Join the Journey: Supporting Dave's Ministry of Faithful Stories

Hi, my name is Andy Martin and

I'm Priscilla Colgan.

Now, these aren't the normal voices you're probably expecting to hear. I am Dave's minister and friend and.

I worked with Dave and we've been friends, we go back a long, long time.

Both Priscilla and I think have had the benefit of Dave's ministry as well as his friendship over a little time. For me particularly, my girls have thoroughly enjoyed for a while having Dave as their school chaplain.And we at church regularly have Dave involved in our kids ministry and our kids club. And it's great to see. I'm not sure I reckon Dave's sweet spot is that primary, upper primary age. Priscilla, what about you?

Yeah, well, I had the privilege of working with Dave in school chaplaincy, working in with primary students as well and really learning a lot from him in ministry and ministering to primary age children and also to high school age children. And we've got a bit of a different podcast today.

Yes. Yeah. You're probably wondering what we're doing here, really.Priscilla and I are here to try and persuade you to part with some of your hard earned cash in support of Dave and his podcasting ministry. So what we want to do is just for a few moments, we won't take long, but try and persuade you that this is really worth getting behind.Not just praying for Dave, but also thinking, could I give something towards this? So we're particularly thinking about Dave's stories of a faithful God and stories of a faithful God for kids.So, Priscilla, why do you think this is helpful and worth supporting?

Yeah, I'm a big fan of both of those podcasts and I have to admit that I listen to the kids ones alongside the adults ones often afterwards and I enjoy both of them a great deal. I've never been great at sitting down and reading the Bible all by myself.And so to have it turn up in my feed, in my playlist, to just go, hey, here's 40 minutes of Dave explaining the Bible to you, of turning your heart and your mind to God, of understanding a Bible passage that, you know, perhaps I hadn't not thought about for a long time. I really love it and I find it personally so encouraging.In my faith, there's so much distraction, there's so many podcasts that I follow and in terms of, you know, there's entertainment, there's true crime, there's literature, everything I listen to out of everything there is to offer, this is by far the most beneficial for my heart and for my soul, to turn my mind to The Lord to know him better and just to be refreshed in my spirit and in my faith. Yeah. And the kids ones I love, I find them really entertaining.Maybe it's because I've worked in ministry with children as well and I've enjoyed working with Dave in children's ministry. But I have to admit I enjoy them just as much as the ones for adults. How about you, Eddie? Yes.

Yeah, I think I started with the stories of a faithful God for kids.

Okay.

Because I was listening with my. She was probably 8, she's probably 9 at the time, my 9 year old daughter.And again, we loved listening to Dave, really just telling us stories of a faithful God. So reading the Bible to us but filling so much of in the details that we'd not known before.And I think I always learn something when I'm listening to stories of a faithful God and the kids one as well.Now I think another reason I love it is because I know that as followers of Jesus, as Christians, we want to be people who fill our minds and hearts with the Bible, don't we? God's Word. We love God's Word because we love God. And I listen to sermons, I read the Bible myself.This is another way of getting God's Word into me and into our kids as well. And it's a different, it's unique.I don't know of another podcast like these two really telling us, reading scripture to us, reading the Bible to us and filling in all those details, explaining it to us. Not just preaching, it's not preaching, but it's really. It teaches me lots. It shows me God and who he is.

I agree. And I think that's why I'm drawn to it more than I am to listening to other sermons as podcasts.I feel like it's like Dave sort of our travel guide where he's taking us along with him in the two of us and he's saying stop and look and just notice this here. You know, look at God working in this part of the story.But you're still going on that journey yourself and so you still get taken through the stories step by step, slow down to really soak in the scripture. And I agree. I think that's a unique thing that I certainly have not experienced that anywhere else.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it's quite precious.

Yeah, yeah.So there are some of the reasons we love and there may be more, Priscilla, but I guess we'd love you to think too about giving to support this ministry too, these podcasts. And perhaps one thing for us to be thinking about. We know that God says to give, particularly to gospel ministry is a real joy.And God urges us to do it because we've received so much from the Lord, we've been given so much, and now he urges us to give too. And we would love to encourage all of of you listening to think, okay, I want to give something towards this.I've received lots from the Lord himself, but also as I've listened to Dave's teaching and so on and these podcasts, how can I respond? By giving generously what God has given to me. So we'd love to encourage you to give to this and Andy.

Podcasts have such a wide reach around the world.

It's astonishing, really, in a way that we've not seen historically before. Dave's podcast, I think I've been listened to in round about 75 countries, which is astonishing, isn't it?It means that folk around the world, and perhaps maybe they don't have a very good church nearby, or there's no one teaching them the Bible, they can listen to Dave's podcast and get God's word into their minds and hearts in a way that will show them our faithful God. So, again, that massive reach of podcasting, it is really worth getting behind.

And it's freely available to anyone in the world who wants to listen to.

That's right, Yep. So I think Dave has no plans to sort of charge for people to listen to it. It is free. It's totally free.But therefore, those of us who can support Dave to continue to keep it free, that would be a brilliant thing.

Yeah, absolutely.

Priscilla, any other reasons to give to this or things you wanted to say?

No, I just really agree with what you said.I think what a privilege, what a joy to be able to say, yes, I will kick in to fund this ministry to free up Dave from having to do other work during the week because obviously, you know, everyone always, we all need to pay the bills, don't we?And so, yeah, I just would encourage people to step into that privilege and that joy to go, yes, I will give and I will support Dave in being able to keep making these stories of a faithful God podcast and prayerfully committing that to the Lord so that the podcast can do their job, to tell people about who their faithful God is.

Yeah.And we recognize that all of us have different commitments on our finances and we're sure that many of you will be wanting to give to your church and to other things too. But this is something that is also, alongside that really worth considering. And it doesn't matter where you're from.As many of you will know that Dave's podcast is being listened to in lots of different countries across the world. You can give, I think, from anywhere. And again, it doesn't matter how much.Some it might just be a few dollars or pounds a month, but some might be able to give more. And so really, the Lord loves a cheerful giver. And so we'd love you to think about what you might support Dave with.

And if someone wants to give Andy, how would they go about doing that?

Well, if you go online to faithfulgod.net you'll find links to Dave's podcast, Stories of a Faithful God and Stories of a Faithful God for Kids. And if you click on either of those, you will see somewhere along the top a button with donate on it.And if you click on that, follow the instructions and you'll be able to contribute towards Dave's ministry. And I think you can set up either a regular gift or a one off gift.And I know that either way, Dave would be thrilled to have your support and encouragement.

Yeah, it really is worthwhile. We do encourage you to consider whether you're able to support Dave and these fantastic podcasts.