Andy Bannister: How Pastors and Churches Can Stop Living as ‘Undercover Christians’

Andy Bannister on The Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Andy Bannister on The Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Ed Stetzer:
The sets are. Church Leaders Podcast is part of the Church Leaders Podcast Network, which is dedicated to resourcing church leaders in order to help them face the complexities of ministry. Today, the Church Leaders Podcast Network supports pastors and ministry leaders by challenging assumptions, by providing insights and offering practical advice and solutions and steps that will help church leaders navigate the variety of cultures and contexts that we’re serving in. Learn more at Church leaders.com/podcast network.

Voice Over:
Welcome to the Stetzer Church Leaders Podcast, conversations with today’s top ministry leaders to help you lead better every day. And now, here are your hosts, Ed Stetzer and Daniel Yang.

Daniel Yang:
Welcome to the Stetzer Church Leaders Podcast, where we’re helping Christian leaders navigate and lead through the cultural issues of our day. My name is Daniel Yang, national director of Churches of Welcome at World Relief. And today we’re talking to Doctor Andy Bannister. And he’s the director of the Solas Centre for Public Christianity in Evangelism and Training Ministry. He’s also an adjunct professor at Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto, and an adjunct research fellow at Melbourne School of Theology in Australia. And he’s the author of several books, including How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like an Idiot, A Panic Free Guide to Having Natural Conversations About Your Faith. Now let’s go to Ed Stetzer, editor in chief of Outreach Magazine and the dean of the Talbot School of Theology.

Ed Stetzer:
Great to have a conversation with you again, Andy, and great to lean in on some of these questions and issues before us. And, you know, one of the things you talk about in the book and again, remind everybody the book is how to talk about Jesus without looking like an idiot. Um, so what’s an undercover Christian? And why do Christians find it difficult to talk about their faith with others? Yeah.

Andy Bannister:
So I think Undercover Christian was actually was actually a phrase I got from a from a friend who identified what it was. I was, I was doing. So my, my first job, uh, ed kind of years, a years ago now, I won’t tell listeners how old I actually am, but my first job was working for the working for the health service here in the UK, working for a hospital, and I love my job, really enjoyed it, had great, great colleagues, great fun, and outside of work I was involved in church in all kinds of ways, but inside work I was keeping my faith very much to myself. I didn’t talk about Jesus. I got quite nervous. Um, sometimes, I confess, even sort of went out of my way to try and avoid conversations about faith because I was I was terrified about what would happen if they if they came up, how I would, uh, navigate them. And I was describing this to a friend once who said, and you’re an undercover Christian, mate, you’re an undercover Christian. And I liked that phrase, and I didn’t like what I was doing, but I thought the phrase was a good description. And now I’ve realized it’s quite widespread, actually, between many Christians, I think, who, you know, the temptation is in our work lives, our university lives, even some of our friendship groups. We have that completely disconnected from our from our Christian life for a whole number of reasons. But I think the big one is fear. We just don’t know how to. People don’t know how to navigate those conversations or afraid if they out themselves. As Christians, all kinds of bad things will happen. And the thing I learned as well, by the way, at about being an undercover Christian, the longer you do it, the worse it gets. It’s like the ruts that you walk in gets deeper. Uh, and so since then, I’ve learnt that actually the best thing you can do in a new setting is actually out yourself as a Christian, right at the start. It’s infinitely easier than trying to do it three years later. No, I love that.

Ed Stetzer:
I love that because I think once you get in that pattern, it’s hard to break out of that pattern. You know, for me, I heard the gospel when I was, uh, I guess youth group age. Uh, we didn’t grow up in a Christian home. I got grounded one day, and my mother said my mother, who was a brand new Christian, said, you need to either go to this church camp or you can be grounded for a week. And I went to this church camp, heard the gospel. And there at the and there’s a point to this, not just me telling my testimony, uh, there’s a point to this is that, um, I remember at the end of the weekend the I don’t know, the guy with the guitar, um, said something to the effect of you should go home and tell the first person you know you meet that you’re a Christian, and ask them if they’re a Christian first person. And so. So I was like, I was all in, so I was all in. And this is something that Greg Steer actually, you know, dare to share. Greg Steer does this with students. He says, go, you know, you’re a brand new believer. Go tell the first person because it helps it to stick and stay.

Ed Stetzer:
Your faith will stick and stay in ways that are much more. So I went home and I said to my dad, are you saved? And he looked at me with a strange face. And we grew up in a, you know, nominally Catholic home, Irish Catholic home outside of New York City. And he said, saved from what? And I and I and I said, I don’t know, but I just was and you need to be. And it was pretty awesome. And that was my like first experience. So I think, um, after that, my boldness was chastened because I realized very quickly, uh, I didn’t like I had no follow ups, like, I didn’t know I had heard the word saved. I’d never heard the word saved probably before that week. Um, I had no follow ups to that as well. And I think for a lot of Christians, they’re a little concerned, maybe a lot concerned about these fears that they’re going to have with talking with people. So so how then, how do you recommend Christians, you know, go about kind of working through some of the fears of sharing their faith with with non-believers?

Andy Bannister:
Yeah, it’s a great question. Ed. I think the first thing I would say a lot depends, of course, on how you on how you do it if you bounce into your work colleagues on Monday morning after listening to this podcast and say, I’m saved, are you? Yeah, pretty much. Are you, are.

Ed Stetzer:
You are you judging? Are you judging my first evangelism encounter? Because I’m just.

Andy Bannister:
I’m just raising the question that maybe that might lead to interesting directions and and actually, I could I can remember, you know, when I was at, when I was a teenager, I was pretty slightly bolder as a teen, actually, outside the workplace, having not dissimilar, you know, sort of things around the saved word. And, uh, one of my, you know, one of my occasions, I had a friend of mine, you know, asked a friend of theirs if they found Jesus, to which the response. Have you lost him? So I think, um, I think trying to avoid the sound bite things. I talk in the, in the book a bit about trying to find ways to to fly a faith flag is a good beginning. That’s another expression I got from a friend. All my all my best one liners I nicked from others. And that’s the idea of going, so, you know, work on a Monday morning really easy way of doing this. You know, the what did you do on the weekend? Conversation always happens. And I know when I was in my undercover Christian days, I would duck that. I would talk about the sport I played on Saturday, the barbecue on Sunday lunchtime. I would miss the church bit. Um, now the advice I would give to my my 23 year old self would be no, no. Talk about the church. Talk about the part. You know, you played you played soccer on Saturday, saw a movie on Saturday night, hung out with friends on Sunday, but Sunday morning went to church.

Andy Bannister:
It was great fun. You know, hanging out with your friends with the worship band. We’re in great form. The pastor preached a really thoughtful sermon. Still thinking about that great weekend. What you begin doing is normalizing faith a little bit. People clock that you’re a Christian. Hopefully, by the way, they also clock that you’re a colleague that they like having on the on your on the team that you’re, you know, you’re a good worker. You work hard. Uh, you know, you play well for the organization or if you’re a student, you know, again, you work hard, you don’t cause problems that folks don’t really like you. Um, there’s that whole character piece as well. But if those pieces go together, I think you do lay the foundations for then when the Holy Spirit gives you the prompt for something a bit more severe, an issue comes up, an opportunity to say something or someone does turn to you and say, hey, you’re a Christian. What do you think? Well, you’ve laid some foundation. You’re not trying to go from 0 to 60 in one go. So I’d start by the Faith flag piece, actually finding those ways to signal, um, that you’re a Christian. And that works too, with friends, family, neighbors. We’ve it more naturally into into conversation. It’s the first thing that’s the starting point. Yeah, it makes sense.

Ed Stetzer:
Then you’re you’re at a place where you can have more of those conversations. And we live in a culture that, uh. Well, I’ll ask about your culture in just a minute, but. But where I live, use the positive representation of somebody. A person of faith is very, very unusual in media and academia, things of that sort. And so to have a positive relationship with a person who has some level of faith really does seem to matter now. Now for our audience. Our audience, as you know, is pastors and church leaders. So they were already flying the flag. They literally sit down next to somebody, say, well, what do you do? And that’s a very common question. And I’m a pastor, you know, I’m on staff of a church. So I guess the question we have to ask is, how do we get people in our church to fly that faith flag? Is that something you teach on a Sunday morning? Is it something you do a workshop? I mean, again, I want to recommend people get the book. So I think the book helps. You can give it to people. It’s how to talk about Jesus without looking like an idiot. It’s the longest book title ever. A panic free guide to having natural conversations about your faith. Okay, so so how do we get people in our church to to function functionally, fly that faith? Like how do we teach them? How do we model it?

Andy Bannister:
Well, just as an aside, and I’ll then answer that, I think actually sometimes we can assume too much, even for pastors and teachers and leaders. You know, I have friends who are pastors who say they too actually find the conversation with the next door neighbor tough, or the person they meet in the store when they’ve gone in to buy a pint of milk or whatever to go, they can have the same temptation to keep quiet. Um, you can actually, you know, you can. I know folks who find that whole what do you do conversation hard because as you say, you say pastor, and you fear that people are going to react in a negative way. So we’re not immune from that fear. And that might be a way in. Actually, I think one thing you can do as a pastor and a teacher when you’re preaching, tell those stories. Don’t just go into, you know, into into exegetical mode when you’re up the front, talk about, you know, when you try to share your faith with your next door neighbor. If it went well, well, how did it go? Well, describe that talk people through that. If it went badly, be honest and real. You know, I had this terrible experience the other week.

Andy Bannister:
I had a new neighbor moved in next door. This is what happened. And, uh, here’s how I moved through that, because I think then you’re modeling some teachable moments as when people can connect with those things. Because one of the challenges that those of us who are leaders and pastors and teachers have, don’t we, is that people look at us and go, well, it’s easy for you. You’re professional. You do all the time. It must be easy to talk about Jesus. And I think it can help connect. If people see, no, it isn’t always easy. You know, I have family members who are not Christian, and those are some of the hardest conversations I find because it’s family. You’re close, you’re trying to navigate all kinds of things. So that’s the first thing. Another thing I think you can do as a as a pastor and a leader is given that many of our congregations are going to be in the workplace, number one, or students university, you know, college, those kind of audiences. Number two, there’ll be some retirees, but let’s just think about those in those settings for a moment. What about finding space in our services to actually showcase people who are being a witness for Christ in the workplace? What about as part of a Sunday morning every couple of weeks, a couple of times a month, interviewing somebody who is a Christian in the workplace and talk to them about how they’re sharing their faith in Christ, how they’re living it out, because we we learn well from role models like us.

Andy Bannister:
And actually, at Solas, the Ministry, I lead, one of the most popular series we did on our website about 3 or 4 years ago. For a year, every week we interviewed a Christian in a different job, different career about how they, uh, how. They brought Jesus into their work environment. And the feedback we had was phenomenal because I think people really responded well to here is somebody like me. So that’s I think one of the things we can do as pastors and leaders as well is don’t we don’t need to be afraid or feel threatened by, you know, bring the teacher onto the stage, bring the banker, bring the office worker, bring the student. And I think people will thank you and then connect those threads into your teaching at the same time.

Ed Stetzer:
Yeah. No, I love that. I love that what we celebrate, we become. And if you talk about people having encounters and sharing the gospel will become more focused on that. I’ll share just quickly to that. One of the things that I do I’m very committed to do is I make a map of my neighbors and my neighborhood, and had the privilege of doing this last place I live before the last one, and actually mapped out eight of the nearest neighbors, made a point of praying for them, building relationships, eventually sharing the gospel with 7 or 8 of them. Seeing, uh, seeing a couple down the street commit their lives to Christ, follow through in baptism behind us, commit their lives, commit their lives to Christ. Uh, recommit a life to Christ Street and what I would do is I would ask them permission to because I was very focused on mapping my neighborhood and praying for it. With their permission, I would share on Sunday morning. So it’s so great to see so and so here. And, you know, by the way, there are neighbors and and, you know, kind of share the spiritual journey and that like embolden other people to share their faith. And I asked everyone in the church to make a map and a list and to pray for the map and to pray for the list. So I love that. But that’s a tool. That’s lots of tools. It’s a great, most overlooked tool for evangelism. In Andy Bannister’s mind. What’s the most overlooked tool for evangelism and why is it so valuable?

Andy Bannister:
Well, of course, the big idea behind the The Yellow Book with the incredibly long title edge. You know the question. The idea at the heart of that is the importance of asking questions and using questions as a evangelistic tool. I mean, I’m not the first one to come across that by a long way. Um, you know, Greg Coequals book tactics, Randy Newman, uh, questioning evangelist goes on. Um, but I think it’s still quite neglected. Um, and I think there’s a couple of issues behind that. One is I don’t think we necessarily people haven’t figured out this is the way that Jesus did it. And I think when you take a long, hard look at the Gospels and you realize just how question centered many of the conversations that Jesus has are there. But the the other thing is, there’s one question in particular, and you asked earlier about, you know, where we are in the UK and our cultural moments. I think the chapter that I am the most excited about, and I’ve seen the most fruit from in the book, is the chapter where I introduce what I call the wandering question, because we’re in a moment in the UK where I think peak atheism has passed. Um, but we are post post post post post Christian. So you’ve got a lot of people sort of sloshing around on the, on the shallow end of the spiritual, uh, kind of swimming pool, interested in spiritual things, interested in life’s big questions. They’re not anti-Christian, but they know they know nothing. Um, I literally was at a university, uh, event last week at a university mission I was doing, got chatting to a student next to me, um, who turned to me and, and he said, forgive me for asking.

Andy Bannister:
He said, but but what is the Bible? I know, I know Christians believe in it, but I don’t know anything about it. What what is it? And I had to sort of pinch myself for him to go, literally, here is somebody in the 21st century UK who doesn’t really even know what the Bible is. Um, not hostile, they just know nothing. And so the wandering question really is, is a is a is a question I teach in the book designed to get you started in spiritual conversations from the things that your friends already care about justice, uh, art, story, music, um, you know, the list goes on and on. There’s so many different ways you can do it. And I think that is the underutilized tool, because I think often as Christians, we either chicken out and do nothing, or we try and go from 0 to 60 in the conversation and learning the art of gently warming people up and going, how do we get a conversation heading in directions where something interesting might happen? And so I think that’s that’s one of the missing pieces. Um, again, not unique to me. I always very careful to say I’m not somebody who’s come up with all this stuff. I’m in one sense, I think C.S. Lewis was playing around in this territory. Francis Schaeffer played in this territory and others. I think what I’m doing is repackaging.

Ed Stetzer:
And yeah, I don’t know, in evangelism, there’s much that’s not like no.

Andy Bannister:
And of course, Paul the Apostle Paul acts 1702, the unknown God, you know, wandering with his audience about this, this, this statue. Um, so, yeah.

Ed Stetzer:
I think talking about nature and before that, and visiting Antioch, talking about history. So it’s kind of it’s kind of. So I get you you don’t have to caveat all that. I think that I love that you’re repackaging. We’re so.

Andy Bannister:
British. We caveat things all the time and deep insecurities. Yeah.

Ed Stetzer:
Let’s talk about in between the British and the US context because you know, having you know, we lived there for autumn, as you would say. And I taught down there at Wycliffe Hall, you’re actually on, uh, teach at Wycliffe College, which is at the University of Toronto, a wonderful place. I’ve done some work with them. And, uh, I’m glad that you’re connected. They’re they’re doing some fresh things in evangelism, so I love that. Yeah. Um, so, um, so when, when you contrast though, the maybe the US context and again, it’s always a little dangerous. But I’m asking you, I’m laying out the doormat, welcoming you to this conversation. Um, when you see kind of American evangelistic sort of approaches and maybe how American evangelicals are trying to engage the cultural moment, how would you say that differs and nuances between how people are doing so?

Andy Bannister:
The UK. Yeah, well, there’s a couple.

Andy Bannister:
Of things I see, uh, going on. It’s very generous of you to invite me to say things, because I’m always very conscious that, you know, as a guest, even a virtual guest, just to be careful. I think. I think the faith and politics piece is obviously, um, can be quite toxic in the UK. In the US, you have a lot, you know, I see from the outside looking in a lot of Christians who are very passionate about political issues. And I get that politics is not unimportant. I’m not saying it’s it’s something you put to one side, but when you collapse your theology and your politics together into one category, I think bad things can happen. And sometimes there can be a tendency, I think sometimes for American Christians to sort of engage, sort of engage a kind of sort of take no prisoners approach to whatever the culture war topic is, be it abortion, sexuality, you know, whatever, whatever it is. Um, and if you take that, you know, sort of carpet bomb, take no prisoners approach. The danger is you close the door to conversations about about Jesus with people who who otherwise, you know, you might have very interesting conversations with. But you’ve shut it down because you’ve led with, you know, dismissing them because you’re a dyed in the wool Trump supporter and they happen to have voted Biden, and that political piece gets in the way.

Andy Bannister:
And so from the outside looking in, I sometimes find myself thinking, how is there a way of not not not ignoring politics? It’s not unimportant, but making sure that we don’t play the culture war piece at the expense of the gospel. And there are different ways of doing that. The other thing I see going on a little bit was actually my eyes were open to this by we hired a new speaker at, uh, at Solas about six months ago, and he had trained all he came from South Africa. He actually trained at an American theological college. I won’t mention which one. A wonderful place, but what was interesting, he did a course in evangelism and apologetics. Uh, but all the apologetics that Steve learned was very was very, very cold, hard evidentialist, uh, you know, proposition A, proposition B, proposition C, and so that produced somebody who is, you know, if you’ve got somebody whose question is, why can I trust the Bible? Fantastic. You know, he came out of college, he could do that on steroids and do a wonderful job. But I think he found it much harder now.

Andy Bannister:
He’s been with us for six months and I think really learned this as part of his skill set, dealing with people who don’t have objections, who just are like, I’m just not interested. I’m just not interested in religion. You know, the so-called nones, not not, not sister act here. You know, n o n e s um, you’ve got a growing number of that in the UK. In the US, um, and we’ve got a lot of those in the, in the UK. And I think there’s a, there is a challenge, I think, to rethink some of the ways that we’ve done some things. Uh, to engage that community doesn’t mean the gospel changes, doesn’t mean the message changes. But I think it does mean we need to rethink the medium and some of our methods. And I think as I look at my, you know, what’s going on in American Christianity, I think there’s still a bit of a way to go. There are some great voices, people doing great stuff. So I’m hugely encouraged. But I also meet, you know, a lot of American Christians who I think are fighting the battles or trying to engage in the conversations from ten, 20 years ago, not the ones that are happening today.

Ed Stetzer:
Yeah, it’s interesting to watch and see because, you know, of course we have, I guess, to Talbot School of Theology, we have the largest apologetics program in the world, and we kind of look at these different apologetics conversations. And some folks seem to be going for almost like a culture war. Apologetics will argue our way into the kingdom. And yet it’s a question of not everybody does that. It’s a question of what does that look like? How do we be ready to give an answer for the question that people’s people actually have? And more so there’s a bit of a debate going on in some of those circles, probably not something that would be helpful for us to unpack, but I’m kind of of the view when it comes to evangelism. You can’t war out a people and reach a people at the same time. So I think we have to figure out how do we build bridges, not burn them. But it’s it’s not easy and it’s not without controversy in the American know.

Andy Bannister:
And there’s definitely I. And speaking of someone who loves, I want to be very honest here. I’m someone who loves politics. I’ve had to really pray to develop the spiritual gift, and I’m still developing it. I’m just learning when to shut your mouth because there are times I mean it. At times I have conversations with people and the first thing they say is, you know, whatever it is, and the instinct in me is to go, right, okay, let’s let’s have that argument. And, and actually, you know, learning to listen to the Holy Spirit and go, what you need to do, Bannister, right now is learn to shut up, let them say their piece and then go, that’s really interesting. I wonder if you’ve considered, um, rather than, you know, try and take no prisoners. And that can be tough.

Andy Bannister:
I think it’s I think.

Ed Stetzer:
It’s worth noting, though, that like the UK scene and the US scene in the in the UK, I was there when you kept changing prime ministers every two weeks. And there was a we went up to the Cotswolds and they had this little sign in the store. There’s just four prime ministers until Christmas. And so it was like it was a crazy time of politics. So I was on the train, I was going to speak at a vineyard event, I think, and I and just sitting with a couple of fellas and, and they started talking and they said, what do you think about all this? And I you know, I talked about it and it was very common. You could go from a conversation about politics, and it wasn’t terribly difficult to go into other topics where in the US, because we have a two party system where, uh, most religious people are in the Republican Party, and it’s not all, but the more you go to church, the more likely you are to be a Republican, and the less you go to church, the more likely you are to be a Democrat. And with the exception of the African American community. I mean, it’s it’s overwhelmingly we can see those numbers. So what that does is, is that almost becomes a, a point of, of conflict early on. Whereas you can talk about, you know, you vote, you have so many parties you can vote for and your politics is a mess anyway. Not that my politics is great, but my point is it’s it’s just it immediately becomes a barrier in a way that I think discussing it in the UK may be different or am I nuts? What do you.

Andy Bannister:
Think? I don’t think.

Andy Bannister:
You’re nuts because, I mean, I’ve, I’ve lived in Canada, you know, done a lot of stuff in the US, obviously live in the UK. So I definitely think you’re right. It is more it is more bipolar there in the US. It’s becoming that way in the UK and the politics I think it sadly is. I mean it’s becoming that, for example, in our parliament in the House of Commons, it’s been observed that, you know, there is far more just yelling at each other rather than actually, you know, discussion. It’s much rare. It’s observed that it’s much rarer. You know, I think for politicians to have friends on the other side of the house that it wants.

Andy Bannister:
Yeah, I agree with that.

Ed Stetzer:
But I guess maybe partly what I was thinking about was more of how it’s sort of. Yeah, um, how it’s sort of the religious bipolar, bipolar nature of it as well. You know, I’m thinking about the Prime Minister of Scotland and how that was like you had we had one flash in that, and that was for us. We’ve had a whole lot of flash. I mean, it’s just, again, politics is religious in the United States in a way that I think it is.

Andy Bannister:
Yeah, and I think so. Yeah. That’s right.

Ed Stetzer:
Brazil is similar but mostly or not.

Andy Bannister:
Yeah.

Andy Bannister:
Yeah. So I was just illustrating I guess I think it’s going that way tragically here. I think therefore I think there’s a couple of thoughts, uh, I would have here. One is as where it is possible is to try and stay, is to try and stay out of it. Right. Um, because I think, you know, the joke here in the UK is that, you know, three things you can’t talk around around the dinner table religion, sex and politics. Um, well, I think we can reclaim the first. And I agree with the second. Two maybe. And so trying to find ways to go, you know, rather than just have an argument which we could do, why don’t we talk about something, uh, kind of more interesting. Um, the other thing you can do is surprise people. I always think there’s something in here. Christians and surprising people. It’s one of my favorite Christian writers is someone who’s very not so well known in the US now, although in his time he was quite well known because he came here quite a lot, and he was an Australian Baptist preacher called F.W. Boreham and one of Billy Graham’s favorite authors, and um, did a number of tours of the US. Boreham has a lovely little essay called A Slice of Infinity, where he talks about reading, reading, trying to sample infinity in your reading read really widely, because then when you’re talking to somebody who suddenly says their interest is is is fishing, well, if you’ve read a book on fishing, you can go, that was interesting. I was thinking about this. And so politically, I think we can adopt that idea so hard as it may be, if you listening to this, you know, you lean Republican. Um, make sure you read some good Democratic writers, not the mad ones who drive you nuts in the paper.

Andy Bannister:
See if you do some fishing around who’s a thoughtful writer on the other side, because then when you meet someone on the train who’s different politically to you, that gives you a connecting point where you can say, do you know what? I really appreciate some of the voices on your side of the discussion. You know, I was reading a leader article by and I thought they made some good points. You’ve immediately won a friend. You’ve surprised them because they were expecting you to go Christian Republican. We’re going to argue with each other. Doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything that’s said on that side of the fence. But you’ve now built a bridge. And again, the model for this is Paul in Acts 17, because Paul is programmed to hate idolatry. He’s a Jew. He’s a Pharisee, you know, very, uh, he’ll have been trained from a young boy to see idolatry and temples and idols as, as absolute anathema. And he doesn’t go off on one. He doesn’t tell, he doesn’t yell at the Athenians and call them daft names for their polytheism. Um, he starts by saying, I was impressed how religious you were. I was really struck by this. He starts there. I wonder if we could do the same thing. Find those connecting points. So read widely. Try and find voices that you can at least semi appreciate on the other side. And then you can defuse these things and surprise people because people want to pigeonhole us as Christians. I think and say you’re a Christian, therefore you’re going to think X, you’re going to think Y, you’re going to think Z. And anything we can do to short circuit that process I think is helpful.

Ed Stetzer:
Yeah. No, I think that’s I think that’s super important. So, um, you know, I guess right now and again, this is, this is there’s some of this in the UK, but much less, um, some of the conversation right now is like, well, we need to adopt a different approach to culture. And, you know, we need to adopt them in much more, maybe recognizing just how adversarial it is, uh, calling out more things. And and in doing so, people will be attracted. We need to kind of return to maybe past models. And, you know, we’ve talked about the Pauline model and acts. Was that 14, 15 and 17? Uh, we talked about engaging our neighbors. You know, I talk about map. You talked about engaging your neighbors through questions, but is there what are your thoughts on the, uh, and again, I didn’t warn you these questions ahead of time. So so you can always edit it out. But what are your thought was we got it. We got to be a little more. More like, you know, like cutting down the sacred oak of Thor. Um, and, you know, and pushing against the powers. I mean, again, that’s that’s certainly I mean, one of my favorite moments in Missiological history is, is is, uh, cutting down the sacred oak of Thor. So, so, um, so I guess the question is, is should we should we be is there a path to do. That’s more like maybe at other times in the past, and less like this modern American evangelical of being nice to everybody.

Andy Bannister:
Oh my word, what a.

Andy Bannister:
What a question you.

Andy Bannister:
Raise. I know, I know.

Ed Stetzer:
Listen, if I bring up Boniface and the sacred oak of Thor, I think that’s a that’s a fun day. That’s a fun day.

Andy Bannister:
Yes.

Andy Bannister:
Well, I was thinking some terrible joke in there about the acts of the apostles, but, um. Wow. That is. I know.

Andy Bannister:
That’s why you’re a writer, not.

Ed Stetzer:
A comedian, but I like it.

Andy Bannister:
Exactly, exactly. So, no, I mean, you raise a good point. I mean, obviously, this before he he passed, I mean, this critique was beginning to be made of Keller a little bit, wasn’t he, that that, you know, Keller had taken this sort of always be nice approach? I think the challenge.

Andy Bannister:
We have, I.

Ed Stetzer:
Call it the War on Winsome. So talk to me about that.

Andy Bannister:
Exactly. Be winsome in order to win some, etc.. So I, you know, one of the bigger challenges here, and I wish I knew the answer to it and I and I don’t I can see the problem. And I think it’s definitely a problem for, for for you folks over there, an increasing problem over here. We don’t do nuance very well. So it’s either all or one. It’s either one thing or the other, because I think it is. I think there is a time where it’s both and and part of being, you know, a Christian in today’s world is learning to listen to the spirit, read the scriptures and discern in a given situation, which is the approach, because there are clearly some contexts where I think we do need to to lean more on the sacred, you know, the sacred oak chopping or the prophetic, um, you know, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think they say the abortion issue is a not unimportant issue. I think it’s a massive justice issue. And there are times where we need Christians speaking out on those things. Now, one question there, of course, is whether that’s a job for somebody to do and not all of us do. So I’ll occasionally it so less get asked to come and do debates on, say, abortion. And I always take the line, no, not because it’s unimportant, because I think if we do that and I say yes to that, that is going to shut other doors down. However, I have the number of three organizations who will do a spectacular job, who I would highly recommend, and I will personally connect you to someone who will come and do you an amazing event on that.

Andy Bannister:
Who will who speak that more prophetic voice. So maybe you can’t always combine the things in the same person. Um, I think the other thing you can do is it always depends who you want to reach. And this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about in recent years too. So, you know, Islam is a subject very much on my heart. My PhD was in Islamic Studies, my previous book before this one. The Muslims and Christians worship the same God. And look, if you are engaging a muslim, um, you are probably going to have to lean a bit more towards polemics at times than apologetics. Because if you meet a very passionate Muslim who is convinced in their faith and you just go, well, that’s very nice. That’s interesting. I love your perspective. They’re not going to hear you as being kind and generous. They’re going to hear you as being weak, and they’re going to hear you as being soft and praise the Lord. We have Paul again as a model who in Ephesus rinse the lecture hall of Tyranus and is there, you know, three years, isn’t he debating and contending, uh, with the Jews and the Greeks? Jesus was quite capable of giving the Pharisees, you know, not both barrels. It’s the wrong metaphor, particularly for a US audience. But you know what I’m saying? And, um, so I think we can lean into those those models, too, of confidence and the other place we need to do this. And here, here’s a question for you.

Andy Bannister:
I’d really rather than okay, are you the table?

Andy Bannister:
I’m going to turn the tables. But one of the things I’ve been thinking a bit about, about who are also the audiences, where we’re going to need to be a little bit bolder, who are who are perhaps beyond the pale. Now, look, Muslims are an audience. A lot of churches are quite nervous around, especially the more enthusiastic ones. But look at some of the members of the far right. Um, you look at really extreme on, on say the perhaps the Trump end, if that’s the right language over here. We have not not just the just the regular right, the far right guys. Well they need Jesus too. And just going softly, softly, softly is not going to win them. So there are certain audiences where we need people called to the mission field who have that boldness and that confidence. You know, I’ve got a friend of mine who’s an evangelist who does a lot of work in the pubs in the north of England. He just goes right in and just says what he thinks. And I look at that and go, my word, I am not called to do that. That to me is very bold and very confident and very outspoken. Um, and, but amazing things happen and people come to Christ. But I’m not. But if he tried that in the in the halls of Oxford University, um, it wouldn’t work at all. Right.

Ed Stetzer:
It’s a different I mean, again, I do think I love to like, I find some people who love evangelism, like, like like I do. And I’m very driven by it. Um, who, you know, well, that person street preaching, you know, they’re not. I was I was in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago not sinning. And I was there and there were a couple street preachers, just two different ones, and they were doing great. It wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t. And I’m like, I’m for them. And matter of fact, I went up to one of them and said something, but I would do that. And, you know, I’m for all kinds of ways to communicate the gospel. And I think you’re right. In America today, the, uh, you know, when we look at the got the largest group of deterring people, it’s actually young, uh, conservative men. So, so lots of lots of lots of concerns. How do we address them? But I think that’s one of the things we have to wrestle with is, is, you know, what is. And we’ve lost our home field advantage.

Ed Stetzer:
I do think that winsome is not. A strategy is the way of Jesus. And so how does that fit into there? But also to where does you know, where do we look back 2000 years of mission and evangelistic history? I think these are all important questions. And I think your book is helpful to this. Again, it’s how to talk about Jesus without looking like an idiot, a panic free guide to having natural conversations about your faith. And I feel like we’re kind of we’ve probably gone too long. I want to give you one, one more shot to talk to our audience, pastors and church leaders who I mean, I’m of those who believe that we’re kind of at a low of evangelism, that you go back 50 years ago and churches were filled on Saturday mornings for evangelism training to go out Tuesday night and share the gospel. And, and and it’s just changed. So so how do we, as pastors and church leader help turn the tide and refocus the church on showing and sharing the love of Jesus? Kind of your last thoughts?

Andy Bannister:
Yeah, well, a couple of quick last thoughts. Said you mentioned earlier mapping you mapped your community. One thing I encourage pastors to do sometimes, and it’s harder if you’re a huge church, but if you’re a medium sized, smaller church, definitely easier. Map your congregation a bit. Where are your congregation Monday? Through through Saturday? Be interesting to do that survey. Are they in the universities? Are they in particular businesses? You know, get some dots on the map. Then I think you can start to start talking to your congregation and those people in those different roles and say, okay, how can I as a pastor, how can we as a church, help equip you to be a witness for Christ in those environments? What is it you need? Because sometimes as church leaders, we can be tempted to tell them what we think they need rather than rather than actually listen. So I would start with those two steps. Thirdly, I would think about dialing it right down to the very, very practical. And I think the reason that Yellow Book has seen the success it has so far, praise the Lord, is it really is very, very, very basic. Um, and I felt there was a need for that. Sometimes we can sort of think people are too far ahead than where they are. And then I think last thing I would think I would be doing, um, it is thinking about as a church, how do we give people context in which it’s easy to invite people? So one of the things we do a lot at Solas, for example, is we’ve realized that inviting people into the church is their first contact for evangelism in the UK context.

Andy Bannister:
Right now, it doesn’t really work, but if we put on, if we help churches put on events in pubs and coffee shops, and I’ve got one coming up in a bookstore of all places to go, Pete, Christians actually find it very easy to invite friends into those settings. So I think, how do we, as church leaders, as churches, create spaces in which it is easy to bring people in? You try and get people to go out on the street on a Saturday morning and stand on the street corner. I think you’re going to get almost no volunteers, put on a good quality event in a venue locally. That’s a third space, um, outside the church, that addresses a topic that people are interested in does so in a way that’s friendly and winsome. Use that word good food, good coffee. We actually find suddenly the take up increases, because what people are looking for is someone with credibility. They can invite their friends to super conversation.

Ed Stetzer:
And, uh, you’re the only PhD graduate I know has a book with the word idiot in the title. Again, the book title is How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like an Idiot a panic free Guide to having Natural Conversations about your Faith. Thanks, Andy Bannister, for joining us.

Andy Bannister:
It’s, uh, great. Thanks again.

Daniel Yang:
And we’ve been talking to Doctor Andy Bannister. You can learn more about him at Andy Bannister dot net. Be sure to check out his book, How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like an Idiot A panic Free Guide to Having Natural Conversations About your Faith. And thanks again for listening to the Stetzer Church Leaders podcast. You can find more interviews, as well as other great content for ministry leaders at church Leaders compered cast. And again, if you found our conversation today helpful, I’d love for you to take a few moments. Leave us a review that will help other ministry leaders find us and benefit from our content. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you in the next episode.

Voice Over:
You’ve been listening to the Stetzer Church Leaders podcast for more great interviews as well as articles, videos, and free resources, visit our website at Church leaders.com. Thanks for listening.

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