Jason Roach is a pastor and former medical doctor from South London, and his new book, Swipe Up: A Better Way to do Love, Sex and Relationships has just released. He kindly took the time to answer some questions about the vision behind the book…

– Jason, in Swipe Up, you describe how in many ways we’re all on a search for the “exhilarating, terrifying waves of intimacy”. Can you give us a snapshot of what led you to write this book?

A couple of years ago now, I picked up a copy of a book called A Better Story: God, Sex and Human Flourishing, written by Professor Glynn Harrison, a Professor of Psychiatry in Bristol. I was blown away by it. It was really honest about how powerful the stories our culture tells about sex are. Rather than merely writing them off, he dug into how they tapped into something God given. I wanted to unpack this in a way that I would have appreciated when I was discovering Christ but also trying to navigate relationships too. So something shorter, that was strong on showing that it understood the kind of emotional rollercoaster the struggle for intimacy can put us on.

– You mentioned how you were inspired by Glynn Harrison’s book, and Glynn has obviously enjoyed reading Swipe Up, writing the foreword. In it he says this is a ‘big book’ because it’s ‘real’. Who is this book aimed at, and what are you hoping for from it?

I really do hope people in all kind of different situations would read it and be refreshed by it. If there was one group I would pray in particular would read it, it would be Christians who want to follow the bible’s teachings about sex but struggle to either understand it or to be excited by it. I hope that this book starts to show that God’s way is actually good news.

– It can be easy for Christians to feel on the back-foot when it comes to explaining what the Bible teaches about relationships. How can we change that?

Three things. First take time to listen. Truth is, if in today’s culture we’re anywhere near someone being willing to engage with us on our views about sex, we are in a privileged place. We should cherish and respect that. I’ve found that taking time to understand where people are coming from dispels a lot of misunderstandings about how they might expect me to react. Secondly, be passionate about God. God is love, He invented sex and He did it to point us to the being in the universe who can give us the most pleasure. This isn’t necessarily where people want to start, but I’d prefer someone left a conversation frustrated that I was so excited about God than frustrated that I didn’t seem to care what they thought! Thirdly, agreeing that we want to be who we are. It’s just that our most basic reality is being made in the image of God, so to reflect what he is like. I go into this more in the book.

– In what ways do you think the church has misrepresented God’s vision for sex and relationships?

One of the big weaknesses has sometimes been a neglect of single people. By neglect I mean that their singleness is not celebrated or supported. Some women came into our church the other day and spontaneously offered to pray for some of us. They quickly started praying for our wives or the wives that God had in store for us! Jesus and Paul were single, and yet the culture of our churches at so many levels often makes it seem like being single is stage to pass through as quickly as possible. We also need to highlight and nurture friendship so that celebrate again the range of relationships God gives us to enjoy as we travel on the journey of life.

– How might the message of Swipe Up help us as we think evangelistically about engaging our neighbours and the culture around us with the gospel?

A few weeks ago I gave the book to someone in the office that I happened to be working in and asked them if they would read it and tell me what they thought. I actually had assumed that they were a practising Christian but after they had read it, they told me they weren’t. But they loved reading the book! So give copies away! I hope that it helps us both have language that makes it easier to explain what we believe about sex but also a way of approaching conversations that is both humble and more focused on the bigger Christian story that makes sex makes sense.

– You’re involved in leading and pastoring a church. How would you recommend churches engage with these issues? Any wisdom for those in pastoral ministry on helping people in this area?

Over the years it’s become increasingly clear to me that to not teach on something is effectively to say “it’s best if my congregation simply agree with what the world says this issue.” Not only do they not hear what the bible says, but get all kinds of distorted views of what Christians think too. When your bread and butter is working through books of the bible in preaching series this takes a lot of intentionality. So teach more on it. I’ve found midweek groups are a great setting because it allows for qualifications and questions that are so important. It’s also a real opportunity to interact with popular culture to show just how common the influences of the sexual revolution are.

If you have parents who read with their children, encourage them to start doing that around these issues sooner than they think. Again, when we don’t do this we are essentially saying “I’ll let the playground and the playstation be their teachers.”

You can pick up a copy of Swipe Up from the publisher here.

Why buy this rather than the latest ‘The Only Kids Worship Album You’ll Need EVER (volume 105)’? Well, if you’ve got the cash, buy both, but if you’re having to choose, ‘Mission to Dendros’ offers not only kids worship songs, but also songs that deal with subjects that perhaps traditional kids songs don’t. I’m a big believer in using songs to disciple children and to do that effectively we’ve not only got to sing about the big bible themes, but also how the gospel impacts the nitty gritty of life. So there are songs dealing with worry, sadness and loss, as well as those big bopping bouncy bible theme songs that underpin it all. And there’s Mr Grumpy. And lots of jokes.

You’ve worked on some significant albums and tours that are for ‘grown-up’s. How did you get into writing and performing for children and families – and what’s kept you going?

I’ve always loved working with children and in fact ‘Inspector Smart’ (who’s on the first couple of family albums) was a creation of my 17 year old self. It really got going though in 2013 when I ran a Bible holiday club and wrote a few songs, as well as developing the Inspector Smart character. From there we wrote a whole album, and then another… and another… and now another! Over the years I’ve grown the team involved so I now co-write with Tim Chester. James Cary (BBC comedy writer) has come on board to write the drama side of things and we’ve even got a 14x Grammy Award winner playing banjo! (Ron Block, if you’re wondering)

The songs keep on coming because my kids still need discipling! (I have 3 children) Many of my songs come from discipleship moments with my kids, or my own heart. Songs stick, so I write songs to help embed the truths we need to learn in those moments. I love sharing those songs with others as they seem to help other families in their discipleship.

How as parents can we use song in our family’s discipleship?

Get to know the songs your kids are listening to and get to know your kids! (I’m guessing the second part is already well under way) Before I started writing family songs our kids listened to a lot of Colin Buchanan and there were many moments where we were talking through issues and we’d say ‘remember that song by Colin? That’s about this…’ Now I write songs to make sure we can have many more of those moments.

One of my favourite moments didn’t actually involve me in the discipling. My eldest was worrying (again) but this time about her own sin. My wife was sitting with her, listening, talking, praying. Then my 5 year old toddled in and whispered to his mum ‘tell her – as far as the east is from the west…’ (a line from one of my new songs as well as Psalm 103:12!)

And that’s how it’s done. Help kids make a connection between the truths that have been embedded in their hearts through song and their everyday lives and struggles.

You’ve said you have a ‘passion for dealing with the difficult things of life for kids’. Can you unpack that and show what that looks like in your music?

It looks like (or sounds like) finding out what are the particular struggles of kids, seeing how the Bible speaks to those struggles and then singing about it! The thing is, when you start to do this, you realise the things kids struggle with are the things that adults struggle with. The difference is that kids often don’t have the words to articulate and therefore understand their struggles, whereas adults are better at hiding their struggles.

Songs are helpful here because they help expose what’s really going on underneath (and so they keep adults honest) and they give us the words needed to help understand and deal with those struggles. I think that’s what the Psalms do. David lets us into some really personal issues in his life. In doing so he invites us on the journey he has travelled – one that starts with honest examination of the heart, through to repentance and finding the only place of safety, in the hands of the true King.

That’s what I want to do with my songs. I want to be honest and real about the struggles of life that kids go through too (using language and ideas that they can relate to). I want to invite them to see their own issues and take them to the foot of the Saviour where they can find life and rest.

Tell us about your Family Show. What does it involve, who is it aimed at and how would a church go about exploring bringing it to their area?

The Family Shows are about 1 hour and full of songs, fun and Jesus. We go on an adventure discovering more about the wonderful gospel. Along the way we meet some crazy characters like the absent minded Archibald the Explorer and the ever-grouchy Mr Grumpy. People often ask what age-group it’s for and I say 0-99 – as long as you’re willing to have fun there’s something for everyone. In fact there was a lady in her 90’s at a recent show and she came over to say how pleased she was that she came! One thing I’m keen to do is make it engaging for the adults who bring the kids too. So there are jokes and musical genres that they’ll appreciate too. And everyone gets to hear about Jesus – so win-win!

If people would like to book a show they can get in touch via my website michaeljtinker.com/contact and I’d love to chat about making it happen!

If people want to order they can go to michaeljtinker.com/shop. It’ll be available on iTunes etc, but obviously through the website is best!!

Tim Chester is a pastor at Grace Church, Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire. He is also a faculty member of Crosslands Training; and is the author of over 30 books, a number of which have been really significant in my own formation: Total Church, Everyday Church, You Can Change… When I heard about the vision behind Tim’s new book, Enjoying God, I was really keen to hear more…

– Tim, you’re probably one of the most prolific British Christian authors around. And yet I’ve heard you say this particular book might be your most important. Can you tell us a bit about Enjoying God – and why you feel that way about it?

Well, the word ‘might’ is significant because it’s not really for me to judge. But I hope the book says something fresh that can really make a different to our relationship with God. We talk a lot about enjoying God. If someone is struggling with temptation or bitterness or longing or emptiness then we call them to find joy in Christ. Rightly so. But what are we do to do with this exhortation? It makes a fine climax to a sermon, but what I am supposed to do next? Is joy an act of the will or even an act of make believe? What I’m trying do in the book is help Christians have a strong sense of living in relationship with God in the everyday stuff of life. The central ideas are not novel. To be honest, I’ve nicked them from the Puritan John Owen. But they’re not often talked about today and think they have the potential to make a powerful difference in people’s lives.

– Bible-believing Christians will often say that the gospel has brought us into a ‘right relationship with God’ – and yet you point out that we’re not very good at talking about what that relationship looks like in everyday life. Why do you think that is?

The central idea of the book is that a vital step in enjoying God is to think about how God the Father is relating to us and how we can respond, how the Son is relating to us and how we can respond, and how the Spirit is relating to us and how we can respond. This is what the book then tries to do. The reason this is important is because it’s hard to relate to God as a generic entity. Christian theology has always said we can’t know God’s essence. As it happens, I’m writing this in Hong Kong airport on my way home from a conference in Australia. On the plane I’ve been reading a book on the attributes of God in which lines up a series of theologians across the centuries who are all making precisely this point. We have nothing in our experience that enables us to have any sense of the ‘godness’ of God. But – here’s the good news – we can know the persons of God. The Father, Sons and Spirit exist in an personal relationship of joy and in Christ we are able to enjoy that relationship by relating to the persons of God. This is Owen’s big idea in his book Communion with God. It’s heavy duty theology, but it cashes out in a very simple principle: think about how the Father, Son and Spirit are each relating to you and how you can respond. That’s a long-winded way of answering your question. What it boils down to is people find it hard to relate to God when they’re relating to him as a generic entity – a being beyond comprehension.

– In Enjoying God, you underline the importance of relating to God as Father, Son, and Spirit – rather than just ‘God’. How do we know ‘who to relate to when’ – and what might you say to someone who is who feels this is ’splitting up’ the Triune God? 

Good question. Having just stressed the three-ness of God, let me now stress the one-ness of God. The three persons are one being so to relate to one is to relate to them all. In other words, as soon as you think about relating to the Father you inevitably start thinking about how we relate to the Father because we are ‘in’ the Son. That means our experience of God is the experience of the Son – that is, the love of a Father. Moreover, God sent the Spirit to enable us to cry ‘Abba, Father’. As a result, the objective reality of being a child of God becomes a subjective experience in our lives. All this means that by thinking about their distinctive roles, you find yourself actually connecting with the one triune God.

– At the end of each chapter, you include an ‘action point’, as well as ‘discussion questions’. It struck me that Christian books will often have discussion questions – but what made you include an ‘action point’?

It’s something I did in my book You Can Change and many people have told me how helpful they found it. I really, really want Enjoying God to help people see how God is at work in their lives day by day in all the nitty gritty of life. When many people think about experiencing God they think of an emotional experience in corporate worship or perhaps hearing God speak in some way a voice. Often people don’t really experience either these very much and so God feels rather distant to them. What I want to show people is that the triune God is intimately at work in our lives in many different ways all the time. Our experience of God is much bigger and richer and fuller than those kind of moments. I want to use the Scriptures to open the eyes of our faith to see God’s involvement in our daily lives.

– You say that one of the principles underlying your book is understanding the difference between our union with God and our communion with God. Can you unpack this further and show us why we need to understand both?

Again, this is something John Owen says. I don’t want to get hung up on the terminology, but the distinction is really important. Union with God in Christ is all God’s work from start to finish. That means our relationship with God is something we not achieve, nor something we can ruin. It’s all of grace. This is the foundation of our relationship with God. Communion with God describes the two-way relationship into which we’ve been saved. What we do really does make a difference to our experience of God. This gives us a great incentive to see God at work, listen for his voice in his word and pursue him in prayer. But all the time we have the great assurance that our relationship rests secure on his grace.

– I’ve heard a few people say recently that in our post-Christian culture the church needs to have a ‘thick’ spirituality that embodies our faith. How important is it that Christians in a post-Christian society are actively ‘enjoying God’?

Well I’m not sure how to quantify the importance. What units of measurement did you have in mind? But I do think it’s important. It’s important for us if we’re to survive in the face of increasing hostility and scepticism. And it’s important of the watching world. People often don’t want to engage at the level of what is true. But they are looking for something. Our culture is, as the philosopher Charles Taylor says, still haunted by transcendence. A deep sense of the triune God’s involvement in our lives, together with the joy this brings, has the potential to be a powerful apologetic for the gospel.

You can download the first chapter of Enjoying God for free here, or pick up a copy of the book from the publisher here.