How do we make low-key, friendly contact with people outside the church and initiate conversations that will lead to Jesus? One survey suggested that half the adult population of the UK have no contact whatsoever with a church, which means they are beyond the reach of the invitations we normally distribute either in person, or online.
One church in Birmingham struck on a brilliantly innovative idea to help them meet new people, in a positive way. In the run-up to Christmas, they set up a free gift-wrapping service in the centre of their city!
They assembled:
A small team of cheerful volunteers
A few tables
A sound system with festive tunes
A mile of wrapping paper
A few hundred metres of ribbon and hundreds of bows
A large box of Sellotape
Hundreds of gift labels
Scissors
Some “Free Gift Wrapping” signs
They got permission from the local council, informed the police and on the Saturday before Christmas, got to work. Their aim was to bless as many people as possible and answer any questions that people had. As word got out that there was a free gift-wrapping service going on, it became really popular.
The majority of reactions were very positive too.
Shopkeepers (including the ones they bought the stationary supplies from) were encouraging. Many high streets are struggling, and any kind of community ‘value-add’ to the shopping experience is always welcomed.
Shoppers too were delighted that they were being offered a hand. Hearing that the gift-wrapping service was being done by a church, they assumed that it was a fundraiser for restoring a cathedral, and that the ubiquitous thermometer-style fundraising display would soon be working its way up the bell-tower!
On discovering that this church wanted to give to them, rather than get something from them, several shoppers were stunned and said: “Really, why?” “God has blessed us, and we want to bless you”, the volunteers said. That naturally led to conversations about the real meaning of Christmas—about a “God who gave his one and only son”.
For some church members, their best conversations about Jesus in years—and the most invitations they gave out to people to church—all came about because of a free Christmas present wrapping service!
How can your church bless strangers at Christmas?
Pray: Lord, please make us a blessing to those around us this Christmas! Amen.
With interest surging in spiritual matters generally, and Christianity in particular, it’s a great time to consider running a ‘seekers course’, like Alpha or Christianity Explored. These create the ideal setting for people to meet informally over food and explore more about what Christianity is. Guests can experience Christian hospitality and community, ask their questions and contribute their ideas too. These courses also give people the opportunity to respond to Jesus themselves, without any pressure or expectation. Over the years, countless people, who were not yet ready to go to church, have found them a safe place in which to encounter Jesus.
Gordy, who has run both CE and Alpha said: “The beauty of these courses is that if you can operate a TV you can run a course, it is so simple!” Both CE and Alpha offer straightforward advice on using their materials. He says that running them regularly is a great way to make sure that when anyone is interested in Jesus there’s always something to invite them to! He loves handing out invites at the parent and toddler groups, Christmas services and community BBQs the church hosts.
One woman asked her local church if she could have her baby baptised. They are a Baptist Church who don’t baptise infants, but rather than turn her away, they invited her to Alpha as a way of exploring the meaning of Christianity. A year later, after putting her faith in Christ, she was baptised and her daughter was dedicated!
Hosting a course is a commitment of time, prayer and hospitality but the evenings you invest could be ones that God uses to change someone’s life—for eternity! Some people feel at ease in a home, others in a church, others in a café, so be flexible. Get the materials, get praying and invite people to come. As well as Alpha, Gordy’s church is also planning the Hope Explored course—a short, three-week course to invite the people they connect with at Christmas to come to. Likewise, when one Alpha group bonded closely but weren’t ready for church, they stayed together and did the Discipleship Explored course!
Pray: Lord, use us to reach people with the good news of Jesus. Help me to use the best resources and hospitality to love, welcome and introduce people to you. Amen
This past weekend I had the opportunity to teach at Whitby Bible School hosted by Whitby
Evangelical Church.
It’s an annual Bible school weekend aimed at young adults from 18 to around 30 years old,
where people from several evangelical churches come together for a weekend of fellowship
and teaching. This year the organisers wanted to do an apologetics track to speak about
some of the big questions that regularly come up with that age group, to better equip them
for sharing the Gospel, as well as to build them up in their faith more.
Speaking to a room of around 30 young adults, I had the opportunity to do 4 sessions with
Q&A time after each. The talk titles were: True for you but not for me: How to have conversations about faith in an age of relativism, Can God & Science co-exist?, Blindfolds and crutches: Is faith in God is just an emotional crutch, or is there good reason for it?, and Can happiness last?
This was my first time in Whitby, and although the streets were filled with pirates – quite
literally – I look forward to visiting again, and especially to see our friends at Whitby
Evangelical Church again soon.
It’s really encouraging to have the opportunity to speak at events like this where people are
hungry to learn more as a way to be more effective in sharing their faith, but also as living
out what they believe as disciples of Jesus.
Bringing an African perspective to PEP Talk today powerfully reminds us of the spiritual and experiential realities that we often minimise in our Western culture. With wonderful enthusiasm and amazing stories, get inspired by the host of the Inspired podcast as Simon Guillebaud chats with Andy and Kristi.
Simon Guillebaud MBE, spent two decades living in war-torn Central Africa, and speaks out of that context with raw urgency and passion for the last, the lost and the least. He’s the Founder of Great Lakes Outreach, host of the popular ‘Inspired’ podcast, author of the award-winning book Choose Life, and travels widely stirring up the Church for radical discipleship. His wife Lizzie and he live in Bath with their three teenage children.
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.
The creative arts are a great way to connect with people and share the gospel. Hosting an artistic event yourself allows greater control of the agenda and more gospel content to be shared.
One church held a week of concentrated outreach into their city. In order to engage creative people, they held a photography competition. They used the gently Christian theme ‘images of the cross in everyday life’ which they cheekily entitled “Rood Awakenings”. They advertised the event around photographic clubs, and enticed people through significant prizes to submit entries in categories such as ‘local images’, ‘phone cameras’, and ‘young photographers’. It led to a great evening, connecting with lots of non-church people, many for the first time.
Running a good exhibition and awards evening at church or a neutral venue, is a really important part of doing this well. Consider the following:
Pray!
Curate the images well, make viewing them either in print or digitally a really positive experience. Don’t just display the winners, but include all the entries on a rolling PowerPoint.
Offer refreshments, background music and friendly conversation.
Make the prize-giving really enjoyable. Experience shows that you might get entries from children taking their first images, and from semi-professionals creating powerful art. So be generous, as well as honouring excellence.
Use the evening to engage photographers.
Get a really good photographer to give out the prizes, and do a short talk on an aspect of photography.
Use the evening to present the gospel.
If your photographer isn’t able to do that, ask a church leader, or invite a Solas speaker The ‘argument from beauty’, forms a very natural bridge from art to the gospel, as you can see here and here.
Make sure there is some follow-up in place for guests who want to find out more. Make sure invitations to Alpha, Christianity Explored (or whatever your church uses to help newcomers explore the faith) are given to everyone. The church that ran the photography competition also established a monthly “Coffee and Cameras” club to continue to get alongside local photographers.
Other art-forms are available, use your congregation’s interests, skills and talents!
Pray: Lord, give me the courage to be creative in sharing the gospel, the courage to give this a try and the words to share your message, Amen.
If you like your philosophy, theology and ethics dissected rigorously – then Meic Pearce’s “Why the Rest hates the West”. In this episode, Andy Bannister joined Meic and Koelle Campo to talk rights, responsibilities and much more. You can see the whole episode above. Meic was one of Andy’s lecturers at London Bible College and they have some interesting intellectual jousting here. It’s a very enjoyable watch.
Giving Tuesday is 3 December 2024, a chance to join with thousands of others across the world in supporting your favourite causes and celebrating the impact of giving.
Your Impact
Your giving is making a difference through Solas by enabling us to work with Christian Unions across the UK. Just last month our speaking team was up north in Aberdeen at Robert Gordon University and down south at the University of Southampton, as well as Glasgow, Dundee and York! We are helping seeking students work through the big questions of life and training student leaders in sharing their faith. Young Christians are eager to have an impact on their campuses, and Solas is coming alongside them to speak, train and equip with tools like Have You Ever Wondered? and Short Answers.
We want to take this opportunity to say a big ‘thank-you’ to the hundreds of individuals who have already given financially to Solas this year. As well, Giving Tuesday isn’t just about money – those who offer prayers are so important to us, along with many partners who give their time and hard work to put on events up and down the country. If that’s you – then thanks!
Your Opportunity
If you can, please join with us this Giving Tuesday by making a special gift in support of our work sharing the gospel on university campuses, in workplaces, online and with local churches in pubs, cafes and community venues. Choose a one-off gift, or commit to monthly giving, it’s your choice.
The Giving Tuesday campaign began in the USA in 2012 as a way to give back after the well-known shopping days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Since then it has been promoted by the likes of Michelle Obama, Stephen Fry and Harry Kane. The campaign is coordinated in the UK by the Chartered Institute of Fundraising.
Top photo: Andy Bannister speaks with Sharon Dirckx at an outreach event in Lancaster, January 2024. Photo courtesy of Lancaster University Christian Union.
Why does it hurt so much when Christians fall short? Could it be because, deep down, we know the church should be different—a reflection of Jesus in some way? In this thought-provoking Short Answers video filmed live at the Cairngorms Convention in Scotland, Andy Bannister explores the reasons Christians aren’t perfect, the messy truth of transformation, and how Christianity offers hope even when we fail.
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!
An easy and fun way for your church to reach out is to set up a table or stall at a fete, market—or even the local car boot sale. Events like these often draw big crowds and the even your very presence can help raise the profile of the church in your village, town, or suburb.
We spoke to Geoff Naylor from Discovery Church in Wroughton. For several years they have had a stall in the annual village carnival. We asked Geoff about their vision in this: he explained that the main goal was quite low key; the first priority was that people in the community would know the church existed. Taking part in and being in the midst of this key event in village life was a great step toward that.
The practicalities were really simple, Geoff explained. You simply book a space, turn up with a collapsible gazebo, some folding seats, and a mixture of leaflets, gospel books and resources, along with some free snacks and see what happens! Activities like face painting are also a huge draw—you can offer that for free and whilst youngsters get painted you get to talk to the parents. The free drinks and face painting really draw people.
We asked Geoff about the fruit of this and he replied that as a relatively new church plant in the village, what Discovery Church wanted was presence, profile, and relationships. Having a stall did all of this so Geoff would strongly encourage other churches to try it!
Another church we spoke to was using the annual town fete to reach out, in their case using puppets. Every 30 minutes, they would put on a puppet show, telling a story from the Bible. Kids love puppets, parents love a free cold drink and as the pastor said, “The puppets can say things quite directly about faith, God, and Jesus and there’s no pushback, because ‘the puppet said it’.” After each performance, they give out Bible booklets with the story that was in the show. There have been some amazing conversations over the years, along with opportunities to pray with people.
So, give it a try—take a stand!
Pray: Lord, please lead us to those local community events where we can be a presence; and help us use them to build connections and sow gospel seeds. Amen.
__________
“You say there’s a God, so where was he when my unborn child died?”
This was the heartfelt question I was asked in a recent Q & A session. Sarah had been sharing her faith with a friend, only for her friend to then suffer a miscarriage. Suddenly all of her talk about a loving God rang hollow with her friend. Why had she been allowed to suffer in such a devastating way? Sarah wanted to know how to respond to her friend’s deep anguish.
I began by encouraging Sarah to support her friend at this time. I shared how my wife and I had experienced three miscarriages on our way to having our first child. What we valued as much as answers was the presence of Christians standing beside us, loving us and praying with us.
Next, I gently suggested that the Christian faith makes far better sense of our anger and frustration when pain and suffering strike. According to atheism, a failed pregnancy is just nature shrugging its shoulders and disposing of some unwanted molecules. But we don’t respond like that. Instead we grieve, we rage, and we protest “that’s not right!”. And I believe we do that because deep down, we instinctively know that the Christian story is true. Death is not the way things should be.
Finally, I suggested some ways Sarah could draw her friend into the biblical story. We know from the Bible that death is not the last word, that God has done something about the problem of pain, that God the Father has experienced the death of a child in Jesus and the cross. And because of Jesus, whilst we grieve, we do not grieve without hope, nor do we walk through the shadow of the valley of death without God’s presence. I also recommended a book, Sheridan Voysey’s Resurrection Year, that deals honestly, powerfully, and beautifully with this issue.
Thank you so much for helping us to support people like Sarah, as we seek to share the good news of Jesus persuasively, and equip Christians for evangelism practically. If you’ve found these resources helpful, you can find more articles, short answers and the PEP Talk Podcast on our website, as well as all the latest news from Solas.
“I have never forgotten James. When he was a toddler, James had fallen down several flights of stairs in an Edinburgh tenement, and as a result he suffered irreparable brain damage…“
David Randall, former chair of Solas, takes an in-depth look at suffering, in the first ever Solas Paper (published back in 2013).
Christian reflections on an unwanted journey of grief caused by a family tragedy
Bible verses
There are many parts of scripture that we can turn to help us when we are going through pain and suffering. The Psalms have been a source of comfort for people throughout the ages with the ‘Lord is my shepherd’ being a particular favourite, while the book of Job is often explored when thinking about why bad things happen. There are lots of other verses that remind us of God’s love or comforting power, but one of the most powerful is God’s ultimate promise that there will be a time when He will put an end to all suffering:
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. (Revelation 21: 1-7)
Other resources: Tim Keller, John Lennox and Warren Furman
Tim Keller looks at the human reaction to suffering and how the Bible informs us of a different perspective, as we walk with God through pain and trials.
On the anniversary of 9/11 John Lennox addresses students in New York about how we can begin to make sense of suffering from a Christian perspective.
A light-hearted testimony from Warren Furman (Ace from Gladiators) on rejecting God after a bereavement, and then finding fame, fortune and faith.
If you are struggling to cope with something right now, it is really important to reach out to someone for help: it could be a friend, family member, your church, or you can speak to organisations like the Samaritans anonymously. We also pray that these resources are helpful for you.
“You say there’s a God, so where was he when my unborn child died?”
This was the heartfelt question I was asked in a recent Q & A session. Sarah had been sharing her faith with a friend, only for her friend to then suffer a miscarriage. Suddenly all of her talk about a loving God rang hollow with her friend. Why had she been allowed to suffer in such a devastating way? Sarah wanted to know how to respond to her friend’s deep anguish.
I began by encouraging Sarah to support her friend at this time. I shared how my wife and I had experienced three miscarriages on our way to having our first child. What we valued as much as answers was the presence of Christians standing beside us, loving us and praying with us.
Next, I gently suggested that the Christian faith makes far better sense of our anger and frustration when pain and suffering strike. According to atheism, a failed pregnancy is just nature shrugging its shoulders and disposing of some unwanted molecules. But we don’t respond like that. Instead we grieve, we rage, and we protest “that’s not right!”. And I believe we do that because deep down, we instinctively know that the Christian story is true. Death is not the way things should be.
Finally, I suggested some ways Sarah could draw her friend into the biblical story. We know from the Bible that death is not the last word, that God has done something about the problem of pain, that God the Father has experienced the death of a child in Jesus and the cross. And because of Jesus, whilst we grieve, we do not grieve without hope, nor do we walk through the shadow of the valley of death without God’s presence. I also recommended a book, Sheridan Voysey’s Resurrection Year, that deals honestly, powerfully, and beautifully with this issue.
“I have never forgotten James. When he was a toddler, James had fallen down several flights of stairs in an Edinburgh tenement, and as a result he suffered irreparable brain damage…“
David Randall, former chair of Solas, takes an in-depth look at suffering, in the first ever Solas Paper (published back in 2013).
Christian reflections on an unwanted journey of grief caused by a family tragedy
Bible verses
There are many parts of scripture that we can turn to help us when we are going through pain and suffering. The Psalms have been a source of comfort for people throughout the ages with the ‘Lord is my shepherd’ being a particular favourite, while the book of Job is often explored when thinking about why bad things happen. There are lots of other verses that remind us of God’s love or comforting power, but one of the most powerful is God’s ultimate promise that there will be a time when He will put an end to all suffering:
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. (Revelation 21: 1-7)
Other resources: Tim Keller, John Lennox and Warren Furman
Tim Keller looks at the human reaction to suffering and how the Bible informs us of a different perspective, as we walk with God through pain and trials.
On the anniversary of 9/11 John Lennox addresses students in New York about how we can begin to make sense of suffering from a Christian perspective.
A light-hearted testimony from Warren Furman (Ace from Gladiators) on rejecting God after a bereavement, and then finding fame, fortune and faith.
If you are struggling to cope with something right now, it is really important to reach out to someone for help: it could be a friend, family member, your church, or you can speak to organisations like the Samaritans anonymously. We also hope that these resources are helpful for you.
