Why a Dying Pastor Calls These His Best Years

What's the Story

17 May

Guest: Allan Finnegan

Allan Finnegan was given two months to live in January. He says these are his best years — and means it. The Baptist minister, stand-up comedian and author of 'I Didn't Ask For Any Of This' tells Matt how comedy saved his faith, why he tried to engineer being sacked from the ministry, and what he's learning about finishing well — even now, with terminal cancer.

On the 20th of January 2026, a Baptist minister from Liverpool was told he had two to three months to live. Four months on, Allan Finnegan is still here. He's just done his last sermon. He's just done his last comedy gig. And he's saying something most of us would never dare say out loud.

"Despite the circumstances," he says, "the cancer years have probably been the best years of my life."

Allan is 59. He's been the minister of the same Bootle church since his early thirties. He's a stand-up comedian who got four yeses on Britain's Got Talent in 2020, including a standing ovation from Simon Cowell. He's the author of I Didn't Ask For Any Of This — Church, Comedy and Cancer. And he's currently in palliative care for ocular melanoma that has spread to his liver.

This is a conversation about how a man ended up calling the years he was supposed to dread the best ones he's ever had.

The minister who never wanted to be one

Allan didn't choose ministry. He drifted into it. His Baptist church in Bootle had collapsed from over a hundred members down to twenty after a painful split, and the denomination wouldn't fund a replacement minister. Allan was pushing them for options. They pushed back.

"He said to me, I can't, we can't put a minister in here anyway," Allan remembers. "He said, because you are the minister."

Allan's response was honest. "I don't wanna be the minister. Too much hassle. I've seen what it does to people. I've seen what it did to the last fella. It nearly killed him."

He took the job anyway. Mostly out of pride. Partly because he couldn't think of a reason not to. He admits he's wanted to quit "every week since I started." He had a fallback — the building company he used to work for kept asking him to come back, on better money. The only thing that held him in was a vague sense of call.

For years he was the man at the front of the room who privately thought he was the worst Christian in it.

The night he cried in a Tesco's car park

A few years into the job, Allan hit the wall.

His wife was in with friends one evening. He thought he'd go and see one of his mates. Then he realised something that floored him.

"I had nowhere to go. I literally had nowhere to go. I was like, I've got no mates."

Becoming a Christian at sixteen had cost him every friendship outside the church. Every relationship he had now was somehow connected to his role. There was no off-switch. "You're always the minister, you're never off. It's a goldfish bowl. Even if you get invited to places, you're still the minister. On holiday, you're the minister."

He drove around aimlessly until he ended up in the Tesco's car park in Litherland. Then he sat there and cried for an hour.

"That was the lowest point I got to."

He never went to the doctor. Looking back, he thinks it was probably a breakdown. What he did do — eventually — was look up the lads from school he'd cut off when he found Jesus thirty years earlier. He turned up at a pub in Bootle one Monday night.

The greeting he got isn't fully repeatable on a family-friendly blog. But the gist of it was this.

"We thought you were dead. Where have you been for 30 years?"

He's been going back nearly every Monday since.

How comedy saved his faith

Allan never planned to be a comedian. He was a trainee Baptist minister doing a homiletics module — preaching class — when he got into an argument with his tutor. The tutor said one-person-one-microphone was dead. Nobody listened to it anymore. Allan, who had just been to see Peter Kay at the Liverpool Echo Arena ("11,000 people shouting more after an hour and a half"), wasn't having it.

The tutor's response was to make him do a six-week stand-up course at the Comedy Trust in Liverpool, and write a reflection comparing comedy and preaching.

He ended his first gig with another comedian booking him for a second one — without asking. "He went, you do now," Allan laughs. He never stopped. "That's why I say I didn't ask for any of this."

What he didn't expect was the people he'd meet in the green rooms. The atheists. The ex-churchgoers. The ones whose stories started with the four words he says he can no longer stand to hear.

I used to go to church but…

"I was hearing all these people saying to me, I used to go to church but. And it became a bit too much for me to ignore."

He'd lived inside what he calls a "Christian bubble" for decades. Try harder. Be better. Do more. Revival is round the corner. Let's have a rest for a bit, Allan thought. I'm knackered. The questions he'd been suppressing for years started crawling back up. The people he'd dismissed as backslidden turned out to be doing the things the Bible told him to do — they just weren't doing them inside a church building.

"My theology was telling me they were going to hell. And it just didn't all square up with me. It was messing me mind up."

Something quietly broke. And then something quietly healed.

He went into comedy thinking he'd be a missionary on the circuit. He came out of it realising the mission field was him.

"God sent me there for the mission. It was — I was the mission."

The dog collar he'd never owned

Britain's Got Talent in 2020 was supposed to be Allan's breakthrough. The producers headhunted him. The London Palladium audition went brilliantly — four yeses, Simon's standing ovation, Dec shouting "Hallelujah" as he left the stage. Cowell said it was the best audition of the night.

Then the producers asked him to wear a dog collar. He'd never owned one.

"They would say they didn't, but they kind of very, very strongly suggested it. The producers would really, really like this if you did this, you know."

They also took away his £110 shoes and replaced them with a £9 pair from Primark. "It's the only thing I got out of Britain's Got Talent. It actually cost me to go on it."

Then COVID hit. The semi-final was reshot in an empty studio with a Zoom audience and a seven-second audio delay. They put him in a giant pulpit at the back of the stage. He choked in every rehearsal. The producers had to send a welfare officer to his dressing room afterwards.

He talks about it now without bitterness. But he learned something that mattered. The dog collar wasn't him. The pulpit wasn't him. The version of "vicar" the cameras wanted wasn't him. Authentic Allan, even when he was bombing, was still better than a manufactured version of himself.

The freckle in his eye

Mid-pandemic, Allan went for a routine eye check because he'd been seeing flickerings in his left eye. The consultants found something in his right eye instead. They called it a freckle.

"I was like, well, it can't be that bad, it's only your eye, innit? Worst case, you lose an eye."

What he learned at St Paul's Eye Hospital in Liverpool was that ocular melanoma is rare and ruthless. There are two genetic markers. One has a 20% chance of recurrence within five years. The other has an 80% chance — usually within two — and a 90% chance of death within a year if it returns.

He had the second one.

The treatment shrank the tumour. He got two clear scans. Then on the two-year anniversary scan, they found something on his liver. A main tumour, plus lots of smaller ones scattered across the organ. Incurable.

He went on the only NHS treatment available, then a last-chance one. Neither worked. On the 20th of January 2026, his consultant told him he had two to three months left.

He's still here. We won't tell you, in this blog, what's keeping him here — that's his story to tell on the episode. But we will tell you what he said, sitting in his front room four months past his expiry date, when Matt asked him what he's learning about finishing well.

Finishing well, when you can't do it yourself

When Allan became a Christian at sixteen, someone gave him Philippians 1:6.

He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.

He's carried that verse for forty-three years. He admits, on the recording, that he's only just understood what it actually means.

"I always thought it was about me and my efforts finishing well. So I'll finish well, I'll do it right, I'll finish that project, I'll finish this. What I'm finding is God's finishing it for me."

He looks around at his life and sees things being tied off without him having to do them. The church is doing well without him. The grants for the building came through. He preached his last sermon last Sunday — "loads of people turned up to see that." He did his last comedy gig for the same fella who booked him for his very first one, all those years ago, without asking.

"It feels like God's saying, look, everything's all right, everything's all right, look, have a look, it's good, it's all good, you can go."

He laughs at himself for saying it. "Sometimes when I say all this I'm a bit like, wow, you're a bit mad, you lad."

But he means it.

Why these are his best years

So how does a man with terminal cancer end up calling these the best years of his life?

He doesn't dress it up. He's not pretending it's easy. He's on a syringe driver pumping medication into him round the clock. He doesn't want to die. He's still up for a miracle, "definitely up for it," even though he's not expecting one.

But something happened in the stripping. Comedy went. Ministry went. The building work he loved went. Every single thing he used to define himself by got taken off the table. And underneath it all, he found he was still here.

"I'm finally comfortable in it. I'm not beating myself up for my shortcomings anymore."

Then he says the thing that lands hardest, almost as a throwaway, near the end of the conversation. Asked what wisdom he'd want to leave for someone who's drifting from church, or buried under the weight of trying harder, or quietly sitting in a Tesco's car park of their own.

"Just keep turning up. Just keep going. God will finish it."

Where the conversation goes from here

There's a lot we haven't told you. The night three strangers knocked on a stranger's door and prayed him into faith at sixteen. The £200,000 GoFundMe that started because his mother was about to sell her flat. The audiobook narration AI couldn't do because it couldn't understand his Scouse accent. The story of a Baptist nudist from Yorkshire that probably shouldn't be in a podcast at all but absolutely is.

You can hear all of it — and Allan's own voice, which is still very much working — in the full episode of What's The Story.

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# Transcript (plain prose) — What's The Story: Allan Finnegan
> Speakers: Matt Edmundson (host), Allan Finnegan (guest). For agent consumption.
---
Matt: So welcome to What's the Story? I'm, Matt Edmundson here with Allan Finnegan. Allan, good to see you, man. good to have you with us.
Allan: Good to see you, Matt. Yeah, it's been—
Matt: it feels like, it's been a while because, a while ago you did this podcast which I think you started during lockdown, didn't you? in your back shed, which I, I was on that and it feels like that was a while ago now.
Allan: Yeah, I can't remember whether it was lockdown. I guess it must have been roughly sometime during or after lockdown. Yeah, I can't remember to be honest, but, I know it, I know it was fun having, having the podcast. Loved doing that podcast Wednesday nights at Finnegans. It was, It was a good laugh, but it was great having people on. And yeah, very tongue-in-cheek, very blokish, kind of down the pub with your mates kind of vibe. And we really enjoyed doing that. Yeah, until I got a little bit sick.
Matt: But yeah, no, it was great. Wednesday Night Finnegans. And Tom Grant, who co-hosted that podcast with you, has been on What's the Story as well. So we finally had you both on the show, which is good. And we're— shameless plug— we're going to talk about your book a little bit. What's the title of your book? Just tell us the story. What's the title of your book?
Allan: It's called I Didn't Ask for Any of This: Church, Comedy, and Cancer.
Matt: The three C's. It's a good alliteration.
Allan: Yeah. And so it's a story about my journey through all of that. It's not really a memoir. It's getting called a memoir. But it's not really a memoir, I don't think. and there's loads more I could have put in the book, but I was on a bit of a deadline, so I had to be selective. So, so I was quite selective in the end. And, so yeah, that's what it is. It's, it's, it's not a memoir, but it's funny, it's poignant, and it's, it can be sad in places. That's the feedback I'm getting off people.
Matt: So Yeah, yeah, no, it's good. I mean, you said you kindly sent me a copy of it before the show, and, yeah, it's definitely— but then you've always been a— to me, Allan, as long as I've known you've been a funny guy.
Allan: right.
Matt: But how did you discover comedy? I mean, it's like, did you just wake up one day and go, oh, I'm just going to be funny now?
Allan: No, not at all. I don't think I'm funny. And I've always been really, really shy, to be honest. That's probably more true of me than funny. I've always been shy and, yeah, introverted. And, you know, I wouldn't want to be center of attention in some ways, although I often ended up at— so I don't know what that kind of psychology stuff's going on there. but no, I was training to be a Baptist minister in, and we were doing like kind of preaching classes, you know, how to preach and the different methods and stuff. Yeah. And the tutor was talking about that, the mode of one person, one microphone was alien to people nowadays. People don't listen to it because it's outdated and all this kind of stuff. And, even, you know, even politicians are doing different stuff and that and everything else. And I was— I'd literally been to see Peter Kay in the Echo Arena. And so I am I was at that gig, I disagreed, you know what I mean? And I was like, nah, you're not right, because like I've just been to see Peter Kay — 11,000 people shouting more after an hour and a half with only a little break in the middle. Yeah, you know, and paid to do it, you know what I mean? And so that led to kinds of discussions and what they call learning objectives. Which are extra to your academic work. and the learning objective I got was to go on a stand-up comedy course and compare and contrast comedy and preaching. Oh wow. And so, so that's what I did, a 6-week comedy course with the Comedy Trust in Liverpool, Sam Avery and Brendan Reilly. And 6 weeks Yeah, sort of looking at the skills of stand-up comedy and honing a bit of a set, because at the end of it you'd have to do a performance in a comedy club. Now, it's not as bad as it sounds. It did— it was very terrifying, like, but it's not as bad as it sounds because, a lot of your mates come to it, so it makes it a nice gig. Yeah, but I was— I was terrified. So, but yeah, that's our kind. I got it. I had no intentions of doing comedy, I was just going to do this learning objective that I had to do and do a little reflection on it, write a little reflection on it. And, that was that. But it kind of went well that night, and one of the other comedians decided he'd book me and him on another night somewhere else, without telling me, of course.
Matt: That's insignificant detail.
Allan: Yeah, yeah. Just said me and you were on here on Wednesday, and I was like, well, I don't do comedy. And he went, you do now. And so, and then he, he just kept sort of doing that, this fella. and so I kind of just kept going along. That's why I say I didn't ask for any of this, do you get what I mean? Because it wasn't something I was pursuing. Yeah. And maybe deep down I must have wanted to do it, or I just stopped, I guess. but, so yeah, so I sort of stumbled into stand-up comedy. I didn't— again, I didn't plan it. I didn't plan it at all.
Matt: Yeah, really interesting. I'm curious. I'm, I'm super curious about this because I remember a few years ago sitting down with Mark Williams, who I think you know, because I think he's—
Allan: yeah.
Matt: Show. And Mark is also, he's done stand-up comedy and is a Christian. And I was, I talked with him, I remember talking with him for a while about how comedy and preaching could work together, because I always thought if you could somehow marry those things, then your sermons, become quite memorable, in many ways. And the ones that I always remember, they're either, I mean, they're either really poignant like your book, you know, there's a story which you remember quite often those stories are told in a funny way. and so you remember the humor, don't you? You remember how the sort of the comedy made you feel at the time?
Allan: Yeah, I mean, I'm massively into the comedy and the preaching, and the comedy definitely affected my preaching after that. Hey, I thought I couldn't preach anymore. Not in it, not in a way the church was used to. If you get what I mean.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: but B, it affected how I did it. So I used the comedy skills— not that I'm that good at it— but skills or techniques in preaching. So an example of that is in preaching, they'll almost certainly mention something and almost try and tell you the same things about 3 times, so it goes in into your head. There'll be repetition of something. In, in stand-up comedy, they don't do that, right? It's callback. So there'll be a reference that if you've been listening, you will get, and you'll laugh because you're in on the joke from previously.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: So doing that in, in preaching, it's not, it's not that easy. Don't get me wrong, it's not easy, but that That's one way of doing it. Another way is to be concise, is so kind of write your points out that you want to make in a sermon and then get to the point with the fewest words possible while still making sense. Makes your sermons really tight. Yeah, and everybody's happy, everybody's happy. Yeah. Yeah. Other ways, I'm trying to think on my feet here now. And I had it in my head, but I just forgot. Oh, never mind.
Matt: It'll come back in about 30 seconds, probably.
Allan: There's a number of ways where it's definitely affected. Oh, nay, yeah. Never mentioning the punchline, the punch word, the main word in the setup. Kind of keeping it hidden until you need it. Yeah, it's the same, with preaching. And, and so yeah, I definitely changed my style of preaching. Some might say for the worst, I don't know. But hey, but it was definitely back. It definitely changed it, and it made me feel like I couldn't preach. Yeah, in a traditional way anymore.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: And, and, and you don't have to be funny doing them things. It's not about being funny. It's about using the technique to draw the audience in.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: Another, another is if I'm thinking something, I can guarantee 80% of the room are thinking the same thing. Mm-hmm. Or they know it. Right. And so you have to address that, whatever that point is, you have to address it. You know, I remember someone coming and speaking in our church on healing and I was sat there with a terminal diagnosis and they never mentioned it. And I was like, the elephant in the room here is me. Yeah, you need to mention me. Do you get what I mean? Yeah. And, but, but you can be reading a passage and you'll read something and you'll go, I've got no idea what that's about. 80% of the people in the room probably think the same thing. Yeah. And so And so somehow you have to— you don't have to answer that, you just have to release the tension of it so that they feel they're not inferior to everybody else.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: And you don't know. So there's a number of things like that with Preacher and Stands Off. Yeah. Which I think make better preachers, but, remains to be seen.
Matt: Authentic.
Allan: No, it's true.
Matt: I think it makes you more authentic because I, for the longest time And I, in some respects, I think this was mirrored in Christianity. and I think you touched on this in the book, Allan, in the sense that for the longest time Christianity was almost like a performance, wasn't it? It was like you had to have this perception of we talk a certain way, we act a certain way, and all this hidden stuff we don't really want to talk about or address.
Allan: Yeah.
Matt: and that, that became problematic. So I think what it does when you when you stand up in front of people and say, I don't get it either, I don't understand either. It releases attention, but it's also authentic, isn't it? You're kind of acknowledging. I heard a really interesting quote that, certainty kills faith, because faith has to exist in the doubts and the uncertainty.
Allan: Yeah.
Matt: and I think it's quite true in many ways.
Allan: Yeah. And particularly as the— not that, you know, if you've read my book, you'll know I self-deprecate quite a lot. And but, Not that I'm anything, but as the minister standing up there and saying things like that, that's a massive relief to people. Yeah, you know, they almost go, oh, you can almost hear the sigh of, oh, it's not just me, kind of thing. I'm not the worst Christian in the room, which I always thought I was. Like you're saying, back in the day, I because these things were unspoken and unacknowledged. I always thought I was kind of the worst Christian, and I was, you know, just putting this veneer on to hide so no one had— no one would get through and see that I was really rubbish at following Jesus. Do you get what I mean? And so being that you're almost a permission giver as the minister, yeah, not— as I say, I'm not bigging myself up at all, but, It, it definitely— I started doing that in church as a consequence to stand up, and as a consequence to questions that I had myself. And yeah, this like, certainties kills faith, quote. It— that was definitely something I changed in my— the way I did church, the way I led the church. I definitely made people more slack, instead of the do more, be better, try harder. Approach. Yeah, I definitely, deliberately did things that, changed that culture. Well, for one thing, I started a podcast instead of a prayer meeting. So, you know, still got no idea how I got away with that.
Matt: Brilliant. How did you go though? I just Just touching on something you said there, Allan, how did you go from feeling you were the worst Christian, you know, rubbish at following Jesus, to deciding to become a Baptist minister? What made that leap?
Allan: Again, I didn't really want to be the Baptist minister. it kind of— our church, I've been there since I was 16, came to faith at 16, and been in that church ever since. I'm 59 now, so quite a long time. And I've been the minister 20-something years, but prior to that, we'd had our ups and downs. We'd had some great times with previous minister, and which was, you know, really high, high level, church doing great and all that. And then kind of infighting caused that to all fall apart, I would say. and so the church dwindled in numbers from a church that was probably over 100, which is great for where we are, to, a church that was down to like 20 people. And the denomination said we couldn't have a minister, we couldn't afford one, they wouldn't invest in us cuz we couldn't afford the other bit that you'd have to pay. And, and so there was kind of no options and I was trying to force them into getting options. And one of the regional ministers, who's like a bishop kind of thing, He decided, he said to me, I can't, we can't put a minister in here anyway, even if we could get a part-time retired one or something, you know? Mm-hmm. He said, because you are the minister.
Matt: Mm-hmm.
Allan: And I was like, oh, I don't wanna be the minister. Too much hassle. I've seen what it does to people. I've seen what it did to the last fella.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: You know, it nearly killed him. and so I don't really wanna do that. But then kind of a little bit of a— I had a meeting with his, his, his another minister, regional minister. There was two of them. I had a meeting with him and he, I guess my pride kicked in. We had a bit of an argument about stuff and in the end he was like, he sort of challenged me and I went, yeah, all right, kind of thing. I can't— it's in the whole story. The longer story's in the book, but I kind of like wouldn't back down. And so, so ended up going for it and it was like, and weirdly the church voted and said yeah, you know what I mean? And then I goes back to this reason, because I had to then have a proper interview with the Baptists. I goes back to him and says, all right, I've turned it on. I'm the minister of the church now. And he said to me, I thought you were only messing. And this is before I was a comedian. But yeah, I firmly believe it was the right thing to do now, if you get what I'm saying. Yeah. But at the time, I didn't really want to make that. I'd seen how tough it could be, and I didn't really want to do that. To me, family, and me, to be honest. you know, people think it's all happy days when you're up on a stage and all that, but they don't realize everything else in the background, you know.
Matt: yeah, I still maintain being a church pastor is one of the hardest jobs in the world, without a doubt.
Allan: It's a tough gig at times. Yeah, it does have its joys, but it also has a lot of, tough times. Yeah. And you're dealing with tough situations and, and tough things in other people's lives and your own all at the same time. Yeah, it's not for the faint-hearted, I would say.
Matt: No, so it's interesting because I read a stat that said one in two, one in two, pastors would go find— would, would leave the ministry if they had something else to go to. In other words, they're there because of the money, you know, they're sort of financially entwined and not sure what else they could do, which I think is, is a really sad stat when you think about calling. And one of the things you talked about in the book, you wrote that— and I've got my notes here— you tried to engineer being sacked because you didn't have the guts to quit.
Allan: Yeah.
Matt: and then something happened in a car park.
Allan: Yeah, I am. Yeah, in fairness, I've probably wanted to quit every week since I started, and I've literally tried to give the job away at times. Yeah, I always had a backup. I always could go back to building sites.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: And come company I worked for were very keen for me to come back, if you get what I mean. And it was more money. there was only a sense of call that sort of kept me on track most of the time. I wanted to quit anyway. Yeah, getting back to the car park story, I was, I was really low. I probably had a breakdown if I'm, if I'm honest, but I didn't— never went to the doctor, so I'm not Sure, but I think I did.
Matt: You've seen enough in other people to know.
Allan: Yeah, to know that I was, I was down over there. And, as I say in the book, I think my wife was watching the Big Brother final with her mates or something in the house, and I thought, I'll go out and see some, one of my mates. But I didn't want to go to somewhere from church, somewhere where I was the minister. And I'm up because you're always the minister, you're never off to goldfish bowl. Even if you get invited to places, you're still the minister. On holiday, you're the minister. You're never off. And that sort of pressure was getting to me again. And this is a good few years into being the minister, like. And, so I thought I'll go to someone where I'm kind of not the minister. You know who I am, obviously, but I'm not the minister. And I got in my car And I had, I had nowhere to go. I literally had nowhere to go. I was like, I've got no mates. I've only got people, friends who are in church, and I'm not saying they're not mates, but they're connected to the role as well. And, and so I drove around and I eventually, parked up in Tesco's car park in Litherland. And just cried, just cried in the car for probably about an hour, maybe long. and yeah, that was the, that was the kind of lowest point I got to. and it was because I had no mates. But on the back of that, I met with, Dave Connolly a few times, and Dave, Dave was great with me. yeah. And, I decided I'd get in touch with some of my old mates from school and that I hadn't seen for like 30 years because I'd become a Christian and they probably weren't holy enough to hang around with, you know, kind of thing. That was the kind of— that was the kind of vibe in the day. and so, I didn't know how to do that because there's no way they were really I knew they were in Bristol still, but I went to a funeral and I have one of our other mates that had died that someone told me about it and it turns up at this funeral and I'm stood there thinking, where is everyone? And we, and it's going in, so I go in and it's wrong funeral. He told me the wrong time, didn't he? Don't know whether he was winding me up. Yeah, yeah. Don't know whether the other people winding me up or what. I don't think they were because it was someone else who told me. Anyway, I get out and I rings about where the wake is, and the wake's in the Warbreck pub in Bootle. And so I thought, I'll go down to Warbreck. And I walked in, and by this time they've all gone except one, one lad who's not really, wasn't really one of my mates, but I knew him. And he said, they come in on a Monday night, just come in on a Monday. And they'll be in here about half 8, 9 o'clock, half 9, something like that. And so on the Monday night, I just turned up in this pub and I walked in. I can't exactly say on air what they said, but one of them went, 'We thought you were dead.' Wow. Where have you been for 30 years? Yeah. I mean, and I'm literally about a mile or two away from where that pub, you know, that's where I live and all that kind of thing. But it was a different culture, different world. I lived, I moved in a different world. I moved in that Christian bubble. Yeah. and, get going there was probably one of the most therapeutic things I did because While they knew I was a minister, because I'd, they just knew, they did, they didn't care. They didn't care, they just gave me stick and vice versa, which is like male therapy, isn't it? It is, yeah, it is, yeah. You kind of know that you're accepted, don't you, if you're getting stick. If they don't talk to you or they're nice to you, they don't like you. Yeah, and so I started the Monday night going there, as many Monday nights as I could, and it was really good fun to just be able to be me, still the minister, and actually still having conversations, weirdly enough, about stuff. And they'd ask me stuff and they'd give me stick and they'd tell me jokes about Jesus and all this type of stuff. And, and we just it was just good to just have a laugh, if you get what I mean. and it did me the world of good. That with the comedy— the comedy, getting into the comedy changed me, did me the world of good in terms of faith as well.
Matt: You said that comedy saved your faith, right?
Allan: Yeah, I did. it's because I'd lived in this Christian bubble, and, I started to meet people who'd been to church, but no longer did. And it was a bit like, there was loads of them. Yeah. There wasn't just a couple. And as at first I was a bit defensive, you know what I mean? I became the face of the church for these people. Yeah. Because I was the minister out there in comedy clubs at night, you know, till 12 o'clock in the night and all this sort of stuff. Yeah. All over the country. And so I became their gripe, you know what I mean? Someone's trying to get in the house. She's in, but I don't know what's going on.
Matt: But I just thought it was this sort of musical. The angels are playing some music in there.
Allan: Yeah, yeah. Come on, you're ready.
Matt: I hope that's not what it is because I'm hearing it as well, Bruce.
Allan: And, and so, I was, I was adding all these people saying to me, I used to go to church, but And, it became a bit too— it just became a bit too much for me to ignore.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: And I was also having these questions myself about faith and the do more, try harder, be better, revival is around the corner, let's take the next mountain, you know what I mean? Let's have a rest for a bit. I'm knackered, you know what I'm saying? And so, and I couldn't ignore their stories, whether they were valid or not. And you know, some of them you think, well, kind of, that was your own fault. But others you're like, it was just a little bit treated not the best there, I would say.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: And, and so it became a little bit, yeah, too much for me to ignore. And so I started thinking about it and that with my own kinds of questions that I'd almost suppressed for years about what I've just said, that, that be better, try harder stuff. Yeah. Be perfect kind of thing, was, was kicking in. And it was allowing me to think about it, and it was allowing me to see these— some of them great people doing great things, you know what I mean? And, and my theology was telling me that they were, they were, they were going to hell, if you get what I'm saying. And it just didn't all square up with me. It was, it was messing me mind up. and so Yeah, it started to change my faith. That's when I started to change tack with the kind of— as I said before, 80% of people are thinking things. Give them the permission to do that. Give them the permission to believe that and not feel like they're inferior. I also started to do less in church, as in we had less meetings, and I deliberately didn't go to some. 'cause I was expected to be at every meeting, if you get what I mean.
Matt: Yeah, yeah.
Allan: I deliberately started not going to some, deliberately started encouraging people to be with family a lot more and things like that.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: And so this, I'd said before this, I was losing faith in my faith. That's not in the book, that bit. I wasn't kind of losing faith, but I was losing faith in me faith. And the ultimate thing that saved my faith, particularly in the latter part of the book, is that I couldn't say there wasn't a God. Yeah, no, I couldn't. And I was a bit— that meant I had to deal with the fact that there is a God, and this has happened to me. And so how do I make sense of that? But it was the comedy that I would say that kind of, what's the word I'm looking for? It sort of eased me up a bit and allowed me to start thinking things that I wouldn't have necessarily been able to think hadn't I encountered these people who, who, who had faith. They had faith. Yeah. They just weren't practicing it or going to church.
Matt: they didn't have it in the way you thought they should at the time, right?
Allan: Yes. Yes. That's a better way of describing it, Matt. Yeah, they didn't have it. And, and so, and, and that was evident in a lot of things that they weren't the way I thought they should be.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: And my, my understanding of faith thought they should be. And so my understanding of faith changed and had to change. And it changed massively later on as well.
Matt: So, well, it's interesting because one of the quotes in the book that I liked was, you expected comedy to be a missional opportunity. It's very Christianese, isn't it? You're expected to be able to— yeah, I guess bring the gospel. But by the end of the book, you're saying comedy needed you less than you needed it, which I thought was an interesting phrase.
Allan: I'm sure it wasn't the other way around. I needed comedy more than comedy needed. Yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry. Yeah, yeah. I— yeah, that's why I say that. That's when I was real— I realized it was because I was doing a dissertation and my dissertation was on Kang. Can, stand-up comedy be a missional tool in, in comedy clubs? You know, rubbish title. But, and interviewing loads of Christian comedians, they all said no. And, and, and in, but I instinctively thought yes because of like Ricky Gervais doing Atheism and all that. Since, since trying to do it, I found out that the culture in clubs is atheist. The audiences aren't. And so you're going with the culture when you do that. To go against the culture, it's very difficult in anything. and but I still believe firmly that it is doable. And but what it— as I say, it— I needed it more than it needed me because, yeah, it changed, it changed my faith. It made me, I believe, a better Christian. And so the mission field ended up me. Yeah. Rather than them or that, if you get what I'm saying. The mission field was me. Absolutely. It was me in the end. Mm-hmm. And I went into it thinking, you know, I'm God's gift to the, comedy industry. Not in a funny way, but because the gospel, I dunno. And, and don't get me wrong, I wasn't going in there going, oh, you need to be saved and all that. It was much more a very— it was very tempered, and I wanted to actually be a really authentic comedian and not just be an evangelist, if you get what I'm saying. I know some people who do, and they're evangelists who are doing comedy, but I wanted to be a comedian and a funny comedian, then a Christian, if you get what I'm saying. Yeah. So, so when I say I wanted it to be a mission of faith. That was more about me dissertation rather than my actual full intentions. But as I say, the more it dawned on me, the more I met people, the more I met comedians, the more I listened to their amazing lives and what they're doing, you know, that the Bible tells us to do. and yeah, they may not have said a prayer. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. And so it definitely changed me. I became— I was the mission in the end. Yeah, God sent me there for the mission. It was— I was the mission, not— not—
Matt: don't you find that's often the way though? I mean, God puts you in these situations, and yes, you are encouraging, you give, and you preach, and you do what you feel like you should do. Yeah, but in that place, God ministers to you more than your probably feeling like you're ministering to other people. and I just think it's one of the peculiarities of Christianity in the sense that God's always, ministering to you wherever you're at and whatever you're calling.
Allan: Yeah, and it seems to— it's, it's— you seem to see it in the stories of the Bible where the, you know, Jonah, you know, Nineveh. It seems like Jonah needed to work too and not Nineveh. Nineveh was pretty rough, like, don't get me wrong, but But it feels like the hard work needs to be done on Jonah.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: And I feel that's what comedy did to me in the end.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah.
Allan: It was that hard work needed to be done on me. Yeah. And you see, as I say, you do see what you've just said in the Bible where it is more about shaping you as well. And maybe God has a plan for certain things, but you're part of that. And really, it uses that to shape you, and he definitely did with the comedy for me.
Matt: Yeah, yeah, and don't miss out on it. So tell us, in my notes here, Allan, if it's appropriate, the Steve the nudist running gag is a great moment of comic relief.
Allan: Yeah, yeah, the full story's in the book, obviously, again, But, and his name's been changed, to keep him anonymous, which I'm sure he's very, very grateful for. It sounds, it sounds very much like Steve, and it's only 3 letters, so you do the guessing. But, he was, he was another trainee Baptist minister, from Yorkshire, and, It felt like everyone else knew about this. No one had told me, and I've got no filter between my head and my mouth. So once I start, once someone says something to me, it just came out in the dining room. Yeah, in front of everyone. yeah, that I shouted, are you a nudist? And he was like, yeah, can we talk about it somewhere else? Well, I was baffled by this. I was completely baffled how you can be a nudist and a Baptist minister. Yeah. And yes, you know, the excuse he gives is like, yeah, you're messing, mate. You know, he had lust problems, so he did this so that he, he could see that God had healed him. Yeah, right.
Matt: Yeah, whatever.
Allan: Yeah. I'm guessing the nudist sites up in Yorkshire are pretty rough, like. So yeah, so when we were in it, whenever we were in a boring lesson or a chapel service or whatever else, chapel was just dreadful. we'd, someone, or me, mostly me probably, but someone would send out a text to people. I nearly said the right name then. Steve's a nudist. Steve, nearly outed him. Steve's a nudist. Season news is LOL, and you just get smiles going around the place. Just a little brief relief from the boredom of lectures, you know.
Matt: Yeah, of which there's much boredom in lectures this year, isn't there?
Allan: Yeah, there was, there was.
Matt: So, you've gone down this comedy road, and ultimately, you end up on Britain's Got Talent. Yeah. Which I think is probably where I first heard about you, actually.
Allan: nice.
Matt: And it's a, I suppose, a high that turns out not to be one. tell us, tell us a little bit about BGT.
Allan: Again, I didn't ask for it. it— they sort of contacted me. They, they kind of headhunt people to go on the show, and they'd done it before a few years previously, and it had gone nowhere. but this time they insisted that they wanted me to go before the judges straight away. And so they, contacted me somewhere around September, November, October time, not sure. And then once you say yeah, okay, then, then all the nonsense starts about editing what you say and what you wear. So they kind of made me wear a dog collar. They would say they, they didn't, but they kind of very, very strongly suggested it. The producers would really, really like this if you did this, you know. and so I ended up going down to London one morning, very early in the morning. I did the live show that day, got the 4 yeses. Simon Cowell actually said, it's the best audition we've had. But he'd just done his Golden Buzzer the act before me, right? It was like, so, but, and that was, that was amazing. I was terrified. Like, forget, didn't know. I walked on stage and I didn't know a word I was going to say. Yeah, nothing in my head. I was like, I've got— I don't know what, I don't know what my first line is, never mind. And they just said to me, the producers just said, smile and wave, they'll love you. I did that kind of thing. And then, got the 4 yeses. It was a bit surreal. you get through to the semi-finals then. Not everyone does who gets the 4 yeses, but they put me through. And COVID hit, and so everything changed. And you're then doing— well, the show was nearly not going to go ahead. And but then they decided with everyone staying in the house, it'd be good to carry the show on and kind of try and do it some sort of remotely. And ended up doing a semi-final instead of in, instead of in the Hammersmith. I ended up in a studio with no, no audience, just the 4 judges in there. And they put me in a massive pulpit out the way, everything against me, everything. It was just the wrong setup, changed me act for me. And so I was remembering me old act, but I couldn't say it. It was just terrible, it was terrible. and I also felt I wasn't being authentic wearing the dog collar kind of thing.
Matt: Yeah, yeah.
Allan: I felt like they— I felt like they were trying to push me into a stereotypical vicar. But they were. And on reflection, I should have seen it that way. And I should have seen it that I wasn't doing a comedy gig. I'm thinking I'm doing a comedy gig. I'm not. I'm doing television. Yeah. And it was a show rather than a gig. And so I should have probably leaned into it more. I mean, it's Morty, but the kind of thing that they wanted. But when they said I wasn't through, I was delighted. I was literally delighted because I nearly choked. In the semi-finals. Every rehearsal I choked, completely and utterly choked, like forgot what me lines halfway through and just stopped. Every rehearsal, they had me in for extra rehearsals, choked. So I was just happy on that night to get through it without choking and without getting an X, because them buzzers are a They're really, really loud. Yeah, I mean, much louder than, you know, on the television. Yeah, they are, they are jump loud, if you get what I mean, especially if you're not expecting one. But, and so overall, now it was a good experience, and it probably did me good for what was to come, after that. But at the time The, London Palladium was amazing, amazing. I remember walking down the street thinking, did that just happen? In me £9 Primark shoes that he bought me. And I had a pair of 110s on them. I had a pair of 110s on, they wouldn't let me wear them. So, right, yeah, since they bought me a pair of shoes, £9 from Primark, which is the only It's the only thing I got out of Britain's Got Talent. It actually cost me to go on it. Yeah, I stayed in the Just Good Enough Hotel. Yeah, yeah, that's what it was called. Yeah. And then, yeah, so yeah, overall probably glad I did it. Well, I am. If I was to do it again and I knew a bit more and play the game a bit more. because that's what they want, and I was trying to be a comedian.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: and I've got that first thing in the London Palladium to look back on, and it's really good. Standing ovation, the lot. It was very unexpected but very good. But, and the second one was a nightmare that they made look good on the telly.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: That video, video wall that they had, that was completely silent because there was a 7-second delay. On the connection. And so I say, you know, but they only hit 7 seconds later, kind of thing.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: And so, and just doing a gig to 4 people who were about 50 foot away, what was a— ah yeah, well, I found it almost impossible. Yeah, yeah, I was really bad. When I finished and said, he said something, he said something about— I don't know whether he said that was tough or something— and I went, you should have seen rehearsal, that was great.
Matt: Oh, it's interesting, isn't it, that you went through that? and I mean, you talk in the book about how it confirmed, you know, you sort of your own insecurities at that point in time. But I'm, I'm, I want to get, if I can, to the sort of the last section of the show, Allan, because I want to be respectful of, of your time. You, we've alluded to it a little bit. Obviously you're dealing with Something, you know, comedy and cancer, you know, in the, in the title. So you're obviously dealing with cancer. What's going on, for those that don't know?
Allan: I've got— well, I had ocular melanoma, which is skin cancer in your eye, roughly. I went for a routine checkup. I'd been seeing some things in my eye like flickerings. And so I went for a routine checkup, and, while I was there, I mentioned it, and he was like, oh no, it's okay. and then they spotted what they call a freckle in my right eye.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: And which is like a freckle on your skin, same, same thing. and so they were a little bit concerned about that, but it was my left eye that was causing me the problems. And so they sent me to St. Paul's Eye Hospital, Liverpool. And while I was there again, I mentioned the left eye. They were looking at this something in my right eye, freckle, which they were slightly concerned about. And while I was there, I mentioned my left eye again. She said, well, we'll have a look. And they'd been looking and they found another freckle, only a bigger one. And they said it was hiding. I was like, how's it hiding in me eye? It's only little. My eye's only small. Peekaboo. so, and that was, that was a tumor. That was cancerous. That turned out to be cancerous. The other one in the right eye only had 2 of the 6 markers, so it was okay just to monitor. But the one in me left eye was definitely a tumor. To which they needed to treat. And at the time I just thought, well, it can't be that bad, it's only your eye, innit? Worst case, you lose an eye. You don't want to, but worst case. But ocular melanoma is very rare and very deadly. So they kind of started talking about the stats to me at that point, and it was two genes And one gene is— if you have one gene, it's 80% likely to be okay after 5 years, 20% not. if you've got the other one, it's the opposite— 80% likely to come back after— within 5 years, usually 2, and 20% not. And I had the second gene. You can only find out that when you get in the operation to treat it. But I had the second gene, which meant it was, that I was 90% likely— well, 80% likely to come back probably within 2 years, and 90% likely to be dead within a year if it did. There was no cure, no cure for it, and they could only treat it and then possibly keep it at bay. And so, I got the treatment for the eye, which they did the biopsy. I found out I had the, the worst gene, and that went really well, worked really well. And then what they do is they scan you. They basically put a radioactive disc in your eye for a few days and then take it out, and then that treats the tumor. And the tumor shrank, reacted really well to it. Still see out that eye. It's a bit blurred, but I can still see out of it. And my left eye. And so, you get scans then every 6 months to monitor your liver because that's where it normally comes back. And, first 3 scans were fine on all 2 scans. And then the third, on the 2-year kind of anniversary, which, It came back that there was something there. They said, "You'll get a call. If you get a call from the surgical team, you'll be getting surgery. If it's from the oncology team, you'll be getting treatment that way." It was oncology because I had a main tumor and lots of little ones all over the liver. Again, yeah, it was incurable. At this point, I'm on a They said 10 to 14 months.
Matt: Mm-hmm.
Allan: And, and there was no treatment options available on the NHS. There was only a, a thing that you could pay for called chemo saturation, where they pump lethal doses of chemotherapy into your liver, but they isolate it. Mm-hmm. And then they, then they clean that out your blood. Put your blood back in, and then that does— that can help. Again, not a cure though, just a prevention kind of thing, or kicking it down the road in the hope that something comes up in the meantime.
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: and so that— I had to go home and think about that, that they were talking about me having to raise £200,000, to get this treatment, which was just it's ludicrous amounts of money. Yeah, you just— what's the point? I almost didn't, almost didn't bother doing a GoFundMe, but family and that, you know, they kind of want you to live. I didn't think I was worth 200 grand, Matt. I didn't think I was worth 20 grand. So, but So we shared, we started to go filming and shared, and it went viral is, is basically what it did. And we, we raised half the money, not half the $200,000, $50 grand installments it was. We raised half the money in a, in the first day. And then by day 3, we had enough for one treatment. And so we rang back and arranged the treatment, which was in Southampton. yeah, and it was, it was very humbling because I'd always been sort of self-sufficient in terms of finance and whatever. Didn't really need anybody's help. It was always nice, but, I was always kind of okay-ish. and so to have to rely on people, particularly people you know have got no money at all and they're giving you £10 out of their benefits check, or kids giving you their pocket money It was very, very, very humbling experience for me. and again, probably needed as well, you know what I'm saying? And probably shaped me a bit more. but yeah, and this was again just an attempt to kick it down the road until something maybe came available on the NHS. and so yeah, I had 3 treatments that they went well. And but then a treatment became available on the NHS that they'd been trialing that had had good results, which was you had to go every week for, but it was only an hour infusion. And so it was decided that I'd go for that. And a little bit of a mess up with scans and all that meant I was a bit longer going on it than I should have been by about 3 months. so 6 months instead of 3. And so I went on it, and after 6 months of treatment, it hadn't worked at all. In fact, it got worse. And so they decided I needed to come off that, and I went on a kind of Last Chance Saloon one, which I did 2 months, didn't work. So In January this year, 20th of Jan, I got told that I had about 2 to 3 months to live, maybe, maybe a little bit more, which we're obviously past that 3 months now. Yeah. And maybe significantly less, but I've kind of lived a bit longer and I'm still relatively okay. They're dealing— I'm on a syringe driver and they're giving me medication in that constantly, which is keeping me feeling okay-ish, I think, which is good. Because while I'm not, not scared to die and I'm not, I don't know really. Yeah, I don't know what the word is. A lot of people are praying for me. 'If I'm honest, I'm not sure. I'm not, not sure. I don't think I'm going to get healed. I think I'm going to die just the way God seems to be rounding my life off, and I'm finished. I'm finishing things, and it feels like it's finishing well.' And, and so I'm all right with dying. I remember when the consultant told me, I was like, 'I am truly I mean, I know we always are, but while there was a medical option, the people will say, oh yes, the doctor's cured you, kind of thing. I am truly in the hands of God now. That is, I'm not receiving any medication to make me better or keep me better. I am only receiving it for palliative care. Yeah. and so I'm truly in the hands of God and it's been It's been a privilege to see some of the things God is allowing me to see about my, about my life's work in, in lots of ways. Yeah, you know, church is doing well without me, and that is a massive blessing.
Matt: Oh, it's great.
Allan: Yeah, it is, because, you know, it could have been built on my personality, or I could have done everything and suddenly I'm not there and the wheels fall off because I was doing everything. Near the end, I was hardly doing anything, and I was more of a caretaker. They probably missed someone fixing the chairs more than anything else nowadays. And seeing that, seeing the church buildings in a good place because of grants that we've had and stuff, so it's really the practical side. The spiritual side looks great. Lots of different things I've finished. I did my last sermon. Last Sunday. I guess I don't know when this is going out, but I did my last sermon ever, which went well. Obviously loads of people turned up to see that. But I did my last comedy gig for the fella that did my first comedy gig after that course. Okay. Yeah, so we're, we're— yeah, and it feels like that. It just feels like God's saying, look, everything's all right, everything's all right, look, have a look, it's good, it's all good, you can go. Which sounds a bit weird, and sometimes when I say all this I'm a bit like, wow, you're a bit mad, you lad.
Matt: but it's probably true though, Allan, to be fair.
Allan: Yeah, yeah, but it feels Feels all right. I obviously don't want to die, and I'm telling that— I'm not telling people to stop praying for me, by the way, just in case. Keep going. I'm up for a miracle. But as I say, I'm probably not expecting a miracle, shall we say. I'm up for it, definitely up for it. But yeah, and so that's kind of where I'm at it.
Matt: So what have you learned about finishing well? Because this is a phrase that you've used, and I'm— it's a phrase which has sort of always been there in the back of my head, you know, if you're going to end something, end it well. But I mean, this is the ultimate— one of the quotes that you write in the book, Allan, which really kind of had me, I suppose. The last line of the book, you said, Frank Sinatra, the final curtain, one last bow. If this book you know, and it's kind of like, this is— maybe this is yours. And you kind of go, hmm. what have you learned about finishing well?
Allan: I think I'm learning. When I first started anything, I became a Christian. Philippians 1:6, it was sort of given to me, and it's been there all through my life. 'He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion,' being confident of this. He who began a good work, carry it on to completion until the day of Christ. And what I think I'm learning is I've just sort of hung in there. I've just sort of gone along with whatever's been thrown at me or given to me. I haven't asked for it, you know, I've— but I've just sort of kept going. When, when it was easy to quit at times, even though I didn't have the bottle to quit and I didn't have the guts to quit. And it— I just kept going through the really tough times, of which there's been many, right? and so what I think I'm learning about finishing well is sticking in there. God will finish it. I just need to stick in there, just stay, do, carry on, don't give up. And I don't mean don't give up in a kind of way, kind of just keep, just keep going, keep turning up in a humble way. I think I'm like, I always thought it was about me and my efforts finishing well. So I'll finish well, I'll do it right, I'll finish that project, I'll finish this. I'll finish that. What I'm finding is God's finishing it for me. And it's that one Philippians— it's Philippians 1:6— is the thing, is the key, I think. I mean, I only just thought of that now as we're talking. It's not like I've prepared this. that is the key, that, that he's finishing it until the day of Christ, until I meet Jesus. He's, he's, he's got this. And I can honestly say he is finishing things for me. And I said the other week in, in my last sermon, I feel like I can almost hear the words, well done, good and faithful servant. Wow. Only because of what I'm witnessing that God is doing, which means I'm finishing well. I'm not finishing well because I'm great and I've done great and diddle-dee-dee, and I'm brilliant. I'm not— that's not the case. I am, I'm as broken as anyone else. I'm a, I'm a, I'm an idiot. I do stupid stuff because I'm a comedian. I get myself into loads of trouble all the time. I was always getting into trouble all the time because of what I thought was funny that apparently wasn't.
Matt: funny enough, my wife tells me the same thing.
Allan: Tweeting on your regional minister's Twitter account something. Isn't that funny? Apparently, even though he left his iPad around.
Matt: Well, you know what, I find it funny.
Allan: Yeah, I did. Well, apparently it's conduct unbecoming for a Baptist minister.
Matt: Who knew?
Allan: Who knew? Who knew? I said, it can't be. You haven't got a policy. So no, I think, I think it's about God finishing well in you, because you kind of just, you just carried on and stayed there and done it.
Matt: Yeah, yeah.
Allan: You know, the way, honestly, and I'm not messing up, many times I really did want to quit, and I didn't have the bottle in the end, as I said in the book. You know, I even, as I say in the book, I even considered doing something that they'd have to sack me. Yeah. But I didn't want to go to jail and I didn't want to wreck my family and things like that. And so there was— the options are limited. I couldn't think of anything that our church would sack me for. They'd probably go, oh, it's Allan, he's only messing. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so it was, it was, yeah, it was a just keep, just keep going and God's finished it well. It's not— in some ways it's nothing to do with me finishing well. God's finishing well for me, if that makes sense. Yeah, and I'm only, I'm only seeing it now. The problem is I'm gonna die soon, right? I feel like I've got loads of wisdom in my head all of a sudden.
Matt: Why did you wait until now, God, to put it there?
Allan: Yeah, I'm not going to be able to use it.
Matt: No, I don't know at all. I mean, and I mean, obviously the book, yeah, is just a little, there you go, there you go. And is that available now?
Allan: Yeah, it's, it's, you can get it through Broadplace Publishing, or Amazon, basically. Amazon, it's available in Kindle and audio. Audible, audio as well. so did you read it? Did you do this?
Matt: Yeah.
Allan: And no, I couldn't. My voice was too bad. So, right, I did the intro, which is the letter to the reader, and then I got a good friend of mine, Andy Kind, who's a comedian, Christian comedian, to, do the rest. And he's probably more understandable for the country. Rather than— it's no, no good having subtitles on an audiobook. Be the first one ever. I'll tell you the funny thing though, man. Yeah, what they were, they were talking about at first was getting AI to read it in my voice. Oh wow. So what they do is they sample your voice and they need about 3 hours. You'll know all this because you're, you're a tech wizard, but they need about 3 hours, they said. So loads out there with the podcast and sermons and everything. So they were very confident they'd done it. And AI couldn't understand my voice.
Matt: So you broke AI.
Allan: Yeah. I'm AI-proof. AI can't make me say stuff.
Matt: There's not an AI Scouse robot, out there.
Allan: No, not yet. I'm, I'm not replaceable yet.
Matt: I don't know if you ever would be, Allan. Absolutely not. But we will, of course, link to the book, in the show notes, or the description if you're watching this on YouTube. You obviously can click through that. I do recommend, reading Allan's book. Allan, it's been an absolute joy, man. Really good to see you and really good to hear the stories. Thank you for making me laugh. thank you for having me on the podcast. And thank you for finishing well, with God's help, obviously. quite remarkable stories. So as is, as is gonna be my— as well as it's my show, I can do what I like, I suppose. let me give you, Allan, the final words to close out the show. Anything you want to sort of part with?
Allan: you've probably caught me. Well, you're a preacher, so I figured you've always got something I haven't done it for 2 years. I'm on the sick.
Matt: I've got a sick note from my doctor.
Allan: I have. I'm on the sick. I think, I think what I've learned through ministry, and I've probably already said it, is, because people say to me, what's the ideal do it so long and all that. And it is that just keep turning up, just keep going. When all your windows and your chairs have been smashed to bits and you fix them once and you come in the next day and they're done again, and you fix them again and you come in the next day and they're done again, and your roof is smashed to bits as well, and you fix them and they come back the night after and smash just the new tiles, not any old ones. Just the new ones that you put on, you know, when that happens, when, when there's just chaos going on around you, when you've got Hobson's choices where you know whatever choice you make this is going to be a bad one, and it's going to split the church, and just keep turning up, just keep turning up, you know, Chumbawamba, I get knocked down but I get up again. Yeah, yeah, we had that as our— at our one of our reunion events. Shit, I think it was the 50th, I can't remember. we had that song and we had a rubber man, you know, one of them big blow-up things with the sand. We had people coming up and punching it and booting it and it just— it kept getting up. And that was the visual picture I wanted people to see, that just keep just keep turning, just keep turning up, you know. God, God has got this, even though at times you can think, what's going on here? You know, and as I've said, I wanted that near the end with the cancer stuff, and it didn't make sense in my theology, it didn't make sense in anything I, kind of believe, because, you know, you're special, you're chosen, God's got a thing for your life that only you can do, all that kinds of stuff. We were told, suddenly is, is, is the rug's pulled from under you and you've got to make sense of it. And part of me wanted to believe that there wasn't a God because that made it— God— that made it easier. and believing that there was a God, I had to make sense of it. And I go into detail about that in the book a bit. but yeah, don't give in. You'll want to, and I wanted to lots of times, every week, seriously. And just quit and go and sit at the back of a church somewhere on the back row and laugh at the people at the front thinking, ah, I know exactly what you're going through. But, I, just don't, just don't, just don't, just keep going. Even, even, even through the tears, through the joy, whatever, but just keep going. And because God will finish it well for you. Brilliant.
Matt: Allan, thank you so much, man.
Allan: Thank you, Matt. Thanks for having me on. I've really enjoyed this one.
Matt: Oh yeah, it's been great. It's been too long coming.
Allan: I've laughed as well, so it's pretty good.