It was a great privilege to lead a webinar for Apologia Sweden. That is an evangelism and apologetics group based (unsurprisingly!) in Sweden. They invited me to join them for an online interactive webinar about my book, “How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like An Idiot” (HTTAJWLAI), to which between 75-100 people showed up.
It was a particular privilege for me to serve an organisation in Sweden, because I have Swedish connections through my wife who is part Swedish. It was brilliant actually to see so many students and young people there on that Zoom event.
I shared for about 45 minutes some of the principles from the book about how we can share our faith in Jesus with our friends. We thought about how we can use questions to start significant spiritual conversations, looking first at the gospels and the ways that Jesus does that, and then at some practical tools we can use to start and then develop these conversations.
Then we had a great and very lively Q&A session, and it was great to get such a good range of questions showing that the folks there were really active and passionate about sharing their faith with others. Martin Helgesson from Apologia Sweden agreed, writing: “The event went very well! We had a good turnout and the questions that came up after Andy’s talk were thoughtful and moved the conversation further. It is always encouraging to interact with Christians who sincerely want to pass the gospel on to friends, family and coworkers.”
That’s encouraging because Sweden has the reputation as being a very secular country like the UK; but it’s important to recognise that there is also life in the churches there! It was especially encouraging to see young people and life there. Through my family connections and many visits to the country I am aware that some of the older denominations are contracting, but that is not the whole story by any means. I have seen evidence of real life there when I have been over speaking in universities and in student settings.
At Solas, our vision is for the UK but we do also like opportunities to bless, encourage and resource what others are doing. One of the joys of digital technology is that I can do that from my office, even though they were all on the other side of The North Sea.
The whole meeting was recorded and appears on the Apologia Sweden YouTube channel here. Martin Hegelsson wrote: “Several participants showed a clear interest in putting ideas into practice, and many more expressed their gratitude for Andy’s clear and concrete presentation. We are very grateful for Solas and for Andy’s help in pursuing a culture of persuasive evangelism in Sweden!” I was delighted to be invited, and really enjoyed meeting and working with them all.
