events

Yesterday I delivered my Celebrity Culture and Human Trafficking conference to about 100 sixth formers in a school in Doncaster. I was delighted with how it went. I had a great conversation with a teacher who taught Classical Civilisation. I told her some rat stories, the Glenn Hoddle routine and we had a very enjoyable chat about the difference between Hindu teaching and the biblical hope in the resurrection of the body. She told me that she would really enjoy hearing my talk but she had to go and teach a class.

I was very pleased with how the RealityBites sixth form conference went down yesterday at Emmanuel College in Gateshead. There were about 150 students from two schools present and for the first time I presented two RealityBites talks. I spoke about Celebrity Culture, Human Trafficking and Responsible Citizenship before lunch and then I delivered the Mafia, British Values and Evil talk after lunch.

I am really looking forward to working with vicar Guy Donegan-Cross and the congregation at St Mark's, Harrogate next month. We will be exploring how to integrate Christian faith with our daily work and the church has asked RealityBites to craft some sermons on the topic. Fantastic!

I was thrilled to get this feedback to one of our lectures at the ITEC conference in Melbourne, Australia.

Hello Mark,

We met at the end of the ITEC conference. I spoke to you to thank you for your 'Cannibalism, Faith in Progress and 20th Century Mass Murder' talk at the conference. You asked me to make contact via email – hence this email!

This June RealityBites director, Mark Roques, was invited to deliver his workshop on Celebrity Culture, Human Trafficking and Christian Faith in a mission week at Notre Dame Catholic Sixth Form College in Leeds.

Mark delivered four one hour lessons to about 100 sixth formers and the feedback from both staff and pupils was excellent. One teacher opined – "this is 'spot on' and exactly what these young people need to hear". Peter Smith, the Head of Philosophy, Theology and Ethics said that the lectures had been "fantastic’"

Why is talking about faith often awkward and filled with clichés? Why do our conversations about faith rarely grip people and intrigue them?

Mark Roques has spent his life tackling this issue and is convinced that our evangelism can be transformed if we 'do an Apostle Paul' and learn to understand and engage with the beliefs that shape our world.

In this course Mark will move us step by step through the world of religious and secular beliefs, equipping us to talk about the Christian faith in a way that is both engaging and insightful.

Thanks so much to the Light Church in Bradford which invited me to speak about Celebrity Culture, Discipleship and Evangelism at their Café Theology. Gareth Jones was a superb Master of Ceremonies. I love working with 'Taffy'. About fifty people attended and we got some great feedback.

In the past few weeks, RealityBites director Mark Roques has partnered with Whistling Frog Productions (Bradford) and St George's church in Leeds to bring RB stories and teaching to thousands of people in West Yorkshire.

On Christmas day Mark delivered six football monologues on the Pulse of West Yorkshire radio station to approximately 136,000 listeners! He told the story of Jesus' birth through the lens of five football fans from England, France, Germany, Spain and Russia. There was a clear gospel challenge to follow Jesus and not Herod! Feedback has been excellent.

I was talking about James Bond, rat worship, trafficking and God and this former member of the National Front, I mean the NF, came up to me! He told me he thought my talk was brilliant but he thought it very political and unlike any talk he had heard in church. What's that all about?

A quick plug for Mark's new LifeMatters course...

"Ideas Have Legs!" will explore the key ideas of the great philosophers and how we can look at them with a Christian worldview. It'll be philosophy like you've never heard it before: an earthy, blood-and-guts investigation into some of the big ideas and idolatries that have shaped our world, from Plato to Rorty.

It's not just about ideas and theories: there'll be examples of real-life situations transformed by good or bad philosophy, with guest speakers… and there'll be pirates, and crocodiles…