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PEP Talk with Ben Franks

by Solas

With a rich Christian heritage, but a bleak spiritual present, Wales is in desperate need of the Gospel right now. God is not unaware of the situation however, and is calling people to pray, share the Word and plant new churches right now. Andy and Gavin chat with a leader of 100 Cymru and hear about the vision for 100 new churches in the next 10 years!

Visit 100Cymru and sign up to pray for Wales!

With Ben Franks – PEP Talk

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Our Guest

Ben Franks planted Hope Church Rhondda with his wife Lois in 2013. The church meets in a converted shop on Tonypandy’s high street and is hoping to launch two new congregations in the next 12 months. Alongside leading the team at Hope, Ben chairs the board of his family’s business while Lois runs a marketing company in Pontypridd.

About PEP Talk

The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, Andy Bannister (Solas) and Kristi Mair (Oak Hill College) chat to a guest who has a great story, a useful resource, or some other expertise that helps equip you to talk persuasively, winsomely, and engagingly with your friends, colleagues and neighbours about Jesus.

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FOCL / ELF Masterclass Webinar: “How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like An Idiot”

by Andy Bannister

Andy really enjoyed teaching for the the European Leadership Forum / FOCL on Tuesday 29 October 2024. He taught a three hour webinar on How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like An Idiot … drawing from his book with that title. (You can find Andy’s book here).

You can download a copy of Andy’s slides from his five talks in the webinar as a PDF here along with a longer version of his session notes on “Five Steps for Answering Any Tough Question” and a chapter from his book, How to Talk About Jesus Without Looking Like An Idiot, that covers the one talk we didn’t have time for on the webinar.

Want to stay in touch with and prayer for Solas? Sign up for the Solas email newsletter—packed with news, prayer points, and free resources.

Other great resources from Solas:

  • Short Answers videos — close to 200 videos, each about five minutes long, engaging with a tough question about the Christian faith.
  • Have You Ever Wondered? — our best-selling give-away evangelistic book, perfect as a gift for friends to start conversations about Jesus.
  • Check out our new 60 second reels, perfect for sharing on social media (TikTok, Instagram, X, YouTube, etc.)

If you’d like to help support Solas’s work of evangelism and evangelism training across the UK, you can do for as little as £3 a month and we’ll send you a choice of one of several great books as a gift.

Launch Pad 44: Get Creative!

by Editor

Made in the image of the Creator-God, humans are insatiably creative, as poets, singer-songwriters, painters, engravers, writers, filmmakers, and weavers, demonstrate. Some are professional, others are enthusiasts—and many people appreciate their work. Yet the power of the arts to communicate the gospel is often under-utilised.

Many Christian artists love to communicate their faith through their work. Creativity by Christians isn’t just for church, but can help bring bold Biblical themes into our cultural conversation. Sixties music icon turned radio presenter Paul Jones says that the ‘spirituality of the paintings of Caspar David Freidrich’ was instrumental in his conversion to Christianity: the transcendent power of beauty that first dented his staunch atheism. Whilst in the world of literature, C. S. Lewis communicated as much of the gospel through his fantasy and science fiction novels as he did through his apologetics books.

There are so many inspiring examples of people who’ve used their creativity for the gospel; such as

J.S. Bach, who composed all his works ‘To the glory of God alone’!

Andrew is a poet whose work is found both in print and read at literary festivals: his rich and wonderfully structured phrases draw on his deep Christian faith.  Jen, another poet said: ”Jesus can’t help coming into what I write, as he forms an integral part of my inner world, although I once saw a judge at a slam poetry competition grimace when I mentioned him!” Clive is a singer whose faith seeps out through his lyrics! Phil is a filmmaker whose stories encapsulate gospel themes. Christian artists express the gospel in all kinds of ways.

Atheist children’s author Philip Pullman notoriously said that his books were about “Killing God”. Have we surrendered creative spaces to the world, or infiltrated them for the gospel?  Where there is a local writers’ group, are Christian ideas being heard there, presenting a better story? Do Christians only sing in church, or also at the open mic night at the local pub? Is there a visual art space in your town, and do Christians ever contribute there?

So:

  1. What is your creative passion?
  2. Work hard to weave gospel themes into your work.
  3. Strive to get your work seen and discussed outside the church.

Pray: Lord, thank-you that you have made us creative. Help me to communicate you through all the gifts I have been given.

Previously: Launchpad #43 Offer to serve in your church Sunday school or youth work

Next: Launchpad #45 Run a Book Table

Steve at St Peter’s in Dundee

by Editor

Solas has got a good long history with St Peter’s Free Church in Dundee. In fact, if it wasn’t for St Pete’s there would be no Solas really! Since arriving in Dundee myself last year, it’s been great to get to know St Pete’s Associate Pastor, Will Lind a bit. The church’s continued support for Solas is hugely appreciated by us all here – especially their prayer support.

The first time I spoke at St Peter’s was when I was invited to go and share at their midweek prayer-meeting about the ministry of Solas. I got to give them an update on our work, as well as a few thoughts from myself about being the new speaker, and settling into life and ministry in Scotland. So was really nice to be able to share all of that with people who had been praying for Solas for some time, and for me before I had even met them. I love meeting with Solas supporters and to have the opportunity to pray with them too! After the meeting lots of people wanted to speak to me, there were some great conversations and it was a great encouragement to me.

That led in turn to me be invited to preach up at St Peter’s on a Sunday evening service. They have a fantastic congregation there, who seem really ‘solid’ – if that makes sense! The are a really informed group of people who continue to impress me with their commitment to prayer. Before the service I was able to join them for a prayer meeting, which I especially valued.

In the service itself I took them to 1 Peter 3:15, which is a foundational text for Solas’s work. I used it as an exhortation to evangelism, which the folks there responded to enthusiastically. I really enjoy the conversations I have with people after services, especially with warm, friendly congregations like St Peter’s who want to talk and chat about the message for ages after the end of the formal part of the ‘service’.

They get a good-sized congregation for their Sunday evening service – of people of all ages, including a good number of students. They are situated right next to the university and my guess is that about a third of the congregation were students, or student age. The pastor at St Peter’s is away at the moment, so I was also glad to serve the church in his absence and enable him to have a well-earned break.

Solas has a special relationship with St Peter’s so it was really good to be able to share in that. We do love serving churches all over the country. Please get in touch with us, if you’d like us to come and talk about evangelism at one of your services.

Confident Christianity at Eldad Elim Church

by Solas

Please find below the presentation slides from Andy Bannister’s talks at Eldad Elim Church. Thanks for coming along to Confident Christianity!

Guernsey CCC 1 – How to TalkDownload
Guernsey CCC 2 – Jesus and Failures of the ChurchDownload

And some further free resources you might enjoy:

*Solas Short Answers videos — a huge collection of short videos addressing common questions about Christianity. Great to learn from and/or share with friends.

* Our new “60 second shorts” series — perfect for sharing especially with younger audiences. (You can also find these on TikTok here).

* If you need more copies of Have You Ever Wondered? to give to friends, you can get those direct from our friends at 10ofThose.

* On the Jesus and the Failures of the Church talk, see my interview with historian John Dickson about his brilliant book on this subject.

* And on sharing your faith naturally, check out the brilliant Launch Pad series on the Solas website.

Launch Pad 43: Offer to serve in your church Sunday school or youth work

by Editor

Often when we think about sharing our faith, we look primarily outside the church. I think that’s generally just the logical thing to do – one might be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that on a Sunday the church will primarily be filled with Christians. But, that’s not the whole story.

I’ve recently spent some time with the youth group at my church and I’ve been struck by how much more willing they are than the adults to invite their friends to come along.  The result is that at any given meeting, there can be people present from atheist, Muslim, or other backgrounds. This opens up a great opportunity to not only serve younger people within in the church, but it also means there will be great opportunities to introduce people to Jesus and the Christian faith – and the door’s already open, they’ve happily come along to see what church is all about. Serving in Sunday school or youth ministry is a great way to learn how to answer questions from inquisitive minds, but also offers a great opportunity to share your faith with those who are not Christians.

Another thing to consider is that just because a young person is part of a church-going family it doesn’t necessarily mean that they have understood the Gospel and put their faith in Jesus themselves! When I was growing up I was sometimes taken to church even though I wasn’t myself a Christian. And, although I’d been to Sunday school a few times, and even gone to the youth group occasionally, I wouldn’t have been able to explain what the Gospel is, much less made any personal response to Jesus. We can’t assume that just because someone is at church, that they are a Christian.

Why not consider serving in your church Sunday school or youth group and pray that the Lord would help you to find people to share the Good News with? Help the group to develop a culture of invitation, and host events they are confident to invite people to. (Solas can help with these).

Prayer: “Lord, please use the Sunday school and youth groups at my church to bring those who don’t know you into the church”.

Previously: Launch Pad #42 Evangelism Shouldn’t Be A Drama, But Then Again, It Could Be!

Next: Launch Pad #44 Get Creative

 

Reason for Hope at Glasgow Grace!

by Editor

It was great to be able to speak at Glasgow Grace. It’s a church I love, and I especially appreciate the leadership there because they have such a heart for reaching the people around them outside the church. They are involved in the life of the community, are planning a church plant and are constantly praying and thinking about ways that they can reach the people around them in Glasgow.

I had previously spoken at one of the church’s outreach events in a pub in the city; and they invited me to preach on a Sunday following on from that. They invited me to tell the church a bit about Solas, explaining what we are about and the work we do in evangelism, evangelism-training and producing resources. I pointed them to some of the website articles, Short Answers videos and PEPtalk podcasts. I took a couple of books along, such as “How to talk About Jesus Without Looking Like An Idiot” and “Have You Ever Wondered?” too. I gave a few of those away and had some great conversations with folk as a result too. I must have been there for an hour and a half chatting to folk after the service!

It was awesome being there, it is such a vibrant, energetic church who responded really well to my sermon which was on 1 Peter 3:15, “ But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

There were lots of students there on Sunday morning which was encouraging too. Some of them said the had never really thought this through before and were struck by the way in which the scripture exhorts to use our minds and reason; but that’s not where it ends – because reason and faith work together. Being a Christian does not mean you switch your brain off!

So, it was a privilege to be at Glasgow Grace again and I hope to work with them again in the near future!

Confident Christianity at Discovery Church Penzance

by Solas

Here you will find the presentation slides from Andy Bannister’s talks at Discovery Church. Thanks for coming along.

Penzance CCC 1 How to TalkDownload
Penzance CCC 2 Sexuality and IdentityDownload
Penzance CCC 3 SufferingDownload
Penzance Sunday – Back to JesusDownload

And some further free resources you might enjoy:

* Solas Short Answers videos — a huge collection of short videos addressing common questions about Christianity. Great to learn from and/or share with friends.

* Our new “60 second shorts” series — perfect for sharing especially with younger audiences. (You can also find these on TikTok here).

* If you need more copies of Have You Ever Wondered? to give to friends, you can get those direct from our friends at 10ofThose.

* On the sexuality talk, lots of people asked about further resources — check out our friend Ed Shaw and our friends at Living Out.

Found Church Larbert

by Solas

Here are the presentation slides from the Confident Christianity series featuring Andy Bannister and Steve Osmond from Solas.

(1) Sermon – How To Talk About JesusDownload
(2) Evening (Andy) – Sharing Faith in a Culture of ConfusionDownload
Where is God in the Midst of SufferingDownload
Can Science and God Co-Exist_V3Download

For those looking to read a little more on the topics we explored in our time together, we recommend the following books:

  • ‘How to talk about Jesus without looking like an idiot’ by Andy Bannister
  • ‘Have you ever wondered?’ edited by Andy Bannister & Gavin Matthews
  • ‘If God, why Evil?’ by Norman Geisler
  • ‘A Grief Observed’ by C.S. Lewis
  • ‘Where is God in all the suffering?’ by Amy Orr-Ewing
  • ‘Can Science Explain Everything?’ by John Lennox
  • ‘The Return of the God Hypothesis’ by Stephen Meyer

The Big Breakfast at Kirkliston Community Church

by Solas

Here are the slides from Gavin Matthew’s talk at The Big Breakfast on 5th October 2024. Links to additional resources are below.

Jesus and the Questions of the AgeDownload

Other Resources

The “Talking Jesus Report”. The complete research and accompanying resources are freely available here: https://talkingjesus.org/  I also interviewed Rachel Jordan-Wolf, who was the person behind this research, and you can hear that interview here.

The other interviews and testimonies I referenced in my presentation are: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, David Bennett, Nathaniel and Rahil Patel. A highly recommended further read in this whole area is Daniel Strange’s little book: “Making Faith Magnetic: Five Hidden Themes Our Culture Can’t Stop Talking About… And How to Connect Them to Christ”.  (Good Book Company, 2021) You can click on the link to find the book online or use your local bookshop.

With John Kirkby

by Solas

Taking an entrepreneur’s approach, one man has been challenged by God to start sharing Jesus in his own life, and then expand it to the whole church. Can he do it? He’s done it before with poverty, so we are audaciously believing it can happen with evangelism!

Check out the Isaiah 61 Movement website and search for “i61” for your mobile app store.

With John Kirkby – PEP Talk

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Our Guest

Dr John Kirkby CBE (prefers ‘Johnny Boy’) is the founder of Isaiah 61 Movement (i61m) and Christians Against Poverty (CAP). John had a tough life after his father died. His marriage ended, with huge debt, he had lost everything. Now with a doctorate & CBE, John was healed and transformed because his friend shared life with him, shared faith with him, then shared Jesus. 30 years on, John has founded i61m to to see every Christian confidently doing the same for their friends, and build Jesus-sharing culture with churches everywhere.

About PEP Talk

The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, Andy Bannister (Solas) and Kristi Mair (Oak Hill College) chat to a guest who has a great story, a useful resource, or some other expertise that helps equip you to talk persuasively, winsomely, and engagingly with your friends, colleagues and neighbours about Jesus.

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

Launch Pad 42: Evangelism Shouldn’t be a Drama, But Then Again, It Could Be!

by Editor

When we think about evangelism, we often think about things like preaching, or Alpha, or Christianity Explored—content and programmes based on reason, discussion, or conversation. But how do we reach people who are closed to this?

C.S. Lewis, well-known for books like Mere Christianity, then turned to writing stories, like The Chronicles of Narnia and The Cosmic Trilogy. Lewis explained that he felt the front doors of people’s minds were often guarded by watchful dragons that made it hard for people to even allow the claims of Christianity across the threshold. But Lewis had an inkling that with stories, maybe one could “steal past those watchful dragons” and smuggle in truth through the side door.[1]

An amazing ministry that helps churches use story and the arts in evangelism is The Mark Drama. They send a trained theatre director to your church who over six weeks works with volunteers to put on a performance of Mark’s Gospel. Every incident and most of the words of Jesus are covered in a way that is profoundly engaging. The result is not the cheesy “tea towels on the head” naff Christian drama, but a contemporary and powerful retelling of Jesus’s story.

Callom Harkrader, now Young Adults Pastor at Above Bar Church in Southampton, once worked for The Mark Drama. He explained that churches and Christian Unions that have used it have found that friends or family who might say “no” to an invite to a service or an outreach event respond quite differently when you say “I’m taking part in a play, would you come and watch?” Callom himself has a theatre background and said: “The Mark Drama sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it does! And it’s powerful, because it’s Jesus’s words. It’s the gospel.”

If you can’t get The Mark Drama to your church, what about making use of The Chosen, the modern retelling of the Jesus story designed for the Netflix generation. A friend of Andy’s recently became a Christian after being persuaded to watch the series. She found herself moved to tears at the presentation of Jesus in the show and soon after, became a Christian. Because The Chosen is so widely available (both for free, or on various streaming services) it’s easy to point friends to it.

Pray: Father, thank you for giving us creative Christians in the Church. Help us to use their gifts in evangelism. Amen!

Previously: Launch Pad #41 Join a Book Group

Next: Launch Pad #43 Offer to serve in your church Sunday school or youth work

[1]       The illustration can be found in C. S. Lewis, Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (Orlando, FL: Harvest, 1994 [1966]) 37.

Courageous Christianity

by Editor

One of the great joys of working at Solas are the many opportunities I get to work with churches all around the country. One church we have worked with for many years is Culduthel Christian Centre in Inverness. We have many connections with Culduthel. Andy Bannister, our Director studied theology alongside their pastor Alasdair Macleod several years ago. Our former Ops Director Jeff Howarth was a member of Culduthel as well as a member of the Solas team – and is greatly missed by us all. We have also run evangelism-training events at Culduthel as well as worked in partnershhip with them in outreach events in and around Inverness.

Recently I was invited North to speak at their Sunday morning service. They iinvited me up for a couple of reasons. The first is was give their pastor Alasdair Macleod a break! He’s gone on a sabbatical and is doing a deep study into the book of Isaiah. The other was to keep the church in touch with Solas’s ministry. We have some really faithful supporters in Culduthel, who give to and pray for our work. So it was aproviliege for me to share an update into Solas’s work.

I also got to preach from their text for the day which was Acts 23:11. That is an explosive little verse in the middle of the narrative about the Apostle Paul’s time in Jerusalem. Paul is almost ripped limb from limb by the angry crowd (v10). In verse 12 one group of about 40 men take an oath not to eat or drink until they have killed Paul! yet in between these menacing threats, The Lord met Paul:

11 The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.”

Paul was emboldened in the barracks by three things:

1) The presence of The Lord. He stood near him
2) The command of The Lord. He commanded Him
3) The Promise of The Lord. He would get to Rome and not die that day

So we thought together about the problem of cowardice and how The Lord might embolden us with same three things! You can hear the whole thing here:

If you are a Facebook user you can see the video here, at 37minutes.

It was such a privilege to be back at Culduthel, to catch up with many old friends and supporters – and to share a message from God’s word. Our partnerships with churches in gospel work are very important to us. If you would like us to work with you in mission, evangelism, training or telling your church about our work and preaching for you – please do get in touch!

What Does God Think of You?

by Solas

Social media allows us to show our life to our friends, family—anyone! And with every like or comment we start to learn what people think of us. But whether we are revelling in a thousand heart emojis or wallowing in self-loathing, do we stop to consider what God thinks of us? Drawing on a story from Jesus’ life, Steve Osmond explains that how God thinks of you—or me—isn’t based on our performance, but on a spiritual transformation only He can give.

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Please share this video widely with friends or family and for more Short Answers videos, visit solas-cpc.org/shortanswers/, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit us on Twitter Instagram or Facebook.

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Short Answers is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose a free book as a thank-you gift!