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The Friendship Gap

by Editor

Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:29-32)

It was a wet autumn evening in Belfast as I sat in my car outside the home of my then girlfriend (now wife), waiting for her to return from spending the weekend with her parents in County Armagh. My phone ping’d as a text message came through: “Got delayed. I’ll be with you in 15mins,” it read. With nothing better to do, I decided to scroll through the contact list on my mobile. I’m one of those weird, obsessive individuals who is uncomfortable with digital clutter – the kind who struggle with anything but essential folders, symmetrically-arranged on my desktop, and who unashamedly remove themselves from Whatsapp groups the second they have served their purpose – so I thought the next quarter of an hour might offer me a welcome opportunity to refine my iPhone 4 of any contact fodder (i.e. “5-a-side Mark” who organised the weekly kickabout I stopped going to three years ago, or the U.K. number of a friend who had recently moved to Thailand). As I fastidiously scrolled through the list, an inconvenient truth struck me: Out of a contact directory of nearly two hundred names, all but a couple were Christian – and one of those was the New Century Chinese takeaway I frequent on Saturday evenings!

How had this happened? I was a staff member of a large church, I preached regularly in churches around the country, I knew Greek and Hebrew, and I considered myself to be someone who took evangelism seriously. After all, I had done evangelistic mission trips every summer for the past six years! I could stand behind a lectern and preach evangelistically to an audience for strangers, or even go onto the streets and “do evangelism” by giving out gospel literature, apprehending passers-by in spiritual conversation whether they wished to or not. Yet somehow my entire social network – the people I would go for coffee with, or shared a changing room with before and after a soccer game at the weekend – the people I had real relationship with had inconspicuously become monolithically Christian.

No matter what our knowledge, experience, gifting, or enthusiasm when it comes to sharing the Gospel may be, it is going to be almost impossible to do any kind of effective evangelism if, in reality, we simply don’t know or are not in significant relationships with people who do not share our worldview. The Lord, of course, can graciously use our sporadic missional efforts in things like open-air preaching or door-to-door literature distribution. Yet, if I am honest about my own experience, these types of momentary, “sacrificial” ventures where often more about appeasing my own evangelistic conscience than they were about a genuine love for lost people. Indeed, more often in the history of Christianity, the most effective strategy for Gospel witness has not been the charge of the Gospel light brigade in sporadic evangelistic “campaigns”, but the consistent and curious public witness of individual believers prepared to both display and discuss the Christian hope within them among friends, family members and colleagues whom they sought meaningful relationship with (cf. Matt 5:16; 1 Pt. 2:12; 3:15).

Of course, the antecedent to this type of evangelism is the expectation that each of us actually have meaningful relationships with non-Christians. Why not take a moment – either now or later today – to scroll through your mobile contacts, or make a list of your closest and most consistent relationships in order to appraise just how coherent our own lives are with this biblical expectation? This is not an exercise designed to guilt-trip, but simply a fresh, private opportunity to evaluate just what sort of relationships we really have with people who don’t know Jesus. If your honest assessment is anything like mine was that night in my car, you may be experiencing what we at Solas are calling the “Friendship Gap” in evangelism. Simply put, our evangelism is stalling because we aren’t invested enough in healthy relationships with those outside the Christian community.

Undoubtedly, there are many reasons motivating why we might be experiencing Friendship Gap, and we must personally consider what the influences might be for our own lives. Perhaps two of the most universal determinants, however, involve what we, first, might identify as a specious theology of Christian distinction and, second, the practical problem of a Christian-saturated social infrastructure which may or may not be a product of this fallacious theology. Let’s consider the theological challenge first.

The New Testament is very clear about the anti-Christian spirit or mindset at work within our fallen world (cf. 1 John 2:16; 5:19), as well as the importance of Christian believers remaining distinct in their thinking and morals from this spirit, both for their own flourishing and as a faithful witness to the world of the beauty and truth of God’s better story. The Old Testament account of the nation of Israel is a cautionary tale to the power of the world over God’s people. Israel was chosen to play the unique role in history as God’s instrument of “light to the Gentiles” (Isaiah 49:6), illuminating the pagan nations they lived among to the truth and superiority of Yahweh via their ethics and practices. Yet, all too often, the tide of influence flowed in the opposite direction and the people of Israel, to their detriment, found themselves adopting the values and worldview of these nations. As sobering a warning as Israel is to the power of worldly influence, we should not conclude – as some Christians have mistakenly supposed – that there is, in reality, only danger, and nothing of heavenly value in healthy mutual relationship with non-Christians, and that the only surefire way to ensure the maintenance of our faith is to, in effect, socially distance ourselves from any meaningful non-Christian contexts. This erroneous theology of godly distinction was precisely the prism through which the Pharisees and theologians of Jesus’s day interpreted his investing time and interest in “tax collectors and sinners”. For them, godliness was about separation from such people. Consequently, they simply could not reconcile their self-aggrandising notions of holiness with Jesus’s genuine love for non-believers and concluded that the holiest human the world has ever known, God incarnate no less, must himself be a sinful fraud. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Far from Jesus’s active engagement with unbelievers being an evidence of spiritual compromise, it was, in fact, a tangible reflection of God’s incalculable love for those He longed to make His children. Contrary to the perceived need to guard oneself from being contaminated by the darkness a rebellious world, Jesus knew that the Light that he, and his followers after him, carried into that world and put on display, was a light that no darkness could overcome (John 1:5) – a light that, as the Gospel narratives bear witness, bore an unyielding power to positively contaminate any person’s heart with the very life and love of Almighty God. It is on this very basis, equipped with the same divine power, that Christ commands his followers to hold up that same light in today’s world through purposeful and consistent friendly engagement with unbelievers.

A second major contributing factor to the Friendship Gap in evangelism is the practical challenge of, often unconsciously, allowing our social lives and relationships to orbit almost exclusively within a Christian solar system. By this, I have in mind things like church-based exercise groups (5-a-side, badminton etc.), Christian book or movie clubs, or the proclivity to only invite believing friends round for dinner or coffee. Indeed, in our largest university in Belfast, we have not simply Christian, but denominationally-specific student halls of residence, each with their own active social, devotional and recreational activities, meaning that a Christian undergraduate can spend their entire degree bubbled together with their believing peers, running the risk of being practically inoculated from any need to spend meaningful time with coursemates who do not share their worldview.

Admittedly, these challenges are not always the product of the aforementioned fallacious theology of avoiding worldly influences (though for some Christian parents of students certainly they are!) Often, the Friendship Gap occurs unintentionally, simply as a result of our natural human propensity to prefer the comfort of socialising with people who share our values and thinking, or as an upshot of being so busy with “Christian” activities that we have no time or space for anything or anyone else (a particular problem for those in so-called “full time Christian ministry”!) Yet this is a far cry from the incarnational foundation of the Gospel: the story of the God who so loved the world that he actively laid down his rights and privileges and, at incalculable cost to himself, stepped meaningfully into the lives of those who did not believe, and would ultimately reject him. Jesus is all the precedent we will ever need to bridge the Friendship Gap!

So if, in all honesty, our personal evangelism is haemorrhaging momentum due to the basic problem of the Friendship Gap, what can be done about it? Let me conclude by offering some suggestions that might help in bridging this particular gap.

First, pray for tangible opportunities to build strong relationship with people who do not share your faith. The Lord delights to answer these kinds of prayers and it is amazing how many “coincidences” happen the more we pray. Ask God to bring people to your mind that you could (re)connect with, or to make you attentive to people in work or other contexts who might deeply value someone taking a genuine interest in them. Often in these areas we simply are hindered by a lack of imagination about who, or what, or where we could cultivate the Christian value of being a great friend, so invite God’s help in this.

Second, try to prioritise taking opportunities to build healthy relationships with non-believers. Prayer will certainly sensitise our hearts and minds to the importance of opportunities. But, more often than not, the Lord will not magically do all the work for us. He wants us to take the responsibility and risk of trying things that will connect us with others. This could mean making a phone call or sending a Facebook message to someone you’ve lost contact with. It might involve inviting a work colleague for a drink or to your home for dinner. It may even mean deliberately choosing not to join the church society for recreation, social activity, or community service and, instead, enjoy these opportunities within contexts where you will be mixing with non-Christians. If that seems intimidating, why not ask a Christian friend to join you and do it together? Simply remember that there are lots of fascinating people out there who have many of the same interests and experiences that you do. What they don’t have is Jesus. And who is to say that God may not have given you the interest and skillsets that you have precisely because it will connect you with similar people whom their heavenly Father is calling home? Try something.

Third, appreciate that you are going to need to be sacrificial and generous with your time, patience and interest with people. I once had someone I worked with in a charity tell me how delighted they were that I had joined as a volunteer because I was a Christian, and the last partner they had occasionally used foul/blasphemous language and only ever talked about Gaelic football and the parties that they attended at the weekends. If we’re really going to bridge the Friendship Gap, we are going to have transcend our personal interests, political persuasions or worldview and value others as image-bearers of God, not on the basis of what we get out of the relationship. This means that we invest in people not as some evangelistic project (which they will sense almost immediately!) but on the basis of their inestimable value as an individual willed into existence by God; that even if their interests or how they might think or choose to live differs significantly from our own, we do not relate to them on this basis but, rather, enter into what they care about because we value them. This is not always easy to do, but there is every precedent for it in how God relates to us. So ask for the Lord’s help and, for the Lord’s sake, be the best possible friend you can be.

Finally, don’t give up! Remember that so much of the dynamics good friendship evangelism depend upon the qualities and art of any good friendship. Invest consistently and sacrificially in truly getting to know the other person; ask good questions that express genuine interest and move the relationship beyond the superficial; be trustworthy with information; forgive generously; and let your light shine before them, always being ready when the opportunity arises to give reasons for the hope within you.

C.S. Lewis in his autobiography Surprised by Joy (2015:122) wrote: “Many thousands of people have had the experience of finding the first friend, and it is none less a wonder; as great a wonder… as first love, or even greater.” What a privilege to be that friend in the life of another person. And how that wonder must be magnified infinitesimally when, in the dynamics of blossoming friendship, we have the divine privilege of introducing that person to the Friend who sticks closer than any brother.

 

At CBMC-Belfast

by Editor

CBMC – Belfast is a network of Christians who work in the business sector, and in the marketplace in and around Belfast. The event was organised by Andrew Wallace who is one of the leaders of CBMC-Belfast.

The invitation was for Solas to come and present some advice and ideas for doing helpful evangelism while lockdown restrictions prevent us from doing our normal work. Around 25 members of CBMC Belfast joined Andy Bannister and Gareth Black on the webinar. Between them they broke the night into three parts.

Gareth Black kicked proceeding off with a session looking at some of the obstacles we face in evangelism. He talked about some of the unhelpful ways Christians can view people who do not share our faith; as well as the fear some Christians have that they might lose or weaken their faith if they engage too much with the world. There is a lurking fear that the world has more power to contaminate Christians, than the Christian-gospel does to win people in the world. So Gareth addressed some of those fears. Then he looked at some of the practical difficulties some Christians face such as, not knowing what to say, or how to conduct a meaningful gospel conversation.
Andy Bannister took the next two sessions. He looked at how to ask good questions to further gospel-conversations which are helpful. Questions such as “why do you think that?” and “have you ever wondered…?” can be incredibly useful in opening up and developing positive conversations with friends who not yet believe in Jesus and his gospel.

Andy then looked at eight ways people are doing evangelism over the Christmas period, when this webinar took place. He talked about everything from ‘carols-by-carlight’ to evangelistic Christmas-cards, to examples of people running Christianity Explored or Alpha in their workplaces.
Then there was a good Q&A sessions with some insightful and probing questions – and it made a good start to a series of evangelism and evangelism-training events Solas has planned with CBMC Belfast.

Andrew Wallis said,

“CBMC Belfast is so thankful for Andy and Gareth delivering an online event for us on ‘Sharing Your Faith During Lockdown’. We are an organisation that is passionate about equipping marketplace leaders in sharing their faith in their business or workplace context and the guys from Solas were great in making the session relevant to our group. The mixture of practical examples from Gareth and the theological grounding from Andy was perfect for our group and we pray that the group can take the lessons and put them into practice in the coming days and weeks.”

For more about CBMC-Belfast, click here.

If God is Good, Why is There Natural Evil?

by Solas

If God is all powerful and all good, why do we live in a world where we see ‘natural evil’—everything from earthquakes, to floods, to pandemics? Andy Bannister tackles this common question — and shows how (unlike atheism) the Christian worldview offers powerful resources both for naming and identifying evil, as well as giving us a concrete hope that evil is not a broken world’s last laugh.

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The Fear Gap (1)

by Editor

There are many things that I’m good at, but sport isn’t one of them.  I used to hate PE lessons at school, especially when playing games.  You see, I wasn’t the only one in the class aware of my lack of sporting proficiency.  So, inevitably, I would be among the last picked by the reluctant team captains.  Even though I had long before made peace with my sporting failures – still it’s hurtful to not be wanted!

As human beings we have deep needs to be liked and appreciated.  Most of us fear being rejected or judged by others in life.   That’s also true in evangelism.  Just as old theologian Augustine in his pre-conversion hedonistic days prayed “Lord make me continent [chaste/pure], but not yet” –sometimes (perhaps before the visit to the hairdresser or jumping in the taxi or going out for the night with your friends) our secret prayer might be: “Lord, open doors for the gospel, but not tonight”.  That evangelistic reluctance very often stems from fear.

There are two fears I want to address in this article: The Fear of Being Rejected and The Fear of Being Unequipped.  We’ll answer them from the little New Testament letter of 1 Peter, in which we find the famous apologetics / evangelistic text: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15).

(1) The Fear of Being Rejected

Many of us know what it is like to struggle with nagging questions of self-doubt like: what do other people think about me?  We wonder if I speak out as a Christian, how would that change peoples’ perceptions of me?  Our social media profiles are carefully curated to present ourselves in the most favourable light and our best angles.  But we’re not the first to worry about what others think of us…

Peter begins his letter to “the elect exiles” – to these Christians scattered throughout the Roman world, who are tempted to feel ashamed about the gospel.  They are so small in the eyes of the world, and their churches which feel so insignificant compared to the power of the Roman Empire – by reminding them of who they really are.  Yes you are “exiles” and strangers in this world… but you are “elect” and embraced by the Living God: “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood”.

Peter tells us that from before the foundation of the world, we have been “foreknown”.  The background of this word in the Bible is not simply an intellectual knowing in abstract, but an intimate knowing in relationship.  God the Father has freely and gladly set His love upon us – wishing to draw us close to Him and lavish upon us His goodness and love.

This love of God the Father has been brought into effect in our lives by the “sanctification of the Spirit”.  The goal is “for obedience to Jesus…for sprinkling with His blood”.  There were three times in the OT that blood was sprinkled: for making a covenant, for cleansing a leper and commissioning a priest.  And through faith in Jesus, we enter into a covenant relationship with God, we receive cleansing for our sin, guilt and shame, and we receive a commission as His ambassadors in this world.

The gospel tells us of the loving Father who has given all He has to draw us back into His arms of love: His Son to die for us and His Spirit to live in us.  These realities are the things that truly define us.  Our culture tells us to base our identity on our performance and popularity, on what we do and what people think of us.  However, the gospel sets us free by telling us that God – the ultimate authority and the final opinion maker – accepts us on the basis of what Jesus has done and not all that we have failed to do!

All of that means that when you are in a gospel conversation – you need to remember that your performance cannot change what God thinks of you or how He feels about you.  You live for an audience of one – there is no one whose opinion could count more – and His mind is already made up about His children!  You have nothing to prove to Him.  So you can speak from a place of safety and security in the knowledge of His eternal and unchanging love.

If you’ll forgive the extension of the sporting analogy: you’re already on God’s team – you’re already on the pitch – so go play under His watchful smile.

(2) The Fear of Being Unequipped

If you’ve never been forced to do door to door witnessing, then count your blessings!  I’m not knocking (no pun intended) that form of evangelism – instead I greatly admire some of my friends who do it courageously and effectively.  It’s just that I don’t rate myself at being very good at it – after all, I start with the handicap of being an introvert at the best of times!

However, old theologian John Calvin famously began the Institutes by saying that godliness consists in two things: the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self.  We’ve already thought about how growing in our knowledge of God and His approval can help us overcome our fears of rejection.  Now I want to consider how growing in our knowledge of our self can help when we think of evangelism as a team sport.  Perhaps there are omni-competent people who can perform well in any role on a team – but I’m not one of them.  I play well to my strengths and need team mates to compensate for my weaknesses.  That’s why I’ve found it liberating in recent years to think of evangelism as a team sport and my church friends and family as my team members.  I have my own “evangelism / mission style” but it is complemented and enhanced by the styles of others around me.

We see that in the New Testament too.  In 1 Peter 4:9-11 we read: “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.”

It’s a common mistake to imagine the apostle Paul as a lone-ranger super-evangelist.  Rather always Paul worked in teams and mission bands – and was at his lowest when alone.  The book “Becoming a Contagious Christian” pulls out six profiles of different evangelism styles in the NT:

  • Confrontational: Peter (Acts 2) – perhaps you are bold and fearless about proclaiming Christ and calling people to make a response
  • Intellectual: Paul (Acts 17) – perhaps you enjoy a discussion or debate around the hard questions
  • Testimonial: Blind Man (John 9) – perhaps you find it easy to talk about your own experience of God working in your life and bringing you to faith in Christ
  • Invitational: Woman at the Well (John 4) – perhaps you find it easy to invite people along to things where they can see and hear more about Jesus
  • Inter-personal: Matthew (Luke 5) – perhaps you make friends easily and want to share the good news of Jesus with those you are close to
  • Practical: Dorcas (Acts 9) – perhaps you have a passion for serving those in need and through showing your love it makes it easy to talk about Christ whose love you are sharing

If you’re not sure, you can try an “Evangelism Styles Questionnaire” online to discern your primary evangelism style(s).

Therefore, you don’t have to be afraid that there is one size fits all evangelism – that God enjoys squeezing square pegs into round pegs – or making everyone go door to door.  Instead, you need to find the evangelism style that fits you, so you then can go and fit into God’s great mission in this world.

PEP Talk Podcast With Tony Watkins

by Solas

In today’s episode we think about the relationship between the Gospel and our culture.  Is there merit in finding touchpoints between the two, or should we always seek to share the “pure”  or “transcendent” Gospel?  Our guest Tony Watkins finds that arts and media can provide helpful inroads for the Gospel into individual lives, as we consider the values, needs, and aspirations found in our shared culture.

With Tony Watkins – PEP Talk

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Our Guest

Tony Watkins helps Christian leaders relate media and the Bible through his writing and teaching, and is studying for a PhD exploring connections between the media and the biblical prophets. He is the Media Engagement Network Co-ordinator for the Lausanne Movement.

About PEP Talk

The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, Andy Bannister (Solas) and Kristi Mair (Oak Hill College) 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.

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Stranmillis University College CU Events Week

by Editor

Solas’s Gareth Black reports from a noisy Stranmillis University College in Belfast, at the end of an exciting events week there.

Lara Buchanan joined Gareth and the Stranmillis CU online. As Covid-19 restrictions were still in place at the time, these events were split between being ‘in-person’ and ‘on-line’. The screen shot shows Lara alongside the Q&A board.

On the CU Ireland website, Katie Richie wrote:

“In the midst of a pandemic when things seem impossible, God is still moving, and he still wants to use us. People are searching, seeking answers to how we can hold onto hope in a world of suffering. We’re so thankful that we were able to point to the hope that we have in Jesus and encourage people to ask further questions, exploring what this means for them. At each of our events we had the opportunity to ask questions anonymously via Slido following the talk. This was hugely encouraging to see the many deep, personal questions people are struggling with and we were so encouraged by both Gareth and Lara’s warmth and wisdom in responding to them.”

Andy with Glen Scrivener; “Atheism, Islam and the Prodigal God”

by Editor

Speak Life are a great Christian ministry based down in England, and led by Glen Scrivener. They are engaged in all sorts of work, including video, podcasts, written articles, as well as working with churches, CU’s etc. Their website is worth looking at to see the range of things they do. Our fields of ministry obviously overlap, so we really enjoy it when we get to work with them. The most recent opportunity for this was when Andy Bannister from Solas, appeared on their Reset programme which you can watch below.

The ReSet series is itself a fascinating series of programmes. The whole series can be seen on YouTube here:

The Rusty Gap

by Editor

Always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope within you.
1 Peter 3:15

 Some years ago, my wife and I enjoyed an Easter vacation in New York city. On one particular evening, following an Off-Broadway musical and a stroll along 8th Avenue to drink in the Manhattan ambience, I turned on the TV in our hotel room to be met with an infomercial for Beachbody’s latest DVD workout programme, Insanity. For the next twenty-five minutes, I was sold an exercise regime claiming to be unlike anything else on the market, and promising pro-athlete conditioning and washboard abs in just sixty days. So upon return to Ireland, I paid my dues to the gods of fitness and pushed play on my first Insanity workout DVD. Let’s just say the workout programme was appropriately name: Insanity is a max-interval, forty-five minute cardio blitzkrieg. I managed about sixteen minutes before having to go outside and throw-up! Yet, slowly but surely, as I kept daily pushing play on my DVD player and hitting the workouts, my body began to respond. The workouts became more manageable, even enjoyable. My body became leaner, my endurance longer, and my muscles stronger. And even if I wasn’t quite ready to join the cast of Baywatch just yet, eventually I made it to day sixty: Insanity complete.

Having reached my goal, I stopped training or watching my diet as closely. Ten months later, I decided to return to Insanity and attack the regime all over again. This time, it only took fourteen minutes for me to revisit my lunch! Why? Because physical fitness is a dynamic reality; our fitness levels never stay static but progress or regress according to how they are stimulated. I am one of those irrational people who, despite my wife’s protests, convinces myself that I can more or less pick up at the level of exercise I left off at following a long hiatus. The hard reality is that, in trying to do so, I either end up discouraging myself to the point of losing motivation, or often injure myself and spend the next two months in physiotherapy recovering before I can even contemplate attempting any level of exercise again. The fact is, our bodies respond to being worked in certain ways. Often, they are capable of far more than we expected when we first began exercising. Yet the moment we stop using our bodies in this way, our fitness doesn’t remain static at the level we left it. It recedes to a basic level until we do things again to build it back up.

The same is often true of evangelism.

Interestingly, when the Apostle Peter encourages Christians to “…always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope within you” (1 Peter 3:15), the word he uses for “ready” (hetoimoi) is a word that, at its root, carries the idea of physical fitness. In other words, preparedness for effective evangelism is a lot like exercising. Becoming fit takes hard work, dedication, and following good instruction from inspirational people who know more about it than you currently do. And, much like physical fitness, maintaining our proficiency in public witness requires a continual exercising of our evangelistic muscles because, the moment we stop, we get rusty – our skillset begins to atrophy. That is why readiness in Christian witness is not like readiness for a marathon or exam in the sense that we know when the test is coming, and once we have done it we don’t need to keep training any longer. Fitness for evangelism is much more like First Aid training: we have to remain continually ready because we often have to respond effectively to an opportunity that arrives without any prior warning whatsoever. The only sure way, therefore, to guarantee our fitness for these unexpected moments, is to live in a continual state of evangelistic fitness: always be ready.

No doubt many of us can recount seasons of regular involvement in sharing our faith with others, perhaps in those early days as a new Christian, or on summer mission teams with our peers during those four-month holidays that university students have to endure. Like most people, we probably found those initial attempts at sharing the gospel both intimidating and stretching, but the more we kept pushing ‘play’ on those witnessing opportunities, the more we saw the Lord gradually increase our evangelism strength and fitness; it became something we actually enjoyed, rather than simply endured. Yet somehow – often unintentionally – the demands of work, family, care-giving, romance, even church activities took over and evangelism became neglected, like an old pair or running shoes or dumbbells now collecting dust in the garage. Eventually, however, someone or something can come along that motivates us to get off the proverbial couch and back into intentionally shining the light of the glorious gospel into a dark and broken world. But, if we’re honest, committing to regularly share our faith again with others might feel like having to run the London marathon when the only thing you have run in the last fifteen years is a warm bath. Our evangelism is rusty; our proficiency at meaningfully sharing our faith is badly out of shape.

So if we feel a little rusty or all out of shape for evangelism, what can we do? The simple answer is that we have two options: First, we can do nothing and come up with all kinds of creative reasons why we cannot get evangelistically active once again. Or, second, we can commit ourselves afresh to obeying the bible’s command that every Christian be respectfully and persuasively communicating the hope of the gospel among those they know and love. If you find yourself vying for option 2 (and I suggest that you do!), let me offer a few pieces of practical advice that I personally have found helpful in removing the evangelistic rust and getting my public witness moving again.

First, seek out effective means of motivation. One of the very first things that I will often do when I want to get back into a workout regime is to watch inspirational videos on Youtube or Instagram that document people’s fitness transformations. It helps me to see what is possible with a little dedication and stimulates confidence that I too could achieve similar feats of progress. The same is true of Christian witness. Often it’s in encountering the remarkable ways that God has used other people just like us that we gain the confidence that the Lord can and will help us, if only we will give evangelism a proper go once again. So, why not try watching some videos online or reading an inspirational biography of a Christian missionary or unlikely convert (for example, Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love by Thomas A. Tarrants, A War of Loves by David Bennett, or David Wilkerson’s classic The Cross and the Switchblade)? You could also explore some of the Solas PEP Talk podcast episodes, or our new series on faith at work, to discover how other people are navigating their Christian witness. If you can, it might also be beneficial to dig out some old photos or footage from mission trips or evangelistic initiatives that you’ve been involved with in the past. Once you get over the embarrassment of your old haircut (or the nostalgia that you once had hair!), perhaps, like the altars Abraham built, you’ll find  doing so to be a stimulating reminder of the joy, grace and help you experienced from God in the past when you stepped out in witness for Christ. Why should you expect any less from the Lord if you step out once again?

Second, begin praying regularly for opportunities to share your faith, as well as for people you know who are not yet Christians. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together described prayer as an “… unbroken, constant learning, accepting and impressing upon [our] mind of God’s will in Jesus Christ.” In other words, prayer is the context in which God shapes our minds and wills to reflect His own love for lost people. Our passion for people to meet Jesus will never be greater than when it’s learning to echo the love of the One who wept over Jerusalem, and prayer is where we capture this quality. In doing so, our appetite for evangelism will move beyond an unhealthy dependency on how convenient we find it at any given moment, or how capable we may or may not feel ourselves to be at it. Instead, we will keep going, even in those moments when it’s difficult and discouraging, because God has transformed our hearts to share his love for people and because we are thoroughly convinced that “there is no other name under heaven given among mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Make a list of five or six people that you would like to have a conversation with about your faith and ask the Lord to give you the courage to have a meaningful conversation with them about Jesus.

Third, be realistic about your evangelism fitness levels and don’t try to do too much too soon. One of the potential hazards in finding inspirational evangelistic figures is that we often want to be able to do the kinds of things that they did, without realising that we are viewing or reading the product of potentially decades of experience and learning in effective Christian witness. So, before you run out and sign yourself up for the Grill-A-Christian night at the local Student’s Union or Atheist society, take a lesson from my unrealistic ventures in getting back into fitness by attempting levels of exercise that I was nowhere near ready for at that stage. You might just save yourself (and others!) embarrassment or, worse, spiritual injury if you do. If, in reality, you are only getting back into evangelism, start with manageable opportunities that are likely to keep you engaged and encouraged. This might be signing up to help facilitate an Alpha or Christianity Explored group alongside a more experienced Christian. It might be strategically sharing good evangelistic content, such as Solas’s Short/Answer videos, on your social media platforms. It could be organising events in your workplace or local community where you invite speakers to come along and discuss ideas on big questions about life, truth and meaning. It may even be taking the time to intentionally work out, write down and memorise a strong, three-minute answer to the question, “Why are you a Christian?” and then find ways to naturally weave it into conversation with others at appropriate times.

Finally, don’t do it alone. I am far more likely not to give up on a new exercise regime if I am doing it with others who can keep me motivated and accountable. It’s the same with Christian witness. Evangelism can be a long and discouraging experience at times, and we all need those Samwise Gamgee figures who can support us, reassure us, and rightly recalibrate our perspective at crucial moments. Try to find a collective of people – ideally from your own church or community (but, if not, then online) – who are passionate for evangelism and with whom you can pray, share resources, and talk with about inevitable disappointments and successes. We at Solas delight in connecting and resourcing people in the context of evangelism. So if we can assist you or your church in any way, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Returning to evangelism after an all-too-long season on the couch can be even more intimidating than getting back into physical fitness, even ones as intense as Insanity. It is going to time, hard work, experience and the support of others to help us rebuild our confidence and rediscover those skills of knowledge, perception and conversation that will enable us to become fit evangelists. Remember, however, that our Great Instructor, the Lord Jesus Christ, understands our fears and weaknesses, and knows how to develop us in His own time and in ways suitable to our personality, if we are truly serious about the process. He is not going to throw us into the evangelism equivalent of a 10k within our first week. Instead, as we keep showing up and putting ourself in evangelistic contexts, He will strategically work with us – guiding us, stretching us and encouraging us every step of the way until, eventually, we realise the incredible progress that we have made. Why not, even today, commit again to the kind of fitness that will bring greater and more lasting rewards than even physical exercise (cf. 1 Timothy 4:8)? The kind of fitness that won’t simply benefit your life, but truly has the power to play a crucial role in forever transforming the life of another human being.

There is certainly nothing insane about that kind of workout.

Students at St Pete’s

by Editor

Back in the depths of winter, Andy Bannister was invited to speak at the student group at St Peter’s Free Church of Scotland in Dundee. St Pete’s is a church with a long association with Solas (!) so it was great to be there and meet their student group which meets on a Sunday night. When Andy visited them, there were about 45 students there. After the long-months of Covid-restrictions, meeting people in-person is always a great joy! One of the students, Jonathan McClung wrote this report of the evening for us.

Andy Bannister came to St Peter’s and talked about sharing Hope during the Coronavirus crisis- He used 1 Peter 1:3-5 to show the unique wonder of the Christian hope. That our hope is grounded in the resurrection and God’s promise of Christ’s return where He shall create a new heaven and earth.

Following this he gave a number of top tips for evangelism with a focus on sharing our Hope in Christ with others.

For many of us the highlights of the evening were his top four tips regarding evangelism today under the restrictions we have, which were particularly helpful. He encouraged us to get to know our neighbours and take time with those we come across and that was very helpful.

The worst joke Andy told was that it was fortunate people were wearing masks because he couldn’t tell whether they were laughing or not!

We really hope to be able to put what he said into practice!

if you’re looking for a student group in Dundee, click here.

PEP Talk Podcast With Susie Ford

by Solas

When we hear from those with degrees in theology and positions in ministry, it can be tempting to feel inadequate or guilty about our own efforts in evangelism. So how can we make efforts at sharing the gospel without falling into a performance-driven mindset?

With Susie Ford – PEP Talk

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Our Guest

Susie Ford works in ministry and studies theology part time with Highland Theological College. She is a member of the Passion for Evangelism community which mentors and encourages women in public proclamation of the gospel, and loves discussing faith issues with those exploring Christianity. In her free time Susie can always be found with people, whether drinking coffee, baking or walking.

About PEP Talk

The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, Andy Bannister (Solas) and Kristi Mair (Oak Hill College) 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.

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The Knowledge Gap (Part One)

by Editor

I remember around the time of the Iraq War that BBC Radio 4 ran a feature on the US Secretary of Defense entitled “The Donald Rumsfeld Sound Bite Of The Week”.  One week he made this statement that has lived on in infamy: “There are known knowns – there are things we know, we know.  There are known unknowns – there are things we know, we don’t know.  And there are unknown unknowns – the things we don’t know, we don’t know”.  Although it’s clunky, it actually makes a lot of sense in life – and in evangelism too!

In evangelism there are things we know that we know.  We know the essential truths of the gospel: “I am a great sinner but Jesus is a great Saviour”.  We know who Jesus is, why He came and how to follow Him.  We know and can testify to our experiences of the comforting and transforming power of Christ in our lives.  In many ways that’s all we need to know to be faithful ambassadors for Jesus, who show and tell the world that Jesus is good news.   These are the known knowns.

In evangelism there are things we don’t know that we don’t know.  You never quite know at the start of a conversation where it’s going to go – it’s a bit like the opening title sequence of the TV programme Stingray: “Anything can happen in the next half hour!”  You don’t know how God has been silently and secretly at work preparing the heart and mind of the other person through the circumstances of life to be open to consider the gospel.  You also may not know if there are painful experiences lurking in their past which have made them hostile and bitter against the things of God.  These are the unknown unknowns – and all we can do about them is pray for God’s help and be sensitive to the prompts of His Spirit.

Also in evangelism there are things we know that we don’t know.  These are the known unknowns.  There are questions that we are scared of, there are topics we hope that no one will ask us about, there are doubts that we’ve never bottomed out for ourselves so we can’t help someone else make sense of them either.  I know many people who are reluctant to get into conversations about their faith because they are afraid of being asked a question that they don’t know how to answer – they are afraid of letting down the Lord or looking foolish in front of others.  However, the good news is that there is something we can do about the known unknowns, so that they don’t hold us back from sharing what we do already know.

So how do you turn a “known unknown” into a “known known”?

Well it begins with celebrating the fact that there are many things that you don’t know.  That qualifies you to belong to a very special category of people: learners!  If there’s one thing this world needs more of it’s learners – after all, none of us like a know-it-all, do we?  In fact, the biblical word disciple literally means “learner” – by definition Christians are called to be learners of Christ.

You can graduate from school, college or university but you should never graduate from learning.  The old adage “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is a lie – provided that the dog wants to learn then there’s no end of the things it can learn across its lifetime.  Just as you can develop and strengthen your muscles by routinely doing some basic exercises, so through building in time for learning you can develop your mental muscles and skills.  It could be as simple as redeeming the time on your commute by listening to a good apologetics podcast or downloading an eBook onto your phone that you can read in the 5 minutes waiting in the car for everyone else to be ready to leave the house.

Committing to be a life-long learner also gives you life-long permission to say: “I don’t know”.  Admitting you don’t know something doesn’t shut down the conversation, in fact it probably opens up more opportunities to carry on the conversation later.  So practice saying (without any sense of guilt or shame): “That’s a great question.  I don’t know the answer – but let me go away, find out and come back to you” (and here at Solas we exist to help you find answers and resources to continue those sorts of conversations).

After you’ve embraced your identity as a learner, then you need to decide what gaps in your knowledge you’re going to tackle.  It might seem daunting at first – where do you start?  There seem to be so many possible topics that might come up, which can feel suffocating and debilitating.  However, here are a few ways to reflect on where to start:

  • What doubts do I struggle with in my own heart and mind?
  • What questions have people raised with me in the past that I wasn’t sure about?
  • What are the objections that come up in our sceptical society today?

Only you can answer the first two prompts, but let’s think together about the last one.  In the early years of university ministry I spent a lot of time studying the five “defeater beliefs”.  These are the things that people commonly use to complete this sentence: “I can’t take seriously Christianity because of…”:

  • Sex (eg Why is God so restrictive of our sexual freedom?)
  • Supernatural (eg How can you believe a dead man rose again?)
  • Science (eg Hasn’t science disproved the God hypothesis?)
  • Scripture (eg Isn’t the Bible unreliable or irrelevant?)
  • Suffering: (eg How could a good God allow evil things to happen?)

You can find helpful answers to these and many other common questions in “What Kind of God?” by Michael Ots, or “The Reason For God” by Tim Keller, or “Rebecca McLaughlin’s recent book “Confronting Christianity”.  If blogs (rather than books) or listening (rather than reading) are your thing, then check out the resources freely available on www.bethinking.org or our very own Andy Bannister’s “Short Answers” series of videos on the Solas website.

By investing time to study through these resources you will fill your knowledge gaps.  You will build up a store of answers, arguments, evidence you can draw upon in conversation – or if you aren’t confident thinking on your feet or struggle to remember things, then you can at least say: “That’s a great question.  Actually I have read a great book… I have heard a great talk on that – can I share it with you and then we can chat about it afterwards?”

However, please don’t forget that God is God and you are not.  He knows all things, and you do not.  He is the educator and you are the learner.  He is the one who alone can open blind eyes, deaf ears and change peoples’ hearts by His Spirit.  Since our job is to point to Jesus, you don’t need to have read everything or thought about every possible question to be able to share what you do know!

P.S. If you want to take a deeper dive into studying any of the specific “defeater beliefs” mentioned above then I would suggest starting with…

Sex:
“Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With?” by Sam Alberry
“A Better Story: God, Sex and Human Flourishing” by Glynn Harrison

Supernatural:
“The Case For Christ” by Lee Strobel
“Is Jesus History?” by John Dickson

Science:
“Can Science Explain Everything” by John Lennox
“God’s Undertaker” by John Lennox

Scripture:
“Can We Trust the Gospels” by Peter Williams
“Why Trust the Bible?” By Amy Orr Ewing

Suffering:
“Walking with God through Pain and Suffering” by Tim Keller
“Where is God In a Coronavirus World?” by John Lennox

 

Andy Bannister: Evangelism at St Andrews University

by Editor

In December the St Andrews University Christian Union were able to hold a carol service, in-person; working within the Covid-regulations that were in force at the time. So there was a good crowd in the church itself where I went to speak; but it was also streamed online because numbers in the building were restricted. It was great to be with them back at Christmas, because shortly I will be joining them again for their CU mission. That one will be completely online unfortunately, as in-person events won’t be allowed by then we think.

Christian Union carol-services are great though! Firstly they seem to be amongst the easiest events for Christian students to invite their friends to. It seems to be both an ‘easy-ask’ for the students and a great way of preparing the way for the mission-week in the New Year. Then on this occasion, the students told me that the tickets had gone like wildfire, because there were no other events taking place; everything else on campus was cancelled because of Covid/lockdown! Students were desperate to get out of of their halls and flats and go to an event so the CU was the only event in town!

The students put on a really great service, with carols and readings, and then I was invited to bring a Christmas message. I spoke on “the perfect gift”, because a great present has to be personal, meaningful, needed and costly! I was able to have a bit of fun with that around Christmas presents, but then pivot to the story of Jesus. God’s great gift to the world was personal (he didn’t send a piece of information, or a document – he came himself). This was also deeply meaningful because the gift of a saviour met our deepest and most profound need.  I was able to (of course!) throw some terrible Christmas jokes in there as you would expect and hope there was some laughter behind all the masks!

What we hope and pray, is that some of the students who were willing to come along and consider the claims of Christ there for the first time, will come back to the mission week, connect with us there and take things a stage deeper.

The CU President, Rachel Henry wrote:
In terms of numbers, we had the maximum number of people allowed under the restrictions, 50 in the building, but tickets sold out really quickly!  It was great to see CU members, especially first years, use the opportunity to bring their flatmates and friends. It went really well. It’s obviously strange to do a Carol service where we could only listen to carols and not join in, but it was still a great chance to hold an event in person, share the Bible, pray, and reflect on the gospel through Christmas!  In terms of follow up, we are running two courses this semester called ‘Explore’, one based on the Bible and one on big questions, for people who are interested in finding out more about Christianity. We have also had 2 people sign up to read Uncover Mark with a CU member this semester which is really exciting! We are praying that students will engage with our upcoming events week, 15th-19th February, with Andy speaking online on the theme of HOPE.

So as I prepare to head back to St Andrews CU to share the gospel with the students there, I’d be hugely grateful for the prayers of Solas supporters. Please pray for me that I’d speak wisely, truthfully and persuasively; pray for the students to have courage and tact as they invite friends – and pray for their non-Christian friends because above all we’d love to see them putting their faith in Jesus.