Chick Yuill

Chick Yuill, author of the book Moving in the Right Circles, is passionate about effectively communicating the need for discipleship that impacts the people around us. In this interview recorded at the Festival of Praise at the Apollo Theatre in Manchester, Chick talks about the inspiration for his writing and speaking.

Hi, I'm Chick Yuill. My life kind of divides into two halves. Half of it I work for the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, heading up their Imagine Project, their Whole-life Discipleship Project here in the north west of England. And the other half of my life I work as a freelance speaker, and writer, and a little bit of broadcasting. And I have a great time.

Since I've been a little kid, I've always loved words. That's the one little bit of gifting that God has given me. So I've always loved words, I've always written. And it's always been an extension of my ministry.

I think there are two kinds of writers. There are some kind of writers who happen to speak. Other speakers and preachers who like to write as an extension of their speaking, preaching ministry.

And I think I fit into that second category of a preacher who sees writing as a tremendous opportunity to communicate the Word beyond the people who actually sit in the pews in front of you. So that's really what writing is for me.

What the World out there thinks, is that Christianity is irrelevant, it's boring, and it's dreary. And we've given them that impression. Where actually, discipleship, following Jesus, is the most incredibly exciting thing in all the world. So at the heart of it there is walking in the company of Jesus, living with Jesus, basing your life on his dying to self so that Jesus lives in you. So there's living,there's walking in the company of Jesus.

And then I wanted to talk about growing in the community of believers. Because there's a whole lot ofstuff around today. People saying, I want to be a follower of Jesus, but I've given up on the church. That's not an option.

When Jesus calls me to follow, he calls me into the family of God to be a brother and sister to every other Christian believer. To build them up, and to be built up by them. So I really wanted to emphasize the importance of the church.

I know how imperfect the church is. But I also know, it's God's great idea. And we're called to be part of the church. So that's the kind of second circle, growing in the community of believers.

And then one of the things that's worried me is there's a lot of churches who're wishing the 1950s would come back again. Well, the good news and the bad news is, the 1950s aren't coming back.

So the wider circle beyond the church are called engaging with the culture of the times. How do we live as followers of Jesus in today's world, confused and confusing as it is? How do we live Christianly? And how do we live intelligently so that we know when and where we can work with people of other faiths and where that's not appropriate? How do we live in such a way that we know when to declare the gospel in a forthright way and other times when we know how to go under the radar? So I wanted to say a whole lot about that, about engagingw ith the culture of the times.

And then the last big circle is looking to the coming of the King. Because I've read the last chapter of the Book. And guess what? We're on the winning side. Good will triumph over evil. Love will triumph over hate. Jesus Christ will come again and bring about a whole new creation.

So that gives us confidence to live for Jesus right now. So that seems to have caught people's imagination, that kind of approach to discipleship. And if it's got people thinking that discipleship is exciting, well,I'm quite pleased about that.