Podcast: Tools for local evangelism – with Carl Knightly

This article is part of the Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast series.

In this episode of Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast, we delve into the impactful work of London City Mission with Carl Knightly, the Director of Church Networks.

Carl offers insights into the organisation’s mission to spread the gospel across every community in London. We explore the strategies employed to engage with the city’s diverse populations, with a focus on building relationships and understanding cultural nuances.

Our discussion also covers London City Mission’s approach to door-to-door evangelism, highlighting the importance of empathy and consistency in community outreach. Additionally, we address the challenges Christians may face in evangelism and the significance of overcoming self-awareness to share the message of hope effectively.

For further resources and support in your journey to spread hope to those in need, visit the London City Mission website: www.lcm.org.uk

Subscribe: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Topics addressed in this Podcast:

• Why Carl joined the London City Mission
• London City Mission’s mission and approach
• Equipping churches for mission
• Opportunities in Britian’s cultural diversity
• Ministering to Muslim communities
• Reaching people from other nations
• Overcoming fear in evangelism
• Encouragement to engage in door-to-door evangelism
• Free resources for evangelism

Transcript

[AI generated]

[0:10] Hello, I’m Graham Nicholls and you are listening to Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast. And I’m Lizzie Harewood and we are joined today by Carl Knightley from London City Mission. Carl, can you just briefly tell us who you are, what your role is with LCM? Sure, hello and thank you for having me. So I work for London City Mission. As you said, I’m part of the leadership team. My title is Director of Networks and what that means is I spend a lot of time with senior church leaders, strategic Christian leaders at conferences, those sorts of rooms and spaces, sharing about the work of London City Mission and seeking to envision church leaders and Christian leaders about what we’re doing and how we want to serve churches. Yeah, Carl is a consumer networker. He’s probably the best Christian networker I’ve come across. Okay, I’ll make sure that I put that in my back pocket. No pressure. Contact you later, Carl. He always knows everybody.

[1:13] Yeah. I can’t remember actually how you became a Christian, Carl. Can you mention that? Yeah. So by God’s grace, I grew up in a Christian household, actually. So both my parents grew up as Christians. My late father was English. My mum’s from the Seychelles. And so they grew up very firm Christian backgrounds. But then probably, like many people, drifted away from their faith. And I’m told that when it was time for them to get me baptized, their local vicar said they had to do a course for want of a better word and that brought them back to their faith um and um and so i grew up in church and then went to christian camps as a teenager where i professed faith um and then ever since then in my 20s it felt like um one step forward and two steps back but um the way i describe it i don’t have a road to damascus experience but um if you’re getting on the train to go to france and um you fall asleep around Folkestone, you wake up in Calais or wherever it is, you know you’re in France. You’re not sure when you got there, but you know you’re in France. So I’ve had the joy of journeying with the Lord all my life. And have you been with London City Mission for a while? How did you kind of get into that work of equipping and supporting churches in evangelism and reaching out to the lost?

[2:28] I think I’ve always had a heart for evangelism and for the lost, as it were. Growing up in church, working with youth, doing things with people on the margins.

[2:39] I spent a year, a number of years ago, working as a debt coach for Christians Against Poverty.

[2:43] So I’ve always enjoyed that sort of thing. But actually, I spent most of my career until 2017 working in the Home Office.

[2:51] So I was working in secular work whilst doing ministry things on the side. Um and the reason i say that is i’ve spent time in lots of strange places you know prisons um embassies lots of places and i kind of enjoy meeting people and hanging out of people um and so in 2017 for a variety of reasons i i left the public sector and moved into the so-called christian world um working for pilgrims friend society who run christian care homes as their director engagement so marketing comms people lots of talking um and i’m taking you around the houses is because there’s a reason so i was working for them and then a few months in they launched faith in later life which is a charity that seeks to equip churches around ministry of older people and so i led that for a little while took it to charitable status led it for about three and a half years um and then felt a sense of from the lord of actually moving away from running a small charity to to moving to use my sort of partnering and networking skills um with london city mission And actually it was ideal because as I’ve gone along my journey, I built up the skills and gifts of talking to people. My heart has always been for reaching those who are least likely to hear the gospel.

[4:03] So I moved to London City Mission and that was about two and a half years ago. So you moved in the middle of COVID, I guess, or just at the end? Yeah. So September 2021.

[4:15] Right. So, yeah, lots of Teams and Zoom and so on initially. Right, yeah. Yeah. So what is London City Mission? And sort of connected with that, why do we need it? Why can’t just churches do evangelism? Yeah, so London City Mission does what it says on the tin, really. It’s a missionary organisation in London, and we want to see Jesus Christ known in every community in London.

[4:41] Lcm was set up in 1835 by david nasmyth a young scottish chap who was um he was in ministry from 26 to 40 when he went to be with the lord um and his his famous quote was let the glory of god and the salvation of souls be your chief and only aim so lcm exists to share the gospel alongside and through local churches um i want to essentially equip christians uh to share the gospel those those people in their communities were least likely to hear it so that might be young people it might be seniors it might be people on estates people in prison people who are homeless and and critically as things are in london people of other faiths as well as diaspora communities um so that’s what london city mission does and the way we do that is through predominantly through missionaries who work in their areas so in a particular part of london so in different borrowers we have missionaries who are engaging with church leaders listening to them hearing about what they’re seeking to achieve and missionally so, We then come alongside those churches and serve them, if you like.

[5:47] And I’ll come back to that shortly. But secondarily, if that’s a word, we also have online resources and training and podcasts and so on, where we seek to serve the rest of the nation beyond London. We’re not a church. We’re a parachurch organization.

[6:04] Some churches, their ecclesiology might not necessarily enjoy that. But we want where we’re welcomed to serve and to help local churches to step out in faith and to build connections with the communities around them so they can share faith. So whenever I’m thinking about these things and ask this question, there’s that verse in Ephesians 4 where Paul says, Christ gave himself to the apostles, the prophets and the evangelists to equip his people for works of service so the body of Christ may be built up. So I don’t know if that’s an elevator pitch, But we are very much coming with a posture of service and listening to local churches to help equip them where that’s helpful. So would you say that you employ missionaries that are attached to a church? I mean, I have to say, whenever my husband and I think of London and the wealth of evangelical churches that are down there, we always get this sense of simply envy because we think there are so many awesome churches with so much resource, so much that they can achieve and do, aren’t the pastors, aren’t the leaders of those churches aren’t they the missionaries and then they equip their congregations to go out and to get stuck into their communities or is London a very unique place that needs that different approach?

[7:27] Yeah, that’s a really good question, because for many years we did actually have missionaries who were co-located in churches. We changed that just before COVID. We decided to have a massive strategic change. So timing’s everything, isn’t it? But when Graham Miller, our CEO and the board really felt a sense of the importance of moving more towards a church mobilisation model, equipping the church to do the mission theologically as well as practically, that seemed like the right thing to do. So we very much aren’t, our missionaries aren’t doing the mission in churches, nor are they actually attached to a particular church. It might be that they’re serving two or three churches in any given week. So, for example, we have missionaries all over London, missionaries, missionary associates and folk who do missionary type work, probably about 90 all across London in different boroughs.

[8:16] And a missionary, let’s pick Croydon, that’s where I’m from. And my brother Simon is the team leader for Croydon, so I’m sure I can pick on him. But you will have a team of four or five missionaries and they they are missionaries live in the areas that they minister in so that’s we have properties and that’s a that’s um that’s required so they have to live there and and often they’ll live there already which is good because it means they understand the community and they will get to know church leaders and it might be a church leader says you know um simon or or um sarah or whoever it might be we’ve got a an estate state behind us and we really love some help with thinking about how we can do door knocking we’re daunted by it um but we’d love to do that and so a missionary would sit down with the church leader church leader led work through a partnership arrangement whereby we’d agree to support them i don’t know every tuesday and wednesday afternoon for 12 months whatever it might be and then there’d be a team of four or five volunteers from the church and our missionary and we would go out with them and help train them, if you like. So we’re with them, we mobilize them and then release them, and then we’ll withdraw from that whilst remaining in a good relationship with the church, checking in on them and so on and so forth. But we want to equip the churches to do that. And similarly, if the church is in East London, for example, a big Muslim population, want to think about how they can winsomely engage.

[9:38] With Muslims, maybe they’ve got no confidence in that space, we would have missionaries who can come and kind of help them understand that for X amount of time. So every missionary has a specialism, and the specialisms are often, those missionaries are placed in parts of London where there’ll be more of a

[9:57] need in terms of the data. So we’re very much wanting to equip a mobilized church to go out and do the mission. The church knows their communities, the church knows the people, we want to serve the church. I think as well, Lizzie, the…

[10:13] London is uh variegated is uh there’s lots and lots of different situations um so you’ve got the well-resourced large churches in central london and around um but you’ve also i’m sure carl say this you’ve also got other um boroughs regions which have small struggling churches or no churches yeah yeah because there’s such a concentration of population you’ve got the opportunity to have lots and lots of those varieties of of uh of options right across um.

[10:46] So yeah i think um just to back up what you were saying from ephesians i just happen to be preaching from acts 11 on sunday morning and um this coming sunday and um the flexibility of uh paul and barnabas going down to antioch and being glad of the staff and teaching there for a while and you know people lending resources to other churches and stuff so although although i really believe in the integrity uh and the autonomy of the local church and that’s the driver for evangelism i think there’s also a flexibility in the new testament about helping out and a bit of back and forth and training and and we haven’t always got all the answers we sometimes do need help and to help each other so um that’s a form of what you’re doing really um what uh what’s what’s the most effective form of evangelism that wasn’t gonna be one of my questions i’ll pose but i just thought about it yeah that’s a silver bullet that really works well when i find out i’ll let you know um i think it really very much depends um on who you’re seeking to reach um you know if you’re seeking to reach a muslim for example um you know when a muslim comes to know the lord um as their personal savior they leave everything you know it’s not just they absolutely everything so there has to be something which is very different um from when you’re seeking to reach kids in schools or in a youth club, I think the most, in terms of our data.

[12:13] What seems to be of most interest at the moment is door knocking.

[12:16] Which many people will balk at the idea, right? It doesn’t feel very British, but actually there’s a huge opportunity door knocking. And as we live in more of an isolated, lonely world, I think often people really welcome an opportunity for, you know, to have a conversation even. And I think that brings me to my kind of overarching answer to your question, Graeme, in that…

[12:43] Um being intentional and being relational are the two you know you know i don’t know if they’re silver bullets but whenever you’re reaching somebody you’ve just got to be relational and you’ve got to be intentional um i think obviously as you would expect me to say everything we do starts in prayer um and and there’ll be those people who necessarily in churches won’t feel called to go and knock on the door but they’ll be at home praying or they’ll be in church praying but i think um we want to help you know churches think about their intentionality um and also you know we a phrase i like to use is you know we just turn up and the holy spirit does the heavy lifting you know we’re not we’re not into outcomes we are into outcomes because you know that’s important and we’re a charity and we have to demonstrate that we’re making a difference by god’s grace but actually what we’re about is just turning up and encouraging people turn up and turn up and turn up um and i was actually i was at a prayer morning yesterday at um holy trinity clapham which is obviously a very famous historic church and there were speakers for the ceo from home for good uh one of the directors from bible society and then um and les isaac from street pastors were speaking while we prayed and uh one of the things that les was saying you know he talked about that the absolute critical importance for churches to have gospel confidence um because if we’re not confident in the in the power of the gospel then you know.

[14:07] No one else has any hope um but then also

[14:10] those that gospel confidence needs to lead to gospel encounters yes.

[14:14] You know so there’s a sense of going um so in all of that you know um that might sound a little bit of a higgledy piggledy brain dump i think what i would say is every situation is different people are people but let’s be relational and intentional i mean london is it is known isn’t it for its cultural diversity its linguistic diversity and i guess increasingly its religious diversity are there any kind of particular opportunities then um that you have in in such a vibrant city i’m thinking.

[14:51] In terms of, I live in Yorkshire and I always feel quite comfortable walking down the road. I’ll have a chat with a lot of people I just come upon where it feels very different in London when I go and visit family and live down there. But yet there are other sort of defining features of the city. It’s so diverse. How do you tap into that and how do you kind of meet those people where they are you can’t just start up a conversation I found on the street and maybe that’s just because I go to the areas of London that people kind of don’t even flash a smile at you when you’re out in the morning trying to get the check, but yeah I’d love to know more about that because I’ve always ministered in a very different context.

[15:40] Yeah, so earlier I talked about our different kind of specialisms, if you like, youngsters, seniors, estates, people who are homeless, and people from other faiths. So I think the short answer is, you know, we stick to what we are, what we focus on. But actually, as we think about, we’re just interestingly entering a five-year strategic period starting next year. So this is a live question. We’re thinking about where are our areas of focus? And that has to be driven by what we see, you know. So there is an increasing, we have an increasing ageing population. That means ministry with seniors is really important. More young people than ever don’t have any contact with church. That’s important. I think, as you said, in London, London is the most diverse city in the world. When I was kind of seeking to do a bit of prep for this time together, I did a bit of Googling. And apparently there were more than 250 languages spoken in London. And that’s just, I mean, it’s remarkable, you know, whether we like that or not. that is the situation. And so I think that, um, I think we need to respond to that. Um, so yeah, In the last census data, I think it said there are 1.35 million Muslims in London, so pushing 20% of Londoners. So we have to respond to that.

[16:59] What are you doing with, say, the Muslim population? Yeah, so this is the beauty of London City Mission. It’s like a little snapshot of heaven when you look at all of the folk there in terms of the demographic and diversity. We’ve got former Muslims. We’ve got people who’ve got a real heart for Islam and have learnt,

[17:18] you know, Farsi, Turkish, whatever else it might be. And they’ve been ministering in their communities for, you know, for 20 years. And I’m going to do a little bit of a plug now for Changing London, which is our quarterly magazine. And if you sign up on our website, lcm.org.uk, you can receive this. And it gives you some really wonderful stories about, you know, some of our missionaries who are ministering to Muslim communities. And there are things like Turkish tea.

[17:49] Who knew, you know, offering Turkish tea, going to tea rooms, but also just the usual stuff, you know, involving mums and tots groups, but then building relationships through those. Um but then also something that we’re doing or seeking to equip churches to do are english classes uh you know um with optional bible studies afterwards um and so there isn’t a one size fits all but there are lots of different touch points into community um sharing what churches are doing you know because often people don’t know what goes on in a church they just might hear some singing and not know much else um so again it comes back to that relational bit understanding the people you’re seeking to meet, meeting them where they are, understanding what’s important and what’s helpful for them. We want to serve people and equip churches to serve people practically, because that’s a really good entry point. But obviously, we don’t end there because practical hope isn’t sufficient. And again, I was actually over in Belfast a few months ago.

[18:48] Doing some work with the Presbyterian Church of Ireland around thinking about social action and biblical proclamation and how the two are intertwined and we want to see gospel transformation and a scripture that I shared was 1 Thessalonians 2.8 because we loved you so much we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel but our lives as well and I think particularly with Muslims and folk from other religions we really need to be committed to community and genuinely sharing our lives with them as we seek to share Christ.

[19:21] I did some work in a town north of London with Muslims, but that was more at the mosque level and discussing with imams and so forth, which is strategically significant if you have a breakthrough, but it is much more apologetic, argumentative kind of stuff, not really relational sort of stuff. Um but in in some towns it’s much harder to do the relational because the communities are very self-contained i’m not sure whether that’s true in london whether they’re a bit a little bit more dispersed um yeah and integrated you know if a community is very self-contained you don’t even get to have the conversations yeah and and there are there are challenges around that you know in our newsletters you’ll see that the names of the missionaries doing this work are redacted you know so we have to be quite careful and a lot of the close relational work will be of muslim women um you know and and so again you have to be very careful and very sensitive about that and on our one of our videos you’ll see a muslim lady breaking down in tears saying she loves jesus now but her face is blurred um so we will you know there there are with english lessons and mums and touch groups there are entry points yeah but we also do what you’ve said graham you know we do doing the apologetic work. So we will support churches in having book tables, you know, in towns or near mosques or wherever it might be.

[20:47] And, you know, I think there’s a real challenge from the Muslim community because they know their Qur’an. Yeah you know and and and actually there’s a sense of expecting the apologetic conversation, we might feel it’s a little bit on the front foot for us that’s not very british but actually they’re quite hungry to get stuck in and i don’t i’m not a former muslim i don’t know a huge amount about islam but what i do know is that they revere jesus as a prophet you know and so actually we’ve got we’ve got a real entry point there to have that conversation about who do you say jesus is so i think it depends on the situation and who you’re engaging with now i officially from last year or whenever it was i now officially live in a city because we were granted city status in doncaster that actually means much different to the demographic of people who are here just makes us feel like you know a little proud of ourselves but um i’ve noticed um our city getting more and more diverse and um in particular the area i live in and so So when I think of my kids and they go to the local primary school, I would say that there’s at least in each of their classes.

[21:51] Eight or nine different nationalities represented there. And I feel that this is getting to be a bit of a microcosm of what it must be to, you know, to be in London. What is it that perhaps London City Mission could teach those in other towns and cities who are, perhaps we’re, you know, quite a few steps behind you in seeking to reach out to a very diverse cohort of people, but don’t have that insight. And we don’t have those missionaries who have that kind of specialist community knowledge. What can we learn from you guys?

[22:30] Yeah, so I think, well, actually, there are a few other missions floating around. And there’s There’s one in Leeds, which I’m really excited about. So there are people doing that sort of work. And there will be, I would say, go and dig around, speak to other Christian friends, leaders. There will be some organizations who offer things. But, you know, we also have resources on our website to help with being in a different engaging where we’re currently working through producing a Muslim engagement training video. So there’ll be stuff that we can share. I think that we, you know, we live in a very changing, polarized society. You know, we’ve seen everything with Israel and Palestine and it’s, you know, London feels very tricky at the moment. And I think in the midst of that, we can either recoil and feel very angry and distressed. And it’s perfectly legitimate, I suppose, to have those feelings a little bit. You know, so this isn’t me telling people how to feel. But I think, you know, it’s a good opportunity for us to think about, okay, let’s remember that everyone is made in the image of God. Everyone is made in the image of God. How does the Lord Jesus see that person there?

[23:38] And, you know, school is interesting. My two children, my son, eight, and my daughter, to beg your pardon my son’s 10 and my daughter is eight and we live right on the edge of Croydon which is still quite leafy and white and middle class um but you know he’s got a number of Muslim friends in his class and he said to me the other day you know I want to start fasting they’re fasting and so you know with these sort of changes quick changes to the demographics even in primary school it’s an opportunity for conversations with kids you know and um and And Jacob, my son, he now prays for his friends, describing them as sheep without shepherds, which I think is just really humbling and powerful. And so I think, you know, let’s think about who people are and that God loves them as much as anybody else. And actually, this is at the heart of what LCM wants to do. We want to reach those who are least likely to hear the gospel,

[24:29] you know, because if we don’t reach them, who’s going to reach them? You know as a body of believers the great commission talks to us about going out and proclaiming god’s word so um i could bang on about this for hours so i’m gonna stop there no it’s good do you think there’s particular opportunities with people from other nations.

[24:45] Um because i a bit like doncaster where where i live in hayward seath they um there are now significant indian populations some are christians some come to our church but also filipinos and uh quite a few eastern europeans a significant population of of those and actually the catholic church is full on sunday uh like hundreds actually um some filipinos some polish uh do you think there’s particular opportunities with people from other nations i think so um i think certainly in london you know that the the diaspora communities as we would call them you know people who hail from elsewhere um firstly that’s that’s the church that’s growing the fastest in london yeah and so there’s much we can do to listen and learn from diaspora church leaders but also So…

[25:31] With diaspora communities, there are many complexities with people thinking about identity, second generation, third generation. But those people, let’s say someone’s come from the Philippines and they’re a nurse in the local hospital using a stereotype or an Indian. My wife’s a nurse and there are plenty of Indian nurses who’ve come over and made huge sacrifices. People are far away. They’re lonely.

[25:56] And as Christians, how can we serve them? yeah i think you know loving people offering them practical things getting out into community offering to pray knowing your community um if you know that there is this particular group what do they enjoy doing you know you can’t generalize where where might they be found i just know that um you know we can disrupt people with our love yeah you know if we serve and love and serve and love at some point people are going to wonder why and of course the answer through is Jesus so we’re intentional and when we have a you know a missional mindset I suppose and that doesn’t mean it’s easy it’s easy to sit here on a podcast and say that and this is why it’s helpful for folk like London City Mission to be able to come and give you some pointers with that sort of missional undercoat in the church if you like even if it’s just a talk or what have you um but yeah I think you know starting with one let’s find one person let’s pray into it and let’s have a think about it and see what happens.

[26:50] So what kind of um you talked about about data earlier Carl and coming from an education background data can either be a, stick to beat you with or something that makes you feel very kind of puffed up but in terms of the data are you seeing brute are you seeing people added to churches I mean I know you talked about diaspora and you know those that are coming over perhaps have already already owning a faith are we seeing conversions as well what what’s going on on the ground Yeah, it’s a great question. And I think something that’s slightly tricky about London City Mission’s work is we’re seeking to serve and mobilise churches. So we will, you know, data is always the difficult one because we’re trying to harvest that information. You know, how do we measure impact? How many gospel conversations are churches having as a result of what we’re doing? And that’s quite a hard thing to do because it’s one step removed, if you like. Yeah, and should that be the way that we measure success as well? But yeah. Indeed. Um, so I’m going to slightly fudge it and say, probably that’s more of a question for church leaders, but I think, um, one thing that one area of work that we do in terms of, I suppose, asset-based community engagement is we have a homeless center in, in Waterloo, um, and.

[28:07] And so that’s something that we’re not, you know, we’re not explicitly mobilizing a church in, in that space, but we are seeking to do that more by inviting churches to come in with teams to run evening meals and so on and so forth. But as I was reviewing our draft annual review, um, just before coming on here, you know, I was looking at the tens of thousands of people who’ve been fed, who’ve heard a, you know, a Bible study. So I think we can certainly say that through our work, uh, either directly or predominantly through involving serving other churches we are seeing x number and i don’t know numbers just now but x number of people being reached yeah what happens after that is that’s god’s business um but i think as we seek to volunteer as a church member and lcm has come alongside us and served us for me that’s transformational you know i remember hearing from a lady in a church um and in uh in new addington in the suburb of croydon who’d been at the church for many many years um, I don’t know how old she was, definitely pushing, definitely over 60. And she lived on this estate, but didn’t really know many people there. But anyway, long story short, she goes out of a team from the church who LCM was supporting in door knocking.

[29:18] And after that, she said, you know, before I started this door knocking,

[29:22] my faith was probably maybe a seven out of 10. And now it’s a 65 out of 10. So I think, you know, when we think about fruit and data and outputs and so on, you know, Actually, there’s heart transformation that the Lord does as we step out and seek to share the priceless hope that we have. I think there can be a clinical look at numbers, but I think in general, looking at numbers is good. In preaching through Acts as we are, there are loads of waypoints where Luke says a large number were saved.

[29:53] Obviously, there’s the famous 3,000 on day one, but actually lots of points through the book. Um there are there are points where there are a few less saved like at athens but still people saved and they’re marked and it’s because i think every person counts um and.

[30:09] Uh you know every person saved is is someone else who’s on his way to glory and um you know precious uh to to christ and then the angels in heaven are rejoiced.

[30:18] Over so i think marking it is good um that yeah.

[30:21] I think you can get sort of carried away in it just just want to talk about door-to-door for.

[30:24] A moment i could plug my book now uh reasoning in the public square i wrote wrote a chapter on um door to door knocking and i began the chapter thinking uh i’m just going to say it’s it’s all about it’s all about out of date street preaching door knocking they belong to some other century and i kind of ended the chapter thinking oh both street preaching and uh knocking on people’s doors is is something that has a pretty good pedigree but also is is very effective so i don’t know whether you whether yeah what what do you do when when your guys train people to knock on doors what are you what are you training them to do knock on a door and say you know are you washing the blood of the lamb are you are you destined for hell are you you know on the highway to heaven yeah what what what do you tend to encourage them to say um so before i answer that just coming back to your the previous question about data and numbers i was just having to dig around if you had my mouse clicking and in 2022 we had 33 church partnership agreements in london yeah we did lots of work with hundreds of other churches but in terms of the strictly equipping them in a particular bit yeah we had but then last year we had 73 so we’ve we’ve had a over doubling so that that says to me it’s a very high level where we are equipping more churches and engaging more churches therefore more stuff is happening yeah um it answers your question about door knocking it’s a great one because I remember talking to a church leader who shall remain nameless and who was.

[31:52] Really poo-pooing the idea of door knocking and then got stuck in and realised how amazing it was and I think you know we’re definitely obviously we’re not going and, judging people and bashing them over the head um you know we’re encouraging churches to say to own their areas you know own their streets own their parishes you know whatever way you describe it depending what denomination you’re from and just saying we’re here you know we’re interested in you how can we pray for you how can we help you um so when london city mission take teams out again it’s about relationship you know there are there are you know there are things you can do so for example you can put a note through the door saying introducing yourself this is who Here we are. We’re going to be knocking on your door at 3 p.m. next Sunday. So people don’t have to answer, if you like. You know, I don’t know. There are different tools we can use.

[32:40] But I think just saying, you know, we’re from your local church. We’re interested in you. We’d love just to get to know you if that’s of interest. You know, and that initial intervention might be very short. The critical thing is returning and proving yourself to be consistent. And I remember, again, my brother taking a team out from a different church in Freud and they knocked on the door of a chap let’s call him kevin because i don’t know his name and i wouldn’t share it anyway but he was a postman so he’d wake up early he’d finish his shift at like 2 p.m or something you know and sit there and just play on his xbox for the rest of the day didn’t speak to anybody profoundly lonely and through door knocking he got to know folk from the local church kept returning kept returning and then that through that kind of relationship being built it eventually led to you know the person being invited into the house and then the bible was opened and then you know and then and then it came to the lord and obviously there’s there’s not a it’s not a kind of 10-step process every person is different but you know it’s just showing people that you’re interested in them and you care about them and you’re not trying to sell them anything um and of course you have to think about safeguarding and there are ways of approaching these things and the number of people and female and male ratio and so on but i think turning up just just introducing yourself and saying you’re interested um it can be profound how do you get over that sense of kind of.

[34:03] I don’t know, profound self-awareness though, because I think, so I’ve been in my community for quite a few years now. Well, this local one about 12 years. And I feel like I probably know a lot of people, but in reality, I probably don’t know, you know, even a small proportion. So to go and like knock on people’s doors and introduce myself, my husband and I, you know, know hi we lead this church here we’d love to talk to you about um what we do and about how you could be in a relationship with jesus and how do you get over that sense of oh i’m cringing i’m worried i’m i’m just so concerned that they’re going to slam the door on my face or label me as some kind of i don’t know extremist or whether we’re a cult it there’s just so many fears that i I would have, but I also know that God will bless us if we are obedient.

[35:01] I think that I’m not, I don’t think you’d necessarily lead with you on a talk to you about Jesus, although you might do. But I think the first thing we need to do, I think we need to get over ourselves, you know, because we’re called to be fools for Christ, aren’t we? You know, and, and actually so let’s figure out what we’re going to say, you know, so we, we make sure our teeth are in. Um it might be that we’re inviting somebody to something yeah um it might be that we’re offering them something it’s easter so we just wanted to give you an easter hamper so here’s an easter egg you know here is a little why jesus i don’t know whatever it is you know and so there are there are ways you can engage with people that mean that you give them free stuff and they never need to respond to you ever again um but i you know i think it’s just.

[35:48] I challenge, I challenge you to try it. Um, because actually I think you’ll find it’s a lot less bad than you might think. And the good news is if someone has got no interest in talking to you, you’ll find that out pretty quickly. Yeah. Then you can, then you can move on. Um, you know, and I’ve heard, I’ve heard so many stories. I mean, one story of somebody, um, and I, it’s a really awful to say it because I don’t really remember it. So therefore I’m going to recount it really badly, but someone who’s on the verge of committing suicide and had said, you know, if there’s a God out there, then, you know, show yourself to me. And then the door rings, you know, kind of thing. And obviously that won’t happen every time. But I think, as you say, when we step out in faith, God honors that, you know, I mean, I’ve done door knocking before, but I’ve also worked, gone into people’s houses, working with Christians against poverty. You know, whenever you go into someone’s house, often you find that it’s just, you know, God equips, you know, when you, when you go out. And I think also we can feel like door knocking is over there.

[36:44] You know and coming back to what you said about maybe knowing people a little bit when covid broke out i live on a cul-de-sac and i and i and there’s a number of older people on my road it’s that sort of demographic um and me and my kids i we typed out a little thing you know if you if you need any help with collecting prescriptions or shopping here’s my phone number kind of thing and we put that through every door um and then we’d only been back 10 minutes and the phone was ringing so i think um if it’s on your road then you can it’s perhaps a bit easier because you You kind of know people already. So it’s almost like a kind of play around and see how you get on sort of thing. But inviting people to stuff or just giving people things and then saying, look, we’re going to be back in a month. We’re going to knock on your door if that’s OK. And then, you know, being consistent and, you know, showing up and showing up.

[37:34] No, it’s really helpful. And having done it a fair bit myself, I would really encourage people to go for it. I’m going to chat to my husband tonight. I’m going to say, come on, let’s think about what we could do. I was really terrible at it. There’s an anecdote in the book where when I first started, I was newly married. I was going down my street where I lived in Caterham in Surrey. And someone said something about I’m not interested. And I said, please yourself. self and and it was just an instinctive answer and she said I will please myself young man and she like slammed the door and I what I meant what I was trying to do was like be kind of saying well you know I’ll respect your choice and everything but the words that came out were wrong and then uh I did a number of really other clumsy ones and I still do but but you do you do get slightly better at it just by by the practice and um I agree with Carl it’s good to have um a context context where you’re either asking questions or offering something or just introducing yourself and then people if they’re interested in faith they will they will bring that up you don’t necessarily have to have the the the perfect question that will provoke an answer about faith, we’ve also done a thing called street conversations where you just go out to the shopping center and just try and chat with people um you know we’re from christ church abysse you might say do you have a faith or you might say have you heard of us or you might say something and sometimes people People will chat.

[39:00] You know, we’ve gone around the local park and chatted with people that are sitting on the benches and that kind of thing. We’ve run out of time pretty much, Carl. So just remind us where we can find out about London City Mission.

[39:12] Yep. So our website is lcm.org.uk. Or you can just find your favorite search engine and type in London City Mission. And equally, do grab us on social media, London City Mission, and sign up to hear from us. and all the things we’ve talked about, if you sign up on our website, you’ll get those snippets and resources and stories to hopefully encourage you. Because that’s what we want to do. We want to encourage and serve and equip churches to reach those who are least likely to hear the good news.

[39:40] Thank you very much, Carl. Bless you. Thank you.