WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.120 Hey guys and welcome back to the way you keep hot cast. 2 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:04.960 We are here with another episode today. 3 00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:08.160 I'm your host Zoe and I'm going to go by my wonderful co-host. 4 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:09.840 Zach, what up? 5 00:00:09.840 --> 00:00:10.760 Zach, what up? 6 00:00:10.760 --> 00:00:13.120 And today we have a very exciting episode 7 00:00:13.120 --> 00:00:16.640 because we are joined by very special guest, Glenn Scrivener. 8 00:00:16.640 --> 00:00:17.440 Hello! 9 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:18.640 Hello, welcome to top of the world. 10 00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:19.600 Hello, and welcome to top of the world. 11 00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:20.640 Thanks for coming on. 12 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:22.960 Of course, yeah, it's great to see where it all happens. 13 00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:23.760 It's amazing, you know. 14 00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:26.240 I'm really very excited to get into your story. 15 00:00:26.240 --> 00:00:29.600 I do all the things evangelism I really can't wait. 16 00:00:30.160 --> 00:00:31.200 If that's where we're going to be. 17 00:00:31.200 --> 00:00:32.400 Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's where we're going to be. 18 00:00:32.400 --> 00:00:36.160 No, I'm often introduced as an evangelist with a capital E. 19 00:00:36.160 --> 00:00:39.440 And it causes all kinds of like stereotypes 20 00:00:39.440 --> 00:00:41.920 coming to people's minds and caricatures and that kind of thing. 21 00:00:41.920 --> 00:00:42.880 We can get into that, yeah. 22 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:43.360 Let's get into that. 23 00:00:43.360 --> 00:00:45.040 I want to break down those rules. 24 00:00:45.040 --> 00:00:45.760 Yeah, yeah, maybe. 25 00:00:45.760 --> 00:00:46.240 Let's do it. 26 00:00:46.240 --> 00:00:46.720 Yeah, yeah. 27 00:00:46.720 --> 00:00:49.360 Okay, well guys, before we jump right into it, 28 00:00:49.360 --> 00:00:50.560 here are the way you get our mission 29 00:00:50.560 --> 00:00:53.840 is to reach every single young person with the good news of Jesus. 30 00:00:53.840 --> 00:00:56.160 And a really great way of you helping us do that 31 00:00:56.160 --> 00:00:58.720 is by subscribing if you're on YouTube 32 00:00:58.720 --> 00:01:02.080 and giving a like, leaving a comment, whatever you want. 33 00:01:02.080 --> 00:01:05.840 Then if you're listening on Apple or Spotify podcasts, 34 00:01:05.840 --> 00:01:08.240 please can you follow the podcast and leave a rating? 35 00:01:09.040 --> 00:01:10.240 Preferably a good rating. 36 00:01:10.240 --> 00:01:12.720 But we appreciate your honesty. 37 00:01:12.720 --> 00:01:13.840 So it's just how we feel. 38 00:01:13.840 --> 00:01:14.960 Don't give them one star. 39 00:01:14.960 --> 00:01:15.440 I'm ready for that. 40 00:01:15.440 --> 00:01:16.480 Do not give them one star. 41 00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:17.680 Leave a smile. 42 00:01:17.680 --> 00:01:18.480 I'm saving you. 43 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:19.360 I love you. 44 00:01:19.360 --> 00:01:20.160 I love you. 45 00:01:20.160 --> 00:01:20.960 I love you. 46 00:01:20.960 --> 00:01:21.760 I love you. 47 00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:22.240 Somehow. 48 00:01:22.240 --> 00:01:23.760 No way to make reviews. 49 00:01:23.840 --> 00:01:25.520 But yeah, guys, that would be really helpful. 50 00:01:25.520 --> 00:01:26.560 And we'd really appreciate that. 51 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:28.000 So thank you. 52 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:29.360 And let's get straight into the episode. 53 00:01:29.360 --> 00:01:30.080 Roll the credits. 54 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:36.960 Well, Glenn, we thought it would be awesome to first 55 00:01:36.960 --> 00:01:41.360 kind of just hear a bit about your story and get to know you a little bit. 56 00:01:41.360 --> 00:01:44.800 So before we kind of like talk about what you're doing now and all that, 57 00:01:44.800 --> 00:01:46.720 how did you kind of become a Christian? 58 00:01:47.360 --> 00:01:50.960 And then I've got a question about where you grew up. 59 00:01:50.960 --> 00:01:53.600 Because I, oh, I hit my microphone. 60 00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:55.280 I did not grow up in the UK. 61 00:01:55.280 --> 00:01:56.240 You grew up in Canada? 62 00:01:56.240 --> 00:01:57.040 I grew up in Canada. 63 00:01:57.040 --> 00:01:57.760 Yeah, yeah. 64 00:01:57.760 --> 00:01:58.560 The aboot. 65 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:00.160 The aboot was the giveaway, wasn't it? 66 00:02:00.160 --> 00:02:01.360 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 67 00:02:01.360 --> 00:02:02.240 That's everyone says. 68 00:02:03.200 --> 00:02:04.960 But as far as I understand, 69 00:02:04.960 --> 00:02:06.880 you also did not grow up in the UK. 70 00:02:06.880 --> 00:02:08.400 I also grew up in the Commonwealth, though. 71 00:02:08.400 --> 00:02:10.080 So that, that unites us three. 72 00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:11.040 So I'm from Canada. 73 00:02:11.040 --> 00:02:13.200 Okay, so tell us about how you became a Christian. 74 00:02:13.200 --> 00:02:15.680 And then I want to hear about what brings you here. 75 00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:16.480 Okay, yeah. 76 00:02:16.480 --> 00:02:18.480 So you're up in Australia. 77 00:02:18.480 --> 00:02:19.600 I've lived half my life in the UK. 78 00:02:19.600 --> 00:02:20.960 Give or take the odd deportation. 79 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:22.320 I've mainly been in the UK. 80 00:02:23.920 --> 00:02:27.200 I have a Christian mother church going. 81 00:02:28.160 --> 00:02:30.800 My, my story in like a sentence is, 82 00:02:30.800 --> 00:02:31.680 why am I a Christian? 83 00:02:31.680 --> 00:02:33.280 Like two decades of a praying mother. 84 00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:34.720 Like that's, that's really the kind of. 85 00:02:34.720 --> 00:02:35.520 Amen. 86 00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:38.480 And, you know, and her persistent witness to me and her example. 87 00:02:39.360 --> 00:02:42.400 But where I became a Christian was at university. 88 00:02:43.040 --> 00:02:45.760 I was sort of walking away from a childhood face. 89 00:02:46.640 --> 00:02:49.520 In my teenage years, I was, I was a kind of a good Christian kid 90 00:02:49.520 --> 00:02:50.880 and I would go to the youth group. 91 00:02:50.880 --> 00:02:52.640 I would, I would be in your youth group, Zach. 92 00:02:53.600 --> 00:02:56.400 I'd be the kid who got the answers right 93 00:02:56.400 --> 00:02:58.400 because I'd stick with Jesus and that was, you know, 94 00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:00.400 you're on tour winner if you just say Jesus a lot. 95 00:03:01.600 --> 00:03:04.800 But I gave my life to Jesus a thousand times in my teenage years. 96 00:03:05.600 --> 00:03:08.320 And from completely the wrong mindset. 97 00:03:08.320 --> 00:03:14.560 So I kind of thought that I was the one offering God something 98 00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:17.520 rather than him offering me Jesus, right? 99 00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:20.960 And it was, it was very much me getting the whole Christian thing 100 00:03:20.960 --> 00:03:24.000 backwards as though it was a ladder rather than, you know, the side. 101 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:27.280 The, the sign of Christianity is across not a ladder, right? 102 00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:28.720 But I was told to give my life to Jesus. 103 00:03:28.720 --> 00:03:29.360 And so I did. 104 00:03:29.360 --> 00:03:31.760 And then I didn't feel like I was kind of, 105 00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:36.400 I don't know, I didn't know what I was expecting when I first prayed to receive Jesus. 106 00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:37.600 And so I prayed again, right? 107 00:03:38.240 --> 00:03:39.280 But this time I did it right. 108 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:41.120 And this time I really tried to mean it, right? 109 00:03:41.600 --> 00:03:43.840 And then I prayed again and again and again. 110 00:03:43.840 --> 00:03:46.880 And I remember going to the bathroom and like putting on the lights 111 00:03:46.880 --> 00:03:50.160 to see if there was like, was there a light behind my eyes? 112 00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:51.520 Was there a halo above my head? 113 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:53.040 Well, like what had changed? 114 00:03:53.040 --> 00:03:56.960 And so I just kept on giving my life to Jesus in ever more melodramatic ways 115 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:01.680 until like by the time I prayed my 900th prayer, like that, 116 00:04:01.680 --> 00:04:03.040 how do you think I'm feeling about God? 117 00:04:03.040 --> 00:04:07.200 You know, it's, it's like I felt like he was kind of hiding behind the side. 118 00:04:07.200 --> 00:04:08.240 I was not going to heaven's door. 119 00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:11.120 He was hiding behind the sofa, pretending not to be in. 120 00:04:11.120 --> 00:04:12.480 Why am I 1000th prayer? 121 00:04:12.480 --> 00:04:13.840 I was like, man, I forget it. 122 00:04:14.800 --> 00:04:15.920 I don't think he wants me. 123 00:04:15.920 --> 00:04:17.040 So maybe I don't want him. 124 00:04:17.040 --> 00:04:20.080 And I went to university to try to have as good a time as I could. 125 00:04:20.160 --> 00:04:21.520 I was doing uni over here. 126 00:04:22.400 --> 00:04:25.840 And yeah, trying, trying hard not to be a Christian 127 00:04:25.840 --> 00:04:27.840 and trying to do the prodigal son sort of thing 128 00:04:27.840 --> 00:04:30.480 and have as much fun in the far country as I could. 129 00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:33.440 And when that didn't work, at the end of university, 130 00:04:33.440 --> 00:04:36.640 a friend of mine just invited me to church. 131 00:04:36.640 --> 00:04:38.320 And he was a very uncool friend. 132 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:43.520 And there was, he's going to be watching this. 133 00:04:43.520 --> 00:04:44.560 He might be. 134 00:04:44.560 --> 00:04:45.680 Shout out to Justin. 135 00:04:45.680 --> 00:04:48.080 Yeah, he just wants uncool Justin. 136 00:04:48.080 --> 00:04:49.120 Oh, he's still a dag. 137 00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:50.480 You know, that's an Australian phrase. 138 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:51.680 He's still, yeah, what does that mean? 139 00:04:52.560 --> 00:04:54.800 Well, you'll think it's more rude when I explain 140 00:04:54.800 --> 00:04:56.560 what it biologically is. 141 00:04:56.560 --> 00:05:00.000 But like the back of a sheep's tail that you cut off 142 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:04.960 because other ways gets fly blown is technically that's what a dag is. 143 00:05:04.960 --> 00:05:08.720 But a daggy person is just somebody who's very uncool, right? 144 00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:11.440 Just, yeah, so that's that's right. 145 00:05:12.320 --> 00:05:14.480 So I'm both old and Australian. 146 00:05:14.480 --> 00:05:18.160 So no, no, no, my slang is going to translate at all. 147 00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:20.400 But, yeah, so he was a dag. 148 00:05:20.400 --> 00:05:23.840 But he was persistently inviting me to church. 149 00:05:23.840 --> 00:05:27.760 And I eventually went along to St. Alde et St. Oxford. 150 00:05:27.760 --> 00:05:30.480 And I started hating the preacher. 151 00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:32.560 And I would sit at the back with my arms folded. 152 00:05:33.280 --> 00:05:36.320 And then I found myself going back the next Sunday 153 00:05:36.320 --> 00:05:38.320 to hate him some more because that had become 154 00:05:38.320 --> 00:05:41.120 the cortisol rush that I was seeking week after week. 155 00:05:41.120 --> 00:05:46.000 Just, you know, it energized me to be... 156 00:05:46.800 --> 00:05:49.920 Because I didn't actually resonate with anything that he said, 157 00:05:49.920 --> 00:05:53.200 but I guess you've got a praying mother in the background, right? 158 00:05:53.200 --> 00:05:54.720 And so track to beam is on. 159 00:05:55.600 --> 00:05:57.200 And the Lord was doing his work. 160 00:05:57.200 --> 00:06:00.080 And then my friend said, why don't we open up the gospels? 161 00:06:00.080 --> 00:06:02.080 And I remember reading through Luke's gospel. 162 00:06:03.120 --> 00:06:08.160 And interestingly, we got to the bit, the Garden of Gethsemane, 163 00:06:08.160 --> 00:06:09.840 in Luke's gospel it's called The Mouth of Olives, 164 00:06:09.840 --> 00:06:13.120 where Jesus is praying, he's sweating blood, 165 00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:16.800 contemplating the cross, he's about to drink the cup of suffering 166 00:06:16.800 --> 00:06:18.400 that the father is handing to him. 167 00:06:18.400 --> 00:06:20.240 And he's saying, take this cup away from me. 168 00:06:20.240 --> 00:06:22.240 And yet not my will, but your will be done. 169 00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:25.280 And I remember I said, I'm reading this with my friend. 170 00:06:25.280 --> 00:06:27.520 And I was like, I can't handle this passage, 171 00:06:27.520 --> 00:06:31.040 because I just can't do it like Jesus did it. 172 00:06:32.080 --> 00:06:33.920 My friend was like, what are you talking about? 173 00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:35.840 And I was like, well, you know, when I was a youth, 174 00:06:35.840 --> 00:06:38.480 you know, I wore the bracelet, WWJG. 175 00:06:39.200 --> 00:06:40.240 What would Jesus do? 176 00:06:40.240 --> 00:06:42.320 You know, isn't that what Christianity is? 177 00:06:43.200 --> 00:06:46.000 And my friend was like, yeah, kind of, but not really. 178 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:49.120 He was like, do you think you're Jesus in this story? 179 00:06:50.080 --> 00:06:53.200 I was like, well, not in every regard, but, you know, 180 00:06:54.560 --> 00:06:57.920 but, you know, aren't we meant to, you know, aren't we meant to WJG? 181 00:06:57.920 --> 00:07:02.400 And he said, Glenn, in this story, you are not Jesus, you are Peter. 182 00:07:03.280 --> 00:07:05.120 And what's Peter doing in that story? 183 00:07:05.120 --> 00:07:09.200 Like failing rubbish, snoozing, snoozing Peter, 184 00:07:09.200 --> 00:07:10.560 sleeping through the whole thing. 185 00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:12.800 He is not offering his life up to God. 186 00:07:12.800 --> 00:07:17.440 Jesus is offering his life up to God for Peter, right? 187 00:07:18.480 --> 00:07:20.400 And actually, that's how Hebrews picks up on it. 188 00:07:20.400 --> 00:07:25.280 Like the, in the New Testament, like the only other part of the Bible actually picks 189 00:07:25.280 --> 00:07:26.720 up on the Garden of Gethsemane. 190 00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:31.600 The one lesson you are to learn is that Jesus is your great high priest when he does that. 191 00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:34.800 He is offering prayers up to God in your name and on your behalf. 192 00:07:34.800 --> 00:07:39.120 And my friend was saying that to me and I was like, oh, so it's not my life off of it up to God. 193 00:07:39.120 --> 00:07:42.400 It's Christ's life offered to God for me. 194 00:07:43.120 --> 00:07:46.720 So that ultimately the arrow is not me up to God. 195 00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:50.400 The arrow is actually Jesus down to me in the pit where I am. 196 00:07:51.520 --> 00:07:53.440 That was just absolutely transformational. 197 00:07:53.440 --> 00:07:56.240 And I think the lights went on at that stage. 198 00:07:56.880 --> 00:08:01.280 And it absolutely flipped the script on what I thought Christianity was. 199 00:08:01.280 --> 00:08:04.960 And I would probably, I don't know when to date my conversion to. 200 00:08:04.960 --> 00:08:08.080 Maybe I should date my conversion back to a 13-year-old Glenn, you know, 201 00:08:08.080 --> 00:08:11.440 praying at a camp to, you know, to receive Christ. 202 00:08:11.440 --> 00:08:14.880 Maybe, maybe I should date it to 21-year-old Glenn, 203 00:08:15.600 --> 00:08:18.960 finally getting that it's Jesus' gift to me, not my gift to God. 204 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:21.680 But at that stage it changed everything. 205 00:08:21.680 --> 00:08:24.560 And I pretty much instantly became an evangelist. 206 00:08:24.560 --> 00:08:26.800 I just instantly became somebody who just wanted to 207 00:08:27.600 --> 00:08:28.960 shoot my mouth off about Jesus. 208 00:08:30.480 --> 00:08:37.200 So you instant, who at that point was your evangelism directed to? 209 00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:41.200 Like, did you just start telling everyone that you interacted with? 210 00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:42.240 Man, everybody. 211 00:08:42.240 --> 00:08:43.200 I was insufferable. 212 00:08:43.200 --> 00:08:44.720 I still am insufferable like that. 213 00:08:44.720 --> 00:08:47.040 You became the Christian dag. 214 00:08:47.040 --> 00:08:48.320 Yeah, I was a dag. 215 00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:49.680 I was totally daggy. 216 00:08:49.680 --> 00:08:50.400 Dang, exactly. 217 00:08:50.400 --> 00:08:51.040 So uncool. 218 00:08:51.840 --> 00:08:54.800 So uncool, this modemouth about Jesus. 219 00:08:54.800 --> 00:08:56.480 And like, that was at the end of university. 220 00:08:56.480 --> 00:08:59.120 I went back to Australia to sort of join the Civil Service. 221 00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:01.360 Went on a graduate program. 222 00:09:01.360 --> 00:09:02.720 I didn't do any work. 223 00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:05.680 I worked for the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 224 00:09:05.680 --> 00:09:08.000 which is even less glamorous than it sounds, right? 225 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:10.240 It's like the most dull job I could possibly get. 226 00:09:10.800 --> 00:09:14.400 And I would just spend my whole time just evangelizing my co-workers. 227 00:09:14.800 --> 00:09:17.280 I met another Christian who was there and he said, 228 00:09:17.280 --> 00:09:20.800 let's go to out on the streets for a lunch break. 229 00:09:20.800 --> 00:09:22.880 And he was used to talking to strangers. 230 00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:24.880 And so I was very young in my faith. 231 00:09:24.880 --> 00:09:28.880 And he was just like, we're just going to, you know, he would just walk up to a stranger 232 00:09:29.440 --> 00:09:33.120 on George Street and Sydney right outside the town hall right in the CBD of Sydney. 233 00:09:33.200 --> 00:09:35.280 And he would just say, hi, I'm Paul. 234 00:09:35.280 --> 00:09:36.320 This is my friend, Glenn. 235 00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:36.960 We're Christians. 236 00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:38.720 We're just asking people who they think Jesus is. 237 00:09:38.720 --> 00:09:39.520 Do you have an opinion? 238 00:09:40.320 --> 00:09:42.720 And that was, that was literally, they say about, you know, 239 00:09:42.720 --> 00:09:43.440 battle plans. 240 00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:45.520 They kind of, they get you into the battle. 241 00:09:45.520 --> 00:09:48.000 But then from there on in, you kind of on your own. 242 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:49.120 Like, everything else. 243 00:09:49.120 --> 00:09:51.520 That was the script that got us into a conversation. 244 00:09:51.520 --> 00:09:53.360 And then who knows where it goes from there. 245 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:56.160 And so very young in my faith, I was kind of doing that. 246 00:09:56.160 --> 00:09:59.440 And it took me far too long to figure out that I could do this for, 247 00:09:59.440 --> 00:10:01.840 I didn't have to work for the Australian Bureau of Statistics. 248 00:10:02.480 --> 00:10:04.080 I could actually work for churches and do this. 249 00:10:04.080 --> 00:10:06.480 And so that's what I started to do pretty soon after that. 250 00:10:08.640 --> 00:10:10.320 Yeah, do you have a question? 251 00:10:10.320 --> 00:10:14.640 Well, I just wanted to, I loved when he said that the cross is a cross, 252 00:10:14.640 --> 00:10:15.600 they're not a ladder. 253 00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:16.080 Right. 254 00:10:16.080 --> 00:10:18.320 Because that is like literally completely reflects 255 00:10:18.320 --> 00:10:21.440 then your like, revelation of Jesus is high priest. 256 00:10:21.440 --> 00:10:25.040 Because it sounded like you were trying to climb up yourself 257 00:10:25.040 --> 00:10:26.160 to get that salvation. 258 00:10:26.160 --> 00:10:28.960 But actually, Jesus met you by coming down on the cross. 259 00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:29.680 Absolutely. 260 00:10:29.680 --> 00:10:30.640 Which is a crazy. 261 00:10:30.800 --> 00:10:32.080 It's so good, isn't it? 262 00:10:32.080 --> 00:10:34.080 It's like, why were we talking about Leviticus 263 00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:34.960 before we started filming? 264 00:10:34.960 --> 00:10:36.000 We started talking about Leviticus. 265 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:37.760 Because somebody messaged and asked 266 00:10:37.760 --> 00:10:39.280 if we had any resources. 267 00:10:39.280 --> 00:10:40.080 But we don't. 268 00:10:40.080 --> 00:10:41.520 So I pointing them to the Bible product. 269 00:10:41.520 --> 00:10:42.480 We do now, right? 270 00:10:42.480 --> 00:10:44.720 Because like, I'm reading through Leviticus at the moment. 271 00:10:44.720 --> 00:10:47.120 And like, you get to that, the heart of Leviticus 272 00:10:47.120 --> 00:10:51.600 is like the day of Atonement, where the great high priest, Aaron, 273 00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:52.880 he dresses up like Jesus. 274 00:10:52.880 --> 00:10:54.560 He's playing dress ups, okay? 275 00:10:54.560 --> 00:10:57.360 And he's anointed with this insane amount of oil. 276 00:10:57.360 --> 00:10:59.040 It's like five liters of oil. 277 00:10:59.040 --> 00:11:00.880 It's kind of like poured on his, like when you, 278 00:11:00.880 --> 00:11:02.800 when you actually do the maths and figure out 279 00:11:02.800 --> 00:11:06.000 what's happening, what a blinded, the kind of that much 280 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:07.200 spiced kind of oil. 281 00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:10.080 As he's anointed, other people get anointed in the Old Testament. 282 00:11:10.080 --> 00:11:11.920 Like, kings get a little bit of oil, right? 283 00:11:11.920 --> 00:11:14.400 And prophets sometimes get a little bit of oil. 284 00:11:14.400 --> 00:11:16.960 But when you think of the anointed one, 285 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.080 really, you should be thinking about what the priest is. 286 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:21.680 Because the priest is really anointed. 287 00:11:21.680 --> 00:11:23.840 He's filled to overflowing with the oil, 288 00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:25.680 which is always a sign of the spirit 289 00:11:25.680 --> 00:11:28.080 like throughout the Bible, Old Testament New Testament. 290 00:11:28.160 --> 00:11:30.160 And so what is Aaron doing? 291 00:11:30.160 --> 00:11:33.120 He's dressing up like Jesus, the Christ. 292 00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:35.280 Christ just means anointed one, right? 293 00:11:35.280 --> 00:11:37.680 And everything he does, as he, you know, 294 00:11:37.680 --> 00:11:40.960 he lays his hands on the head of the scapegoat 295 00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:42.640 and kind of sends it into the wilderness, 296 00:11:42.640 --> 00:11:44.800 carrying the sins of the people. 297 00:11:44.800 --> 00:11:47.280 And he kills the other goats. 298 00:11:47.280 --> 00:11:48.800 And it's fascinating, one of the goats 299 00:11:48.800 --> 00:11:51.040 is called the scapegoat. 300 00:11:51.040 --> 00:11:54.000 And essentially the other goat is kind of called the Lord. 301 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:55.920 Like, you cast lots for the goats. 302 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:58.240 Like, one of them is for the scapegoat. 303 00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:00.400 And the other one is for the Lord. 304 00:12:00.400 --> 00:12:03.040 And so literally, like Aaron is kind of laying his hands 305 00:12:03.040 --> 00:12:06.640 on the head of this goat that is kind of called the Lord. 306 00:12:06.640 --> 00:12:08.560 And the next thing he does, he puts a knife to his throat 307 00:12:08.560 --> 00:12:10.320 and the blood flows out, right? 308 00:12:11.040 --> 00:12:12.720 Because our sin is serious. 309 00:12:12.720 --> 00:12:15.920 The man's death, the life is in the blood, says Leviticus. 310 00:12:15.920 --> 00:12:18.640 And so what does it mean to walk away from a God of life? 311 00:12:18.640 --> 00:12:20.000 It means you're walking into death. 312 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:21.200 What does God do about it? 313 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:22.800 He enters into our death. 314 00:12:23.760 --> 00:12:26.080 And so you've got all these pictures of Jesus. 315 00:12:26.080 --> 00:12:28.640 Like Jesus is pictured in the high priest who's doing this. 316 00:12:28.640 --> 00:12:30.640 He's also pictured as the sacrifice. 317 00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:35.280 He is the God who walks into our death and takes it on himself. 318 00:12:35.920 --> 00:12:37.520 And then having made the sacrifices, 319 00:12:37.520 --> 00:12:40.400 Aaron goes into the most holy place, the presence of God. 320 00:12:41.040 --> 00:12:42.480 And he shows God the blood. 321 00:12:42.480 --> 00:12:45.680 And like, humanity's sin deserves death. 322 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:48.240 Death has been given, right? 323 00:12:48.240 --> 00:12:52.080 And so he offers to God the perfect atonement for us. 324 00:12:52.160 --> 00:12:54.480 And then the detail that I love about Leviticus 325 00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:57.600 is the high priest has these jewels on his heart 326 00:12:58.400 --> 00:13:00.560 and they represent the 12 tribes of Israel. 327 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:04.000 And so he's carrying God's people on his heart 328 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:05.280 into the presence of God. 329 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:07.600 So no wonder then in the New Testament, 330 00:13:08.320 --> 00:13:09.360 like Hebrew says, 331 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:13.040 since we have a great high priest who has gone into the heavens, 332 00:13:13.040 --> 00:13:14.640 Jesus, the Son of God, 333 00:13:14.640 --> 00:13:16.800 let us boldly approach the throne of grace 334 00:13:16.800 --> 00:13:18.560 to receive mercy in our time of need. 335 00:13:19.040 --> 00:13:21.920 And it's like Jesus has made the sacrifices. 336 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:24.400 He is the God who has entered into our death. 337 00:13:24.400 --> 00:13:26.640 He's also, you know, having been sacrificed. 338 00:13:26.640 --> 00:13:31.200 He's also the priest who has ascended up into heaven on my behalf. 339 00:13:31.760 --> 00:13:33.760 And I'm just like a spectator in the whole thing. 340 00:13:33.760 --> 00:13:36.480 If I'm in Israelite, like how have I made atonement? 341 00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:37.360 I haven't made atonement. 342 00:13:37.360 --> 00:13:38.960 The priest has done it all. 343 00:13:38.960 --> 00:13:40.080 And it's a day off. 344 00:13:40.080 --> 00:13:44.080 The day of atonement is a total day of you are not to do any work at all 345 00:13:44.080 --> 00:13:48.800 because you are just a spectator as you watch your high priest do everything for you. 346 00:13:48.800 --> 00:13:50.880 And when you get that, it just transforms everything. 347 00:13:50.880 --> 00:13:53.680 You know, it's not me climbing into God's presence. 348 00:13:53.680 --> 00:13:55.760 It's Jesus going up there on my behalf. 349 00:13:55.760 --> 00:13:56.720 He's carrying me on his heart. 350 00:13:56.720 --> 00:13:58.960 He's praying at the right hand of the Father. 351 00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:00.560 You know, I don't have to yell up to God. 352 00:14:00.560 --> 00:14:03.360 Jesus is whispering in his ear and he's saying my name. 353 00:14:03.360 --> 00:14:03.840 Yeah. 354 00:14:03.840 --> 00:14:05.840 You're like, when you get that, changes everything. 355 00:14:05.840 --> 00:14:06.480 Yeah. 356 00:14:06.480 --> 00:14:10.000 And how does that impact how you evangelize them? 357 00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:13.440 Because like that is like life changing. 358 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:13.680 Yeah. 359 00:14:14.320 --> 00:14:15.920 Well, I think you've just experienced. 360 00:14:15.920 --> 00:14:17.280 I've just evangelized you. 361 00:14:17.280 --> 00:14:17.680 Yeah. 362 00:14:17.680 --> 00:14:18.720 You hear how much I was. 363 00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:19.520 Right. 364 00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:22.240 And, and I'm just, I'm an indiscriminate evangelist. 365 00:14:22.240 --> 00:14:23.440 I don't care if you're a Christian or not. 366 00:14:24.160 --> 00:14:25.600 You're going to get something like that. 367 00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:26.480 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 368 00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:27.760 What do you mean indiscriminate? 369 00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:30.880 Like, I don't, I don't discriminate between Christian and non-Christian. 370 00:14:31.680 --> 00:14:36.560 It's not that the non-Christian needs evangelism and the Christian needs discipleship. 371 00:14:36.560 --> 00:14:38.720 As though those are really radically different things. 372 00:14:39.280 --> 00:14:43.840 Because when we do that, then we basically give to non-Christian's good news. 373 00:14:43.840 --> 00:14:47.440 And we just give to Christians, like, do better. 374 00:14:48.400 --> 00:14:51.120 Like, kind of wrap them on the, on the wrist and say, be more Christlike. 375 00:14:52.720 --> 00:14:56.320 Whereas I think what is, what is pastoral care? 376 00:14:56.320 --> 00:14:58.400 Pastoral care is evangelizing Christians. 377 00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:00.960 And what is evangelism? 378 00:15:00.960 --> 00:15:04.240 Evangelism is pastoring non-Christians, right? 379 00:15:04.240 --> 00:15:06.000 And it's the same message, right? 380 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:06.880 It's the same. 381 00:15:06.880 --> 00:15:11.520 Because what do you, what do you need if you're feeling sluggish in your spiritual life, 382 00:15:11.520 --> 00:15:11.920 right? 383 00:15:11.920 --> 00:15:14.480 What, what do you need to be a better Christian? 384 00:15:15.120 --> 00:15:18.800 Like, less of the, just laying down the law, 385 00:15:18.800 --> 00:15:20.320 what you need is to hear about Jesus. 386 00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:23.360 You're very high priest again and again and again. 387 00:15:23.920 --> 00:15:28.400 And as I evangelize you again and again and again, that's pastoral care. 388 00:15:28.400 --> 00:15:32.160 But as I say the same sort of stuff to a non-Christian friend, 389 00:15:32.160 --> 00:15:36.080 I might need to kind of make my language more accessible. 390 00:15:36.080 --> 00:15:39.280 But as I say that kind of stuff to a non-Christian, 391 00:15:39.280 --> 00:15:41.760 I'm pastoring a non-Christian, you know, essentially. 392 00:15:42.720 --> 00:15:44.160 It's this indiscriminate thing. 393 00:15:44.160 --> 00:15:46.800 We've got the same message, whether it's the Christians or non-Christians. 394 00:15:46.800 --> 00:15:49.200 And it's from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. 395 00:15:49.200 --> 00:15:53.120 So the first thing I need is a heart that's brimful of Jesus. 396 00:15:54.640 --> 00:16:00.000 And the first person that, the first person really needs to be evangelized is me, right? 397 00:16:00.800 --> 00:16:06.720 And then it ripples out from me through God's people out to those who are, you know, 398 00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:10.560 seekers out to those who might be dead against the gospel. 399 00:16:10.640 --> 00:16:13.040 But it's that kind of rippling out overflow. 400 00:16:13.920 --> 00:16:19.680 Rather than we just, you know, cast lines into the non-Christian world, 401 00:16:19.680 --> 00:16:21.440 you know, I think it's an overflow model. 402 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:26.480 Why is that overflow so important? 403 00:16:27.280 --> 00:16:28.480 Yeah. 404 00:16:29.520 --> 00:16:34.400 Because I think something that we were talking about literally just before we started recording 405 00:16:35.120 --> 00:16:41.120 was that I, I have this theory that evangelism is like the most talked about 406 00:16:41.760 --> 00:16:43.600 least practice than the church. 407 00:16:43.600 --> 00:16:44.640 Right, yeah. 408 00:16:44.640 --> 00:16:48.560 Because there's so many people who know that it's the church's mission. 409 00:16:49.280 --> 00:16:51.360 But never actually go to the front lines. 410 00:16:51.920 --> 00:16:52.400 Yeah. 411 00:16:52.400 --> 00:16:57.760 And so I guess my question is, like, why is that so important? 412 00:16:57.760 --> 00:16:58.240 Yeah. 413 00:16:58.240 --> 00:17:03.120 And if you could explain to someone in like 90 seconds why that's incredibly important, 414 00:17:03.200 --> 00:17:04.000 what would you say? 415 00:17:05.280 --> 00:17:09.680 I would say it's from the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks, Matthew 12 verse 34. 416 00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:15.600 And that to evangelize is really to simply infuse about Jesus. 417 00:17:15.600 --> 00:17:22.000 And like, you would never say to somebody who's like a brand ambassador for Pepsi, right? 418 00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:25.600 Just go and tell people about Pepsi, but don't be enthusiastic about your color brand. 419 00:17:25.600 --> 00:17:28.640 Like, like, you would say, like, why is Pepsi? 420 00:17:28.640 --> 00:17:29.840 Why do you love Pepsi, right? 421 00:17:29.840 --> 00:17:32.080 And then it overflows from that. 422 00:17:32.080 --> 00:17:36.640 You would never say, you know, evangelize about Arsenal football club without knowing anything 423 00:17:36.640 --> 00:17:40.880 about Arsenal football club, you know, you would go to the Emirates stadium and you would watch 424 00:17:40.880 --> 00:17:44.720 them win the game and you would shout and sing the songs along with everybody else. 425 00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:50.560 And then as you are leaving Emirates stadium, you're still singing the songs and you're still 426 00:17:50.560 --> 00:17:54.960 and you're still wearing the beanie and you're still, you know, your, your team Arsenal and 427 00:17:54.960 --> 00:17:56.160 your Arsenal till you die. 428 00:17:56.160 --> 00:17:59.280 And it's, but it's from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. 429 00:17:59.280 --> 00:18:06.480 So if we want a whole generation of evangelists to be, to be kind of raised up, 430 00:18:07.680 --> 00:18:12.320 I say, let's not first of all tell them go and do evangelism because what's that? 431 00:18:12.320 --> 00:18:13.200 That's laying down the law. 432 00:18:14.160 --> 00:18:18.080 What we first need to do is actually evangelize them and evangelize Christians, 433 00:18:18.080 --> 00:18:19.840 get Christians excited about Jesus. 434 00:18:20.880 --> 00:18:23.760 And, and, and then from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. 435 00:18:23.840 --> 00:18:28.800 If the words aren't coming, Matthew 12 verse 34 would, would make us conclude that there's 436 00:18:28.800 --> 00:18:35.200 a heart problem with me. It's not just I need more tips and tools and techniques to, to sort of 437 00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:40.400 insert into conversations. First, first of all, I need to be evangelized. That's, that's what we're 438 00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:44.320 all on about at Speak Life. That's, that's, that's our verse from the overflow of the heart, 439 00:18:44.320 --> 00:18:48.960 the mouth speaks and, you know, our strapline is love Jesus, share Jesus. If we want people to 440 00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:51.840 share Jesus, we really need them to love Jesus. 441 00:18:55.920 --> 00:19:04.240 That was so, so, so what I'm hearing is step one of evangelism is being captivated by Christ. 442 00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:07.520 Wow. That's, that's a much better way of saying it. Yeah, yeah, there we go. 443 00:19:07.520 --> 00:19:13.760 Yeah. And how that, that feels like something that's out of my control. 444 00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:21.600 Yeah, right, right. You can aim for it. So I love the word captivated. We use that word 445 00:19:21.600 --> 00:19:28.640 captivated Speak Life all the time. Two Corinthians 10, Paul kind of talks about sharing the word 446 00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:34.720 as a little bit like warfare. And he says, you know, we cast down imaginations as, as we, 447 00:19:35.520 --> 00:19:41.520 as we lift up Christ and we take every thought captive to Christ, right? As we go out with the 448 00:19:41.520 --> 00:19:48.640 gospel and his image there is, it's, it's a little bit like the walls of Jericho, you know, 449 00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:54.240 how do you bring down the walls of Jericho and get to your friends? Your friends are captivated 450 00:19:54.240 --> 00:20:01.680 already by a story of life. And they're captivated by in that story, they've got main character energy 451 00:20:01.680 --> 00:20:07.680 because they've got, they've got main character syndrome. Okay. And, and they are, they are 452 00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:12.160 absolutely trapped by that. They think it's amazing, right? They don't think they're trapped in 453 00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:16.080 these walls. They think it's an iMac cinema. And they're like, oh, you know, this, this story in 454 00:20:16.080 --> 00:20:21.280 which it's all about me, I love it. And Paul is like, we need to, we need to take down the 455 00:20:21.280 --> 00:20:27.920 walls of Jericho. We need to take down that imagination and take every thought captive to Christ, 456 00:20:27.920 --> 00:20:34.160 which means to build up an alternative imaginative world in which you are not the central character, 457 00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:40.560 Jesus is the central character. And his anthropology, which is a fancy word for saying the way he 458 00:20:40.560 --> 00:20:48.160 thinks people tick is we are heart-led creatures who are immersed in a story. And it's that story 459 00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:53.520 by which we orient our lives. And it's kind of as we are immersed in a story, that's where we find 460 00:20:53.520 --> 00:20:59.280 our hearts changing. And we always live by this, this sort of phrase that speak like we, we think 461 00:20:59.360 --> 00:21:05.200 about, you know, what the heart loves, the will chooses and the mind justifies. Like, well, 462 00:21:05.200 --> 00:21:12.880 we are heart-led creatures. What you end up loving actually, you end up chasing in your life. 463 00:21:12.880 --> 00:21:17.440 And actually, interestingly, your mind can place catch up and sort of justifies the decisions 464 00:21:17.440 --> 00:21:22.880 that you've already made. So what we really need to do is reach first Christian's hearts. And then 465 00:21:22.880 --> 00:21:29.040 as we are sharers of Jesus, we'll be sharers of this story that is aimed at captivating hearts. 466 00:21:29.280 --> 00:21:36.160 You're right. We're not in charge of it. But we know where to aim. And where we need to aim 467 00:21:36.160 --> 00:21:41.360 is at people's hearts through telling the Jesus story and in captivating ways. 468 00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:49.200 And like, how would you encourage our audience to practice that in their different settings? 469 00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:54.080 Like, I'm assuming school, university, workplaces, maybe a statistics bureau. 470 00:21:54.080 --> 00:22:01.440 Like, how do you do that? The joy of the Lord would just be such an amazing thing in those 471 00:22:01.440 --> 00:22:08.000 statistics. Yeah. Like, what would you say to them to practically speak out the gospel from the 472 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:15.040 overthrow of their heart? Yeah. Well, Matthew 5, Jesus says, you know, be salt and light, which is 473 00:22:15.040 --> 00:22:21.600 all about being different actually in those in those settings. Salt is different to the meat 474 00:22:21.600 --> 00:22:26.480 that the salt gets rubbed into is often used as a preservative in the in the ancient world. 475 00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:30.720 It's different from the meal that you're having. It's distinctive. It's got cut through. So salt 476 00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:35.200 salt is distinctive. Light is obviously very distinctive from the darkness that's around it. 477 00:22:35.840 --> 00:22:42.880 And so we ought to be encouraged to be different actually. And, you know, I sort of said, 478 00:22:42.880 --> 00:22:49.760 as I sat down for those listening on the podcast, there is an amazing heart shaped photo frame 479 00:22:49.760 --> 00:22:56.240 next to me with no photo in it, just the name Jesus and another love heart within it. 480 00:22:56.240 --> 00:23:02.960 So it's very, very clear. We are the people who love Jesus, right? And I think that's kind of the 481 00:23:02.960 --> 00:23:09.360 essence of evangelism. Like, like, is it very clear that I'm this guy, right? I'm this guy who, 482 00:23:09.360 --> 00:23:16.960 as cringes this is, you know, I'm happy to own it and to walk out into the world as the person 483 00:23:16.960 --> 00:23:22.480 who has Jesus in their bio, right? If you're on Instagram and, you know, what what what should be 484 00:23:22.480 --> 00:23:28.800 on your bio? Lots of different things, right? But one of them probably should be Christian, maybe 485 00:23:28.800 --> 00:23:33.440 or a cross or I don't know. I mean, people try and get too creative about these things. They're 486 00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:38.000 just like, you know, disciple of the Nazarene and things like, like, you don't have to go. Yeah, 487 00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:42.080 doesn't need to be cryptic. Just just like Christian. Yeah, Christian is a good enough phrase. 488 00:23:42.640 --> 00:23:47.760 And then don't be a jerk, right? That's right. Yeah. And that works online. That works offline, 489 00:23:47.760 --> 00:23:53.600 right? Like, be be distinctive as a Christian. Okay. So what were you up to on the weekend? Well, 490 00:23:53.600 --> 00:23:59.680 Friday night, I had youth group and Sunday was at church and like dropped that in beyond 491 00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:05.040 apologetic about that. And then don't be a jerk, right? And that's that's hard, right? 492 00:24:05.840 --> 00:24:13.600 We'll all kind of not do favors to team Jesus in terms of who you know, reputation management. 493 00:24:13.600 --> 00:24:20.720 We'll all mess up. Yeah. But I think as you are that salt that's different, as you are that light, 494 00:24:20.720 --> 00:24:28.320 you know, Jesus says, I love it in Matthew 5 because he's like, no one, no one buys a lamp and 495 00:24:28.320 --> 00:24:34.560 then puts it under a bushel or under a bucket, right? And he's capturing our imaginations 496 00:24:34.560 --> 00:24:39.600 of story, right? It's an analogy. Like, think about it. This guy, he goes to the store, he buys 497 00:24:39.600 --> 00:24:44.960 a lamp. He brings it inside and then puts a bucket over the top and wonders why it's so dark inside. 498 00:24:44.960 --> 00:24:49.600 And then he gets on to the hotline. It's like, I want to make a complaint about this lamp. 499 00:24:49.600 --> 00:24:55.680 You know, it's just not working. And the guy on the other end is like, I don't know what's 500 00:24:55.680 --> 00:24:59.600 going wrong. He's like, well, it just stops working when I put the bucket over it. You did what? 501 00:24:59.600 --> 00:25:05.200 You know, it's the most ridiculous. No one lights a lamp and puts a bucket over the top. 502 00:25:05.200 --> 00:25:10.160 No, but Christians do that. That's what Jesus is saying. He's like, like, guys, that's what that's 503 00:25:10.160 --> 00:25:17.440 what the church is like. Like, we have the light. He doesn't say burn more brightly, right? He says, 504 00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:23.520 you are the light of the world, right? And you know, in Acts chapter one, he doesn't say, try and 505 00:25:23.520 --> 00:25:28.320 be a witness. He's like, no, you are. You are my witnesses. You already that. You already that, 506 00:25:28.320 --> 00:25:34.000 right? Try and burn brightly. You know, turn it up to 11. He doesn't say that, like, you are the 507 00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:39.680 light of the world. My biggest problem in evangelism is everything that gets in the way of my 508 00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:47.280 distinctiveness. I have to stop being evangelistic, actually. And when I notice my failures in evangelism, 509 00:25:47.280 --> 00:25:53.840 it's largely because I just want to go a little bit mute on Jesus. I don't want to be too distinctive. 510 00:25:53.840 --> 00:25:57.360 I don't want to be too salty. I don't want to be, you know, too bright. 511 00:25:59.840 --> 00:26:05.440 I don't want to claim the name of Jesus. I don't want to, you know, claim that I belong to his people. 512 00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:13.040 It's all the ways, it's my biggest problem is all the things that I do to prevent my natural 513 00:26:13.040 --> 00:26:19.440 shining, because Christians do naturally shine in lots of different ways. And one of the things 514 00:26:19.440 --> 00:26:24.720 I love to do with people is I'll say in front of a group if I'm doing some evangelism training. 515 00:26:24.720 --> 00:26:30.560 I said, you know, so and so just introduced me as an evangelist. Let's just workshop. What are all 516 00:26:30.560 --> 00:26:36.880 the word associations you have with the name evangelists? Like think of your archetypal evangelist. 517 00:26:36.880 --> 00:26:42.320 What are you thinking of? And they come up with this reptilian figure with fire in their bellies. 518 00:26:42.320 --> 00:26:46.320 Probably some personal hygiene issues. And there's something a Bible on a street corner with a 519 00:26:46.320 --> 00:26:52.400 megaphone. And you know, the end is now, end is now and all that kind of stuff. And I'm like, okay. 520 00:26:53.600 --> 00:26:58.640 This is really hurtful because I just told you I am an evangelist. That really hurts my feelings. 521 00:26:58.640 --> 00:27:02.240 But of course it doesn't hurt my feelings. I'm an evangelist. I have no feelings. Like this is 522 00:27:03.840 --> 00:27:08.560 the caricature of evangelist doesn't, right? But then what I say is, okay, turn to your neighbor and 523 00:27:08.560 --> 00:27:11.840 just describe to your neighbor someone who's helped you be the Christian that you are today. 524 00:27:13.040 --> 00:27:17.360 Somebody in your spiritual journey that helped you go from darkness to light just just pick 525 00:27:17.360 --> 00:27:22.160 someone and then describe them to your friend. And so they just break up into groups for a 526 00:27:22.160 --> 00:27:25.200 couple of minutes and I get them to feed back into the room. I was like, what adjectives you're 527 00:27:25.200 --> 00:27:30.080 using now? What what what what what what describing words you're using now? And then they're like, 528 00:27:30.080 --> 00:27:36.880 you know, some people were very bold. Some people were very they were the very quiet lamp shining 529 00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:44.720 in the corner. So that when life got difficult, the non-Christian friend knew, I need to go to Sally 530 00:27:44.720 --> 00:27:49.360 because Sally is the sort of person that can handle this darkness because she she she just 531 00:27:49.360 --> 00:27:53.120 glows in the corner. You know, you don't have to be the dazzling light. You could just be the 532 00:27:53.120 --> 00:27:58.160 glowing light in the corner. There's lots of different ways of being an evangelist, right? And I 533 00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:03.440 think like knowing that in franchises people are a whole heck of a lot. And then if you want I can 534 00:28:03.520 --> 00:28:08.400 get into some some little things that you can sort of scatter some seeds into conversations if you like. 535 00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:17.360 Okay, let's definitely get into that. Yeah, but I have I have this thing about like jarring evangelism 536 00:28:17.360 --> 00:28:25.840 right where it's just like right. This is just not the vibe. It's pulling up to a party and 537 00:28:26.080 --> 00:28:34.240 like trying to talk to everyone about Jesus and it's super jarring. Yeah. And and sometimes they 538 00:28:34.240 --> 00:28:39.840 think like I'd almost just rather you just be that quiet light in the corner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 539 00:28:39.840 --> 00:28:47.040 That's validers that just my own like fear or not wanting to be like yeah. 540 00:28:47.040 --> 00:28:52.160 Yeah, yeah. Well, as Christians, we've got to lose the cringe of phobia. You know, we've got 541 00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:57.280 it. We've got to happily like own the love heart. I love Jesus. And you know, it's Jesus till I 542 00:28:57.280 --> 00:29:03.280 die. We definitely need to do that. But I think the cringe thing that you're describing can one 543 00:29:03.280 --> 00:29:07.520 of the problems with that is it can found it can sound manipulative. Yeah, as though we're trying 544 00:29:07.520 --> 00:29:12.960 to have a conversation and you're just constantly trying to shift the gear into this Jesus thing. 545 00:29:13.680 --> 00:29:19.520 When one of the things that can can can can communicate is that Jesus is this little niche figure 546 00:29:19.520 --> 00:29:26.000 over here. I need to take the conversation. We're having a conversation about love and relationships 547 00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:32.560 over here. And and if if my vibe is then to go, Hey, forget about that. You need to know about the 548 00:29:32.560 --> 00:29:39.760 cross, you know, jarring, jarring, but isn't there a way of saying, you know, that's what I love about 549 00:29:39.760 --> 00:29:46.320 Jesus. Like he doesn't just talk about love. Like like in in the Bible, he's not just a love poem. 550 00:29:47.280 --> 00:29:54.000 God doesn't just send us down some like an ode. Like God, God send us now like the the the 551 00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:59.280 Jesus who like stoops and serves and suffers and and and that for me is a much better demonstration 552 00:29:59.280 --> 00:30:05.120 of love. Don't you think? Right. And at that stage, I've just dropped a little seed in and one of 553 00:30:05.120 --> 00:30:10.240 the seeds I teach people about is that's what I love about Jesus dot, dot, dot, you know, you can 554 00:30:10.240 --> 00:30:15.200 have a conversation about anything. You'd be talking about politics or something. And you know, 555 00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:20.160 and at some stage, I don't think it's inappropriate. If people are saying, Oh, the problem with politicians 556 00:30:20.160 --> 00:30:25.360 is power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that kind of stuff. And you know, 557 00:30:25.360 --> 00:30:31.440 at some point, I think you might want to, certainly if you're a cringophile, like I am rather than 558 00:30:31.440 --> 00:30:38.160 a cringey foe. You might want to at some stage, take a deep breath and just kind of say, Yeah, 559 00:30:38.160 --> 00:30:42.640 but man, that's what I love about Jesus. Like like apparently, according to the Bible, he had all 560 00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:46.640 the power in the world. And like then the night before he dies, he stoops to everybody's feet and 561 00:30:46.640 --> 00:30:52.880 just washes them. Like, like that's a different vision of power. Don't you think? And you know, half 562 00:30:52.880 --> 00:30:59.120 the time, you know, tumbleweed might blow through the road and people might not know what to what 563 00:30:59.120 --> 00:31:03.520 to do about that. But then half the time people be like, Oh, that's that's really interesting. And 564 00:31:03.600 --> 00:31:08.240 even the half of the time when people don't know what to do about that, they've then thought to 565 00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:15.440 themselves, Okay, it's actually a bit weird, but he might be the person I can open up to later on. 566 00:31:16.160 --> 00:31:24.000 Right. When my girlfriend dumps me and you know, when when when life goes badly, maybe, maybe he's 567 00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:29.600 got something about the spiritual side to him that I wasn't vibing with at the party, 568 00:31:30.560 --> 00:31:36.480 but I might what's happened say, can we, you know, can we grab a coffee and talk about that at 569 00:31:36.480 --> 00:31:42.640 another time? So don't feel like even if it has appeared like, like cringe in the moment, 570 00:31:42.640 --> 00:31:46.560 don't think that God won't use that. I'm always thinking about one, one Peter two, 571 00:31:47.280 --> 00:31:51.440 live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they'll glorify 572 00:31:51.440 --> 00:31:58.560 God on the day he visits us, which actually tells us that your evangelism in the moment might just 573 00:31:59.600 --> 00:32:04.960 it might actually invite anger, like though they accuse you of doing wrong, but then Peter says, 574 00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:10.800 but actually at some point between that's kind of clanger between that asteroid that just landed 575 00:32:10.800 --> 00:32:17.360 on the conversation. So at some point between that act of cringe and the last day, this person 576 00:32:17.360 --> 00:32:21.360 actually turns to Christ, right? Though they accuse you of doing wrong, though glorify God on the day 577 00:32:21.360 --> 00:32:26.000 you visit us, people never change their mind in the moment, right? Yeah. Evangelist always get 578 00:32:26.080 --> 00:32:30.800 this wrong. We always feel like I need to push for a decision right now and in the moment this person 579 00:32:30.800 --> 00:32:35.360 is going to change their mind. People very rarely change their mind in the moment. Six months later, 580 00:32:35.360 --> 00:32:39.760 they changed their mind and then they'll say, yeah, I was just on the bus and I was thinking about 581 00:32:39.760 --> 00:32:44.960 things in a different way and then and then you say to them, but I told you all this stuff six 582 00:32:44.960 --> 00:32:48.800 months ago, have you forgotten that was me? And yeah, they've totally forgotten it was you, but that's 583 00:32:48.800 --> 00:32:53.840 good, right? They don't they don't change their mind in the moment. So maybe that can free you up to be 584 00:32:53.920 --> 00:33:02.640 a little more bold, right? Right, right. Okay, I'm well, I would love to hear because you you kind of 585 00:33:02.640 --> 00:33:10.560 like very briefly mentioned when you first came into the studio about creative forms of evangelism 586 00:33:10.560 --> 00:33:17.680 and obviously there's so many avenues of sharing Jesus and the gospel good news with with someone 587 00:33:17.680 --> 00:33:24.640 nowadays. What could could you just give us like a brief overview of that? Like I want to hear more 588 00:33:24.640 --> 00:33:30.000 about that. Yeah. Well, I mean, people can check out what we do at Speak Life, but we've got a 589 00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:37.280 whole bunch of short films and poems and and we want to creatively present the gospel because I 590 00:33:37.280 --> 00:33:42.000 think from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks and and some of us have those sorts of 591 00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:46.960 creative gifts and it's good just to give expression to that. And also because the two Corinthians 592 00:33:46.960 --> 00:33:52.240 10 stuff like we want to tell, we want to be storytellers. We want to immerse people in the Jesus 593 00:33:52.240 --> 00:33:56.560 story rather than just download facts on them. That's not how people change people don't change when 594 00:33:56.560 --> 00:34:04.240 you download facts on them. They change when you build a world for them and invite them into this 595 00:34:04.240 --> 00:34:08.960 strange new world in which Jesus is Lord, but things that to make a lot more sense, you know. 596 00:34:09.520 --> 00:34:14.880 And so we're constantly trying to do that. We've we've got a course called three to one which seeks to 597 00:34:14.880 --> 00:34:20.640 just invite people to become Christians just through telling the Jesus story again and again and 598 00:34:20.640 --> 00:34:26.000 again. And there's eight episodes. Every single one of them begins with me saying picture this 599 00:34:26.880 --> 00:34:35.040 and I'll describe some kind of story and I'll invite them into a world in which they can see 600 00:34:35.040 --> 00:34:44.080 things afresh. And you might think that storytelling at that point is a kind of a poor substitute 601 00:34:44.160 --> 00:34:50.000 for real evangelism. People kind of have that view. They kind of think, well, real evangelism is just 602 00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:55.200 telling people six truths and asking, you know, asking the hero to tick off those six truths and 603 00:34:55.200 --> 00:35:01.360 affirm them. And storytelling, well, it's an interesting hook and it might keep people's interest 604 00:35:01.360 --> 00:35:06.960 so that you can go back to the six truths. I think storytelling is the most aggressive form of 605 00:35:06.960 --> 00:35:13.920 communication you can ever do to somebody. Like if I tell you some truths, I might be trying to 606 00:35:13.920 --> 00:35:19.840 take the intellectual high ground. If I tell a story, I'm taking all the ground, right? Because I'm 607 00:35:19.840 --> 00:35:23.920 saying, I'm basically saying, shut up and listen, right? Like once upon a time, there was a king 608 00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:28.080 and he had this kingdom and there was this and there was that and you're just you're just a spectator 609 00:35:28.080 --> 00:35:33.360 like at that point. And I am setting the terms for everything that's about to happen in this story. 610 00:35:33.360 --> 00:35:38.960 Like think of think of Nathan going to David to convict him of sin, right? David is just committed 611 00:35:38.960 --> 00:35:45.840 murder and adultery and and imagine your Nathan, you're the prophet who's got to go to the king 612 00:35:45.840 --> 00:35:49.520 who doesn't think he's done anything wrong. You've got to convict him of this sin and say, 613 00:35:49.520 --> 00:35:54.800 God is angry. Like imagine that job. Wait, what are you going to do? Nathan goes armed with a 614 00:35:54.800 --> 00:36:01.920 story, right? And in 2 Samuel chapter 12, he just goes and he says, David, let me tell your story 615 00:36:01.920 --> 00:36:09.520 once upon a time, there was a poor man who had this little Ulam and he loved this little Ulam, 616 00:36:09.520 --> 00:36:15.200 it was like a daughter to him. It fell asleep in his arms and it drank from his cup, right? 617 00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:20.960 And he's pulling at the hard strings, isn't it? Like massively and then his rich neighbor 618 00:36:21.600 --> 00:36:27.200 has a visitor and then the rich neighbor says, oh, I need to prepare some, you know, a lamb supper 619 00:36:27.200 --> 00:36:34.160 for my for my neighbor. And so he steals the Ulam from out of the arms of this poor man and kills 620 00:36:34.160 --> 00:36:42.240 it. And like David is just outraged, right? And he's utterly outraged by that. And he says, 621 00:36:42.240 --> 00:36:50.400 you know, this man deserves to die. Nathan then says, you are the man. Like this is the most 622 00:36:50.400 --> 00:36:56.400 aggressive form of communication possible. He's telling a story. And what's beautiful about a story 623 00:36:56.400 --> 00:37:02.960 is a story takes you out of your main character energy. And it says, shut up and sit down and be 624 00:37:02.960 --> 00:37:09.600 a spectator for a bit. And then when David is king, he can't see himself, clearly, right? Because 625 00:37:09.600 --> 00:37:13.360 everything orbits around him and he's the king. He can do what he likes. If he wants to take Bathsheba, 626 00:37:13.360 --> 00:37:16.960 he'll take Bathsheba. If he wants to kill your eye, he can kill your eye. He's the king who's 627 00:37:16.960 --> 00:37:21.840 going to stop him? I tell you what's going to stop him. A story. A story is going to stop him. 628 00:37:21.840 --> 00:37:27.600 A story is going to tell the king. Shut up. You're not the king. A story is going to tell him. 629 00:37:27.600 --> 00:37:32.800 You are nothing in this world. I'm going to, I'm going to tell a story about a world and you 630 00:37:32.800 --> 00:37:39.360 for the first time have a chance to see yourself clearly. You are the rich neighbor who stole that 631 00:37:39.360 --> 00:37:45.760 you lamb from that poor man. She was like a daughter to him. And you slaughtered it, right? 632 00:37:46.080 --> 00:37:53.120 You are that man. And suddenly, suddenly David has the chance to see himself clearly. And it's like 633 00:37:53.120 --> 00:38:00.000 he's woken up to reality by a made up story. What? You can wake people up to reality by telling 634 00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:07.520 made up stories. Because normally, normally people walk around the world. They think they're living in 635 00:38:07.520 --> 00:38:12.480 in the real world. But it's a made up story. Because they're living according to main character 636 00:38:12.480 --> 00:38:17.840 energy and life revolves around me, right? They think that's reality. That's not reality. How do 637 00:38:17.840 --> 00:38:23.360 you wake them up from it? How do you give them a dose of reality? Tell a fairytale. Do a spoken 638 00:38:23.360 --> 00:38:31.680 word. Do a series of short films on YouTube. Take people out of themselves into story land. 639 00:38:32.400 --> 00:38:38.320 And they are all of a sudden, they are distanced from their ego enough to stop self-justifying, 640 00:38:38.320 --> 00:38:42.240 to see themselves rightly, and then hopefully to see Christ rightly. Yeah, that's awesome. 641 00:38:42.240 --> 00:38:46.720 I mean, does it see what we see Jesus do with all the parables that he shares? It's like, 642 00:38:46.720 --> 00:38:52.320 let me just take you away from yourself for a minute and listen to this. It's you, it's 643 00:38:52.320 --> 00:38:58.560 you. Exactly. And he teaches you like a whole new lesson. Yeah, yeah. Which I think is awesome. 644 00:38:58.560 --> 00:39:05.040 Like I do this with my friends. Like a big barrier to faith with my more secular, 645 00:39:05.040 --> 00:39:08.800 you know, skeptical friends is like science and faith. And they're just like, well, 646 00:39:08.800 --> 00:39:14.080 how I couldn't possibly be a person of faith, I believe in science. And I'm sure we've all got, 647 00:39:14.080 --> 00:39:18.000 we've all got friends like that. And like my friends look at me and they they just think that 648 00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:22.960 I've got the faith gene or something. Like, like, and sometimes they look at me and they think I 649 00:39:22.960 --> 00:39:27.120 hit the jackpot. And sometimes they look at me and they think they dodged a bullet because they 650 00:39:28.080 --> 00:39:33.840 they're not a faith head like Lenny's. And and and they always my my friends who aren't Christians, 651 00:39:33.840 --> 00:39:37.600 and my friends who are atheists, it's it's not so much that they've believed in 652 00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:45.120 atheism. It's just that they just believe in science. Like they like like the answers are found 653 00:39:45.120 --> 00:39:49.520 in science, aren't they? And so I just tell a story. I say like, okay, let me tell you a story 654 00:39:49.520 --> 00:39:55.120 about Betty the botanist. Take 60 seconds. Okay, Betty the botanist is there in her laboratory. 655 00:39:55.120 --> 00:40:00.880 It's a Friday morning. And her her lab assistant, Gareth, comes in and he says, Betty, have you 656 00:40:00.880 --> 00:40:05.920 been here all night? And she says, Oh, yeah, because that botanical specimen you gave me yesterday. 657 00:40:05.920 --> 00:40:11.360 It's awesome. I've I've I've mapped its genome. I've done spectral analyses of the leaves. I've 658 00:40:11.360 --> 00:40:15.120 discovered I've discovered pharmacological properties that are going to help us in the fight against 659 00:40:15.120 --> 00:40:20.160 Alzheimer's. Thank you so much for giving me that that botanical specimen. And Gareth just says, Betty, 660 00:40:21.040 --> 00:40:28.800 yesterday was February the 14th Valentine's Day. It was a long stemmed rose Betty. Do you 661 00:40:28.800 --> 00:40:34.640 understand what I gave to you? And that's the question for Betty. Does she understand the rose? 662 00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:41.200 From one point of view, she understands the rose better than anyone else ever has. She's a genius 663 00:40:41.200 --> 00:40:47.600 when it comes to the rose. In another sense, Betty is a moron, right? At total an utter moron and 664 00:40:47.600 --> 00:40:54.000 you get it. She missed the whole point genius in one area of life, utterly missing the interpersonal 665 00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:58.480 thing that the rose was all about. And then you just say, what if this world is like that rose? 666 00:40:59.760 --> 00:41:04.240 What if it's a love gift from somebody who's just trying to communicate that he loves you? 667 00:41:05.200 --> 00:41:10.400 And all you're doing with it is going into the laboratory and mapping the genome. And you're like, 668 00:41:10.400 --> 00:41:14.000 well, you can do that. And actually, you know, Christians have been at the heart of the scientific 669 00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:20.880 enterprise like from the get go. Great. You can do that. But if you think if you think that science 670 00:41:20.880 --> 00:41:27.280 exhausts the meaning of this world, you're like Betty. Betty just thinks that mapping the genome 671 00:41:27.280 --> 00:41:31.200 exhausts the meaning of the rose. It doesn't exhaust the meaning of the rose. There's so much more to 672 00:41:31.200 --> 00:41:36.880 that rose than a scientific analysis would tell you about. And what's great about that is that 673 00:41:36.880 --> 00:41:41.360 you can do what Nathan did to David about people because then your friend, they will sort of say, 674 00:41:41.360 --> 00:41:46.400 yeah, yeah, but science, science, and then you can just say, don't be a Betty. Don't be a Betty. 675 00:41:46.400 --> 00:41:52.160 Don't do that. And then you're like, you are the Betty. 676 00:41:53.520 --> 00:41:57.520 It's like that. And stories just take people away from themselves just enough, 677 00:41:57.520 --> 00:42:00.800 give them just enough distance to see what they're doing. That was so far. 678 00:42:00.800 --> 00:42:08.480 Yeah, I was telling imaginative evangelism. That's how it works. That feels easy to share with 679 00:42:08.480 --> 00:42:13.440 someone else because it's so captivating. And it makes you think, yeah, yeah. Well, people can 680 00:42:13.440 --> 00:42:17.760 check it out like three to one course.com, like all eight episodes that take you through the 681 00:42:17.760 --> 00:42:24.400 story of Jesus, they all begin with stories. And then we've got 12 FAQs, like all the sort of 682 00:42:24.400 --> 00:42:28.240 questions that people ask, like what about science and faith? And there are another 12 stories. 683 00:42:29.200 --> 00:42:32.640 And so yeah, you can go armed with 20 stories, you know, in your pocket. 684 00:42:32.640 --> 00:42:37.200 That's awesome. So that's it. That's really encouraging. I'm definitely going to do that. 685 00:42:38.160 --> 00:42:40.720 How do you use that? I'm going to use that story. 686 00:42:40.720 --> 00:42:47.840 Yeah. And I'm keen to hear if you had any encouragement for our audience, like after listening 687 00:42:47.840 --> 00:42:52.320 to this, maybe to feel a bit fired up, ready to tell some stories, ready to bring me with that. 688 00:42:52.320 --> 00:42:58.560 I like, I like, like, this has been, it's been so amazing speaking with you and hearing like 689 00:42:58.560 --> 00:43:03.200 just the wisdom that you have in this area. But yeah, how would you encourage our audience to 690 00:43:03.760 --> 00:43:09.520 go forth and just apply this and push through the fear that comes with speaking to friends, 691 00:43:09.520 --> 00:43:14.960 speaking to strangers, speaking to anyone on the street, like, yeah, just any encouragement that 692 00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:21.200 you have. I'd love to hear. Well, like you say, the way Jesus teaches is through stories. 693 00:43:21.200 --> 00:43:25.760 And I think this story I always think about when it comes to sharing your faith is the parable 694 00:43:25.760 --> 00:43:31.680 of the sower of the seeds onto four different soil types. You can read it in Matthew 13 or March 695 00:43:31.680 --> 00:43:40.000 14, chapter four. And I love that it's, it's like this, this idea you chuck seed at every kind 696 00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:47.200 of soil type. And he, I mean, Jesus just describes my friends in the year 2026. It's amazing. 697 00:43:47.200 --> 00:43:52.240 Like, there are these four soil types. The first soil type is like the path and it's really 698 00:43:52.240 --> 00:43:57.760 dead heart against Jesus. And against the word and he says it's like the birds come and eat up 699 00:43:57.840 --> 00:44:02.480 the seed. And he says the birds are a bit like satanic attack. And like, I have friends that are 700 00:44:02.480 --> 00:44:07.040 just like, you're so close to Jesus. That's like, it's like, where's this? This is out of this world. 701 00:44:07.040 --> 00:44:11.600 It's kind of closedness. But that's not all my friends. Like most of my friends aren't like that. 702 00:44:11.600 --> 00:44:16.080 Most of my friends are like, there's the second soil type. And it's kind of shallow soil 703 00:44:16.960 --> 00:44:23.040 and rocky soil. And when the seeds sort of grows up, it kind of, the seed takes for a little bit, 704 00:44:23.040 --> 00:44:28.960 but then the son of persecution, Jesus says, kind of withers the seed. And there are people 705 00:44:28.960 --> 00:44:34.560 like that in my life. They like Jesus. They like the sound of Jesus. But as soon as it starts to 706 00:44:34.560 --> 00:44:38.480 cost them anything, they're out. You know, like, do you want to come on a Sunday morning? Like, 707 00:44:38.480 --> 00:44:45.280 oh, okay. They found there. That was baseline. That was baseline. Yeah, that's not even sunrise. 708 00:44:45.280 --> 00:44:51.040 That's kind of, yeah, a sliver of sunrise. And then I'm out. Yeah, that's real, 709 00:44:51.840 --> 00:44:56.160 but those are those are many of my friends as well. And Jesus just and what's fascinating is he 710 00:44:56.160 --> 00:45:01.920 just says just so the seed, right? So the seed to that hard path. So the seed to the rocky soil. 711 00:45:01.920 --> 00:45:05.520 Then there are some friends in my life. They're like the third soil type. They're like the the 712 00:45:05.520 --> 00:45:13.360 thorns that grow up and choke the and make the seed fruitless. And he goes on to explain those 713 00:45:13.360 --> 00:45:18.560 thorns. It's like worry, wealth and desires for other things. And that's life in 2026, isn't it? 714 00:45:19.360 --> 00:45:25.120 Worry, wealth, wanting. Isn't that your wealth? Isn't that your feed? 715 00:45:25.120 --> 00:45:31.840 Worry, wealth, yeah, wanting. That's everything, right? And it's choking me. It's choking you, 716 00:45:31.840 --> 00:45:37.360 right? But there are friends in my life. And they're just not coming along to youth group anymore. 717 00:45:37.360 --> 00:45:40.800 And they used to be somewhere with Jesus and then not. And what's happened? Worry, wealth, 718 00:45:40.800 --> 00:45:47.360 and wanting have got them. And Jesus still says just so the seed to them. And because there's a 719 00:45:47.360 --> 00:45:52.560 fourth soil type. And you get shocked by the fourth soil type because they are good soil. 720 00:45:52.560 --> 00:45:56.800 They'll produce a crop 30, 60, a hundred times what is so which is an incredible yield, 721 00:45:56.800 --> 00:46:05.280 10,000 percent yield. And there is good soil out there. We mainly notice the three soil types 722 00:46:05.280 --> 00:46:11.040 that are disappointments. We mainly notice that, right? But Jesus says if you scatter the seed 723 00:46:11.680 --> 00:46:18.320 broadly enough, if you don't scatter the seed broadly enough, like you probably only just 724 00:46:19.280 --> 00:46:22.960 notice people who are quite lukewarm to Jesus. But the more broadly you scatter the seed, 725 00:46:22.960 --> 00:46:26.720 you get to see that some people are really, really close to Jesus actually. 726 00:46:27.520 --> 00:46:32.160 Some people are really, really open to Jesus actually. And our church on Sunday, 727 00:46:32.160 --> 00:46:38.240 like this, this couple, Tom and Lara, that they are just the quintessential couple that I'm seeing 728 00:46:38.800 --> 00:46:45.600 showing up in church nowadays. The sort of couple who their feed just played, you know, one day they 729 00:46:45.600 --> 00:46:50.560 watched a Christian testimony. And you know, because they lingered on it for more than four seconds 730 00:46:50.560 --> 00:46:55.520 on TikTok, TikTok, the rails and then another one and then another one. And suddenly suddenly 731 00:46:55.520 --> 00:47:00.160 their feed is now flooded with, you know, stuff from the way UK and stuff from other people's 732 00:47:00.160 --> 00:47:05.520 other people's testimonies. And they are then they ordered a Bible online. You know, 733 00:47:06.240 --> 00:47:11.280 there's a guy like this last year. And I was like, like, what translation did you get? 734 00:47:11.280 --> 00:47:14.720 Because the first thing he did was go to Amazon and buy a Bible. I was like, what translation 735 00:47:14.720 --> 00:47:18.800 did you get? And he was like, oh, the old one. I was like, King James? He was like, yeah, that's 736 00:47:18.800 --> 00:47:23.040 the one. I was like, okay. I was like, and where did you start reading? He was like, the beginning. 737 00:47:26.080 --> 00:47:30.080 So he just comes to church with all sorts of questions about Genesis, all sorts of questions about 738 00:47:30.080 --> 00:47:34.000 King James English. And you know, and there's this couple just this weekend, like Tom and Lara, 739 00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:43.040 they just they just come and they are so interested. I'm seeing these people a lot. And they've tried 740 00:47:43.040 --> 00:47:49.360 everything else, right? And they see how modern life is choked by worry and wealth and 741 00:47:49.360 --> 00:47:54.640 desires for other things. And they want to get free of that. And they want to come to something 742 00:47:54.640 --> 00:48:05.840 deep and rich and wise and embodied and communal. Something that is challenging and something that 743 00:48:05.840 --> 00:48:11.280 has hope, right? Because we're in short supply at the moment. And I'm just meeting guys like Tom 744 00:48:11.280 --> 00:48:19.680 and Lara all the time. It's happening online. Like I was just up in Birmingham. And a pastor came to 745 00:48:19.760 --> 00:48:24.960 this thing that I was doing. And he just said, oh, my wife was in the staff room at the hospital 746 00:48:24.960 --> 00:48:29.760 where she was. And one of the other midwives just when everybody else had cleared out of the staff 747 00:48:29.760 --> 00:48:34.800 room, just said, you're a Christian, aren't you? I think I've become a Christian. And she said, 748 00:48:34.800 --> 00:48:39.600 well, how did that happen? And she's like, well, I was just googling for, you know, meaning of life. 749 00:48:39.600 --> 00:48:43.520 And I found this thing called 321. Do you know about it? She was like, you mean 321 course? And 750 00:48:43.520 --> 00:48:49.520 she was like, yeah, yeah, that's the one. And she was like, she just, she's discovering Jesus 751 00:48:49.520 --> 00:48:56.480 online. And then, and then Jesus kind of took care of the disciples. Her friend happened to be 752 00:48:56.480 --> 00:49:03.200 in a church that was running 321 like in person. And like, she's in on the ground floor of that 753 00:49:03.200 --> 00:49:08.080 church. And it's, and it's just happened. And you never, you would never realize that there's so 754 00:49:08.080 --> 00:49:14.320 much good soil if you didn't scatter the seed as broadly as possible. Yeah. And so I think that's 755 00:49:14.320 --> 00:49:20.800 the encouragement. And it won't always go brilliantly. Right. There's three, three out of the four 756 00:49:20.800 --> 00:49:27.520 soil types will disappoint you. Right. But there's a lot of joy in that fourth soil type. And I think 757 00:49:27.520 --> 00:49:31.920 if we press into the joy there, then from the overflow of the heart, you can, you can sow on all the 758 00:49:31.920 --> 00:49:37.360 soils. That's amazing. That reminds me of that verse that I'm going to forget where it is now, 759 00:49:37.360 --> 00:49:45.280 but maybe you know, is it first Corinthians three, verse seven, which is like, oh, it's so 760 00:49:45.280 --> 00:49:50.480 good. And so neither is the one who plants nor the one that grows, who has anything, but only 761 00:49:51.680 --> 00:49:56.160 a waters, who has anything, but only God who makes the plant grow. Yeah, yeah. I think you have to 762 00:49:56.160 --> 00:50:02.960 fact check me guys. But yeah, yeah, exactly. But that's literally like what your job is done 763 00:50:03.120 --> 00:50:08.640 in sowing the seed. And then God gives the growth. Yeah. And again, it's not instantaneous. 764 00:50:08.640 --> 00:50:13.520 Like people, people very rarely change their mind on the spot. In the same way, you don't plant a 765 00:50:13.520 --> 00:50:23.040 seed and go, where's the tomato? I planted the seed. But once you've planted the seed, like it's 766 00:50:23.040 --> 00:50:28.720 kind of in God's hands, which is great. Those are the safest hands for it to be in. You know, 767 00:50:28.800 --> 00:50:33.440 you don't manufacture. It's not, we're not into manufacturing. Like we're into agriculture. And 768 00:50:33.440 --> 00:50:38.400 once you've sown that seed, job done. Well done. Good and faithful servant. You can move on. Yeah, 769 00:50:38.400 --> 00:50:42.400 that's so encouraging. I feel very encouraged. Oh, good. Thank you very much. 770 00:50:43.520 --> 00:50:48.640 And thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. Absolutely. Pleasure. So grateful to have you 771 00:50:48.640 --> 00:50:54.000 on. And guys, we just thank you for listening. And we hope you feel blessed by everything that Glenn 772 00:50:54.000 --> 00:50:59.920 has shared today. Have a wonderful rest of your day or night or whenever you're listening to this. 773 00:50:59.920 --> 00:51:05.360 And yeah, just be blessed. And drop a comment below if you'd like. What should they comment? 774 00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:08.960 Surely like one sentence. Fuck it. Fuck it. Yeah, yeah. 775 00:51:10.640 --> 00:51:17.120 Wait for a joke. I was like, oh man, run there. Yeah, no less to both. Let's do a one sentence 776 00:51:17.120 --> 00:51:21.440 testimony. And then the emoji that goes on. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. 777 00:51:21.440 --> 00:51:28.400 It's all coming into place. Wow. Guys, we'll see you in the next episode. Bye.