Ben's Story

I would say if you're scared of sharing your faith that's completely natural.
Sometimes I do have that bit of doubt in me, do they really want to hear it or will I look silly?
I'm Ben Tailby and this is my story.
There's definitely a difference between how I started in year 7 and how I talk to people now about God.
I used to get very angry about RS lessons where they said things about God and I didn't agree with that cos that didn't match up with who I know.
People would say things and I'd stick my hand up and go:
"oh no that's wrong" and everybody was like:
"oh no he's off again.
Bible Ben."
And that's sort of changed over the years as I've learnt that it all comes in through relationships and through friendships.
You've got to build the friendships with people first, and you've got to just actually talk to them about life.
Jesus has everything to do with everyday life and has everything to do with what matters to us.
It's just about talking to people about the day-to-day and talking about God as if it's, as if it's normal because it is for me.
I talk about church, I mention things I'm doing in church, in cell and all of that and when I do that it just comes up naturally.
Now when I compare what I was like to share my faith in year 7 it's been a gradual change to this kind of more mature conversations, where you know I want to just listen to what other people think and share my thing and it's a mutual kind of respect.
But out that comes genuine conversation and insight as opposed to a shouting war.
We as Christians what we need to do, is actually say hey we've got Jesus, we've got the one who every bit of our soul longs for and He's very much real.
If we don't do that I actually think it's a bit selfish to kind of keep him all to ourselves while we see everybody else kind of suffering around us.
That doesn't mean that we have got everything sorted out but it does mean that we're on the right journey and that we can bring other people on that journey with us.
Jesus calls us to do that, he says go and make disciples and it's just it's a big party and if you had a big party and you didn't invite anybody, it wouldn't be as good a party.
You might have had a terrible experience where you know you said something and somebody just shut you down and was like no I'm not having any of that.
Don't be disheartened by that because you never know what seeds your planting, and you never know what's going on inside their heart, even if they don't say anything and you feel like you're not getting through to anybody.
You don't know what's going on their head but God does.
I think it's a good thing, I try and make it my mission - when I do feel like God telling me to do something to just do it anyway because the worst that happens is I feel a bit silly but that will wear off and the best that happens is that they come to know Christ.