked, “So, what does Solas stand for?” Some people think it is an acronym, but if you Google that you’ll get ‘Safety of LIfe At Sea” – and that’s not us. Others have assumed that it only references ‘The 5 Solas of the Reformation’, but lovely as they are, they are not the inspiration for our name. When Solas was founded fifteen years ago in Scotland, the vision was to shine the light of Christ into culture. Our founders used the word ‘Solas’ to encapsulate that vision – as Solas is the Scots Gaelic word for light. It is related word to the English word ‘solar’ – as in solar power, powered by the light.
John chapter one says of Christ:
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
In these words describing Jesus’ coming to earth, John tells us seven remarkable things about Jesus – and ourselves.
- Jesus is the true light.
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.
John asumes what we all understand, that there is darkness in our world that needs to be penetrated. The world we inhabit is a bewildering combination of breathtaking beauty and unimagineable horrors. In one click of a TV remote control we move from an eagle soaring over a waterfall beneath snow-capped mountains bathed in all the pastel hues of an orange and pink sinking sun, to a child starving in a refugee camp while the tear-ducts in its mother’s hollowed-out eyes have run as dry as their last clean well. The bewildering paradox of the beauty and horrors we encounter are signposts to the underlying story of the world, created for good, but somewhow lost in darkness. CS Lewis in the Narnia novels described that frozen world as being under a curse in which it was famously ‘always Winter but never Christmas’. John would have put it like this – we are in great darkness, and we need a true light. He wrote his Gospel in order that we could all see Jesus – the light who has come who will restore truth and hope.
- Jesus was involved in the creation of the world
He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him.
In the Jewish, and later Christian, worldview – there is a line which separates the Creator from created things. Throughout the Old Testament, worshipping anything below that line was considered to be idolatry; only God – above that line – could be worshipped. John makes a staggering claim about Jesus here; that he is not a created being like every other man but that he was an agent of creation itself. In Revelation, he would later see a vision of Christ being worshipped in heaven, as the lamb of God, seated in the centre of the throne. Jesus did not come to tell us about the light, or to tell us where to search for light, or to present mere hope that light is somewhere to be found; rather he came as the pure, uncreated light itself, the begotten Son of God. - Jesus is for everyone
The true light that gives light to everyone.
John was Jewish, and knew that Jesus was the long-expected Messiah promised of old to his people by prophets stretching back to the 8th-Century-BC Isaiah, and to King David, whose Psalms seemed to speak in otherworldly terms about a King sent from God whose reign would be guaranteed from heaven. But John rejected the idea that Jesus would bring light only for his fellow countrymen – chosen though they certainly were. Jesus is, he would later tell us, ‘The light of the world’. He uniquely would bring to fruition the calling of the Jewish nation to be a light to the Gentiles, and would send his people out with the news about his coming, ‘to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the Ends of the Earth’. That includes people of all types, classes, races, and walks of life. Jesus is for everyone. Jesus “is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” 1 John 2:2 - Light exposes our flaws too
He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
It seems so strange that anyone would resist the light who came into the world; yet Jesus met opposition wherever he went. He meets opposition today still, where people reject him, his message and offer of salvation. Why? Jesus himself explained it like this, later in John’s biography of him: Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light. The light we need to see to navigate through this dark world – and which brings the hope of heaven into the gloom of earth – also exposes our souls. The murky nature of existence turns out to not only be something which has corrupted culture, economic systems, and led to injustice, crime, vandalism and decay – but has infected each of us too, in the secret places of the heart. For many of us, our first inclination when we encounter the light of Christ is to run – to hide from his penetrating gaze, from which no secrets can be hidden. - Jesus can reconcile us to God
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
John wrote his Gospel to tell us who have run from God, how to get back home to Him. His understanding of humanity is that we have strayed far from the Heavenly Father, but that by faith in Christ He will facilitate our adoption back into the divine family. The tempation is of course to run, to avoid the penetrating light which exposes all our flaws, but a better response it to run to the light. It’s when we entrust ourselves to Christ by faith that our sins are forgiven, and we are made children of God. Christ came to seek and save those lost in darkness – and bring us back to The Father. He gave us ‘the right’ to become children of God. Now, it’s obvious that no one can exert any rights ‘over God’ in the sense of gaining control over Him, putting Him in our debt, or forcing Him to give us things. Such rights can only be ours if they are freely given by God. So here John tells us of a God who is so good He wants to give us the right to be His child. He wants to hand us our eternal adoption papers and give us a home forever. The mission of Christ is to bring you home to God. - Jesus can give us our true identity back
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
We live in a world in which many people struggle with the question, “Who am I?” In his influential book, Meanings of Life, the social psychologist Roy Baumeister argues that ‘Who Am I?’ is one of the great questions of our age. People everywhere curate a version of themselves for public consumption, in the office or on Instagram – which can be a world away from their true self. Others wrestle with the herculean task of seeking to construct their own identity, and to shore it up with all kinds of mental gymnastics and defence mechanisms to protect its inherent fragility. Jesus offers somthing better. He says that true identity comes from being part of family – knowing where you are from and to whom you belong. True identity is to be found in becoming a child of God. And because that identity comes when God graciously adopts you when you trust Christ, it is unchanging, not dependent on your moral performance and therefore stable and secure. Jesus gives the kind of security we need in order to truly flourish. - Coming to faith in Jesus is a spiritual rebirth
children born not of natural descent,……., but born of God.
When John wrote these words he knew that the implications were massive. As a Jewish man living in the light of all the promises of the Old Testament, he might have written that he was basing his security and faith in his biological ancestry, his tribal lineage in the people of Israel. But he didn’t. In fact, he says that the light that Christ brings is open to people of all nations who (while they might not be born physically into the Jewish nation) can be spiritually re-born into the family of God. It was John who would later recall the words of Jesus to Nicodemus, “you must be born again”. Those words (which have been so misused and misunderstood, not least by several American politicians over the last four decades) do not mean some kind of fanaticism, nor do they mean glitsy commercialised televangelistsic cringe. Rather, they are Jesus’ own words to describe what happens when we put our faith in Him. His light shines into our souls, we are changed, renewed, filled, transformed – and adopted into the family of God. It’s a process so complete and all consumming that it is best described as a rebirth. Or as Jesus would say in Matthew’s Gospel, when describing his ministry: the people dwelling in darkness, have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned. All of this is yours if you come to Christ by faith.Solas exists to help shine the light of Christ into this dark world. If you want to know more about how you can encounter, and be transformed by the light of Christ, we’d love to hear from you. Please do get in touch.
Alltnacriche & a Virtual Bannister!
Alltnacriche is a wonderful Scripture Union Centre near Aviemore in the Cairngorms National Park. I have many happy memories of camps and work-parties there, and of exhausting cycles up and over the famed ‘Burma Road’ – a dramatic track which climbs high over the mountains behind the centre.
This time however, my trip to Alltnacriche was a little different. Shula, the chief instructor at Alltnacriche, had come across Andy Bannister’s “How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking LIke An Idiot” training session online. He’d done a longer more comprensive version of that talk for the CS Lewis Institute recently, which they had posted onto YouTube. You can watch that by clicking here.
With two days of staff training to arrange for folks from Alltnacriche and Lendrick Muir, Shula thought that it would be great to equip and encourage the instructors with the tools for gospel conversation that Andy outlined in that session. The problem was that Andy was arriving back in England in the early hours of that morning after speaking in Norway, and was due in St Neot’s for a Solas conference the next day! So there’s no way he could come.
So Shula and I devised a plan; we’d use a virtual Bannister! Not quite an AI version of Andy – but the video from YouTube. So after I had introduced the topic, we watched Andy’s introduction about the ‘Power of Questions’ and the way that Jesus used them in the gospels. Then we broke for discussion in small groups and they all thought abuot questions they had been asked, as well as examples of Jesus and questions in the gospels. Then we used sections of the video followed by discussion to work our way through Andy’s talk.
The SU instructors seemed to respond well to the format – and we had a good time of Q&A at the end when many different issues were raised from specific questions they get asked to the relationship between Jesus’s many questions and his memorable parables.
This was the first time we have done a hybrid in-person/video event; but I was pleased with how it went and delighted to be back in Alltnacriche again too.
If I Become a Christian, Will I Have to Give Up Having Fun?
Perhaps for you, the idea of “finding God” or becoming a Christian means giving up your freedom to do the things you want – especially the fun stuff! Surely making my own choices, and finding my own pleasures, isn’t something I should be asked to give up? In this video, Steve Osmond asks if we really have the freedom – or happiness – we truly need.
Share
Please share this video widely with friends or family and for more Short Answers videos, visit solas-cpc.org/shortanswers/, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
Support
Short Answers is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose a free book as a thank-you gift!
Spotlight on Christmas
Christmas is one of the few times of the year when some people notice the church or think about Jesus. Here are some resources to help you reach others for Christ this festive season.
What’s All The Fuss About Christmas?
Page Menu
- What’s All The Fuss About?
- 4 Questions To Ask At Christmas
- What Evidence Do We Have?
- More Than A Fairytale?
- 3 Ideas for Reaching Others This Christmas
4 Questions To Ask At Christmas
Doubting Christmas
What Evidence Do We Have?
Gareth Black looks at how we know about Jesus’ life.
More Than A Fairytale?
David Nixon explores whether Christmas is just a legend.
3 Ideas For Reaching Others This Christmas
Book Give-Away
Why not give away copies of Solas’ popular evangelistic book Have You Ever Wondered? to help seekers come to faith.
Serving People
Can you offer a service this Christmas to reach out to those around you? Present-wrapping is one way of doing that.
Be Invitational!
What is an effective way of getting people into church? Gavin Matthews explains why it could just take a simple invite!
The Thrive 25 Tour, Promoting Workplace Ministry
For many Christians, the place with the most challenges and opportunities for sharing their faith is the workplace. While most evangelistic training, prayer and activity is church-focused, the reality is that believers spend the bulk of the time they spend with non-Christians, in offices, shops, factories, airports or campuses.
In 2025, thousands of Christians across the UK are considering how to be more faithful and visible for Jesus in councils, hospitals, universities, government departments, factories and businesses. Around 500 Christian Workplace Groups (CWGs) now bring believers together to strengthen their witness. CWGs operate alongside long-established professional groups such as the Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF), Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship (LCF), and the Christian Police Association (CPA). The lesson is clear: whether in student CUs or workplace groups, Christians can make a far greater impact when they pray and stand together than when they work alone. Fellowship and prayer not only sustain believers but also embolden them to speak more courageously for Christ.
Thrive 25 was an initiative shared between Solas, Transform Work and The Business Connection, to grow workplace ministry in Scotland. Together with churches and workplace groups around the country, and with speakers from around the UK and from the States; we held conferences in five Scottish cities.
In Glasgow, Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh, each event was packed full or sung worship, Bible teaching, testimonies, poetry, interviews with Christians in workplaces (A lawyer, doctor, teacher, artist, lecturer, scientist, Oil and gas managers, hairdresser, double-glazing manufacturer, cafe-owner, and more).
As a result some Christian workplace groups have been formed, Christians have been encouraged to step up and to see their work as part of God’s plans – and connections made which will lead to further growth. There is still a lot to do in Scotland though. At the end of each conference the delegates were comissioned to go back to their shops and offices to serve Christ there. Ken Janke – who has a long experience of workplace ministry used the Old Testament story of Nehemiah to encourage everyone to be bold for Christ at work. Just as Nehemiah did when he was Nebuchadnezzar’s cupbearer.
The driving force behind Thrive 25 was Martyn Link, who commented, ” We estimate around 300 people attended in person or our online prayer meetings each morning, with news of around a dozen new CWGs started or emerging. We have a WhatsApp group of nearly 200 people and
350 people following us on Eventbrite where we publish our monthly events. Between our various
databases of contacts, we have around 1000 people we are in contact with. This means that we have commissioned around a third of our target number, and a fifth of the new CWGs that we want to start. The infrastructure is now in place to support the growth!”
I had the joy of being able to travel with the Thrive25 crew around all five cities and contribute some Bible teaching to all the events. The fellowship on the road was delightful, the prayer-times remarkable, and the goal of growing the witness of God’s people in the ‘9-to-5’ exactly right.
At Solas, we work with many CWGs, in the UK and beyond. We look forward to the plans for Thrive 27, which is scheduled to take place in 18 months. Keep an eye out for more information here on the Solas website. For many Christians thew workplace is the very frotnline of their calling from God. So it’s great to able to do something to support and encourage them there.
Faith In The Feed (with Richard Matthews)
Following in the footsteps of Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, today’s PEP Talk guest runs a social media platform. It may be a bit smaller than X or Facebook, but it’s purpose is much narrower and nobler. As Christians grapple with what it means to live out their faith online, the team at Grow Faith has built a platform just for them. Simon Wenham finds out more…
Faith in the Feed (with Richard Matthews) – PEP Talk
Our Guest
Richard Matthews is co-founder and COO of Grow Faith, which produces the Grow app.
About PEP Talk
The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, our hosts chat to a guest who has a great story, a useful resource, or some other expertise that helps equip you to talk persuasively, winsomely, and engagingly with your friends, colleagues and neighbours about Jesus.
An Invitation To Get The Gospel Out Into Your Community
Would you like to effectively get the gospel out into your community? Does your church run Christianity Explored, Alpha, 3-2-1 or a similar course designed to introduce people to Christ – but need to widen the pool of people who are willing to come and consider him and his claims?
Café-style evangelism with Solas, might be one way of doing exactly that!
Over the last fifteen years we have seen people, who would be very unlikely to come to church, listening to Christian presentations in cafés, pubs, restaurants, sports venues and hotels. For many of them, this has been a critical first step in engaging with the church. We have seen these kind of events being used to fill Alpha/CE courses with people who have a genuine interest in matters of faith, but whose perceptions of church are a barrier to their seeking.
Pre-evangelism is often the missing step.
While evangelism might be defined as presenting people with the gospel of Christ, and calling them to respond to it; many of the people we meet in café’s (etc) are not yet ready to make a response. Some have very little idea of who Jesus is, some don’t think the Christian faith is relevant, others have no idea of what the gospel is. Many have very distorted ideas about what the gospel is, which need to be addressed too. Others think faith is all too mysterious and just to for them; while all the time living lives that make little sense without God.
In this context pre-evangelism can be a vital step for many people. Sometimes the goal of pre-evangelistic meeting might be to invite people to read one of the gospels to find out for themselves who Christ is. This is the method that is used by students doing ‘Uncover Luke’. We often contribute to campus meetings, which are very contemporary and topic-based, but which show the relevance of the Bible’s message and then invite people to dig in for themselves. In café’s we often see non-Christian people eager to attend an evening with food, conversation, discussion and a title like “Why do we look for happiness in all the wrong places?” or “Plagues, pandemics and Putin: where can we find hope in a broken world.”
Solas can help
We realise that doing café style outreach, or even pre-evangelism is not always easy for churches to do – and that’s why at Solas we are delighted to help. We have been helping churches across the UK to do this kind of work for many years, and our speakers love speaking to non-Christian audiences, listening to their concerns and thoughtfully engaging with their questions. This is all done with the aims of commending Christ to a needy world, and building up the church.
Some churches think that we won’t come to their part of the country – but we will! Some churches think that they are too small, and that we only work with big city-centre churches or huge university Christian Unions, but that isn’t true either.
What to do next
If you would like an informal chat with us, about sharing the gospel in your community – please send us an email info@solas-cpc.org, and we will get back in touch with you as soon as we can. We’re happy to share our years of experience in doing these kinds of events with you – and to help you chose an engaging topic, and send you a speaker.
Wherever we go, we find people outside the church, who are interested in Jesus. If we are willing to meet them where they are comfortable, and to take their questions seriously there are huge gospel opportunities. For many people, just such a meeting has been a crucial first step in them exploring Christianity, and putting their faith in Jesus and joining the church.
One of the greatest joys we have at Solas is when we get an email from a pastor which says something like, “I thought you’d like to know, that lady who we first met at the Solas café event in town, put her faith in Jesus recently and was baptised on Sunday”. That is pure joy – and what we do this kind of work for!
Further Resources
This article is a how-to guide to running a café style event.
Back to Back Confident Christianity conferences: Kent & Surrey!
Andy Bannister reports from two back-to-back days of Confident Christianity conferences in Kent and Surrey.
If I Become a Christian, Will My Life Get Better?
Will Christianity actually make a difference to my life? Will it make it better? In this Short Answers video, Steve Osmond shares from his own experience the impact that knowing Jesus Christ can have. And explains how it might not be what you think!
Share
Please share this video widely with friends or family and for more Short Answers videos, visit solas-cpc.org/shortanswers/, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
Support
Short Answers is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose a free book as a thank-you gift!
Lab Notes From the Faithful: Amos Tarfa
Steve: Amos, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me today. I’m excited about chatting to you because you have so much passion about what we’re speaking about today – it’s contagious. Tell me a bit more about yourself. Where are you based? What line of work are you in? I know you’re a man who’s busy, a lot on your plate, so tell us a bit about that.
Amos Tarfa: Well, my name is Amos Tarfa. I am from Nigeria originally, but I’ve been in the US for about 20 years. Married to my wife Stephanie, and we have seven children running around. We are blessed. We live in Texas, outside of Austin. I actually live an equidistance, as they say in mathematics, between Austin and San Antonio. So, about a halfway point between the two cities.
I’m a medical physicist as far as my day job, but I’m also a math and science curriculum writer and an education entrepreneur. So, I help people start schools. I help people revise their curriculum. And my vision is pretty clear. By God’s grace, I want to raise the next Isaac Newton. That’s part of my goal. He’s not my favourite scientist, let me note, but he’s probably one of the most unique scientists ever. But I want to raise top mathematicians and scientists who also know the history and philosophy of science. So that’s Amos Tarfa!
Steve: In a nutshell, anyway! What is, excuse my ignorance, a medical physicist? What does that look like?
Amos Tarfa: So, the crazy thing is that when I got into physics, medical physics, I didn’t know it was connected to someone who would end up being my favourite scientist – James Clerk Maxwell. Back in the 1800s, Maxwell showed that light was electromagnetic radiation. It has different aspects to it other than just visible light. There’s X-rays, gamma rays, and so on. A medical physicist is a physicist that specializes in the use of physics for human medicine applications. So, we basically are the ones behind understanding of x-rays and how they’re used for treating cancer, as well as for diagnostic radiology. We are concerned about how much radiation you give to get the appropriate image quality. We work with radiologists, we work with cardiologists, we work with urologists, we work with different professionals on how you can use x-rays safely or how we use sound waves for MRI and ultrasound. If you’ve ever been to an imaging facility or anything with diagnostic imaging, that is where medical physicists shine. We help make sure radiation is used properly when there’s ionizing radiation. And when it’s non-ionizing radiation, such as MRI, we also want to make sure it’s used properly. So that’s what medical physicists do. We are physicists, but we specialize in the medical applications of physics.
Steve: All right. I get you. I’m glad that you’re doing that. Cause if that was up to me, we’d all be in a lot of trouble – that’s way above my pay grade. What led you to that? What was the road that got you there?
Amos Tarfa: You know, by God’s grace, I was good in many subjects. But I think that my mind loves patterns and numbers more than it loves nomenclature. So even though I did okay in the biological sciences, I was probably more on the mathematical sciences side. I got my bachelor’s in chemistry, and I was thinking about being a paediatrician, however, when I graduated from my bachelor’s in chemistry, I realized that I wanted to teach.
So, I decided to teach high school for two years and one child’s dad was a medical physicist, and I was like “what is that?” So, I job-shadowed somebody for a day, and I ended up working with them for a little bit, and I began to realize this is pretty cool. It gives me the flexibility to work in my math field while working in medical departments. So, it allows me to have the best of both worlds.
Medical physicists, especially consultants like me, are rarely in the same situation twice in the same week. We’re always looking at different types of machines in different types of clinics. It allows for travel and a variety of different kinds of studies. And that’s why I like it. I got my master’s in medical physics and medical health physics, and then have done a year of my PhD in physical chemistry. So, I love studying physics, chemistry, mathematics, and where they come together. That is my sweet spot.
Steve: That is really, really interesting. I’ve never met anyone who’s in this field. So, this is all new to me. It’s some very specialized scientific work. So, you’ve got that going on. That’s your day job. But you’re also a person of faith. You’re a Bible-believing Christian – and that’s part of why I’m interviewing you in this series of articles! What does that look like for you day to day? What does your faith mean to you?
Amos Tarfa: Yeah, you know, I grew up in Nigeria. My dad was an elder in the church, and I had the opportunity to learn about the truth of Christianity. And I joined a Good News club when I was young, and I became a Christian at a young age. And I thank God for keeping me out of certain things that would have caused me heartache and trouble. Just because of that. So, I came to the U.S. with that backing in my faith side of things. But I had never been challenged on the science and faith side until I came to the U.S. And then I began to meet people who were agnostics and didn’t believe in God at all. And I’m like, I’ve never seen this. Everybody I grew up with believed something and was very firm about what they believed. And now I’m meeting people who tell me that, you know, what you believe might not be true.
And therefore, I actually took philosophy just because I thought it would be great to have a conversation with philosophy professors. So that was when, during that philosophy time, I pivoted and left the medical school track.
So, I didn’t end up starting in medical school because I realized that the mind was something I wanted to focus on. Around that time, I started listening to Dr. John Lennox, who’s a great mathematician, and also someone who is great in philosophy, and is also a Christian.
And so that has helped me a great deal. By God’s grace, I’ll call myself a disciple from afar of Dr. Lennox because that’s the kind of work I want to continue.
But as far as the faith side, that’s part of the faith side of things, I was wondering how I could lovingly share my faith with people that disagree with me? And that’s part of what I began to learn at that stage. But ultimately, I will be honest with you, the more I study physics, the more I feel that it points to God. Some things are just a mystery, some things – like quantum physics – you just have to be okay with the fact that there’s mystery to some of this stuff. And so I bring that up to say that physics actually makes me want to know God more, not less. Where else do you find mystery? Sometimes when you read the Bible, there are things you can’t fully grasp as far as the nature of God and so on. It’s the same in science: it reminds you that if reality is looking not as precise as you would like on certain things, maybe there are some things you just can’t fully know and you have to just believe and act upon what you can’t see. And that is part of how people like the great scientist James Clerk Maxwell operated.
They didn’t see everything to believe it. They believed in the unseen and look what it did to us. It allowed us to have communication like what we are having right now because Maxwell is the father of electrical engineering. So that just tells you a little bit of how the unseen can open your doors to new realms of understanding science and mathematics.
Steve: You’re definitely someone who’s thought about your faith. You’ve thought about the science, obviously, and then the integration of these. And, you’re someone who wants to take all of that and use it for the good of educating young people. As you say, we want to be raising up the next Newtons, the next Maxwells for the next generations.
So let me ask you a couple of questions around that idea of faith, science, and the integration of those. Are science and God or science and faith mutually exclusive domains?
Amos Tarfa: No, they are not!
Steve: Simple! Why not?
Amos Tarfa: Because science can give you an explanation for certain things, but it doesn’t give you the basis for why those things are the way they are in the first place. Science doesn’t give you the basis for why those things might even be predictable.
I’ll give you a quick example. On your computer keyboard – I wrote this in one of my books in 2009 – if you push ‘control A’, it highlights all. If you push ‘control S’, it saves. But why? Because a computer programmer programmed it. Without the computer programmer, you don’t have a basis for that explanation you’ve given, right? There is the agent and the mechanism. So, we can study the car, but we need to understand that Mr. Ford, or Mr. Benz was behind the car being what it is. That’s why Johannes Kepler and Galileo and Copernicus understood that they were only studying an aspect of reality. They did not explain how it came to be. And Isaac Newton talked about it in his Principia as well. So, if the giants of the scientific era and the scientific revolution have shown us that, why should we think otherwise? As a matter of fact, I’ll just say this quickly, Isaac Newton, back in 1687, when he published his book, he already had that basis. Imagine if he understood what we now understand about physics today. There is no way he’s going to look at it and say, oh, we need less of God now. Not at all. Instead, he’s going to say, this is amazing. That’s why I believe, again, that science and faith go together as far as science explains certain things, but it doesn’t give a reason for why those things even work in the first place.
Steve: Related to that then, what difference does faith make to actually doing science?
Amos Tarfa: I think that, as one of our friends, Lee Pretorius, puts it, we need to think about the universe being a closed system and an open system. When you remove God and faith and so on, you’re almost limiting how well your mind can make sense of the universe. Literally, you’re limiting yourself. I’m not saying that the person might not find certain things. They might, here and there. But imagine someone like Maxwell: how can you describe light the way he did? How can he describe atoms the way he did? If he wasn’t also open to the idea that there are certain things that can be described that are not seen.
You see, there’s something about faith for me as a Christian, that, as the Bible describes it in the book of Hebrews, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. I am open to the fact that there are certain things that I don’t see, right? But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. For the materialists, you are literally limiting yourself in and aspects of understanding reality. I also think that reality ultimately also involves philosophy and not just science itself. But scientists who don’t know philosophy are putting themselves in a problematic position. Because in mathematics, for example, we do things and describe things about reality that don’t even exist in some cases, but that also sharpens our minds.
There’s something about allowing our minds to really get to know reality beyond the physical world that is hard to explain if you’re a materialist. There is more to the physical world. So anyway, that’s part of it. So, I think as a medical physicist, I expect precision. I expect certain things to make sense and work because I believe God made the world. So, it makes sense to me. There is an author that wrote something called The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, Eugene Wigner. Why would you use the word ‘unreasonable effectiveness’? Except if you also don’t believe that the universe has one who designed it. I believe there’s one who designed it. So, I see it reasonable that the laws of physics even hold. And therefore, some of those laws are what allow you and I to enjoy some of the technologies we have today.
Steve: Thanks, I think that’s very helpful to help people think about the integration of faith and science. Let me ask about the education side of things a little. You mentioned you’re from Nigeria. That’s where you had your primary education before going to the States. But you’ve now observed the Western world for a good many years from the inside. What do you think has gone wrong with education in the Western world, broadly speaking?
Amos Tarfa: Yeah, I think that there are several layers to it, but one of them quickly is the value the family puts on education. I read somewhere yesterday that in some Asian communities, they will spend 40% of their income on educating their child. 50% of their income. That’s how much they value education. But I think with the West, I think of Deuteronomy chapter 8, when you’ve eaten and are full, don’t forget God. I think there’s parts of the West that got full and have forgotten God and have forgotten about studying His world for its own sake, not for any state standards, but just to know God and know the world that He has made. So, I think the West partly has that as a problem. And there’s a practical side, too. If you want to learn mathematics, you need to be disciplined and committed. And the problem is that we treat mathematics just as another subject. No, mathematics doesn’t care who you are or your bank account. You need to give it commitment.
And that is why China is leading in many aspects of mathematics. And I’m not saying I support some of the rigor we see in some parts of the world, but I’m just saying at least can we be serious and not take months off from doing mathematics, which tends to happen in the West in many schools. This just doesn’t happen in Nigeria. And so I would say Nigeria has a better case for rigor for its mathematics and expectations. And the parents are more committed. Parents, we need to put in the time and really support our children to be the best they can be in mathematics, because it is so important. Put in more of that time than we put into sports. We have to be disciplined with math and science and just learning, and valuing learning. That’s part of our challenge. So I hope that if we go back to the drawing board and look at the people that gave us the framework for mathematics and science and the rigor they put in, and give our children the tools to be able to attain to those heights, that’s where I think the West can begin to get back on track.
Steve: How can we get people the tools to do that well, because maybe that’s quite daunting to think about, and people don’t know where to begin? And, you know, from a Christian perspective, how can the church get on board and help in those areas, do you think?
Amos Tarfa: Well, I think that philosophy needs to be brought back into discussions. You have to teach the history of philosophy of science and theology, and that needs to be brought into schools to give an accurate picture of the past. And if a church has a church school, make sure your students understand that there is a connection there too, don’t be afraid of science and philosophy. Don’t separate them. The fragmentation is part of the problem.
Breaking subjects down, such as chemistry and physics, they used to be buddies and we broke them apart and you keep breaking things out. Imagine we try teaching calculus sometimes without physics. That makes no sense. Calculus was born next to physics. The same guy, Isaac Newton, we’ve broken him apart. We need to put things back together and allow for that. And especially with AI tools, by the way, they can do this pretty well. You should teach chemistry, physics, and math together. We need to start building curriculum differently. My goal is that we have to go back and train students to be like Isaac Newton in order for them to thrive in the AI revolution. So that’s part of what we need to do. teaching integrated subjects, interdisciplinary subjects, philosophy and the history of science, and go beyond any state standards and focus on just learning for learning’s sake. That is what we need to aspire to.
Steve: Yeah. I know you’re really enthusiastic about that and we will share the link to your website where people can come find you and see how you’re doing this.
I wish we had a lot more time here so that I could pick your brain on that more because I think it’s so crucial, especially the AI side of things. You know, I have two young daughters and I’m thinking about the future a lot, haha. So, you’re saying a lot that’s really resonating with me. But, before we run out of time, you’ve alluded to your favourite scientists. Who are they? And who’s your one favourite?
Amos Tarfa: Haha, yes. I think James Clerk Maxwell, and Michael Faraday is a close second, but I would say they’re my favourite scientists and my favourite mathematician is Leonard Euler. And then let me add one more name, William Wilberforce. He wasn’t a scientist, but those four names I told you are four people that I really cherish.
And I cherish their work because for William Wilberforce, it’s the fact that we can use education to liberate people to think more clearly, just like he liberated people from trying to end the slave trade. So that’s why Wilberforce made the list there.
But now back to my favourite scientists. It’s between Maxwell and Faraday. It’s a close one because of their humility and their work with electricity and magnetism. They helped us understand the world much better. James Clark Maxwell, who died at the age of 48, changed the world. Maxwell really changed the world. And I don’t think people will understand that enough, but they can go listen to an interview I did recently with Discovery Institute on Maxwell’s life .
And that’s definitely somebody I think people should study. And then lastly, as I said, their humility. These guys were exceptional at what they did. But when Michael Faraday died, or before he died, they wanted him to be buried at Westminster Abbey. I don’t know if you knew that. That’s the kind of scientist he ended up being, but he wanted to be left alone, buried iin his small hometown. But Michael Faraday’s humility is amazing. So, I want to raise the top mathematicians and scientists, but ultimately, I want them to walk in humility as well. That’s the key. Because it’s not enough to know. You have to then be kind and gentle in how you use your knowledge to help other people.
Steve: Brilliant. That humility is so important, especially in the sciences where it is so quickly forgotten – well, that’s been my experience in the scientific world many times, sadly. One last question: what encouragement would you give to a younger person who is thinking about what path to follow in terms of vocation and what to do with their life. Why would you encourage them to consider the sciences a career path? And also, as a side note, why do we need more good Christian scientists?
Amos Tarfa: Well, my encouragement to them is this. The world needs, more than ever before, people like Maxwell. And we stopped getting a lot of those people when our education system removed philosophy from science. When natural philosophy stopped being the case of what science was, it caused problems. We need more people to be trained in that way of thinking. And funny enough, that is the only type of student that the world needs in an age of ‘automatic intelligence’, because knowledge is everywhere.
What makes you stand out is being exceptional. So why don’t you just go be like those who came before us – they were exceptional! So, I would say let’s go learn from them so please read books by guys like Dr John Lennox, like ‘Has Science Buried God?’ and ‘Cosmic Chemistry’. Read those books to help you get a solid foundation, but in reality, if you want to talk about practical ROI, the top 20 jobs in the next frontier are all in the STEM fields. A lot of them, anyway. But if you’re going to go into those fields go in with philosophy as well. I mean, quantum computing is coming very soon. So, when all these things are growing and taking the stage, how cool would it be for Christians to be the ones that are coming out and also talking about how their faith helps them do the work they do? So that’s my encouragement.
Steve: That’s great. I think we definitely need to have another interview where I pick your brain on AI and some of the really cool doors that opens, but also some of the things to be cautious of.
But where can people go to see some of the stuff you’ve done, find some of the books you’ve written, get in touch and even support you?
Amos Tarfa: So, they can go to www.amosthemathguy.com, it’s a simple website. But my math curriculum is called Counting to Calculus, www.countingtocalculus.org, that’s where you can see that. It’s a global math curriculum that takes you from no knowledge of mathematics all the way to calculus five with a clear roadmap.
And we want to do that because remember, we want to raise the next Newton. So, we’ve given the whole world a math plan to take you from wherever you are to getting a math degree. Why does that matter? Because the whole society literally rests on mathematics right now. Everything, even AI, is a mathematical tool. That’s all math.
We want to give everyone those tools. And so, yes, you can find me there. We want to help as many schools as possible to really help their students love math and flourish in it.
And then the other site is www.livingsensibly.org, where I do some of my other Christian-focussed content.
Steve: Amos, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts about faith and science. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, and I look forward to when we chat again soon.
Amos Tarfa: Thank you.
Amos Tarfa is a Medical Physicist and Math & Science Curriculum Writer. He is married to Stephanie and they have been blessed with 7 children. He is originally from Nigeria but is now based in Texas in the US. His desire is to see every child flourish and therefore he writes and teaches on the topic of redeeming education. He has written several books and has a YouTube Channel called Living Sensibly with Amos Tarfa, and an online academy called LIFE Academy where he connects experts in different fields to students in Nigeria, Africa and around the world. Long term he wants to see schools go back to the drawing board to rethink what they are doing in education to make sure it makes sense in this moment in history. His website is LivingSensibly.org
Gavin Calver and Phil Knox – Good News People
It was great to talk to Gavin Calver and Phil Knox from the Evangelical Alliance about what is going on in the church and the country today, and their book, ‘Good News People’. There are some very encouraging stories in this interview and their enthusiasm for the gospel is infectious!
Sharing the Gospel at Upton Baptist
More dispatches from the front line – Andy went to Upton Baptist church near Chester to help then with an outreach event. Folks from the church brought their friends, and Andy spoke to them about the compelling claims of the Christian faith. In this video he also does his ‘Gandalf impression’. It’s worth hearing this report for that alone…
