Breaking Out of Our Comfort Zone: Being Part of an Eden Team
Guest: Tom Grant
Here’s a summary of this week’s story:
In this episode of What's The Story, we had the pleasure of chatting with Tom Grant, a man who, along with his wife Emma, have stepped outside their comfort zones, signed up for a faith adventure by moving from the tranquil suburbs of the South to an estate in Netherton, Liverpool.
Tom's story is a story of real faith being lived out in tangible ways. He and Emma didn’t just dream of making a difference; they took decisive steps, moving to an area marked by its challenges, but rich in community spirit. For over a decade, they have been living in their community, embodying the essence of what it means to be part of an Eden Team.
As Tom tells us, their transition was not just a physical relocation but a spiritual expedition. Growing up, Tom witnessed Christianity as a vibrant adventure through his parents' example. This upbringing laid the foundation for what would become a journey marked by daring faith and practical expressions of love.
An intriguing aspect of Tom's account is his emphasis on the church engaging with the community in meaningful ways. It's about going beyond the spiritual rhetoric and meeting people where they are, addressing their needs both materially and spiritually. This approach reflects a profound understanding of the Gospel – it's not merely about words but actions that resonate with people's real-life experiences.
Tom's reflections challenge common perceptions of what it means to be a Christian and what church should look like. It's not about fitting into preconceived notions but about being present where life happens, in the messiness and unpredictability of everyday life. The church, according to Tom, should be as dynamic and diverse as the community it serves.
Tom talks about finding Jesus in unexpected places and people. It reminds us that faith is not confined to certain groups or settings. Jesus is as present on the streets of Netherton as in any church building, working in ways that often defy our expectations.
In their journey, Tom and Emma have seen people from all walks of life become part of their church community, contributing to a rich, diverse, and authentic expression of faith. It's a community where sofas replace pews, and open conversations replace formal sermons – a true reflection of a living, breathing faith.
Tom and Emma’s story is an inspiring call to break out of our comfort zones. It invites us to reconsider our understanding of faith, challenging us to live it out in the real world, with real people, in real situations. It's a journey of faith that goes beyond mere belief – it's about action, engagement, and transformation.
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Sadaf Beynon: [00:00:00] Hey there and welcome to What s a Story. We re an inquisitive bunch of hosts on a mission to uncover stories about faith and courage from everyday people. In doing that, we get the privilege of chatting with amazing guests and have the opportunity to delve into their faith journey, the hurdles they ve overcome, and the life lessons they ve learned along the way.
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So Crowd Church provides a digital sanctuary, a safe space to explore the Christian faith where you can engage in meaningful conversations. Rather than just simply spectating. So whether you're new to the Christian faith or in search of a new church family, visit Crowd [00:01:00] Church. And if you have any questions, just drop them an email to Hello at Crowd Church.
They would love to connect with you. And now let's meet your host and our special guest for today.
Matt Edmundson: So welcome to what's the story? Let me look at the camera.
Welcome to what's the story. My name is Matt Edmundson. I am with Tom Grant, who we've met recently really recently. Actually, we've connected, isn't it?
Like maybe five, six months ago when we came onto the
Tom Grant: show? Definitely. Yeah, definitely. We had you over on our podcast. Yeah. In the bar at Finnegan's for the night. The bar at Finnegan's,
Matt Edmundson: which was great. That's it. Yeah. The freezing cold. I think I had a really bad stinking cold that night as well.
Oh, you were great value though. We really enjoyed it. I felt like we were nice to you.
Tom Grant: I felt we were kind, so you were very gracious. I'm expecting the same treatment.
Matt Edmundson: Do I? I'm sorry. You're gonna be disappointed.
Dang it. So if you don't know you are a Baptist minister that's right in [00:02:00] North Liverpool and you and your fellow minister Alan run a podcast called Wednesday Night at Finnegan's. That's correct. Yes. Alan Finnegan is his name. You do this in Alan's back garden. He built a shed, didn't he, during COVID. That's it.
I think with a piece of string and a plank of
wood. And it's
Tom Grant: still standing. Somehow it's still standing. So every Wednesday night, we're in the bar. Yeah, we have a guest in and we spend the evening having a pint talking
about life and faith. And everything in between.
Matt Edmundson: And it's all live streamed, isn't it, on YouTube and Facebook?
Tom Grant: When it works, it's live streamed. We're not quite as slick an operation as this when it works.
Matt Edmundson: I don't know about slick. I don't know about slick. Yeah, when we, it was just such good fun. The way, what you guys do, if you've not checked it out, check out Wednesday Night at Finnegan's. It's, what you guys do is great.
I just love it, and it's just very funny very down to earth, very humorous. And so I thought, yeah, we'll get you onto the What's the Story podcast. We're gonna dig deep into that. I should also say that you are married to Emma. That's correct. You have three kids, slightly younger than mine.
We've
Tom Grant: [00:03:00] deduced they are 13, 11, and nine. That's Elijah Hope and Eden 13.
Matt Edmundson: And in Eden is the link. You also work for in the on the Eden
Tom Grant: project. Yeah. So that's how I moved to Liverpool to be part of an Eden team. Yeah. As part of the message. So that's my day job which is being a minister as a side hustle until they work out.
What I'm doing and so yeah, Daytime, I'm with the Message Trust working and we're a fantastic Christian charity based in Manchester. Yeah. Done all sorts over the years. Most recently, Community Groceries during lockdown, seeing the need the food poverty experienced across the UK. Yeah.
Met the need 60, 000 members across the UK now, these Community Groceries, 21 locations. Feeding people for much reduced price, just a beautiful ministry doing wonderful things. And it's a joy to be part of it. Yeah. No,
Matt Edmundson: I imagine it is. And it's, it is remarkable. We've got something similar at Frontline.
They've got the food hub thing there. Great. Same sort of thing, and [00:04:00] I think part of me is it's great that churches are doing this. But it's sad that they have to. Do you know what I mean, there's this sort of real tension, isn't there, between, oh, there's a need in the community and the church can actually do something or, and Christian ministries can get involved, which I think is good and bring the gospel into that.
But it's just a sad that in a nation that's as wealthy as ours, that we need to do that with
Tom Grant: us. That service. It's terrifying. It's terrifying. If you dig into the statistics around poverty in the nation, especially children experiencing poverty, it's astounding. Yeah, it's terrifying that we're seeing something like that happen in the UK.
And so I think the church is doing what the church has always done, which is have a go at trying to make a difference and we don't always smash it. We don't always get it right. We get a lot wrong, but we're keen. Yeah, we'll have a go. We'll have a go. And people I think what's great about the groceries is it's not just the food that they're, it's not just feeding people, but yeah.
And often I think the food is a symptom of a problem going on, and so it's [00:05:00] about relationships. It's about connecting with people, plugging them into community and getting them the help they need. So it's fantastic. So how long have you been
Matt Edmundson: with the message?
Tom Grant: So I've been with the message for about 10 years now doing Eden.
So Eden was, it's basically a community project where Christians move into The government has what they call the indices of multiple deprivation. And so Eden teams focus on those communities that fall within the highest 10 percent on the most deprived in those communities that face significant challenges, beautiful places, fantastic people who have just been battered, by by many things.
And so we moved there 10 years ago to start an Eden Team Christians partner with a local church. They move on to an estate to live there long term to make that home, but also to share their lives and their faith. Yeah. And so our joy to have done that for 10 years, so yeah. I've been in Liverpool for 10 years, I still sound like a Tory,
[00:06:00] they call me Tory Tom which I think is affectionate but I'm not sure because the banter thing up north is, confusing because I always say to my wife, because a family, they give me banter and I think it's confusing. Does that? What does that mean? I don't think they like me. And she says no, they like you. And I say what would they say if they didn't like me? I'm hoping one day if I hang around in Liverpool long enough, they'll adopt me.
Yeah, I think
Matt Edmundson: that's a good way to think about it. I think that's a good way.
I've been in Liverpool 31, 32 years now. I came here to not to do anything as glamorous as the Eden Project. I joined, I did the university thing. Okay. And I came up, I chose Liverpool just because of the football team. That was it. Really? Yeah. Not because of the course, not because it was a great course, just because I was a big Liverpool fan, always have been.
And came up, did the uni. I'd just literally become a Christian six months before I came to university. Okay. On a gap year over in the States. And I was brand new to the whole Christian thing when I came to uni. And just loved it, [00:07:00] met Dave Connolly, who really well and yeah, he took me under his wing.
Do you know Graham Jones? Yes. Graham's
Tom Grant: a good guy. We've had him in the bar. You've had him
Matt Edmundson: in the bar yeah. I need to get him on this podcast. You should do. Cause he's just such a great guy. Graham would come round the halls of residence. To see me when I was at uni, and you'll understand Graham, when we get him on the podcast, but my kids just call him Big Graham because he's a big fella.
He's a big guy, and he's. Even all these years later, he still looks like a drug dealer, doesn't he? He's just never managed to shake that, because he has what we can call it a
chequered past, maybe. I think that's fair to say. I think he's owned
that. A chequered past. And him and a guy called Chris, who also has a bit of a chequered past.
Chris Rice would come round to my halls of residence, and there was a security guard at the front, who was supposed to just stop people wandering in, and just who are you here to see, and whatever. Never once would he stop them, just, and they, for the longest time, they thought I was [00:08:00] dealing drugs in the halls of residence.
They came up to, they asked me once, they said, are you doing drugs? I'm like, oh no, they're from, friends from church. I love it. And yeah, they took me under their wing a little bit and discipled me in the ways of just craziness. And so yeah, that's how I ended up here. Yeah, long
Tom Grant: time ago.
It's a great city. Yeah, I love it. I can't imagine. Is Emma from? She's local. She's from Netherton originally. She, I can't imagine us leaving. It's just, we love it. We love it. Unless we get kicked out, we're staying.
Matt Edmundson: We need to do identity papers. Yeah. So how did you become a Christian then? Because, to be fair, Tom, deciding to move up north from the Tory South and live on an estate. Yeah. It's not the life goal of many people, right? Let's just be real. It's like it's the complete opposite. You're doing the exact opposite, which is I'm going into an area of deprivation rather than trying to move out and up [00:09:00] into the bigger and better houses all the time.
Strikes me, I may imagine for a bunch of people, that sounds a little bit odd. So what's the driving force in some respects to that? What happened to you to in terms of your own Christian journey to bring
Tom Grant: that about? Yeah I think my parents came to faith when they were in their late teens, and My dad was in a motorbike gang, like I've seen pictures, I've seen evidence of it, it's hard to believe.
Matt Edmundson: I need to see those pictures.
Tom Grant: I don't think they're on Facebook, but they must be out there, I need to get them into the digital world for everyone to enjoy. But he was part of a motorbike gang came to faith very radically. And for him it was like night and day. Like he suddenly realised there was a God, and thought if there is a God, I better do something about it.
And so for him He just went, like he does in everything, he went full on, like full on into it and so just my life has been I've had the front row seat in my early years to seeing my dad just try to follow Jesus and probably, my mum as well, just [00:10:00] fantastic examples, maybe not always get it right, but just be really bold going for it, so even when my mum was pregnant with me, I think the church was looking to buy a building, the church was growing, loads of exciting things happening, so they took an offering, To try and raise some funds to buy this building.
And so mum and dad both prayed, about a figure of money to give. Yeah. And they both came up with exactly the same figure. So they thought this probably God. Yeah. But they didn't have the money.
They didn't God said, oh yeah,
give this much. And they're like we don't have that much, God.
So they sold their house. Wow.
To get the money. Wow. To give to the church. Then they rocked up and knocked on the pastor's door and said, We've got nowhere
to live. Can we come and stay with you?
As a minister now, I think would I let those people in?
But thankfully, the minister did say come in. And so that was I was literally born into that kind of atmosphere. I grew up seeing mum and dad just [00:11:00] take steps of faith. And seeing God meet 'em where they were. Yeah. And so that was my upbringing really. And saw That's fantastic. And mom dads ended up buying a massive circus tent and going out and sharing faith across Europe.
He'd pray for the sick. Jesus would move and heal people. And so this is my upbringing really. So I was like, oh, okay. Is God thing real?
Yeah. It felt, and so I better, I came
to that place where I thought I better do something about that then. And so that's what I've been trying to do, for the last 20 years.
And again getting it wrong more often than but it's, I've seen the same, like that adventure that my dad, my mom and dad have experienced. That's a great
Matt Edmundson: word, adventure, that whole faith stepping out, just taking the risk because you feel like God's told you to do it. Yeah.
That's. It's a great life in a lot of ways. Scary,
Tom Grant: but it's terrifying. And it's not always, has definitely not always gone to my plan, how I thought it might end up. I guess moving to Liverpool [00:12:00] was another one of those things. We were in the South. We didn't have really any plans to move back to Liverpool even.
Even though Emma was based in Liverpool, she grew up in Liverpool, we were, really well settled, but we had, we were a part of a local church, but we just felt God prodding us and felt like there was time for a move. And so we had no idea where, but I handed in my notice and the role that I was doing and just thought we're ready.
Like when God says, you
sat there. We're thinking we'll say something then, God, and
finally, we came across the work of the Eden Network. Yeah. And so this idea of partnering with churches on estates to move there long term to make home and love the people there. And so we just something within our spirit, like a strange way to term to use, but just something within us just wow, that's it and excitement.
So we were almost like, sign us up, where are we going? So we went to the website and looked and top of the list was Netherton. [00:13:00] In North Liverpool, where my wife was born, where she was raised, the church they were partnering with, it was a church her parents got married in. And so your jaw hits the floor.
And we were just like, no,
no way. And Do you know what, God doesn't always speak that clearly, but when he does, you better listen.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, just pack up the car and go, man. And so that was us. So we,
Tom Grant: yeah we moved up and it's just been a joy. Yeah, it's been a joy. I think rather arrogantly, we thought, oh, we're coming to, to, like as if we've got Jesus in the boot of our cars or we're coming to do something amazing.
Do you know what, we have been so blessed way beyond what we've given by our community, by the people that live there. Sure statistics don't tell a story, do they, they tell one story, but the people there are beautiful, lovely people who have loved us and cared for us in the ups and downs of life.
And do you know what, if we've [00:14:00] blessed them as well we'd be overjoyed by that. Yeah. But they it's, yeah, we're 10 years in, it's been. Beautiful. It's been brutal. It's been ups and downs. It's been walking with people and loving them the best we can and having them love us. And what a joy.
So did you have any
Matt Edmundson: expectations when you, you said that you came with Jesus in the boot, but you're moving into an estate in Netherton. And you've been there 10 years now. Can you look back to your sort of 10 year younger self and go you got that right and
Tom Grant: you got that wrong?
Yeah, I think we've got a lot wrong. I think we I think when we first came, we maybe had expectations that everyone would start coming along to church or everyone would fit my picture of what a Christian looked like, and I was quite closed minded, if I'm honest about what that could be and what I've, and what I've found is that faith, that Jesus is very present [00:15:00] on my estate, and he's very present in beautiful ways.
He turns up in all sorts of places that surprise me that have nothing to do with me and he's there at work. And I think what has also surprised me is that people are just people's faith. People have faith. There is a real openness to faith. People can look in their life and see that, whether what name they put to it, what they think about that, that there's some kind of other force and that I was just, I've met that time and time again and Jesus did that all the time.
Didn't he? And I'm not putting myself in the place of Jesus at all, but he would just go around and find great faith, wouldn't he? In the unexpected places. He'd go, us as church, we think, Oh, we've got all the faith. We've got a commodity on faith. Actually, Jesus was going out with people that weren't The people that he, should have been finding faith.
Could I find, he said, can I find faith, in Israel where I thought I'd find it, but he finds it in the Roman centurion. He finds it in all sorts of surprising surprising places to me, but not to him. [00:16:00] And that's what we found. And we've seen, we have seen people come become part of the church and become part of the community and church looks Beautiful.
I say it's the best church I've ever been in. Yeah. And that's nothing to do
Matt Edmundson: with me. It's a bit to do with Alan. Alan's good. Yeah, Alan's good.
Tom Grant: But it is beautiful because people feel welcome in any way they want. In any way they come. Yeah. Feel welcome. They don't feel judged and I saw something on social media when I was doom scrolling the other day and I'll totally butcher this quote now.
But it was Philip Yancey and he was talking about a guy who was an alcoholic battling with alcohol addiction, and he said when he goes to church and he's late, he feels like people look at him and judge him and say, think what have you been up to? Have you fallen off the wagon?
But equally said, when he goes to Alcoholics Anonymous and he's late, he says they stopped the meeting. And they come and they embrace him and they welcome him and they know that he almost didn't make it. And I'm so [00:17:00] blessed that I feel I can relate more to the, our church can relate more to the Alcoholics Anonymous situation than maybe that experience of church.
And I get it, that is often people's experience of church. It's messy. It's people are walking in late. They're just saying hello as they arrive. We chat. We have people up on a sofa on the stage and they come and share, share what's been going on in their lives. We open the scripture together.
We pray. It's it's wonderful. Fantastic. It's wonderful.
Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. I've heard a lot about the couch on the stage. Yes, that's it. It's a big talking point. It's like you're a church with a couch on the stage. Oh, cool. Yeah. It is.
Tom Grant: Yeah. And we thought, to be honest, that was just for lockdown. We You know, during lockdown I just thought, I said to Alan, we should do something online, and Alan was just like, no, he
said, it's going to be cheesy and Christian and terrible and we're rubbish at technology and I thought, talk for yourself.
Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Edmundson: I've watched a YouTube [00:18:00] video, I know what I'm doing, come on, how hard can it be, Matt
can do it, anyone can do it,
and so we had a guy a young lad at the back who'd been coming to church off the estate for years, it turns out he's an expert, technology, does Guitar Hero videos, you
Tom Grant: know, online, non stop, I said, oh, could you help us, and he was like, yeah, of course, I've been doing this for years, so yeah.
Me, him and Alan would do this live streaming thing on the, and we wanted a sofa because we wanted to be comfortable. We don't want to stand up. Yeah. I just want to sit down and chat. I don't know, Alan's a bit of an introvert. So he says lockdown was the time of his life. He didn't see any people, no one in church.
You could just talk to him through a camera. But He's half jesting. I think half, but we he's on Britain's Got talent as well, hasn't he? He has, yeah. Some introvert. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Semi-Final Britain's Got Talent. Go and watch the video. First one he was cracking. The second one was a bit of a he split the audience to be fair.
Did he split the judges? I think he was talking about a funeral. He's very good at funerals [00:19:00] at Alan does them beautifully. And we, just get, some, yeah. Funerals where people can come and share and talk about their loved ones in beautiful ways, get the opportunity to do that.
Alan does a great job, but he's had a fair few funny occurrences in funerals, including, things like people going out of the, the coffin being carried out to highway to hell, like that,
stuff that wouldn't necessarily.
happen in a normal way, in a normal way. But yeah, so
Matt Edmundson: Alan, it's obviously, just one of those
Tom Grant: things that happens.
Yeah, for him it's normal. So he joked, he made some jokes about that on Britain's Got Talent, which during a pandemic maybe wasn't,
wasn't the time to do it. And I felt bad because I'd encouraged him. I thought it's going to be a beautiful moment where he would bring some healing to the nation, who was struggling and a lot of people losing loved ones. But it turns out I just spent a long time Answering all the complaint letters. Never knew people still write letters and put stamps on them, but they do. Yeah,
Matt Edmundson: they do. We have I was telling [00:20:00] someone yesterday, we have this eCommerce company. That's my day job is online sales. And we still get people sending letters in with a check. Wow. Yeah. Send me this product. Here's the check for it.
Figure one, the check is entirely wrong, he's just
Tom Grant: oh dear.
Matt Edmundson: And so we just, I think they do it deliberately because I'm just, part of the time I'm just like, I'll send them the product, I don't, it's just not worth the, don't all start sending me letters. That's it,
Tom Grant: that's it, that's how you get a
free stamp, price of a stamp, I can get all these vitamins.
.
Matt Edmundson: It's just the way it works. Yeah. Now I realise actually, there's a, I didn't realise this until the other day, using the banking app on your phone, you can take a picture, if anyone sends you a cheque, you can send, you can use the app, take a photo of it and it pays it straight into your account. Game
Tom Grant: changer that.
Genius. It's a game changer.
Matt Edmundson: Why did we not do that? I'll start taking photos of the cheques now, so I will cash in. Not if I sign at Mickey Mouse. No, I'm still going to cash in, I'll still try. Did you ever do that when you were [00:21:00] younger? Yeah. I don't know if you're, when I was younger and I got my first checkbook, I would sign all kinds of random things, Luke Skywalker, Mickey Mouse, all that kind of stuff.
They all got
through. Really? Yeah. How it all worked?
Yeah, no one ever, this was back, to be fair, me and Noah used to hang out. I've been around a little while and it's it's one of those where, yeah, when writing checks, just having a laugh. I used to be in the, I never tried it. Part of one of the things, maybe one of my biggest regrets in life was never writing a cheque for a million quid just to see if it would actually go through.
Tom Grant: I've seen that movie, Catch Me If You Can. Oh yeah. Maybe we could do this with, let's get your camera out, let's try
let's try scanning the cheque, see what happens. If this episode never comes out, if this episode is going to be used in the court of law as evidence, me and you are going to be in Mexico somewhere.
At least we'll be wealthy. That's it. Yeah. He said he wanted to stay in Liverpool forever. And there he is living it up in Cuba.
Yeah. It's so cheap. So you've [00:22:00] been doing,
Matt Edmundson: Eden then for 10 years. You've got the church, the couch on the stage, because you want to be comfortable. And you're just going to keep doing that, which I think is awesome.
You don't want to move, but like you said it's been both beautiful and brutal. Yeah. So let's talk about some of the challenges then that you guys have faced. Yeah. That, God's helped you overcome. What are some of the big rocks?
Tom Grant: The challenges, I'm, I just love spending time with people.
And so I think the challenges for me, I'm not like, if we do projects for me, it's always about. Getting to know people through those projects like I'm not a fan of a project for the sake of a project. So all the things we've tried to do have just been like opportunities for us to get to know people and get to spend time with them.
And so I think the greatest challenges and the greatest joy have been with those people where greatest joys where we've seen God move in their lives, whether they call it [00:23:00] God or not, whether where we've seen people come out of addiction, come out of depression, come into community, into life.
Those are the greatest joys, but I think also no one's journey is ever linear. And so some of the greatest pain is where people fall off the wagon again, or people.
Have breakdowns in their relationships or friendships and it's painful. It's super painful. And I think part of the church gig and part of the Jesus gig is to have an open heart to people that often But then that hurts when it goes wrong, or when I get it wrong, and I've, I try, try in my wisdom to do something that I think is a good thing, and I get it wrong, and I hurt someone else, and those are the things that will keep you up at night, those are the things you'll struggle with but I think, in the Bible, it talks about one of my favourite passages of scripture is where Jesus says, you And this comes throughout scripture, this heart that [00:24:00] Jesus has for people who are struggling, for people who are struggling, and it says in the Bible Jesus actually says, if you do something to the least of, people who are struggling, basically, if you look after people, then you're doing it to me.
There's that, he, Jesus says, I so care about people who are having it crappy in life, that if you serve those people or love those people or go out, whatever, you could have a go. Then you're doing it to me and that experience of meeting, I've had that experience of where meeting Jesus in the faces of the people we get to journey life with.
And what a privilege, what an absolute privilege and beautiful places that you find him at work and doing stuff, but also, and what I love about the Christian faith is that you find him in the pain as well. And sometimes he's not, sometimes I think why isn't he just sorting this pain out and sorting the problem out?
And that doesn't always happen. Often it doesn't happen, but he's there in the pain, in [00:25:00] the struggle. He's been there in my pain and in my struggles. And so often, and it's horrible and weird. You often find God really present when you're struggling
and I don't, it wouldn't be like my recommendation for people.
How
Matt Edmundson: do I meet Jesus? Just go find some
Tom Grant: pain. You'll be fine. Go and find some pain, but oh my words. He's present there. And so we've had moments where, yeah, where we've got it wrong or relationships have broken down with people. We were, I would consider family and some of those relationships haven't yet been restored.
Hope one day they might be but those have hurt and those do hurt. And I think we've had to make a choice at times. And I think we all have to make choices around, actually, Dave Connolly gave me some advice once when it had all gone pear shape on one of the multiple occasions.
I'd made a mess again. God's just again, like I know you're supposed to be full of grace, but Dude, you're testing me right now.
That's it. And I honestly thought we were going to have to move. We're going to have to move [00:26:00] away. And that may, and and no, we, it wasn't right to do that.
We needed to dig in and stay where we were. But, Dave said to me, you've got to be, you're not moving physically, but you've got to be careful you don't move in your heart. You put up the barriers, you put up the walls. And actually I found that in that season when I was most broken.
Those people who I thought I was coming to love and serve, that was the season when they loved and served me, when I had nothing to offer, and I just saw, I just received it. Jesus in their midst and just a joy. Yeah, just a joy. Yeah, so that's been my experience and in those challenges, there's no easy answers, is there?
There's no easy answers. There's no quick wins. There's no three point sermons. No. Beginning, all beginning with There's definitely no Instagram quote that's gonna help you. There's not, but there's people and gathering [00:27:00] together, journeying together and believing in faith that Jesus will meet you in the midst of that pain and struggle.
Yeah.
Matt Edmundson: And he does. He does every time. You're right. It's it's one of those eye opening things, isn't it? About the Christian faith that actually. Quite often. It's in those massive moments of pain that you have the biggest encounters of Christ, really. And we see that in the Gospels, don't we?
Just people just at the end of something and they have a radical encounter with Jesus. And it's the people that think they've got it all together. That's what Jesus walks past quite a lot, sometimes, because they're all sorted. And and actually it's when we're, I think we're in an age now, Tom, I don't know If you think the same, but it feels like we're in an age now where we don't accept any real responsibility for our actions.
We, we label ourselves as victims, right? The whole move of, it's not my fault, it's your fault because of the way you did this, or the, society does this, or they treat me like this. I'm not wrong. [00:28:00] Everybody else is wrong. Society is wrong. But it's in that, it's in that ability to look at yourself and say, hang on a minute.
It's not all right, is it? To be able to look at you and go, yeah, and accept that brokenness which is probably not a popular word in a lot of ways. That's when you meet Jesus. It's just what happens. It's when we put the pride aside.
Tom Grant: For sure. And I don't know what it is in human instinct that feels like we just, in terms of faith and coming into, to a church or, deciding to explore faith, there's again and again, this feeling that we have to be sorted in order to do that.
Yeah. And it's, it just, It's never going to happen. It's never going to happen in a million years. I speak for myself, but it's just not going to happen that way. It's like a, someone who needs an operation. They need a life saving procedure, but they feel like they have to get healthy enough before they bring their life to the surgeon to do it.
Do you know what I mean? I think that's what[00:29:00] is tricky, but that, and I think at times, those of us who call ourselves Christians and look to follow Jesus, we get wrong. We don't extend that offer of grace, either through words or actions or the way we treat people when they come into our building, which by you, by, by the way, if you come into a church building nowadays and you're not from a church background, God bless you.
That's a terrifying thing to do culturally. Yeah. And so if you've made that move and managed to overcome that coming into a totally different culture to you, then God bless you. I hope you find yourself a good church there. But yeah, that's if that's the thing we need to be. We need to be welcoming people.
We need to be for them to find that, that same God who we claim to worship and serve and and throughout the Bible, it seems from my understanding, when I look at it again and again, the Bible talks about us as being God's children. And, it also says that God doesn't show favorites, I think that I look in the Bible and he seems to like our favourites and it seems to be anyone who's struggling.
Do you know, do
Matt Edmundson: you know me and Dave Connolly used to have this [00:30:00] constant banter about who was God's favorite. Constant banter. And so he would say I'm guessing you thought it was you, Matt, and Dave thought it was
yeah, good
guess. And so it was playful. Let me just clarify before you start writing letters to me, and asking for your free supplements and telling me my theology is wrong. But we used to play for So Dave would say things like how you doing? I'd say Dave, you've got to be doing alright when you're God's favourite, just so it's got that way. And he would say how would you know? Because I'm God's favourite. And I go, you are deceived beyond all levels of deception.
We would just have this banter and it would just be very playful
Tom Grant: back and forth. But the Bible, the scripture seems to say God's favourite again and again. God has no favourites seem to be those struggling, those people on the edges and I thought about this and wondered because I've got three children.
Yeah. And I've
Matt Edmundson: not got a favourite. Which one's your favourite? I was just saying because they do watch, they watch Wednesday Night at Vinnygan's so I have to be careful. They will watch this. And they will batter me with it if I say something [00:31:00] inappropriate or wrong. Yeah. So they,
Tom Grant: so I've got three children.
I haven't got a favorite, but you know what, the one that is often on my mind or who I'm praying for and I'm looking to spend time with is the one who's struggling. The one who's getting bullied at school or the one who's going through a tough time with their mates. And they're the ones on my heart, on my mind, in my thoughts.
And I think that's what God's his favorites are those who are struggling, who are on the edge, who are finding it difficult, and they're the ones that are on his mind. And actually as a church, if we're thinking ourselves as a church, we want to reflect, the church, Jesus started the church.
He's the son of God. He's, we're called the body of Christ. We're supposed to be the body, we're supposed to be doing things as Jesus would have done. And if we're going to do that, Then we really need to make sure that people if they come around a Christian or they build up the confidence to step foot in the church, my words, we've got to welcome them in that the way that Christ, has welcomed us.
No,
Matt Edmundson: absolute mic drop moment there. I think I totally agree. And I think it doesn't matter if they're 10 minutes late. Oh, [00:32:00] it's like we're still rejoiced.
Tom Grant: I'm normally 10 minutes late to be honest. They can't start the service till I get there.
there.
Matt Edmundson: They clap you as you come in. They don't clap.
But no, it's totally right. There's a phrase that I heard once at Bible school, always stuck with me, that so often as Christians, we try and clean the fish before we catch it. Do you know what I mean? And it's that, I remember Because with Crowd Church, we obviously get a lot of people connecting with us that don't go into the church building to share.
It's much easier to get involved with something online. And you get asked questions, people text in or WhatsApp, or they'll email in their questions. And I'm always intrigued by what people ask who haven't got really any Christian background about what it is to belong in church.
Because if they're thinking that, there's a thousand other people which are thinking that, right? Yeah. And we had one lady contact us and said, really want to be, I think I really want to become a Christian. I've been going, we have an online Alpha course, I've been going through some of the stuff on Alpha.
She's [00:33:00] great. This is a bit of my background, but she's my partner and I live together. We have a kid. He doesn't particularly want to get married. So does that stop me becoming a Christian? And so it's really interesting, isn't it?
And you go how do you answer this question? You go I don't need to clean the fish before we catch it, in fact, I don't need to clean the fish. That's the Holy Spirit's job right there. Just you have added the Holy Spirit. And And I think the problem is that sometimes as church leaders we tend to go before you can come to church, you've got to either marry them or end the relationship or do this and the other.
And I just, there's a lot of grey in that whole, it's not actually black and white. There's a lot of grey. And I think you're right. I think just being welcoming. There's grace.
Tom Grant: Come on in. And I think I came across. a way of thinking about this, which I found really helpful for me. And it was pictured Christianity as I in two, two different ways.
And so firstly, it was either this this boundary that you have to cross in order to be a Christian. And so that boundary could be, saying a prayer, it could be [00:34:00] getting baptized. It could be your life looks tidy and you behave yourself, I've never achieved that but that's, there's a barrier that's the barrier to entry.
And if once you, and different churches will have different barriers, but once you. Cross that, you pass that test, that barrier you're in, whereas I've heard, the second example of what it could be like to follow in Jesus is that Jesus is at the center of a circle and we're all at different distances from him.
But it's more about which way we're facing, are we facing towards Christ? And so you could have someone super close to Jesus. They've been a Christian their whole life, born in the church, and all that. And so if they started to, I don't know, if they said like a swear word or something, you might be like, Oh, crikey, what's going on here?
Better check and see if they're okay. But you'll get people who. And maybe, haven't just exploring what Christianity means, have maybe started to make that half turn towards Jesus. And maybe they're still doing drugs. Maybe their life doesn't look, whatever that thing might be, that unhelpful behavior [00:35:00] that they're having, but they're moving towards Christ.
Yeah. They're moving towards him. And actually it's gotta be his responsibility to change us. That's the gospel. I'm saying I can't do it. I've broken every New Year's resolution I've ever made. And I've done it within the first week of January. And we're there again. And I can't change myself.
I can't change myself. And thank God. Yeah, he doesn't expect me to. Yeah, it is that like you say, it's like coming turning towards God's just making that half turn and the scripture talks about the prodigal son, just my favorite. Yeah, great story. And like what the joy of it is that the person who's returning home, after having gone away, asking for all his dad's money, while he's still alive I can't imagine trying that with my dad.
Some of that motorcycle gang culture will come back out in him again. Hey, but he's asked for all of his dad's money. If you're going to do it, let's do it on video. I'm going to write a letter. Ask [00:36:00] him to send me a cheque. And so the dad's yeah, these He's took all his dad's, half his dad's money.
He's taken his inheritance early. He's gone and wasted it. Crazy living. He's realized he's a mistake going back to the father and he's, making his apologies in his head, getting ready to be a servant in his dad's home. And the scripture says that, and the father runs out to meet him and embraces him, before the son can even get a word of the apology out, it's like.
Bear hug, lifting him off his feet. And what does that tell me about God? It tells me that we, God's, we worship a God who scans the horizon, looking for those signs of people coming home. And they don't have to have sorted it all out. They don't have to have made it all right. But he welcomes them home anyway.
And what if the church looked a little bit more like that, hey? It'd be amazing, wouldn't it? It would be. It would be totally amazing. And there's some [00:37:00] fantastic churches. I don't mean, I'm not beating up on the church. I love the church, and our, our church is, I say it's the best church a little bit tongue in cheek.
We make mistakes as well. But there's a lot of beautiful Christians out there, good hearted people who who are doing this stuff. Yeah. And sometimes as a church, it's just trying to better reflect that. Yeah, it is. Yeah,
Matt Edmundson: it is. And yeah, totally. I love that story, that idea of the prodigal son, before he gets a chance to apologise, there's the grace.
Grace always comes first. And the Bible says it's the goodness of God that leads you to repentance, which is, in other words, if you need to turn your life around, just start looking at the goodness of God. And whenever you look at the goodness of God things in life change. And I think that's still true for me now, even 30 years into my Christian journey, it's so powerful.
It's not the checklist that leads to change. It's not the self help that leads to change. It's not the motivational speech, it's the goodness
Tom Grant: of God. And sometimes we try those things, don't we, as the church we nick a bit of culture, so we try to be a [00:38:00] bit self helpy or we try to, communicate in a way that the call You know, communicators are doing it all, hip and trendy, which is just something I've, will not surprise you.
I've never been able to say it. I've tried it. Oh, you've tried it? I've tried it. Often I'll do that. I'll come downstairs and something I'm wearing that I think is hip and trendy and Emma will say, go back upstairs. Do you know what my wife said to me the other day? I was wearing an interesting outfit.
Oh, okay. There's always one way to describe it. I had these pyjama bottoms on which have got Goonies prints on because I'm a big Goonies fan, I won't bore you with the story, but I'm a big Goonies fan, and I had on my, I have a, I have one of those sort of dry robe things that, you're changing at the beach, but it keeps your suit cool.
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love
Matt Edmundson: that. I've had one of those for a few years and we've got a bench in our back garden quite often in winter. I'll put that on, go sit outside and read and just pray and it's just lovely. So I came down with my hair just disheveled and I had my overcoat on and I had my very goony pyjama bottoms.
And Sharon just looked at me and said. I don't [00:39:00] have anything to worry about, do I? You're in this for life.
I said to her, what, do you not think I'm an attractive person? She went, if close my eyes, you're an attractive person. Emma took away my buying
Tom Grant: clothes privileges. I'm not allowed to do that
Matt Edmundson: anymore.
She does that for me. That's what happened. Oh maybe that's the next step. I've still managed to buy my own clothes, usually. What I'm not allowed to do is buy Sharon's clothes. Yeah, that's, that goes without saying. I did it the first year we were together Christmas present.
I thought I'd buy some clothes. I'd never made that mistake again. She didn't want
Tom Grant: goonie pyjamas.
Matt Edmundson: She just didn't want them, Matt. Stop trying to force her to wear them. She doesn't interest her. I keep trying, keep going. Yeah, never mind. Never mind. So yeah, no, it's fascinating. Absolutely fascinating.
But you're right. I think If the church looked like that, if it actually focused, for a good friend of mine called Rich Rising he's he lives in Dallas, Texas, one of the most amazing [00:40:00] people on the planet, love the bones off the fella, and he's actually a church consultant. I don't know what his official title is, but he helps churches grow.
It's what he does, it's his job. And one of the things that he absolutely drives home at a million miles an hour. If you want any kind of growth in your churches, you've got to think about the one and not the 99. Wow. And it's such a powerful, and again, if you're not familiar with scripture, there's a story in the Bible where Jesus talks about a shepherd, doesn't he, with a bunch of sheep.
And he says, you've got 99 sheep in, just grazing, just all happy, just all safe, protected. But one of them wanders off. It says, what do you do? And he's the good shepherd goes and gets the sheep, goes, hunts it down, puts it on his shoulder and brings it back to the safety of the pen. And I think if church was actually thinking about those that are outside of it Nick Harding used to say, and again, Nick's been on Crowd.
He's I think we've done a, what's the [00:41:00] story with Nick as well. He's one of the founding pastors of Frontline with Dave Conn. He always used to say, and it always stuck with me. The church is the only organization that exists for its non-members. Wow. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And you and you think actually yeah.
If we really understood what that meant, again, how different would the church be? Do you know what I mean? And just, again, not beating up on the church because I still think it's still the hope of the world, isn't it? The church in a lot of ways. For
Tom Grant: sure. And I and I think the most.
And we're not, we're never going to get it right, are we? We're never going to be, it's we're doing our best. God bless us, please. But we're never going to get it right. And yeah, it's we're, what we're aiming for, the New Testament scripture, when they start to try and work out, what is this community of people who say they follow this guy?
Jesus what, how do we, what is this? What does this look like? The analogy they often reach for. is one of family. They talk about us being the family of a God, of us being adopted, God's adopted children, of us being brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers. And that is, I think what the world's [00:42:00] looking for.
Yeah, they're not in a heartbeat. Yeah, they're not looking for another club to join. They've got enough of those to do, enough being played. I've got enough places to take your kids. I don't need another club. To join, I need a family to belong to, that's what people need, and families come in all shapes and sizes, you've got the weird uncle, at Christmas,
Matt Edmundson: you've just got one, none of my uncles obviously, but all mine, but
Tom Grant: every family is a little bit misshapen, isn't it, and that's the family of God, it's misshapen.
We come in all different sizes and shapes, but God says how great the love of God, that he's lavished on us, that we could be called his children, because that's what we are, and that's it's that adoption into God's family, we've been chosen, and so that's what, when we get it right, and it does happen that's it at it's best, isn't it, that's the church at it's best.
Matt Edmundson: And that's actually one of the things that we all strive for is this is what we want to build. This is what I think when we go to [00:43:00] bed at night and people say, why do you do what you do? Because I think in some ways it's a thankless task. You you've got this picture in your mind of actually you, you understand what it could be and what a difference it can make to people's lives.
And you're that's what I'm sold out for in a lot of ways. For sure.
Tom Grant: Yeah.
Matt Edmundson: That's powerful. What is it you do with the Eden Project? Let's get to the bottom of that.
Tom Grant: That's what they're wondering as well.
It's
Matt Edmundson: I moved into this estate 10 years ago, but on a day to day basis, what is it you actually do?
Tom Grant: So it can, it looks different for all different teams and different locations as it should, because no one place is the same, is it? It's all different. I think often Eden teams will have a focus on youth work to start with, because I think. It's a perceived and real need in many communities. It's that sense of love for the next generation, like where, what are our young people able to do?
What, can there be a safe place for them to go to? And so we started there and with youth work, we had some great times craziness, where young people like to push boundaries, don't they? And so we had [00:44:00] all sorts of fun and games, I'm playing dodgeball and one of the kids set the balls on fire.
I got to tell you, you try very hard to win dodgeball when it's on
fire.
No doubt. We've done that. We've done parents and toddlers thing. We've got this pantry community grocery at the moment. We've done all sorts. We've done alpha courses. We've done just whatever, whatever we thought might bless people or help.
Help, give them a hand or give us an opportunity to get to know them. So it's nothing, but it's, I think what Paul says in one of the his letters, he says, we loved you so much that we shared not only the gospel with you, but our lives as well. And that's what I find people want.
They don't just want to hear your words and the gospel, whatever, however you can present it, whatever way you can describe it. They don't just want that. They want your life as well. They want to see, they want to get around your life. They want to see, and often, God shines through, [00:45:00] like we've already talked, not in those moments where, me and Emma can put on a front where it looks like we're a perfect marriage, but in those moments where people see me and Emma kick off at one another.
I can't believe that ever happened.
Matt Edmundson: Oh, it does. You better believe it.
Tom Grant: But they always, they see, I fit fine people can see it more in those kind of moments when they then You know, I realize I'm
in the wrong and I go and apologize and I, we choose each other.
We choose to love one another, even though on the estate, our neighbors know we've been screaming at each other.
They know we've been screaming at the kids because the, the walls are that thin and we live, so that's, for me, has it's been those moments. It's not just the activities we do, any number of activities, can obviously serve a physical need, but I guess I, my belief is that all those physical needs or difficulties or brokenness that people have ultimately stem back to a spiritual need of a relationship with their father and that all of those other things flow from, including in my life.
And those brokenness it comes from [00:46:00] where I don't have a right relationship with God in aspects of my life. And so that's what we've done over those 10 years. And I found that work, being part is being part of the Eden network, it's just a network of other people who are trying to do the same.
And so when it goes wrong, you can. Cheer One Another On. You can hear people can say I did that. It didn't work. Why don't you try this instead? And you've got that kind of camaraderie in it, which is so valuable and precious. And yeah, so I that's what we found. That's what we found while we've been there that often also interestingly, and I share, I do share this is often what we've also found is that when we've tried to do something to bless the community.
And so we think, Oh, here we are, the church, we're going to do something to the community, aren't we great or whatever, or like we're trying to make a difference often what we've found in a community are often always already doing these great things, maybe we should come and join in with them and what they're already doing, or actually, if we do nail our colors to the mast and see a need that's maybe not being [00:47:00] met, We get people, rather than sometimes people coming to access that provision, we get loads of people who want to come and say, Oh, I want to join in with that.
Yeah, I've seen that problem as well. I want to help out. Yeah. And, I think early days, we thought, Oh hang on, we need to check. Are you like, are you a Christian?
Matt Edmundson: What's going on here?
Tom Grant: I don't know. There's my theology on this right now. Some churches might be like you can't give that person can't serve tea and coffee.
They've not known, they're not a Christian. They've not, said the prayer or whatever it might be. Whereas what we've done is we've just Let people crack on and get involved and we've joined them and actually we found that's been a great way for people to come to faith. Yeah. That actually as they join in with something, that God's already at work in and doing it as well, they join in.
Yeah. They realize, they come across God in the, on the journey. Yeah. Because he's, that's the kind of thing he's doing already in the community. And actually often people will come to faith and they go, ah, do you know what? God's always been there with me. I didn't, I can't see it until now, but if I look back through my life, I have met [00:48:00] God at various different points.
And I think that's been, again, that's been our experience and super helpful
Matt Edmundson: for me. No, it's super powerful as well, because you, what it sounds like listening to you talk, Tom, is none of what you're doing, and this with all due respect, obviously, none of what you're doing is rocket science. No, not at all.
You don't need any specialist qualifications You just need a heart for people by the sounds of things and actually a willingness to trust the people around you. But it, I'm always amazed when churches are like that, when it's you can't really serve because you're not really a believer.
It's it's a bit like going to a gym and looking at a PT. And watching him do all the exercise, and I can't do it yet. I can't. Can I do that little bit over there? No, because you've got to do this and this, then you'll be able to do everything. Yeah, like it just doesn't make sense, does it?
No. But getting involved a little bit is a way to get people involved a lot. Yeah.
Tom Grant: Really. My dad can do everything. My dad's like super human, like hero. He could do everything he could build, [00:49:00] he can do electrics, he can do plumbing, he can do all those different things. And so I grew up. Watching him do it and but felt a bit inferior and so didn't have a go and so never picked up any of those skills and now that I'm building the extension and he's got a help, he's really regretting that.
Matt Edmundson: He's really wishing that I'd taken a bit more initiative or he allowed me to get it wrong
Tom Grant: but in it's in that process like you say of having a go and I always remember that a mate of mine his son, he's building an extension. He's very practical. He's like my dad's superhero style. And his son, who was like four or whatever at the time, he wanted to be involved in this extension as well.
And so he would they bought him, like a little wheelbarrow. And my mate was going into his garden, shuffling soil, bring it around the front and his little son take his little wheelbarrow and would be trying to do the same. Do you know what? Sometimes The little boy Harvey. Yeah. He would be carrying the soil in the wrong
Matt Edmundson: direction, and say, that's trying to get the soil from there to there.[00:50:00]
Tom Grant: And Harvey's trying to get the soil back the other way. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Edmundson: And you,
Tom Grant: Ian was like said to me at one point, he says, I'm not sure like the net, he's not helping anyway. Maybe a little bit at best, but probably at most hindering. Yeah. But there was something about. Join in the work of his father and his dad, that was so precious.
It brought the son, pleasure, joy. It brought the father, great joy. And I think that's what it happens. That's, when we join in that business of heaven that we join in the work of our father, whether we know him as dad or not, whether we think he's real or not. I think we experience the pleasure of God and the joy of that, whether that being a buzz from getting, doing something nice or, whatever it is that seems to be built into every human, do something nice and you get a buzz out of it, or whether we come and meet the person of God in that moment and
You
That's what an incredible thing.
Yeah, what an incredible thing.
Matt Edmundson: Brilliant. Tom, listen, been great chatting to you, man. I'm aware time has flown by a thousand miles now, as it has a habit of doing. If people [00:51:00] want to reach out, if they want to connect, if they want to find out more about Wednesday Night at Finnegan's or the Eden Project, what's the best way to do that?
So I
Tom Grant: would say, yeah, you can search on social media for Wednesday Night at Finnegan's or the Message Trust or the Eden Network. You can find us all over that. Or yeah, find me on social media, drop me a message and I'll say hello. Send them a letter. Yeah, send me a letter. And a cheque. A cheque, please.
Do you know what, that'd be amazing. If you prefer to do a direct bank transfer, I can give you my details. It gets there a bit quicker. Don't sign it, Mickey Mouse. No, you should totally do that. Oh, Tom, what a legend. Thanks, bro. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
Sadaf Beynon: And just like that, we've reached the end of another fascinating conversation. Crowd Church is a digital church, a community, a space to explore the Christian faith, and a place where you can contribute and grow. To find out more, check out www. crowd. church. And don't forget to subscribe to What's The Story on your [00:52:00] favorite podcast app.
We've got a whole lot of inspiring stories coming your way, and we really don't want you to miss any of them. What's the Story is the production of Crowd Church. Our fantastic team is made up of Anna Kettle, Matt Edmundson, Tanya Hutsuiak, and myself, Sadaf Beynon. We work behind the scenes to bring these stories to life.
Our theme song is the creative work of Josh Edmundson. If you're interested in the transcript or show notes, head over to our website whatsastorypodcast. com and sign up for our weekly newsletters to get all this goodness delivered straight to your inbox. So that's all from us this week. Thank you so much for joining us and we'll catch you in the next episode.
Bye for now.