Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / Evangelism in Crisis || Interview with Sam Chan || SLP459

Transcript

Evangelism in Crisis || Interview with Sam Chan || SLP459 · The Speak Life Podcast

0:06
SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome back to the Speak Life Podcast, episode 459.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: My name's Thomas Thurrogate, media producer at Speak Life, and it is a joy to bring this audio to your personal device.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: We had a house party last night, basically an opportunity on Zoom, an actually interesting Zoom call, to hang out with the Speak Life team and other Speak Life supporters.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: And we had a very special guest, Sam Chan, joining us all the way from Australia.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: I think it was very early for him, about 5 30 a.m.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: But he was incredibly lively considering he'd uh got up that early, and um it was great to be able to chat to him about personal evangelism.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: And so in this episode, you will hear the conversation that Glenn and Nate had with Sam Chan.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: And there's also a bit of a QA at the end as we opened up to people on the Zoom call any questions they wanted to ask Sam Chan.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: So this gives you a bit of a flavour.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: If you've never come to a Speak Life house party before, uh we will be doing one on the 2nd of October.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: And uh so if you like the sound of what you hear uh in this episode and you'd like to join us in person next time, then you can go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash houseparty.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: And there is a button to sign up there.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: You just have to fill in a short form.
1:37
SPEAKER_01: So that will be with Glenn and Nate as well, the rest of the Speak Life team, other Speak Life supporters, and a special guest to be confirmed.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: So if you're the sort of person who easily forgets, uh why not uh go and do that now?
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash houseparty and uh sign up there.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: And then when the time comes, you'll get uh an email dropping into your inbox giving you a bit of a warning uh with the zoom link, and it will all be uh ready for you.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, that's important to say, you do need to sign up uh to get the zoom link.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, the time will come and you'll be like, Yeah, how do I enter the Speak Life house party?
2:15
SPEAKER_01: And uh we'll say, uh, sorry, uh there was a form to fill in where you could get the zoom link.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: Well, I will hand straight over to Glenn Nate and Sam Chan.
2:33
SPEAKER_04: We are so grateful to have Sam Chan with us.
2:36
SPEAKER_04: Uh he is dialing in from Australia.
2:39
SPEAKER_04: Uh, Sam, tell me what time is it there and how long have you been up?
2:43
SPEAKER_00: It's 5 30 in the morning, and in the future, I'm coming to you from Friday.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: You guys are still stuck on Thursday.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: I am in the future.
2:52
SPEAKER_04: What is life like in the future, Sam?
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, I can tell you what the share market is doing.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: I can tell you who is gonna win the footage.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: I can tell what your weather's gonna be as well, uh whether it's gonna rain or not.
3:03
SPEAKER_04: Stank and drab.
3:05
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: But this is the sunshine coast, Glenn.
3:08
SPEAKER_04: This is the this is the UK's Sunshine Coast.
3:10
SPEAKER_04: The UK's Sunshine Coast is a little bit different.
3:13
SPEAKER_04: Um, Sam, we thank you so much for for sparing time for us.
3:16
SPEAKER_04: Uh, you also have to get out of the house um in the next hour or so.
3:20
SPEAKER_04: Uh because where are you here?
3:22
SPEAKER_00: So I'm I still work one or two days a week as a doctor.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm in Christian ministry, but I still juggle working as a doctor, a medical doctor, and Christian ministry.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: And I work as a surgical assistant.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: And you're wondering what is a surgical assistant?
3:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you go for an operation, you will get three bills from the doctors.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: The first bill is from the surgeon, you think fair enough they did the operating.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Second bill from the anethodist, they think you think fair enough they kept me alive.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: And then you get this third bill.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: We think, who is this bozo sending me a third bill?
3:50
SPEAKER_00: That is me, the surgical assistant.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm the one who held your leg during the operation.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: So my most important job is to see you just before they put you to sleep and say, Hi, my name is Sam.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm the surgical assistant.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: You'll be getting a bill from me in two weeks' time.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: And that's the last thing you hear as you drift off to sleep.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: So that I'll be holding a leg in about an hour and a half.
4:12
SPEAKER_04: Wonderful.
4:13
SPEAKER_04: How many years of medical school did you do for this job?
4:15
SPEAKER_00: I know I had to do five years.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: And you see the nurses looking at me.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: They sort of think, they see the surgeon and they think, yeah, I can see how that takes five years of med school.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: They look at the anethenist, I can see how that takes five years of med school.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Then they look at me just holding the leg and think, how does that take five years of med school?
4:32
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I've got the most important job because we're always terrified of operating on the wrong leg.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: As you know, they're always asking you, which leg, which leg, which leg?
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And you're forever having to say, this one, this one, this one.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: And then they put you to sleep, and I'm the guy that decides which leg.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't there for any of those conversations.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
4:52
SPEAKER_00: It's a 50-50.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we get 51%, we're beating par, and if we do the wrong side, we throw the other one in for free.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: So it's a win-win.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: Everyone's happy.
5:03
SPEAKER_04: I love it, Sam.
5:04
SPEAKER_04: Uh, so guys, uh, on the chat, uh, do be thinking of your questions that you have for Sam.
5:09
SPEAKER_04: Uh, maybe about your leg, um, maybe about uh the health service or uh anything else, but probably about evangelism, especially because Sam Chan has written this book, How to Talk About Jesus without being that guy.
5:23
SPEAKER_04: And uh we had a great chat a few months ago, Sam, when I brought on uh Steve McAlpine, uh who's uh a mate of yours in uh Perth, and uh he's written a book on uh how to be the bad guys, right?
5:37
SPEAKER_04: Um and he's very much noticing that it's difficult to be a Christian nowadays, and we just have to embrace the fact that there'll be people who won't like us and uh will sort of blame us for all sorts of things that might not even be our fault.
5:51
SPEAKER_04: Whereas you come with the sunny optimism of your your Sunshine Yellow book, and you you say that we can talk about Jesus without being that guy.
5:59
SPEAKER_04: Are you saying something different to Steve McAlfine?
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so just so we can see the foil that that book is.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: This is Steve McAlfine's book, being the bad guy.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: So this is the dark side.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm on the good side, right?
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Of the force.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: And and you can see, you know, I'm I'm sunny yellow, Steve is angry red.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: And just so you know, Steve and I are friends, and at the time we were both working for City Bible Forum, I still am.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh the books came out the same year.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: And the backstory is they both got nominated for Australian Christian Book of the Year.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: So it came down to like 10 finalists.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: And because it was COVID, the book presentation ceremony had to be attended by Zoom.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: And I remember wondering, do I have to dress up for this if it's on Zoom?
6:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, even though I'm one of the finalists.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: So I texted Steve McAlpine and said, I don't think we have to dress up because my link is just a dead link.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm just watching.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: And Steve McAlpine is saying, No, no, no, no, no, we're on camera.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: My link is a live link.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna have me on camera.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: They told me to dress up.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: And I go, no, but Mom and has no camera.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: And then we both go, Oh, I know what's happening here.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: And we both worked out who was gonna win, the guy who gets given the live link, whereas I was just giving the dummy link just to attend as an attendee.
7:11
SPEAKER_04: Always the bridesmaid sound.
7:13
SPEAKER_04: But but yes, you're saying you guys are friends, and you're saying you both you know work for the same Jesus, and you were even working for the same uh organization.
7:21
SPEAKER_04: So you're not saying totally different things.
7:24
SPEAKER_04: What but but what are what are the different emphases?
7:26
SPEAKER_00: I think that where it's yeah, they're they're complementary emphases.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: So Steven's pointing out how these days, Christianity, we're perceived as a social prior.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: We're actually bad for society, we're social evil.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: And I'm saying, yes, and there are also ways that we can talk about Jesus where we're not following social etiquette as well, you know.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: And someone said, you know, the instant you talk about Jesus, you have become that guy.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: So it's about how to read the room, having, you know, just realizing what are the social norms for how to talk about values and religion.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: And I think it helps that I do work one or two days a week as a doctor in that secular space.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: And Steve McAlpine makes a really good point that, you know, say 20 or 30 years ago, if you got called into ministry, full-time Christian ministry, like some sort of pastoral Sunday ministry, that was seen as the higher harder calling.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: But now Steve McAlpine says the higher harder calling is the Christian who stays in the secular workspace Monday to Friday, where you're seen as socially evil and you can't even talk about Jesus.
8:34
SPEAKER_04: So in in that context, I I love that you're saying yes and, because you're you're you're basically embracing the fact, yes, we might be thought of as the bad guys, nevertheless, we can have a a sunny presence.
8:47
SPEAKER_04: You know, we we we can have this this non-anxious presence uh at the same time.
8:51
SPEAKER_04: You mentioned in your book about uh being the unofficial chaplain to your friends.
8:57
SPEAKER_04: Uh it was a a real highlight of of the book um for me.
9:01
SPEAKER_04: Describe to me what the unofficial chaplain to your friends is.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I'm not the first person who's come up with this idea, but it came to me when I have a friend called Craig who was an army chaplain, and he was describing his time with the armed forces on tour in Afghanistan, how a lot of the soldiers would come to him for spiritual comfort.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: But the commanding officer himself was bum, bum, bah, no, you know, I don't believe in God.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't need that religious mumbo jumbo.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: But enough traumatic things happened that sooner or later the commanding officer one day calls Craig into his room, says, Craig, sit down, close the door behind you, and then says to Craig, can you please pray for me?
9:41
SPEAKER_00: And all my chaplain friends said that's exactly how it happens.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: In a time of crisis, people will come to you if you have earned enough prior social trust and relational capital.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: And at that moment, they want you to speak meaning into their crisis, maybe connect them with a sacred and be the voice of God on their behalf on God's behalf.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: And so there are ways you can do that.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, like, how do you do that?
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, just simple ways.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: My chaplain friends say just turn up to work or with your neighbors or with your friends and colleagues and just show genuine curiosity in their life.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: And we all know how it works.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: On Monday, we ask, so how is your weekend?
10:21
SPEAKER_00: And that's just seen as, you know, just you know, a question you got to get out of the way before your weekend start.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: But we can say things like, if they say, Oh, we had a family picnic, we can say, ask the second question.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: So, how did that go?
10:36
SPEAKER_00: So, take a genuine curiosity, try to learn the names of their children, the ages of their children, and just show that we understand, we care, and maybe voice their fears back at them.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: So, give an example, a nurse at work, you know, for months I ask, you know, how the kids, how the kids, how the kids?
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Bit by bit I learn their names and she's just amazed.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: How do you remember my kids' names?
10:57
SPEAKER_00: And it shows you've shown genuine curiosity.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: You really do care, you're really listening.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: And then I asked one day, so how are the kids doing at school?
11:05
SPEAKER_00: And finally she said, So, so the guard drops and she says, you know what, they're not doing well.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: They're getting bullied and they're falling and they've got learning issues.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: And I said to her, Oh, you're just worried that your children will fall behind.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: And so just by voicing her fears and anxieties, she went, Yes, that's that's exactly it.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: And then an unofficial de facto chaplain then often offers to pray.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: So I said to her, Hey, my wife, my kids, we pray every night for our friends.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Would it be okay if we prayed for your children?
11:41
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Yes.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: And then often what I like to do is video us having a family prayer time and showing us praying for them.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: And I'll send them the video, say, hey, we did, we really did pray for you.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: And maybe a week or two later, just check in and see how things are going.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: And often they'll say, Well, there have been little changes.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm not guaranteeing there always will be.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: And that's when I introduce the language of providence.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: I say things like, That's a miracle.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: That is a miracle.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: And often they go, Yeah, that is exactly it.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you another example.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: As the surgical assistant, I'm the least important person in the operating room.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, really, the if if the nurse didn't turn up, if the anethist didn't turn up, the operation could not go ahead.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: If I don't turn up, the operation can go ahead.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: And that's actually why I do turn up.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: So they don't find out that it actually could have gone ahead without me.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: And it actually went a lot better without me.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: So I actually said to the nurse, I said, Hey, you know what?
12:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm the least important person in this room.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: And she said, No, you're the one who keeps everyone calm.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't know, but as Christians, we often bring shalom.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: We're peacemakers and we're that calm, non-anxious presence.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: And just like dog owners don't notice the smell of dogs around them, they're just too used to it.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: Maybe as Christians, we don't notice the shalom, the peace, the mediating presence that we do bring into our friends' lives.
13:09
SPEAKER_04: That gels uh a lot with one of the things that we say here at Speak Life, which is that pastoral care is just evangelizing Christians and evangelism is just pastoring non-Christians.
13:20
SPEAKER_04: Is that something you can get on board with?
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Oh, totally, totally.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: So in the car, when I do the school drop-off for my kids, we we take turns praying.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: But one common prayer point we have is dear God, help us to be Jesus to those around us.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: So, how can I be Jesus in the classroom?
13:38
SPEAKER_00: How can I be Jesus to my neighbors?
13:40
SPEAKER_00: How can I be Jesus in the workplace?
13:42
SPEAKER_00: So, how can I pastor them?
13:44
SPEAKER_00: How can I be common grace and special grace to those around me?
13:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, God sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous in Matthew.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: And I remember as a kid hearing that, oh my gosh, God curses everyone no matter what, because I thought rain was a bad thing as a kid.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Now I say, no, no, no, rain was a good thing, especially in the Middle East.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: So God sends blessings to everyone, no matter what.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: And we turn up and just say, How can I bring rain?
14:07
SPEAKER_00: How can I bring peace?
14:08
SPEAKER_00: How can I bring pastoral care?
14:10
SPEAKER_00: How can I bring Jesus to those around me?
14:14
SPEAKER_04: Seems to me like you have an expectation, Sam, that um you a can do good to those around you, and that you'll be perceived as a peacemaker, as someone who can bring calm to those situations.
14:27
SPEAKER_04: And I think that's really helpful in a Christian culture in which we can feel embattled and in which we can feel like everybody hates us.
14:36
SPEAKER_04: And I'm always uh quoting to people some of the statistics over here in the UK that have been done.
14:41
SPEAKER_04: The Talking Jesus survey uh was done in 2015 and in 2022.
14:45
SPEAKER_04: Um, and it asks a whole bunch of non-Christians, what do you think about Christians?
14:50
SPEAKER_04: And the non-Christians are very happy to say like incredibly positive things about the influence of the Christians that they know in their lives, and very few of them actually tick a box that says they're bigoted or homophobic or the those sorts of things that we're all so afraid of.
15:04
SPEAKER_04: Literally, only about eight percent of the population, when you know asked, would you tick a box that you know describes a Christian as somewhat homophobic or something?
15:12
SPEAKER_04: Eight percent of the population do.
15:13
SPEAKER_04: 92% are like, nah, I I kind of like the Christians in my life.
15:17
SPEAKER_04: Does that surprise people?
15:19
SPEAKER_04: Is it well do you think that that experience would be similar in Australia?
15:22
SPEAKER_04: And do you think the the Christian surprise at that would be similar as well?
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that is so so true.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Like the experience on the ground is so different from what we hear out there, especially in the online media world.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: I remember David Brooks from New York Times, and he was quoting someone else's study.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: He said, in the let's say the Twitter sphere, in social media, the extreme right, those who tweet, those who virtue signal, those who comment, those who argue, they're 8%.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: And on the left, progressive, you know, those who virtue signal, those who comment, they're like 6%.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: The rest in the middle are what they call the exhausted majority.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: They're just trying to get through each day and survive each day.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we see with the US politics, because voting's not compulsory.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: They painted to the extremes.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: So suddenly we see the whole world as polarized.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: But you're so right.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Barnard.com research showed that the average non-believer in the USA, yes, they do have a problem with abstract, institutionalized Christianity, the idea of Christianity, but they actually don't have a problem with the Christian friend in their life.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: And I've noticed that when I turn up to work, no one is asking for my views on X, Y, or Z.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: And they don't see any cultural war between them and me.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: And if they do ask me a question, it's to generally find out my views on X, Y, and Z and not to debate or oppose me.
16:50
SPEAKER_04: You talk in your book about plausibility structures, and for anyone to hold any kind of belief, and we're all believers in something, but we we are always inhabiting some kind of plausibility structure.
17:01
SPEAKER_04: And I get, I guess the church and Christian community is a plausibility structure, would you say?
17:07
SPEAKER_04: Like what what is it that can help us as we introduce people to Jesus make them think that it's plausible?
17:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and to best understand what a plausibility structures.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: I say, hey, just imagine I tell you a story that just last night a UFO landed in my backyard, my wife and I jumped in, a green man took us to their home planet Jupiter, took us uh, showed us around, we ate a meal, we jumped back into the UFO, and because the space-time continuum thing, we went through a time portal and only one second of earth time went by and asked this room, who here believes me?
17:42
SPEAKER_00: No one believes me.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: Then I say, I'm gonna tell you another story.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: 2,000 years ago, God sent us his son, born of a virgin, 100% God, 100% human at the same time, raised a man back from the dead, gave a uh a man born blind his sight again, more than that, died on a cross.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: More than that, if you believe this God will wash away all your sin, guilt, and shame, more than that, he rose again from the dead three days later.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: More than that, if you believe in that his spirit lives in you right now, more than that, one day, depending on which denomination you belong to, he will return and set up a physical kingdom here on earth.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: And at the moment, your body will be raised from the dead and be reunited with your soul.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Who here believes me?
18:20
SPEAKER_00: And that moment, like 30 hands awkwardly go up.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: I think I believe that, but we feel awkward because suddenly we think, you know what?
18:28
SPEAKER_00: The Jupiter story is way more believable than the Jesus story.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: So why do we believe the Jesus story, but not the Jupiter story?
18:35
SPEAKER_00: Because of plausibility structures.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: We have inherent to us these predetermined, uh, preconceived plausibility structures that prejudge a story is bum bum, unbelievable, bling, believable.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: So as I tell you the UFO story, and I mention the UFO, Jupiter, time portals, you're going bum, bum, bum, bum, unbelievable.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: But when I say Jesus, virgin birth, rose from the dead, bling, bling, bling, your plausibility structures are just green lighting it.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Then you think, whoa, okay, where do I get these plausibility structures from?
19:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, they come from three main sources.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: They come from our community, so our friends and family that we know, love, and trust, our personal experiences and facts, evidence, and data.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: So as I tell you the Jupiter story, your plausibility structures are going bum, bum, bum, because we don't live in a community of people who believe in UFOs.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: We haven't had a personal experience of UFOs, we don't believe in any facts, evidence, or data to support my story.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: But when I tell you the Jesus story, we most of us live in a community of friends and family who also believe in the Jesus story.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: We've had a personal experience of Jesus, and we believe there are enough facts, evidence, and data to support the Jesus story.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: And out of these three, the one that's most important, we may want it to be facts, evidence, and data.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: We may think it has to be facts, evidence, and data, but actually that's the least important one for producing plausibility structures.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: The most important one is community.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: We share the beliefs and practices of those we know, love, and trust.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: In other words, our tribe.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, if if we think it's facts, evidence, and data, if I said to you, hey guys, there's only the UFO is still in my backyard right now.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Who wants to jump on a 20-hour plane journey and check it out?
20:21
SPEAKER_00: None of you could be bothered to check it out.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: And if you did check it out and saw it and touched it, you'd be going, nah, no, no, no.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: This is an elaborate hoax.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: There's some other explanation, and you explain away the evidence.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: So community is the one that's most important for determining what we think, believe, and practice.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: Just a hundred, like in this room of Bible-believing, church attending, God-fearing Christians, 100% of us would think that women have a right to vote.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Yet a hundred years ago, in the same room of church attending, Bible-believing, God-fearing Christians, most of us would have believed women didn't have the right to vote.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: So our plausibility structures are very much determined by our community.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: One last explanation.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: When my wife and I were expecting our second child, we had to play that game that parents play where we had to decide what to name our child.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: Like every parent's thing, okay, we can't have a name too common, like Peter or Paul, because that's boring.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: But we can't have a name too weird, like Matthew with three T's and a silent Q, because that's just weird.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: So every parent's thinking, I need that name that's just right.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: It's just hip, it's trendy, it's out there.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: And everyone thinks, how cool are the parents?
21:28
SPEAKER_00: Hey, so we thought, okay, Cooper.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: We'll name him Cooper.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, that year, Cooper was a top 10 name in Australia.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: So whether we knew it or not, we just think and believe as our community does.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: So why am I telling you this?
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Because when I tell you about the Jupiter story, I'm unbelievable.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm the one and only bozo in this room who believes in the story.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: But if I tell you the Jupiter story and half of this chat room suddenly goes, ah, me too.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Same thing happened to me last.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Night, I thought that was you I saw on Jupiter, but I just didn't want to wave just just in case.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Now the other half of the room is thinking, hey, this is more believable because half the room believes it.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: And if I tell the story and the whole room believes it, and you're the one and only bozo who doesn't believe it, now it's very believable.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: And it's the same with Christ risen from the dead.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, Hey, I saw Christ risen from the dead.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: And this is true, whether you believe it or not.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: It's an objective fact, but it's more believable because, hey, I didn't just see Christ risen from the dead, but the other 12 apostles, oh, not just the other 12, but 500 other people that you know, love, and trust saw Christ risen from the dead.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: So now it's more believable.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: So the point I'll make in the book is Jesus is unbelievable, not because our friends don't know about Jesus.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: They do or they misunderstand Jesus or they think they do, but that's not the primary problem.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: It's not lack of information that's stopping them from believing.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: It's lack of Christian friends in their community of friends and family.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: So chapter one of my book is before we even start, we need to merge our universes of friends and deliberately match our non-Christian friends with our Christian friends so that we're not the one and only bozo in their life that believes in Jesus.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: But suddenly they go, hey, a lot of my friends actually believe this story.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: This is way more plausible than I first believed.
23:24
SPEAKER_04: Very good.
23:25
SPEAKER_04: And after our break, in just a second, I'm gonna ask you the question so what should our communities look like if they're if they're going to be plausible to our to our friends as as places that that really communicate and commend the love of Jesus.
23:40
SPEAKER_04: So we'll ask that after the break.
23:42
SPEAKER_04: But just a final question.
23:44
SPEAKER_04: Um you've been part of EVQ, Evangelism Training.
23:48
SPEAKER_04: Um let us know what EVQ is.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: It's called the EVQ School of Evangelism.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: We all have IQ, we know about CQ, but do we have EVQ?
23:58
SPEAKER_00: How do I tell friends and family about Jesus?
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Up until now, if you sign up to an evangelism course in a Bible college, you learn how to walk up to a stranger on a university campus and there's a time and place for that.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: You learn how to give a 20-minute monologue at a church event and there's a time and place for that.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: But how do you tell friends and family about Jesus?
24:16
SPEAKER_00: So we've set up the EVQ and we know that information doesn't lead to transformation.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: So you don't just get information on how to evangelize, but you get peer-to-peer groups that keep you accountable and you get one-on-one mentoring from people like me where we can upskill you on your personal evangelism.
24:33
SPEAKER_04: Fantastic.
24:34
SPEAKER_04: How can people find out about that?
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, like all non-for-profit Christian organizations, right now we have a very sucky website that's soon to be improved, but you can go to evq.org.au.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: And a sucky website's good, because until we know all the money really is going to the ground, you know, right?
24:52
SPEAKER_00: And the front and on the coal face, it's not being wasted on a website, evq.org.au.
24:58
SPEAKER_04: Do we have some questions in the chat, um, Thomas?
25:00
SPEAKER_04: Because I I had one to begin with.
25:02
SPEAKER_04: Shall I ask my one and then then we'll go uh to the chat?
25:06
SPEAKER_04: Um, because I I love that stuff about plausibility structures, Sam.
25:09
SPEAKER_04: And you're talking about the number one thing that gives us the plausibility structure is a community.
25:15
SPEAKER_04: And what does it look like for a community to actually believe that Jesus rose from the dead?
25:18
SPEAKER_04: Well, I guess I guess it's a community that kind of is not grasping after every pleasure that's going in this life, but might actually you know sacrifice for the other because we know that you know God will raise us from the dead and things like that.
25:32
SPEAKER_04: Um, tell tell me what does a community look like that actually believes the gospel and gives plausibility to it?
25:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think I for we've we forget what rich communities we really do have.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: As Christians, we often we're very good at self-critiquing, and there's a time and place for that.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: But I think we forget how rich our communities are.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: So, Stephen Bidoff, who's an Australian child psychologist author who writes a lot of books on parenting, he's very big on that.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: It takes a tribe to raise a child, a village to raise a child.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: He can't do it as a nuclear or single parent alone.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: You really do, as a nuclear family or single parent alone, you do really need to surround your kids by a good tribe of role models.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: And then he struggles to say, well, for example, what?
26:18
SPEAKER_00: So Stephen Bidoff then will say, because these aren't Christian books, he says, for example, they need a church.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing he says.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Then you can tell he really struggles to name number two and number three.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: So number two, then he says, Well, they need uh maybe a sports team, but a sports team where it's not about winning.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: And I think Stephen Bidoff, I've never found a sports team where it's not about winning.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: And I played rugby to the age of 38 in Australia and the USA.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's fun for the one hour that you play, but there is no community after the game.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: And and I I remember going to a baseball game in America where that is the closest thing to a worship experience you can get.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: You're all on your feet, you're jumping, you're dancing, singing the songs, but when the game's over, boom, everyone disappears and realize there are no thick communities out there apart from hobbies and interest groups.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: So I think we have a very thick, rich community, and they're very attractive.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: So my boys now, they're hitting two of them are teenagers now, so on Friday night they go to youth group.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: So often we say to our non-believing friends who have kids of similar age, would you like your kids to join our boys at youth group on a Friday night?
27:32
SPEAKER_00: And that is so attractive right now to any parent out there because they're they whatever their kids are doing on a Friday night, parents do not like because they're either getting into trouble or they're just gaming or something.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: And they just wish their kids could discover a rich, vibrant community.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: So I think our communities are way more attractive than we think they are.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I argue for in one of my books on evangelism is back in the days of the 80s and 90s, if we ran an evangelistic church event, we sort of dumbed it all down, got rid of everything, and just went straight to the Bible talk, the 20-minute Bible talk.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna do it because again, it's information only.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: But now realize, no, the whole service is evangelistic, down to the point where the announcements are evangelistic, because suddenly they hear how Christians live Monday to Friday.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're gonna take food around to so and so who's just been sick.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna help garden for so and so, and you know, the the women's group are gonna do this, the men's group are gonna do this, the youth are gonna do this.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly they realize, wow, these guys have a community and they have they live as people with hope and they have a wisdom about them.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: So in 1 Peter chapter 3, we've always focused on a verse that says, be ready, be ready to give a reason, but we forget the verses around that.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: Why are they gonna ask you for a reason?
28:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh, because they see you have hope.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: So you gotta live as a community of hope, and then they will ask you to give the reason for that.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: And just the verse before, it actually says, do not fear, do not fear.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: So be that calm, non-anxious presence.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: The verse before says, Don't feel threatened, don't feel like the whole world's against you, just be calm, live as a community of hope.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: And in Colossians, that's that there's that verse that talks about speaking truth or speaking something like that.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: But before it says, be wise.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: So I think wisdom is our apologetic.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: And that's the apologetic that the Israelites had had in the Old Testament.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: So Joseph stood out in Egypt for his wisdom, Daniel and the three friends stood out for their wisdom in Babylon, and Queen Esther had that X factor.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: She stood out for her wisdom and her way of life as well.
29:48
SPEAKER_04: I love that.
29:48
SPEAKER_04: You're such a breath of fresh air, Sam.
29:50
SPEAKER_04: Um, what questions do we have in the chat, Thomas?
29:54
SPEAKER_01: We have one here.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh, how do you find time for good, uh deeper conversations with colleagues in the context of a busy work day with loads going on?
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I guess it's it's social intelligence.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Like, like if they're really stressed right now, this is not the time to say, hey, so what are your plans for the weekend?
30:17
SPEAKER_00: So it's just knowing that those things just come far and few and you know, in in between.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: But just be ready for that when that moment is there.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: And often people come to you.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: If you've been a good listener, if you're good at voicing the anxieties back at them, they will start volunteering things to you, like, hey, um, you know, my my dad just died, and I can't get to the funeral because of COVID.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: So little things like that.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: They'll start coming to you because you're the one who understands.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: And and it's just little things like, you know, we don't just hear, we hear to understand, and then and then we try to feel the feeling behind what they say, and sooner or later they realize, wow, you're the home away from home because there's that saying, home is where someone understands you.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: And even people often don't feel understood at home, but suddenly, you know, you're the person who understands them, voices their fees back at them, and shows genuine curiosity.
31:15
SPEAKER_04: I love that.
31:16
SPEAKER_04: I love it, and especially because if you're aiming to be somebody's unofficial chaplain, the sort of life you'll live uh and the sort of impact you'll seek to have is quite different to if you think your job is to be the alpha male or alpha female, the the sort of the A-type personality with the patter and loads of gags, and um I mean your friends don't want to talk to that sort of person when life goes badly.
31:41
SPEAKER_04: And I guess you're you're you're you're telling us be the sort of person to whom your friends will come when life goes badly, which I think is quite a paradigm shift for people.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and also the paradigm shift for us is we when we went to Bible college 10 or 20 years ago, we got taught how to evangelize like a preacher, you know, how to give that 20-minute Bible talk.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: And there's a time and place for that.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: And as part of the EVQ School of Evangelism, we do train people on how to speak at events and do that 20-minute monologue.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: But now for personal evangelism, we need to learn how to evangelize like a counselor, how about a counselor?
32:15
SPEAKER_00: And counselors event uh they don't talk in monologue, they talk in conversation and questions.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: And in medical school, we used to make fun of our psychiatry colleagues.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: We say, you know, it doesn't take much to be a psychiatrist.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: You just gotta learn two questions.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: How are you going?
32:31
SPEAKER_00: How are you really going?
32:32
SPEAKER_00: So it's a power of the second question, and that's all it takes.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: So when someone asks you something, often we just say, tell me more.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Why do you ask?
32:44
SPEAKER_04: I love that.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: Thomas, next question.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: Right, thank you, Sam.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, someone has asked, I think you touched on this with the youth group stuff, but what first steps do you recommend to introduce our non-believing friends into our church communities?
33:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, youth group is an easy one.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: Play group, if again, you know, I'm I'm I'm speaking as a person who's just navigated the last 15 years of parenthood.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: So I know often these examples won't work, you know, if you don't have kids, that sort of thing.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: But the play group has probably been the most fruitful source of evangelism for what my wife and me, because think of what playgroup offers.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: It offers a third space, not work, not home, but a third space where adults can detune, relax, and have adult conversation.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: And that really is where you begin with coffee, uh, and then you have a meal, and then you can slowly debrief, debrief, the kids are uh taken care of.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: And also if the church, if the playgroup is run in the church building, suddenly it familiarizes people with the church building.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: So when you do invite them to church, it's not as foreign as it was before.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: So little incremental steps like that.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh in my book, I mention coffee, dinner, gospel.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: Often we think, well, how do I invite people to church?
34:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's overwhelming.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: And I say it's like dishes.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: It's like dishes.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: You come home, you find a mountain of dirty dishes in your sink, and you think, well, how do I do this?
34:09
SPEAKER_00: It's too big, it's too global, it's overwhelming.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, break it down into concrete bite-sized achievable steps.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: Begin with, as my wife says, here, begin with a fork.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: Here, now do a cup.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: And before you know, boom, the dishes are done.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: And again, we think, oh, how can I invite my friends to church?
34:25
SPEAKER_00: It's too big, it's global, it's overwhelming.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Break it down at bite-sized achievable steps.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: Just do coffee with them one or two times, and then you have small talk.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: Then do a meal one or two times, and your conversations change.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: Now it's more private conversations, and sooner or later you can invite them to church.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you an example.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: One of my neighbors, he moved in about 10 years ago, and Steph, my wife and I, we used to do double dates with him, like with his wife, and and you know, we'll get babysitters.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: So double dating is a great way to hit, you know, hit a restaurant, do something you know that you don't get to do when you have kids around you.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: And then I invited my neighbor to church, and that was the most easy no answer for him.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: So, no, not interested.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: But that was 10 years ago.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: But by hanging out more, more coffees, more dinners, more hangaround, more deeper conversations, I invited him to church in February this year and he came.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: It was it was a once-off.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: He said he would never do it again, but at least it's one.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: So we're just slowly nibbling away.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure it'll be plausible that when I invite him next year, he will come a second time.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: And I love how when you had Matt Green as a guest on Speak Life a few months ago, he said studies now show that the average person, when they did hear Billy Graham give his 20-minute Bible talk in in the UK, that person had had 32 prior encounters with the gospel.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: So I just see myself as trying to give people one of those 32 prior encounters before the penny drops for them.
35:59
SPEAKER_04: That's uh that's great.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: Do we have more, Thomas?
36:03
SPEAKER_01: We have one more, uh, touching on uh this idea that actually often evangelism can be hardest with the people closest to us.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: So someone has asked, um, how is it best to kind of go about this with someone as close as a non-Christian spouse, for instance?
36:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: So again, this is when we realize personal evangelism with friends and family that we see every day and with work colleagues that we see every day, for every week, for every year, for the rest of our lives, is very different from the walking up to a stranger on a train or the 20-minute monologue at a church event.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: This is where the Bible has so much stuff because I think all the early church believers were facing exactly these same conversations.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: So there's a time and place for speaking up, but that does seem to be a small proportion of what evangelism looks like in the New Testament.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: It's very much, you know, the way you live, the way we pray for them.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: And that speaks much more.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: So it's a both and people will hear me.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: I just went either or no, it's a both and.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: But up until now, we've only been equipped with the information, but really it's the way we live, the way we live, the way we live.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, prayer is a big part.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: But another thing we can pray for is that God brings other Christians into their life besides just us.
37:22
SPEAKER_04: I love that, Sam.
37:23
SPEAKER_04: I mean, you you mentioned 1 Peter 3, um, which is sort of the place that we go to when we think about personal evangelism, because apart from sort of Colossians 4, it's pretty much the only place that sort of like tells an individual Christian to individually share their faith.
37:37
SPEAKER_04: And you know, it's it's the famous 1 Peter 3:15, always be prepared to give an answer for the reason for the hope that you have.
37:42
SPEAKER_04: And you've already said um yeah, that the context for that is living a life of hope in the midst of suffering and trial that that prompts people to ask the question in the first place.
37:52
SPEAKER_04: And you've talked about l like living the non-anxious anxious presence and do not fear what they fear.
37:59
SPEAKER_04: What what strikes me as well about 1 Peter 3 is the chapter begins, wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your own husbands so that if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their spouse, by the behavior of their wives.
38:16
SPEAKER_04: And you and you think, that is stunning that in the very same chapter that Peter's like, always be prepared to have words, he has already told us just two paragraphs earlier, oh, and you can totally win someone for Jesus without words.
38:30
SPEAKER_04: And that sort of that makes you know evangelists break out in a rash because we're all like, No, you must use words, you can't mime the gospel.
38:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there are some people who are hyperverbal, I've heard.
38:39
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if five of you have met any of them, but um yeah.
38:44
SPEAKER_04: But it's it's possible to be non-verbal and actually and actually see conversion, which I I think that's incredibly hopeful, but it's also a little bit of a rebuke for wordy people like Sam and I, who are you know, always giving the patter, and and even the very chapter that is the biggest encouragement to personal evangelism says actually you can see people wonder Christ through your behaviour, and like it's exactly this thing that the questioner has asked about, which is like in the midst of a marriage with a with an unbeliever.
39:15
SPEAKER_03: And there are these relationships that we have which are we're we're we're not locked into, but we are we are there for the long haul.
39:24
SPEAKER_03: Right.
39:25
SPEAKER_03: And that those are obviously different in nature to work colleagues or people at the school gate where it may be just for a season.
39:35
SPEAKER_03: And so the opportunities that come up, I suppose maybe part of the challenge is that you can feel the constant pressure I need to be telling this person about Jesus.
39:47
SPEAKER_03: Um and when is something finally going to happen because we've been living, you know, in this relationship that we've had, whatever it might be, four decades.
39:58
SPEAKER_03: And we what what impact have we seen?
40:01
SPEAKER_03: And I think that's where I think people can start to feel quite kind of worn down and and I wonder whether whether it's being refreshed in the gospel yourself which is the thing that's going to sustain you in in that ongoing decades-long work of evangelism to the nearest and dearest.
40:24
SPEAKER_04: Right.
40:24
SPEAKER_04: Because if you if you see yourself primarily as an evangelist to that person, then if they haven't come to the Lord, then I guess you you must class yourself as a failure.
40:35
SPEAKER_04: If your primary identity is I'm loved by Jesus, then okay, I'm I'm a winner.
40:41
SPEAKER_03: And and that's the the the hope that is within you, which someone might ask about, yeah.
40:47
SPEAKER_03: Well, the thing to focus on is the Lord Jesus who gives you the hope, you know, who is the hope of of uh of the gospel in us.
40:56
SPEAKER_03: And so if we're anxious about how many more opportunities I've invited them to this thing, I've invited them to that thing, I've given them countless books by Glenn Scrivener and Sam Chan, and they still won't budge.
41:10
SPEAKER_03: I'm just bereft.
41:11
SPEAKER_03: And to say you actually you just need to be refreshed in the good news of Jesus yourself, and that that is an attractive thing, as we've already discussed.
41:21
SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I just um mentioned one thing.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: I know time is running out, but uh I like to do that Bible in one year, you know, app by Alpha every second year, and you you see verses that you missed.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: So just two years ago, when I was going through it, I noticed in Exodus chapter 12 that when the Israelites were leaving Egypt, there's a verse that says, And God made the Egyptians favorably disposed to the Israelites, so that they they gave all the gold away to the Israelites.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the way God works like top down, Pharaoh hated, you know, the Israelites, but bottom up at the ground level, the Egyptians themselves, in personal relationships, were favorably disposed to the people of God.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what we found, fine, you know, where we are in the UK and Australia.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: Top down, it feels like we're being oppressed.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, the culture wars, they're out to get us.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: But bottom up, God is making our friends and family and our work colleagues favorably disposed to us.
42:24
SPEAKER_03: I love that.
42:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:26
SPEAKER_03: That's really well borne out in the statistics.
42:28
SPEAKER_03: So I I don't know if you know, Sam, we had a recent survey.
42:31
SPEAKER_03: Uh, well, it was done a few years uh earlier.
42:33
SPEAKER_03: Speak Jesus.
42:34
SPEAKER_03: Is that the talk in Jesus survey was so refreshing just to hear that people did feel very pleased to know Christians.
42:43
SPEAKER_04: But no Christians believe it.
42:44
SPEAKER_04: I keep on telling people the statistics and they keep on saying, Oh, they mustn't have surveyed my friends, you know, or they mustn't have surveyed my friends, think I'm awful.
42:53
SPEAKER_03: Well yeah.
42:54
SPEAKER_03: I suppose but I suppose part of the thing with that is what we've noticed since they did the twenty twenty-two survey is the difference between this and pre-COVID is that fewer people know a Christian.
43:08
SPEAKER_03: Right.
43:08
SPEAKER_03: So the ones who do know a Christian are feeling favorably disposed towards them.
43:14
SPEAKER_03: However, that number is seeming to shrink.
43:17
SPEAKER_04: Right, because all our social circles are shrinking.
43:19
SPEAKER_04: Nobody knows anyone anymore.
43:21
SPEAKER_04: We're we've all retreated in that kind of way.
43:23
SPEAKER_04: But it's just it's just so hard to shake in some Christians that embattled sense that oh no, I'm I'm quite certain.
43:30
SPEAKER_04: I'm quite certain that everybody hates me.
43:32
SPEAKER_04: And you at that point you end up saying their no's for them, you know.
43:35
SPEAKER_04: And you you don't even try.
43:37
SPEAKER_04: Um and and I I think we've got to get over that that sense of kind of embattled per this c persecution complex that that we can have in in the world.
43:48
SPEAKER_04: I think persecution might become our context, but it should never be our complex.
43:52
SPEAKER_04: And it's a massive evangelism killer because yeah, we we we see on social media f pharaohs against us and We're we're just not ready for the other Egyptians who are favoura favourably disposed.
44:04
SPEAKER_04: That's a great verse, Sam.
44:07
SPEAKER_04: Brilliant.
44:08
SPEAKER_01: Any li any final questions or are we all Um This might be a nice one to end on.
44:14
SPEAKER_01: Um just for Sam, why did you decide to cut down your surgical work to uh part-time rather than staying in the hospital world full-time?
44:25
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
44:27
SPEAKER_00: Really good question because I believe you can definitely serve God full-time as a doctor in a variety of ways.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: So my brother's a hand surgeon, and I see his work, his his worship to God.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: My father was a doctor, and by being a doctor, that actually freed him up to do the work at the church level.
44:45
SPEAKER_00: So there are all these ways we can serve God and manage, you know, these vocations.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: Whereas for me, because I had a very public speaking teaching ministry, uh, a Christian teaching preaching ministry, it was incompatible with full-time medical work.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: So that's why I had to dial it down to leg holding, which is surgical assist working.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: And I love bivocational work because it always makes the other job feel like a holiday from the other one.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: But I remember hearing Ed Stetzer, a church planner, saying if you go bivocational, one job can be creative, need a lot of brain power, but the other one, then you need to dial down the creativity and brain power to give yourself enough buffer for this one.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: So leg holding and just working out what is my right, what is my left.
45:29
SPEAKER_00: Like if it's my right, then that will make it your left.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: That's what I always have to keep saying.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: Then that frees me up to be creative in my Christian ministry.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: Lefty Lucy, righty tidy.
45:46
SPEAKER_04: Sam, uh, you have been uh a breath of fresh air and a golden ray of sunshine uh to us.
45:52
SPEAKER_04: Thank you so much.
45:53
SPEAKER_04: Um we hope you have an awesome Friday.
45:57
SPEAKER_04: And uh if if people want to catch up with you and uh some of the stuff that you're up to, uh tell us how they can do that.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I work with City Bible Forum.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh so that's city bibleforum.org.au.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: I also blog occasionally at espresso theology.com.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: So that's another way to find out what I'm up to.
46:18
SPEAKER_02: So that's espresso.
46:19
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
46:20
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
46:20
SPEAKER_02: Not espresso.
46:22
SPEAKER_02: No, not espresso.
46:23
SPEAKER_02: Espresso is the copy.
46:24
SPEAKER_02: Espresso.
46:26
SPEAKER_04: Although, if you're expressing the gospel, then you might want to.
46:29
SPEAKER_03: Let's not confuse people.
46:31
SPEAKER_03: I did that.
46:31
SPEAKER_03: I confuse people.
46:32
SPEAKER_03: Espresso theology.com.
46:34
SPEAKER_03: Is that right?
46:35
SPEAKER_03: That's correct.
46:36
SPEAKER_03: Fabulous, fabulous.
46:38
SPEAKER_03: Um well, thank you everyone.
46:41
SPEAKER_03: Uh thank you everyone for joining us uh this evening for this house party.
46:45
SPEAKER_03: It's a party in your house.
46:47
SPEAKER_03: Uh, we've had a wonderful time.
46:50
SPEAKER_03: We need to go and think of a simpler quiz to do for the next one in October.
46:55
SPEAKER_03: Might take us a while.
47:01
SPEAKER_01: Well, there we go.
47:02
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for listening.
47:04
SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoyed that conversation.
47:05
SPEAKER_01: I certainly found uh Sam to be a breath of fresh air, as Glenn said, um, really encouraging uh for personal evangelism.
47:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think that's all from me.
47:16
SPEAKER_01: Have a lovely weekend.
47:18
SPEAKER_01: Coronation Bank holiday, um, and we will be back next week.
47:24
SPEAKER_01: God bless.