Join host Sadaf Beynon on "What's the Story?" as she explores the inspiring journey of Thomas Abbott, a missionary kid turned global traveller, who shares his experiences of faith, family, and cultural transitions. Discover how Thomas's upbringing in Pakistan and his work in China shaped his worldview and spiritual convictions. Don't forget to subscribe for more compelling stories and visit Crowd Church for a digital space to explore faith.

---

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

6:04 Thomas Abbot's Global Journey

13:59 Experiencing Faith in Pakistan

23:32 Baptism in China

32:18 Returning to the UK

37:59 Meeting Rachel

47:23 Belief in Six-Day Creation

55:29 Authority of Scripture

1:03:53 Church Leadership

1:11:27 Jesus Manifesto

---

Key Takeaways:

1. Embrace Your Unique Path: Thomas highlights the importance of recognising and embracing one's unique journey, especially when it involves cultural and faith-based differences. Growing up in diverse environments, he learned to be comfortable with being different and saw it as a purposeful part of his life. 

2. Live with Integrity and Faith: Thomas credits his parents for living a life of integrity and faith, which deeply influenced his own beliefs. He emphasises the significance of not just talking about faith but living it out authentically. 

3. Understand the Urgency of Mission: Through his belief in a literal six-day creation, Thomas developed a sense of urgency about living a life on mission. He suggests that understanding the world through a biblical lens can instil a sense of immediacy in fulfilling one's purpose and sharing the gospel. 

Hello and welcome to what's the Story? We're an inquisitive bunch of hosts from the what's the Story team on a mission to uncover stories about faith and courage from everyday people. And to help us do just that, we get the privilege to chat with amazing guests and delve into their faith journey, the hurdles they've overcome, and the life lessons they have learned along the way. Now, if you enjoy our podcast, don't forget to subscribe and sign up for our newsletter on our website, which is whatsthestorypodcast.com it's your direct line, too. The latest episodes and detailed show notes, and they all get delivered straight to your inbox. And the best part, it's absolutely free. Watch. The story is brought to you by Crowd Church. We understand that stepping into a traditional church might not be everybody's cup of tea. And that's where Crowd Church steps in. Providing 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 are new to the Christian faith or are in search of a new church family, we invite you to Visit us at www.crowd.church. and if you've got any questions, just drop us an email at hellod Church. We're here to help and would genuinely love to connect with you. And now, without further ado, let's meet your host and our very special guest for today.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of what's the Story podcast. I'm your host, Sadef Benin, and today I have the privilege of talk to Thomas Abbott. Welcome to the show, Thomas.

Thank you, Sadaf. Great to be here with you.

And with you too, Thomas. I've been really looking forward to this conversation. For those listening, Thomas and I actually go way back to our school days in a small missionary school in Pakistan. Thomas was a close friend of my brother Zeeshan. And actually if you missed Matt's episode with him, definitely check that one out too. It's another great story. So, Thomas, let's focus on you. I know you've had quite a journey, one that's taken you around the world and through a lot of growth. For those listening, how would you introduce yourself, especially in light of your faith and the unique path that you've been on?

Wow. Well, firstly, Sadaf is really great to be on here, and I think it needs to go on record that we obviously knew each other as teenagers growing up. And whereas you still look like you did when you were a teenager, I very much now look like A graying middle aged man, which is what I am. I am 43 years old, 44 this year. Not wanting to give your age away at all, but by way of introduction, that's where I'm at in life. I am married to Rachel, who I met in China actually, and that's a whole nother story. But she's not Chinese, she is English, blonde hair, green eyes, probably Viking descent because she's from Norfolk, which is in east anglia in the UK. And we're married with three children, Theodore, Barnabas and Lovella, who are 11, nine today.

Oh, wow.

And happy birthday respectively. And as you say, I've been around the world, not all out of my choice. My parents moved to Pakistan when I was 11 and they were missionaries there in the north of Pakistan in the Himalayas. And you know, when I reflect on that, which we may do a bit later, it feels like a different universe. It feels like a parallel universe that I lived in. So different is North Pakistan to, you know, almost anything else in the world. In the Himalayas. And then went to university in London, having finished my high school education in Pakistan and studied history and media arts and went straight from university to China where I joined an organization called Care for Children and I've been working with them ever since. And that job took me to China and then to Thailand and then to Vietnam. And then in 2019, just in time for a global pandemic, we moved back to the UK as a family and I'm now based in our headquarters which is in Norwich. And Norwich is about two hours northeast drive of London, so not too far away. And. And we're in a little village, a seaside village called Mundsley and we've been here for one year now and Rachel is a teacher's assistant, she used to be a midwife and she's got some great stories for that as well. Now, teacher's assistant in the school, the primary school that our two kids to go to and our oldest has just gone to secondary school. And so we're living a sort of quintessential English life in an English village now, having spent at least half of my life traveling around and living in Asia.

That's fantastic, Thomas. Your story is deeply woven, isn't it, with faith and family. And so I wanted to go back to the beginning of your story you grew up in as a pastor's kid, missionary kid. What was that like for you?

Yeah, I've got all the titles, so mk, tck, tcka, PK and probably a few others I haven't thought of. So my parents worked for the Birmingham City Mission. That was before we moved to Pakistan. And that, as I reflect on that, was actually hugely significant for me in my faith because it was very front line work that my parents were on. Now, technically it was my dad who was employed by the Birmingham City Mission, but my parents did it very much as a couple and we were there almost on mission as a family. And I say on mission. We were in. On mission in the uk. It was. It was in the depths of Birmingham. Neither of my parents are from Birmingham. They moved to Birmingham intentionally and into quite a poor part of Birmingham as well. Intentionally as part of their work with the Birmingham City Mission and to build community. And I remember, you know, age 9, 10, going with my dad on, especially around Christmas time. We used to, as part of the work with the Birmingham City Mission, my dad would deliver packages of presents to really poor families in Birmingham. And occasionally I would join him on that. I would join him at soup kitchens, I would join him on summer clubs where my dad would run summer clubs for youth as well. Very much ministering to the urban communities of Birmingham. And actually largely, this is the great irony, when I was living in Birmingham, we were living on a street that was almost entirely Pakistani, no way. And the school that I went to was almost entirely Pakistani or Indian. And the funny thing is, when we then moved to Pakistan When I was 11, we went to an international boarding school where your family was pretty much the only Pakistani family in the whole school. So I had a more Caucasian, white, Western upbringing in Pakistan than I did, I think, in inner city Birmingham. But, you know, it was. I do really credit those years that I sort of accompanied, if you like, my dad and my parents on their work in Birmingham as examples of people who didn't just talk the talk, but walked the walk. And it was just inescapable that my parents lived to serve the poor, their community, and they were totally sold on it. They were in it 100%. And I was very aware of that as a kid. I was very aware, interestingly, that culturally I was not. I didn't really belong to the culture that my parents were serving in. In a city, Birmingham, very working class, you know, my parents, I suppose, although. Although we were not a wealthy family, we were probably middle class in the way that our outlook. Both my parents went to university, they met at university and so valued education and had aspiration, I guess, for us kids as well, to be well educated. Even though we went to the same school as everyone else around us, there was that slightly different culture, I suppose, in our household. I remember one story in school where the teacher asked, how many books did we have, you know, on our shelf in our bedroom? And I remember thinking, I don't know, I have no idea how many books I've got, you know, hundreds. And there was one boy in the class that said, none. I just remember being baffled by this fact that how can you not have any books, you know, in your bedroom? And I was so. I was just aware that funnily enough, a lot of the culture around me wasn't the same as my family culture. But that was fine. It was, it was, it was sort of the reason why my parents existed. You know, they were missionaries in a sort of slightly different culture. And it was fine. It was necessary, even in, even in the uk.

Mm. So was that a culture shock at all then, going to Pakistan?

Well, we first actually went to Pakistan when I was age 6 and 7.

Okay.

My parents, interestingly, having worked in Birmingham, got to know a lot of Pakistanis and felt that in order to sort of minister and share the gospel and build bridges with the Pakistani community in Birmingham, they ought to go to Pakistan for a bit. And they initially thought they'll go for three months, learn a little bit of the language and try and get a feel for Pakistan. In the end, that three months turned into a one year trip when we went out as a family. And it was pretty awesome because we were able to meet relatives of the people in our street in Burma, in villages around Pakistan. And that's incredible. You know, when my parents were able to go back to the UK and say, oh, I met your uncle or your brother or, or your mom in such and such a village, you know, that was the ability to build bridges through that was very powerful and just classic. My parents, you know, they really believed in what they were doing and wanted to find ways to build bridges. So that. I remember that year and it was a positive year. So by the time that we returned, I was really looking forward to it. And so no, it wasn't a culture shock. And I think as kids you are very adaptable and you sort of just trust your parents, don't you? In a funny kind of way, whatever you do is your normal. And I loved it. And it wasn't a culture shock. I just, I just remember the first morning of arriving in Pakistan. We were in a hotel in Rawalpindi and going out and buying samosas on the street. And it was just such an exciting adventure. And I loved the food already. I was excited about Going to school because I'd spent a bit of time and actually made some lifelong friends just when I was 6 and 7, you know, in that first year. So it wasn't a culture shock, interestingly. And I think it's because my parents, we were so secure as a family unit, and I just completely trusted what my parents were doing.

Yeah. Did you. So despite you didn't have the culture shock, you didn't. And as you said, like, you know, kids are quite adaptable. They kind of roll with it. At any point, did you sense that you were on a unique path, though, even as a kid, did you feel like. Was something different?

I would say yes. And as I sort of referenced earlier, actually, that being in a different culture and feeling different to my surroundings wasn't new, because I actually, interestingly felt like that when we were living in Birmingham. And so it was the norm, I suppose, that as a family, we lived intentionally somewhere different out of a calling. It was very purposeful.

Yeah.

And, you know, as I look back now, I'm. I realized. I realized that. That. That that came. I didn't think of it consciously at the time, necessarily. It was just my norm. But I. As I reflect back, I realized that I was very comfortable in that. That situation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So as you reflect back and you're thinking about those moments, were there any times, excuse me, where you felt like your faith stood out?

Yes. The thing with Pakistan is fascinating history, if you want to look into it, but it split from India in order to be a purely Muslim country. Its values were, you know, established from the beginning, that the reason the split happened was so that, you know, Muslims could live in a. In this kind of pure state of Islam. And Pakistan means pure country. And so the Muslim culture is very strong in Pakistan. And so I suppose. Remind me of your question, Sadaf.

I was asking if there was any particular moments or specific challenges that you might have felt where your faith stood out or perhaps you felt like you were set apart in that context.

Yeah. So it was very distinct that we were Christian and we were there because we were Christian. And I remember probably 12 years old, 11, 12 years old, we had a Pakistani family visit us, and I took my friend who was Pakistani and Muslim, and a walk through Murray. It's just us too. It was quite safe to do that. And we were walking and he started to quiz me on things of the Bible. And I remember. And I actually think this was. I think God gave me the words to speak in this moment because I was able to sort of counter his Argument I was not ready for it, you know, I hadn't done any prior study to it, but I was able to sort of return the points and hold my own. And I remember sort of thinking at the time, you know, this is, this is sort of what we're up against. I suppose there is a real difference in belief system here. Certainly you can see in culture, you know, it's a very strong culture in Pakistan. But I remember being in this like debate as a 12 year old and it was friendly, it didn't get ugly. But I had to hold my own theologically and I was able to surprise myself really that I was able to do it. But I do think I was probably supported by the Holy Spirit time. And it reminds me of my. The first time I experienced the Holy Spirit, actually, when my dad and I were driving up from Islamabad to Murray. Murray is in the foothills of the Himalayas. It's where the school was and where we spent a good time, a good amount of the year in Murray as a family as well. And my dad was just sharing the gospel and I. It was just through conversation, it wasn't forced, it was fairly natural. And I just remember just feeling like my heart was on fire really. And I remember being quite emotional, like wanting to cry, but it wasn't new information I was hearing, but it was just so powerful. And I attribute that strong sense of emotion to the Holy Spirit. And that was really just in conversation with me and my dad. I knew I could trust my dad wholeheartedly with what he was sharing and what he was saying because his life was so integral, had so much integrity to the gospel that I could receive it so purely and so easily.

I love that story. It's just, it sounds very, very precious that time that you had with your dad at that. How old were you then?

So it was all a bit of a blur, but I would have been about 12 or 13.

Yeah, I was thinking too when you were sharing about walking with that Pakistani friend and him quizzing you and sounds even then like the fact that you could hold your own and you said the Holy Spirit probably had something to do with it. I think there's also a lot of spiritual maturity on your part too, even at that tender age. And as you saying, you're crediting it to your parents, to your dad, the integrity that he held to the gospel. I mean, I think there's so much there for you to have learned from and to be thankful for, isn't there? How do you think, or how would you say that your encounter with The Holy Spirit changed you.

It's funny because one of my really great friends that I made in Pakistan in. At Murray, Conrad Rasmussen, who you know as well, we, we. I remember we were on a weekend and they were. The weekend, was it. So this was a Christian school. This school was set up to serve missionary families, not just in Pakistan, but that sort of region of Asia. And so it was. It was a missionary boarding school. The faculty were Christian. It was, you know, it existed and was based on Christian principles and it had a very Christian ethos. And so they events were organized. I remember there was. There was one event that was probably organized once a year, maybe more, called spiritual emphasis. Do you remember that?

Remember that?

Yeah. And you know, look, here's a Christian missionary school, I guess, you know, having to accommodate for all sorts of types of Christian denominations. And so I suppose the Christian emphasis weekend was. Perhaps I've never asked or looked into it, perhaps it was an attempt to accommodate the more charismatic influence in the school. But I remember, I remember going on this and we were encouraged to go out and listen and hear how the Spirit was speaking. And everyone came back and shared how they felt the Spirit was leading them. And I remember just going, you know what? I felt absolutely nothing. I'm sorry, but dead. Conrad just found it hilarious. And he thought that was a big moment for him, that someone could speak out against the sort of the trend or like the culture, like we should be hearing something. There was a. We should come back after a couple of hours of being on our own with some kind of answers to how the Spirit was leading. What I did have was a very deep sense of confidence, like I didn't have to pretend that I'd heard the Spirit lead me in a particular way in that couple of hours. And I wasn't going to pretend. I was a little bit rebellious, to be honest, in some ways, and I was happy not to conform. But I think what it did give me was a very, very, very deep seated confidence in God and the existence of God and that he would lead me when he needed to lead me. I didn't have to sort of pretend if I didn't feel in that particular moment that the Spirit was leading. And actually that's carried. Carried. That continues to be the case in my life. I've never had a strong sort of backsliding moment. There have definitely been times in my life when I've been casual, but I've never sort of gone through a black bleak period of. Of really doubting God's existence.

That's great. I really appreciate what you're saying and to be honest, I think that's my memory of you as well, being very self assured and, you know, you did what you had to do. There was never this floundering around.

So.

Yeah, I appreciate that. I know you went to China after your time in London and you were working with care for children. And I think when we spoke in our pre call that you mentioned about being baptized while you were in China. Could you tell us a bit about that?

Yeah. So my parents had always held the belief that, you know, baptism was a personal decision and actually my dad had to break out of that. He was brought up in the Church of England, he was christened. And then when he went to university and sort of discovered different types of denominations and he sort of decided he wanted to. Wanted to be baptized as an adult. And I think that caused a bit of tension at home because my grandfather was a reverend in the Church of England. And I think that, you know, the response was, well, you don't need to be baptized, you were baptized as a child. So that was our family belief. And I, yeah, I never, I'd never been baptized. And so I was in Shanghai and this was the first time I having left university. I mean, I've been in boarding school. I was at, you know, I was at university on my own really. My parents were still in Pakistan, I was in England. But going to China was really something I did on my. It was on my terms. It was my decision. It was not something my parents, my parents had never lived in China. It was new, a new culture to us as a, as a family. And I was doing something that I had decided to do and I was living on my own in a very sort of odd existence really. In as much as a lot of single foreigners were living in sort of Shanghai at the time and they were living in these strange sort of bubble where I noticed that when you don't live in your own culture, you're almost not accountable to the culture that you're living in. It's really strange. And so I saw young men and women behaving in ways that I knew they would not behave that way in back in the uk. They wouldn't get away with it because the culture would sort of hold them to account. And I found it. I found. I realized how sort of disconnected you could be if you decided to live in a culture that wasn't your own and how you could do a lot of damage to yourself and people around you because there wasn't quite the same level of accountability. Even if it's not a Christian culture, there are sort of standards of how you treat people. And I was just a little bit unsettled by it. It helped me sort of, I guess, really think about what my values were and the culture that I prescribed to and belonged to. And I think something we haven't talked about, and maybe a whole different podcast altogether, is this idea of being a tck, which I know you as well. In fact, now you are a TCK adult. So a third culture kid.

I wondered what the a. When you mentioned it earlier.

Yeah, the third is because you can get third culture adults. So if they've lived and worked overseas, having already become an adult, you know, it changes you and shapes you, but not to the same extent that it does. If you grow up in a. In a culture that's not your passport culture, when you are a child has a unique sort of forming impact on you. And this third culture is the third culture that develops out of those two cultures combining. So you've got your passport culture, you've got the culture of the country or countries that you're living in, and then that the combination of those two creates this kind of third culture, which is a fascinating. If you've not heard of this before, anyone listening on the podcast, just Google it. It's really interesting. When Obama started his presidency, he apparently said that he wants to fill his administration with TCKs, all right, because of their unique ability to understand the world and their unique view of the world. And so a TCK becomes a tck. A.

Of course, yeah.

It's just recognizing that difference.

You were talking earlier about cultures and not being accountable to your own culture.

Yeah, yeah. And so with. With being a TCK and being a Christian, there is a reality that you are not of this world. You know, you get a new citizenship in heaven. You know, when you become born again and you put your trust in God, you become a citizen of his kingdom. And there is a reality that you become then disconnected slightly from the world. You see things slightly differently. And it's interesting, you know, sort of. You probably have some stories or some examples that you can look on where students leaving that school in Pakistan, Murray Christian School, and returning to their home country. I often said it was a make or break. Some people made it and were able to kind of understand their difference and their citizenship in God's kingdom. If they kept their faith and other people didn't. And they really struggled and they struggled to. Maybe they lost their faith. Maybe. Maybe they never had a Faith, maybe they just really struggled returning back to their home country and they just didn't feel they could settle in and they. They didn't know what to do with that. So just to round this thought off, I decided to get baptized. Because it just confirmed to me I was living in this very different culture. It confirmed to me that I'm not of this world anyway. I'm not of China, I'm not really of the uk, in a sense, I can come back to that. But I am God's child. I belong in his kingdom. And so I want to get baptized. I just made that decision for myself as an adult. What was cool, though, was that the baptism that I was part of was the first baptism in this church in Shanghai for 50 years. I think that was the elders of the church or the cleaner was doing something on the stage and they sort of unlodged this trap door and realized there was a baptism pool underneath it. So they were like, well, let's use it.

Amazing.

And I was the first cohort, if you like, of people being baptized in this church in Shanghai.

That's incredible.

This church in Shanghai was interesting because you could only enter into that church if you brought your passport with you to prove that you were not Chinese. So the Chinese authorities allowed this service, this international church service, to go ahead, providing that the church agreed that only non Chinese attended. So you had to bring your passport. So though I was clearly not Chinese, I still had to bring my.

Still had to bring your passport.

Yeah.

Wow.

So that was why I got baptized then, in Shanghai, in China. It was a personal decision and I just felt I knew which kingdom I belonged to and I just wanted to confirm that.

Yeah. And that's. That is so crucial, isn't it? And you're right. I think sometimes, especially in places like the school we grew up in, where everyone is a Christian, you kind of. It's easy to just not. Not be committed because you just kind of go with the flow and, you know, you're all over the place. But, yeah, no, that's. That's really good. Talk to me more about being a tck when you got back to England than from Pakistan.

So, again, I found myself in a. In an environment that I knew I didn't fully belong in. And this was a bit. Maybe a bit different, I suppose, actually, sort of when it comes to culture shock, in a funny kind of way, maybe the strongest culture shock I had was. Was returning to the uk.

Mm.

Because everything about me was British in terms of surface level, appearance, my accent. But at the same time, I couldn't quite get to grips with things. And I remember even in the first week of university, I was on a corridor with about 20 other guys. And we've got on really well. There's no problems at all. And we do. We did everything together for a lot of the year. But I remember for that first week, we'd go down to the student union, you know, this is Freshers Week. There's no lectures on or anything. It's, you know, free time all the time. And we were just sitting around at Freshers Week and, you know, ordering a beer, which was a new experience for me as well, because there's no alcohol in Pakistan. And honestly, 90% of the conversation whenever these guys got together was about the TV that they'd watched over the past 10 years. And I couldn't even enter that conversation with, like, an educated guess. I had no idea what they were talking about. The only TV I ever watched in Pakistan was the cricket. And that's because every single TV station in Pakistan, when Pakistan were playing cricket, every single TV station would show the game. You know, the whole country would come to a standstill. I'm sure that if you look at Pakistan's economic record, every couple. For a couple of days, a few times a year, it just completely plummets because everyone stops working and then goes back up again a few days later because everyone just gathers around TVs wherever and watches. I'm sure it's changed a bit now, maybe 20 years on, but that's what it was like when I was there. So I just. I didn't have a grasp on contemporary British culture, and a lot of. A lot of conversation was built around that. So I steadily was able to make other groups of friends, particularly in the Christian Union, which is really important for me because, again, you know, this is the wonderful thing about the church, isn't it? Wherever you go in the world, there is common ground.

Yeah.

That you can relate to people to. Does not matter about the language, about the culture. You can go to a church and, you know, you've got something in common. And that's incredible. So that was the Christian Union for me, you know, it was. I enjoyed hanging out, hanging out with his friends and sort of almost learning British culture or an element of British culture for the first time. But that Christian Union, even if it was just once a week, honestly, was like. I didn't have to put up any pretense or anything. I was. I could just go and be. And it was. It was reliant on other conversations, other understandings than, you know, contemporary British culture. So, yeah, I would say it was. It was a bit of a learning curve. But after three years of, you know, living in England, I. I wanted to get back out, you know, into. Into the world. And I was, I think I was sometimes a little surprised about how small minded. Yeah. A lot of my friends were. They just didn't think very expensive. They didn't think about the world. They were so concerned about what's on tv. Yeah. What's on tv. Yeah, I remember it was when the Office first came out as well.

Yeah.

And everyone was obsessed with it. I didn't really get it because I think even the Office, I didn't quite understand what was going on. I like how, you know, I found it funny years later.

Yeah.

At the time I wasn't sort of, why are people so obsessed about a TV show? It just wasn't part of what I was used to.

Yeah. No, I appreciate you saying all that because I know there's so much that resonates with me, with what you said. I know that feeling of even now going back to Pakistan. Like you say, you look the part and for me I loosely sound the part but cannot connect in any way. And I think so much of that has to do with not just the upbringing I've had say in MCS and subsequently, but also my faith. And it's just. It's really hard. And I remember as we were growing up, mom and dad would often say it's not about the culture that we're like the Pakistani culture or even the MCS culture. It's about what's in the Bible and that's what you need to live according to. That's what you're aiming for. So when you were talking also about being accountable to the culture that you're in, I thought that was an interesting observation that you made. Actually, if that's not at the forefront of our minds, then we can end up in all kinds of places, can't we?

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, so I want to know more about how you met Rachel and how that relationship impacted your faith journey as well.

Well, how long have you got set up?

No, you just carry on.

So, yeah, that. That was pretty special really, because I didn't have a girlfriend throughout the whole of university. There just wasn't. I just didn't meet a girl that was the caliber, you know, that had an expansive world view and it just didn't. No one really did it for me and that's fine. I wasn't Worried about it. But it took going to China, yeah. To meet an English girl who I fell in love with. But the way in which it happened was. Was unusual in that I'm gonna have to keep this story as brief as possible.

Okay.

But basically, the first time I saw Rachel, I remember thinking I could marry her. And I don't know where that came from because I had never felt like that without someone before and I haven't since. So it was a unique experience. But she was 17, okay, about to turn 18 and she was living in the U.K. actually, she just had come over to China with her to visit her family. And I was in China having finished university. So I remember thinking, this is weird because how is this going to work? As it happens, Rachel was the daughter of my now boss and I've worked for the same organization for the last 20 years. So, you know, God obviously had plans in that moment that I was totally unaware of. Rachel and I dated and it was a long distance relationship and, you know, she had to finish off her school and then she got into university, at which point I knew that one of us had to make a very big shift in our life if this relationship was going to continue. So I came to the uk. I'm going to just share a quick story on. There's so many stories I can tell.

Go for it.

So I'm going to share one which I think is pretty cool. So this was when. So I was living in China, she was in the uk, she wanted to do midwifery but she hadn't done the right A levels. So she had to go back to college to do a one year course in biology to get the right qualification in order to apply to do midwifery. And I was in China and working for Care for Children. And I actually didn't know if what I was doing with Care for Children was good for my career. And so I sort of wanted to test that out. And so I actually came back to the UK while Rachel was still at college to work for Holy Trinity Brompton in London. And I did a second. So Care for Children seconded me, right, for three months to work on their Youth Alpha program with someone called Jamie Haith. And that meant I could live in London. Rachel was at Kensington and Chelsea or Chelsea and Kensington College. So we were both in London at that time. And I was able to work with a totally different organization just to see if my skills, if my character were in any way transferable. And I wasn't locking myself into some sort of small NGO in China for the rest of my life.

Yeah.

And the good news was, yes, my skills were transferable and I, I knew I could just as easily work at HTB in London, that I couldn't care for children. So that settled that question. Whilst I was there, Rach was applying to university. You know, you have, through the UK system, you have five options and she didn't know where to go. And the odds were really tough getting into university. There are, the places were in high demand, lots of people were applying, but there weren't many places. And Rachel didn't know where in the country to go. And I suppose we were aware that wherever she, if she got in and where she got in would make quite a significant difference potentially to our future. So Rachel didn't know where to go and so she just said, God, just give me one, give me one place you make the decision. So she was getting all of her responses through the post and it was rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection. Four rejections. She had one less one left for the University of East anglia. There were 400 applicants for 14 places. I had been in London for three months and I was going back to China and it was difficult because we didn't know what our future was. I was going back to China, not knowing how long for, and I was leaving Rachel behind and she didn't know what her future looked like. So it was a bit of a difficult moment. So I packed my bags up and I said to Rachel, she was staying in a friend's apartment, friends of the family, but also people who went to Holy Trinity, Brompton, And I said, look, I'll come to you, you don't need to come to the airport with me because then for Rachel that's a long ride back on the Tube, back home, feeling pretty sorry for herself. So I said, I'll come to you, I'll say goodbye to, goodbye to you at yours and then I'll just take myself to the airport. So I did that, had my bags packed and we were in the apartment and the postman came and dropped the letter through the door and it was a big brown envelope and straight away both of us knew what that was. This was a letter to Rachel from the University of East Anglia confirming whether or not she'd got into this place. And Rachel said, no, I can't open it now, I can't face two rejections in one day. And I said, I can't get on a plane on a 12 hour flight all the way to China without knowing what's inside this letter. So she said, fine, you Open it. So we sat down together and we. I opened it and pulled it out and said, dear Rachel, congratulations. And I burst into tears, which is normally the case, I think. She held herself together and. But it was incredible because in that moment, suddenly we knew what our future was. Rachel was going to University of East Anglia in Norwich. I go back to China to finish things up. To move to Norwich.

Yeah.

And it was incredible how in a moment suddenly your future came together. What a moment. Literally the day I was flying to China so I could go, I could fly back to China with this, with this news in my heart, you know, and I could start plotting things out. And that made that goodbye so much easier. Suddenly things looked good. And so, you know, Rachel and I have been on this incredible journey together and we, you know, we've traveled to China. Sorry, to Thailand. We started our family in Thailand and then we continued over to Vietnam. Still working for care for children this whole time. Now returned back to the uk and so we've done a lot together and we've gone through a lot in terms of significant life changes, experiencing different cultures. And so we're very married in that sense. It may sound a strange thing to say, but, you know, we really are sort of, you know, no one else can really relate to us, interestingly. So if you might find this interesting, Rachel actually went to boarding school.

Oh, did she?

In the uk?

Oh, wow.

When I got to know Rachel, that was one of the things that really sort of I found helpful. So I didn't have to explain that to her. She kind of, she got it and I got her. We're both graduates of a boarding school. Yeah. At the time that was important to me. It's not a big deal now, but at the time I just, it was almost like a sense of relief.

Yeah.

Like, okay, you, you get that. It's kind of cool that we have this shared history. So that was something that drew us closer together as well. God knows all these things.

Yeah, that, that's, that's actually a huge blessing, isn't it? To be. To feel like you're really being understood by someone. Yeah, that's. That's huge. God is good.

Yeah.

Thanks for sharing that. Thomas. One of the things that when we were having our pre call, one of the things that stood out to me about your journey is your conviction about the six day creation. So if you don't mind, I'd love for you to tell me a bit more about that. What led you to that belief, how it's impacted your faith so on and so forth.

I've not really given it much, much thought. I remember as a kid watching a TV program, I think it was Blue Peter and this was while I was living in the uk, so I must have been about. This is when I was watching tv. Yeah, yeah. I could talk about my Blue Peter sort of experience as an 8 or 9 year old. And I remember there was this, I don't know, some skit or song on the TV and it was all about monkeys coming down from the trees. I remember at the time thinking, I don't know if that's right, I don't know if I agree with that. And I knew there was probably some sort of theological conflict there, but I didn't have the knowledge to. But it's interesting how some things stick in your memory.

Yeah.

And that did. And then it wasn't too much later in my early, maybe mid-20s, mid to late 20s. And a particular friend of mine who's a, who's a doctor, very intelligent, very, very good theologically, you know, he, when he preaches, he just is incredible. He reads the Bible, he reads what he needs to read and then he gets up and preaches for 40 minutes with barely looking at his notes. It's just, I have to read almost word for word what I prepared. He just gets up, he has it all in his brain. He's incredible. Anyway, he had a really, this quite strong conviction about six day creationism. So this is really taking Genesis literally and the creation account literally.

Yeah.

And I found it just really fascinating and I'd not really given it that much thought myself, but as I did begin to give it some thought and read some material, I really became convinced that this is theologically correct, this is how we should understand creation. And it's superbly tied to the Gospel. If you read Romans 5 where it talks about sin came through one man and then through one man death is conquered. You know, you've got Adam as one man and you've got Jesus as one man. And when you start to look at, through, through the, through the Bible, the clearest way to understand Genesis is through a literal sense. And when you start treating it as poetry or symbolic, you start to get yourself into models, frankly into theological models. And, and that's, that's where the problems become interestingly. And I'm actually of the opinion now that it's, it's evolution that is this incredible fantasy. It's not the creation account. The creation account is factual and historical. It's evolution that's fantasy. And when you, when you start to see it. You know, when your sort of eyes are open to it, it becomes obvious. And I'm not going to give you the sort of the full argument. I'm probably not prepared enough at the minute to do that anyway. But it's based on this idea of universalism where you, where you. With Darwinism, the key to the present is the past. And so you believe that things were always as they were and that's how you determine how things are now. But again, when you start to look at the Bible historically and factually, you've got the Great flood. And that was a global event that completely changed the world as we know it. Prior to it, people were living to, you know, 900 years old, a very different atmosphere and the world totally changed things. And so when you start to look at the geological makeup of our, of our world, you begin to realize this looks like some sort of massive flood has created all these layers. You know the also darw Evolution and Darwinism was very much a theory that was designed to take God out of science. And this is actually documented by someone called Charles Lyell who was the precursor to Darwin. And he attempted to study the age of the world through the rocks and through fairly crude experiments. Like if there was a waterfall flowing and he was sort of calculate how much the water has eroded through the rock and how long that's taken and how long the world must be. And it went from millions of world millions of years to hundreds of millions of years now to billions of years. Evolution has to keep getting longer. Time is their God actually in evolution they are completely reliant on time and it keeps getting longer and longer and longer because, because these theories require much more time. But you know, lots of people have had very good debates on this issue and can debate this issue much better than me either side. The one debate that I did love I just thought was brilliant and actually really helped me When I watched this I thought yeah, that is fantastic. I'll tell you why it's called the. Oh I think it's called. I think if you google the big debate Liverpool Cathedral, okay by two guys called John Mackay and John Polkinhorn. Now John Polkinghorne is a reverend in the Church of England and also a very well established scientist I think works for Oxford or Cambridge University. And then John Mackay is a geologist and scientist who goes around the world debating six day creationism. So here you had the minister, the Church of England that was debating for evolution and you had this scientist whose profession was a scientist debating for six day Creationism, really interesting. Yeah. And his John Mackay, the scientist debating for six day creationism, basically he was saying that how evolution is incompatible with the gospel. And he takes you through that. It's a really, really good debate and I would highly. It's actually quite old now, I think it was done in 2000, but it's just brilliant. And I really recommend even the questions and answers afterwards. Really, really good debate if you want an intro into that. And I couldn't, I couldn't debate it any better than John Kylus. I'll tell you what it did for me though in terms of my faith and my outlook on life and it was, it created in me a sense of urgency about mission. Because if the world is only approximately 6,000 years old, then the sense that Jesus is coming back soon, you have as much shorter timeline to sort of work with and you're like, we gotta be on mission to the world here because, because time is short. When you look at mission through millions if not billions of years, I just find all that drops. Yeah, maybe may well be another million years before anything, anything changes. And it's sort of, you lose this sense of urgency about mission. And what it did to me was stir in me a sense of sense of mission. Like we have to live our lives on mission because time is short. And I appreciate the time frame. I suppose that a six day creationism puts us in. It just feels like the work needs to be done now and that has I suppose guided a lot of decisions I've made.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's really interesting. Thanks for sharing that. I have like taking, you know, you were talking earlier about whether we believe in the Bible literally or not or whatever. For me it's very much looking at it literally and you look at the eschatology and where we're heading and what's going to happen. But I really appreciate what you're saying because I've never thought about it in that sense. Like yes, I believe in six days of creation, but I've never thought about it with that time constraint on it like that. That's really interesting. Yeah, makes so much sense. What do you think is at stake for not believing in say the six day creation or even just taking the Bible literally?

I think it's just a slow unraveling of the authority of Scripture. I think once you, once you cross that line, once you say, you know what I think actually Genesis is allegorical, it's symbolic. Where do you stop with that thought? Where do you stop with that? And honestly I see everywhere now And I don't want to pick on the Church of England because it's a very broad church and there are very faithful men and women in the Church of England. But I can see how even some pretty senior areas of the Church of England, that there's a real neglect of the authority of Scripture and this sort of succumbing to the power of the culture around us at the moment. And I think it's such a shame. So I think that's the danger and actually that is the problem. I think we're much better at understanding the Bible literally, but also understanding what you can take literally and what you shouldn't take literally. It just takes a very mature, very academic and spirit led, deep understanding Scripture to receive it as literal. And I think it should encourage us to get to know the Bible better and to study it well, study it well against the reality around us as well. Like if the amount of time and effort and funds were in the scientific world were spent taking the Bible at its word, I think we'd solve a lot of scientific problems that we have in our world at the moment. Instead, they're putting it into anything but God, actually anything but the Bible. And therefore you're just going down these kind of, in my opinion, a lot of rabbit holes. So now I know some people would come back at me on that and that's fine. You know, it's a good, robust debate to be had.

Yeah.

But that's what I, my concern is that the authority of Scripture is what's at risk.

That's a very good observation. I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right. Because once you start going down the allegorical route, you just, everything has to kind of, you have to interpret the rest of the Bible to fit your narrative. Right. And you can end up somewhere completely. Well, you do, you end up completely different place. And Thomas, you're, you're also a church leader, aren't you? So have you ever had to deal with these kinds of things within a, within a church setting, these kinds of theological shifts?

Yeah, so I've just become a church elder and it's last. No, not this Sunday, just gone. Sunday before was our official appointment as elders. We've been in sort of like an engagement period, if you like a trial, a candidate, probably the best word to put elder candidates for about a year. And this was an interesting transition in the church's history because we've gone from an, a frame structure where you had one guy leaving the church, but he recognized that wasn't the Best biblical model, that it should be a plurality of elders, a plurality of eldership, and put into motion that change. And it was actually a long, long process. It was probably 10 years, if not more, with a few false starts. And eventually we've got this group of guys now, six of us in total, two staff elders, four lay elders, and we are there to lead the church and shepherd the church. As of yet, no, I have not had to personally deal in this position with some sort of very serious theological difference. We're actually quite a broad church in that sense. So there are a variety of theological opinions on things. And I suppose you learn about what things you have to hold on to and say are non negotiable. Things you hold with an open hand and say, well, let's talk about this.

Yeah.

And you can agree to disagree. Well, so certainly as a church you have non negotiables. One of the things that, one of the reasons we joined this church, Rachel and I, was it has a particular style of teaching which I would say it is a distinctive of the church and it's called expository style. So we really pick a book of the Bible and then go verse by verse through that whole Bible. And it could take six months or best part of the year, depending on how the book is. But that was new to me and Rach and most churches we'd been part of topical lead. So you, you know, you could pick a theme maybe and maybe two or three services taught around that theme.

Yeah.

And it's good as well. It's good. And you draw from all over scripture to sort of teach on that theme. But this was an interesting approach because it was, it was verse by verse. And you, you referenced scripture with scripture this way.

Yeah.

And you, there was no avoiding the difficult passages and you sort of had to go through it. And when Rachel and I joined 15 years ago now, we wanted that level of teaching in our lives. We were hungry for it, you know, and I think that you can feel yourself when you're, when you're a Christian, you can feel sometimes when you are hungry for the Word, you need to be fed. And I think we've been part of very different diverse church congregations for a long time. Servants church, they talk through the Bible verse by verse and often, you know, talked about 40 minutes, 15 minutes long. And there was a real passion for it. Now a church that built around that kind of structure can have its own flaws, can have its own restrictions which need to be worked on. No church is perfect. But we joined that church. We Appreciated that style. I've learned a lot through that. I am happy to lead a church that teaches the Bible in that way.

Yeah.

And I would say most people at the church that attend the church have chosen to be at the church because they want to learn the Bible that way as well. So there is at least a common desire to take the Bible at its word, to take the Bible seriously and to learn through it collectively.

Thomas, as you look back on your journey so far and you know what the Lord's been doing in your life, what is your one message or your one or one truth about God that you would, that you've been holding on to, that you would want to share with our listeners?

I think I have inadvertently recently thought about this because two weeks ago I taught at church for what we called our Student Sunday.

Okay.

So at this time of the year, we have these students from the University of East Anglia coming for the first time to our church. So we want to make sure they feel welcomed and feel cared for. Interestingly, one of the things the students recently said they valued about our church is that we don't actually have a specific student ministry. They just feel part of the church and we want to encourage that. We're a very family orientated church with loads of families, loads of kids. And so they like coming into that. They're, you know, they're at student things for, for the rest of their week. It's nice to come into that kind of atmosphere and I know, I appreciated that at church as well. And also what I wanted to sort of share with them was they're at this unique stage in their life, they're thinking about their career, making big life decisions, potentially meeting the person they're going to marry. Yeah. So, you know, how, what are you letting inform your decisions? How are you making these decisions? So I wanted them, I wanted to encourage them to live a life on mission and to think about how to do that. And I shared a couple of personal stories which I won't go into now, but the title of the talk was Jesus Manifesto A Life on Mission. And what I used was John chapter 4, verse 16 to 21. And it's when Jesus is returning back to his hometown in Nazareth for the first time since starting his ministry. And there's a bit of buzz and excitement because I think rumor had got around that Jesus, who was just a carpenter to them, was performing these miracles and you know, he's coming to Nazareth and people were excited. And he went to the, he went to the synagogue and he was handed Torah and he was handed Isaiah. And he opens it up and he reads, can I read it?

Yeah.

Is that okay? Yes, absolutely. The spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. He began by saying to them, today as you listen, this scripture has been fulfilled really powerful. And that little section is sort of known as Jesus Manifesto. And other parts of the Bible can be called Jesus Manifesto. You know, there's the Beatitudes and you know, the whole Gospel, I suppose. And interestingly, I've just been talking about expository style teaching. Every now and then we have a theme based talk and this was a theme based talk. So I was able to choose whatever scripture I wanted. This is where I felt the Lord lead me. And I wanted to do two things. I wanted to share that the world is broken and it's in a mess. We need to preach good news to the poor. We need to release the captives free. We need to recover the sight of the blind. We need to set free the oppressed. The oppressed can sometimes be also understood as broken. Yeah, and it's a needy world out there and people need this restoration. They need to be reconciled with God and otherwise they're just going to remain broken. And it actually doesn't matter what profession you choose. You can, you can apply it, you can apply your profession to do this. You can do it really professionally, like through medicine or international development work, or you can, you can be, you can choose just to be more of a preach the gospel on the streets, you know, kind of missionary. And I wanted to encourage them with that, but I also wanted to encourage them that whilst there is a broken and needy world, we also have broken and needy heads and hearts. And actually we minister to one another. And I shared a couple of stories that sort of related to that where I needed to be set free. I was being held captive by a wrong, wrong idea in my life just very, very quickly. My parents had grown up, were missionaries and lived by faith. So they never received a monthly salary, they never knew how much money they were going to have from one month to the next. And I, when I started working for Care for Children, I was thinking, I can't really be a real missionary. Because I've got a salary. And anyway, it took someone to give me a prophetic word in a prayer meeting to release me from that. And although they didn't know that I was struggling with that, the prophetic word they gave me instantly released me from it. I felt it, I knew straight away what that was about. And so I needed to be. I was captive to something that I needed to be released from. And it happened during a prayer meeting. And so God uses people to minister to people, to set them free, you know, and that's why we should gather together at church, why we should gather together at Christian unions, why we should come together as families and pray and look at the word and expect God to speak through us for the benefit of others, for the benefit of ministering to others. That's how God works. So God is on mission. God is a sovereign God, A sovereign God on mission. And we can choose to join him on that mission, both to the world and its great needs, but also to one another. Yeah, to release individuals. So there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a spiritual reality as well as a physical reality to this brokenness and this captivity. And I wanted that understanding to be there. So as these students are exploring their futures and their careers, they could think, well, how can I apply this Jesus Manifesto? You know, we live in quite a politically charged environment, don't we? So manifestos are quite common. We know what manifestos are from political parties. Well, this is what a beautiful manifesto this is from Jesus and how far reaching it is, as well as how internal, internally necessary it is as well. So that was the lesson I get. You can listen to it if you want. You can just search Servants Church, Norwich, probably on YouTube.

Add that to the show notes, there you go.

And you'll probably find it. It's called, I think it's called Jesus Manifesto A Life on Mission.

Cool. Thomas, thanks so much for sharing that. Your heart, you have a real, listening to you speak, you have a real tenderness towards the gospel and heart for Jesus. And actually you referred to your dad earlier on in the conversation about having this integrity to the, to the Bible, to the Gospel. And I, you know, listening to your story, I think it's just now part of your story as well, which is, which is really wonderful.

Yeah, well, yeah, so if you are a dad or if you're a mum, you know, the impact you can have on your children through your own beliefs and the way they are lived out is huge. So I encourage you in that.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. Really appreciate you being here and sharing your journey with us, your heart with us. For everyone listening, thank you so much for tuning in today. I hope Thomas's story has inspired you to seek God more intentionally as well, hold on to your convictions and to embrace the path that God has set you on. Thank you so much for joining us, Thomas. So that's bye from Thomas, bye from me, and we'll see you again soon.

And just like that, we have reached the end of another fascinating conversation. Now remember to check out Crowd Church at www.crowd.church. even if you might not see the point of church, you see, we are a digital church on a quest to discover how Jesus can help us live a more meaningful life. We are a community, a space to explore the Christian faith and a place where you can contribute and grow. And you are welcome at Crowd Church. Don't forget to subscribe to the what's the Story Podcast on your favorite podcast app because we've got a treasure trove of inspiring stories coming your way and we would basically hate for you to miss any of them. And just in case no one has told you yet today, remember, you are awesome. Yes, you are created awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear. What's the Story is a production of Crowd Church. A fantastic team including Anna Kettle, Saraf Bainon and Me Edmondson and Tanya Hutzilak work behind the scenes tirelessly to bring you all these fabulous stories. Our theme song is a creative work of Josh Edmondson, and if you're interested in the transcript or show notes, head over to our website what's the story podcast.com and whilst you're there, sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get all of this goodness delivered straight to your inbox. So that's it from all of us this week here at what's the Story. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world. We'll catch you next time. Bye for now.