Welcome to all my YouTube Subscribers. My guest on Facing the Canon is Mark
Ritchie, a creative, compelling communicator. Mark Ritchie, welcome to Facing the Canon. It's great to be. It's great to have you Mark. We've known each other decades. Yes, a long time. A long, long time. Where do you originate from Mark? Just outside edinburgh in a place called
Musselburgh in Scotland, that's where i'm from. And tell us a little bit about your
journey of faith. My dad was a minister and I grew up in a Christian home and
I can really remember when I was 12 responding when my dad asked people to
come to the front to become a Christian. And the incredible thing is, I know a lot of
people's stories that get saved when they're young, they often rebel. But I never ever did, so when I was 12 I became a Christian and I've never ever strayed from that. I've always stuck to that path. I'll always remember that time when I was 12 becoming a Christian. Amazing, so can
you remember the details of that day? Yeah, I can because I can remember my dad preaching. Now I have a bit of a joke about my dad's preaching, because you know - he's my dad and I like a laugh, but you know on that day I can just remember him talking about the cross and what does the cross actually mean for your life. And even at 12 years old I was like, you know - that is the answer for me. And I went to the front and and I became a Christian. And I remember one of the things that the lady said when she counselled me at the end, she said "sometimes people do this a lot you know. They might do a few times to get kind of ..." and I remember thinking 'no, this is this is it for me, this is
it. I'm 12, I'm doing this. This is great.' I'll never look back and it's
the best decision I've ever made. 12 years old. And obviously that whole age range
is an important age to reach people isn't it. Because the older we get, the harder it it becomes to reach people. I really is. Years later you then went off to Bible College, and how long were you there for? So I was at Bible College for three years and I loved it, but I was also messing around and being a bit of a prankster, and doing lots of nonsense. But I do remember I went to Canada in the summer of Bible College between first and second year and I just encountered God in such a powerful way. I was looking after these young lads that basically had very disturbing, difficult home situations. I
was looking after these lads, I was only 21 and I just had this God moment of seeing - I want to do this for the rest of my life. I want to be able to minister to a generation. I want to be able to bring the hand of these young lads and the hand of God and bring them together. And that
was the moment for me in Canada. After college you got ordained as
an Assemblies of God minister. That's right yeah, and I went to work in Barnsley, Barnsley!
So i was this Scottish guy in Barnsley. For those around the world, that's in the
North of England. Yeah that's right, in Yorkshire. And I had such a great time. We got into schools and I just did these incredible assemblies and I really got the opportunity to speak to thousands of students in the schools. Just a little story. There
was one school - most of the schools in Barnsley they said 'listen, come in, you can have as long as you like to talk about Jesus, it's all good.' But there was this one school and they said 'you're allowed seven minutes and you cannot really talk too much about Jesus because of the rules.' And I was so frustrated and I remember crying out to God and being like 'this is unfair'.
But I used to go every week and do these seven-minute assemblies anyway. 20 years later I was in Newcastle, which is right in the North of England, and a lady came up to me and says 'Mark, I was a pupil in that school where you did the seven-minute assemblies. I left school and I went into prostitution and took drugs and my life just fell apart.
I was at an all-time low and someone took me to a church service. A man at the front was talking about the cross she says, but the thing is, I didn't hear the
man's words I was zoomed right back to this guy Mark Ritchie, a Scottish guy in an assembly talking about the cross. And she said 'I made a decision'. Snd now she's going on with God and her life's turned around. So for me, God can use anything you know. Seven minutes,
God can use it. But isn't it amazing how your dad preached about the cross and it
got through to you, and then you preached about the cross and got through today. Incredible.
Now, how would you describe yourself now? Of course, you're an evangelist but you're quite a unique type of an evangelist. So if somebody says 'Hey Mark, what do you do?' What do you say? So I would say I'm a communicator of the cross. That's what I love to say. I love every type and sense and way that I can communicate the message of the cross. And I love that story in the Bible where Jesus was speaking in a house and there were people all around the house, and the four friends brought their sick friend and they couldn't get through the door because there was too many people. And what they did is they went up onto the roof and they took the roof off yeah, and something that I love to say is 'we must take the roof off our thinking'. We must stop just doing it the same way. We must take the roof off our thinking to get this generation in front of Jesus and so I do lots of things. I do one-man theatre comedy shows. I do my stuff at the Edinburgh Fringe. I did some stuff at the comedy festival in Melbourne
in Australia so i'm doing these comedy shows that are like 55 minutes. People are laughing but I'm bringing this thread, this message on the cross. And then there's this moment where everyone's laughing
and then I start to talk about Jesus and i start to talk about the cross. And you can see people, they've laughed and they've opened themselves up, and now - wow - the message of the cross. And wonderfully, we're seeing so many people respond at a comedy show. The story of Jesus, I mean, it's divine
comedy. Yes, but you're reaching both the flock, fringe and beyond the fringe. Exactly, that's it exactly. Because people look, oh i'll go to that...' I mean you're a very funny guy anyway and both of us we love humour and Jesus was funny. Do
you agree, Mark, that people don't understand that, because Jewish humour, most of it
is humour by exaggeration. So, you know, before you take the speck out of someone else's eye, take the telegraph pole out of your own eye. It's that type of stuff - do you see the
humour when you read the gospels? And you know, sometimes, I got a really ugly letter from someone who basically said 'how can you think that you're gonna see people's lives changed when you're making them laugh'. But I'm like 'wow - you know, people start with the door shut and then as you make them laugh, the door begins to open to their heart. And that's what I admire massively about you. I mean, I do find you funny. And I can remember sitting in events and just thinking 'wow - that is masterful what you're doing.' Because everyone is opening up and people are like, if this man can make me laugh then maybe actually some of the truth that he's bringing is also good. And it's like you're able to get into their heart. And so for me, humour is a great way - I call it physi-holiness, physi-holiness. People love laughing and when I was young there used to be a song
called 'Why should the devil have all the good music?' Yes, and didn't Cliff Richard do a version of that? He did, but now I want to say 'why should the devil have all the good humour?' Why should the
comedy always be about debased things and about disgusting things? Why can't we laugh about things just like Jesus did, which are part of our everyday life? You know, when he told the story about the lost coin. Everyone's lost their keys. Everyone knows, but we're all laughing because we can all associate with that moment. Definitely. And sadly, so many comedians today, I mean, are vulgar, they're rude, they're obscene. And you don't need that in order to get a laugh from people. And I think the best comedians are the ones that just tell stories about life. Like, how do you put stuff in a dishwasher. I heard one comedian, I think he spent 20
minutes and it was hilarious. And in a similar way I've been to see you at the Edinburgh
Fringe and places, and you just tell stories. I mean, people love the stories. I told a
really daft story about my son putting a frog on a remote control speedboat and really in
actuality, that is all that happens in the story. But because you build it up and people are loving it, you know, and that's the great thing about a communicator is that he makes small things and suddenly - I'm really interested in that. You know, you're suddenly really interested in it - how does the dish work? You know, suddenly it gets you. There's that quote - 'how to make God laugh, tell him your future plans.' Do you do you think God laughs? Oh, he finds us hilarious, doesn't He? Because I always think of it like, when I was washing the car once and my little lad, he was only four or five and he's trying to help wash the car
and yet we both know that he's four he's not really helping that much,
and the dad's just chuckling away at the little lad. And that's exactly like ... I'm there thinking I'm doing such a great job and God's laughing, saying 'come on'.
But what was so funny though, I can imagine when your little boy was doing that, you were going 'well done, oh wow, oh wow, that is so good, so good'. I mean, he cleaned like two square inches, and then you go in and you tell your wife 'oh, he worked so hard and I couldn't have washed the car without
him'. In a similar way, that's a powerful analogy, where God does not dismiss our contribution. He's not going to say 'oh, don't help me'.
And in fact, we Christians are co-heirs but we're also co-workers. And God could do it, couldn't He, but He chooses to use us. Now some years
ago you felt inspired, burdened to do a very unique walk. And I can remember you actually came to my office to speak to me about it. Well, tell us about that vision of walking
in the UK. So, it came about because of 2011, there were the riots that happened and I was
just so devastated. I love Britain, I feel so passionate about Great Britain and and
I was just watching my country tear itself apart. The shops were getting raided and things
were getting burned and people were out on the streets fighting. I just cried out to God
and I felt God speak to me and say 'Mark, I want you to take the Cross over Britain' so I thought, okay the message of the Cross, that's great. But then as I prayed more, I really felt God say 'no, I want you to actually carry a cross'. I was just like 'oh no', and I hope this isn't going to
come over bad, but I was like 'I don't want to be one of those nutters, one of those slightly weird ... and so I was like 'oh Jesus, really?' and I really felt impacted
to do it. And so what we decided to do is, I walked with a cross from Brighton at the bottom of England, right up to Edinburgh in Scotland and then I got transported around to Wales, to
Wrexham in Wales, and I walked across to Hull. So I walked in the shape of a cross and it was 700 miles and it took me 70 days. The cross that I carried was a cylindrical
cross, where the idea that we had is that we wanted to, as we communicated the Gospel we asked people to write their sins on a post-it note, and then they rolled them up and they actually put them inside the cross. And honestly John, it was so moving, each night to see people weeping as they put these post-it notes into the cross. We saw 13,000 people put post-it notes in. And
one story, I know I've relayed it to you before, but we were actually walking near Manchester and Manchester is famous in Great Britain that it rains a lot, and it was absolutely chucking
it down. It was so wet, and we were there, and I was carrying this cross on my back. and I got to this pub and I was soaking and I remember I just put the cross in the corner, and I got to a table, and I just wanted some hot soup. And they brought me some hot soup and these two ladies at the pub they asked about the cross. I'm ashamed as an evangelist to tell you, I was wet, I was tired, I was on day 62, and I said to them 'listen ladies, it's a cross, people have been putting their
stuff in there, I just need to eat my soup.' You know, I was a little bit short with them.
I was eating this soup, I was trying to get dry, and the guy that was with me says 'Mark, look up'. And I looked across, and here are these two ladies and I get a bit choked up when I say it now, and they were standing there, and they didn't even get post-it notes. They got napkins off the table and one of them she had written something very deeply private, really horrible that she'd been involved in as a young woman, and she rolled it up into this napkins and she
actually put the napkin in the cross. And there she is in this pub, with tears rolling down her face. And I'm there, and I'm just like 'Jesus, I ...' The cross is such a powerful message. We get the privilege of communicating this wonderful story. We walked over, and I said 'ladies, I'm so
sorry, this is...' 'no, don't worry'. And this woman, she just says, 'you know, I wrote this down'. And
when she told me what it was, and we just prayed in that pub. We said 'God has forgiven
you, and the cleanliness of Jesus comes upon you'. And in that moment, I was just like, this
is the wonderful message of the Cross. And we saw so many miracles
and great stories and it took me 70 days. And I got to Hull at the end, and I was absolutely spent, I was so done. How many hours a day were you walking? Well, because some days we walked 32
miles, we would walk 32 miles and then we would do an event in the evening. And so, I was just up there, I was so tired a couple of times, I don't know if you've ever had this while speaking, and I felt myself outside my body, I was so tired. And I was like, man that is scary, I don't like that. And I was finishing my talk, people were responding, and then they would just bundle me into my room and I would just sleep. I was so tired, but at the very end of it,
as you know because I shared this with you, but I was so emotionally and spiritually and mentally spent, I was so done, I went through a very bleak season after that. But one of the
most powerful things I learned in that time was the wonderful discipline of speaking to your soul. And I learned about speaking to your soul. I actually did a podcast on it
called Soul Focus, and if you look up Soul Focus by Mark Ritchie everywhere you get a podcast. But I learned this thing that David ... David learned to speak to his soul. And he
would say 'why are you downcast oh my soul?' He questioned his emotions, he says 'why are you downcast? My hope is in the Lord'. And I learned to actually begin to speak to my soul. You walked more than a marathon every
day to keep it going. Did you aim to get it done in 70 days? Yeah, we wanted to ... this kind of idea - 70 days, 700 miles. We wanted to keep it nice and tidy. Did you always have a companion with you? Yeah, and we met you guys, which was so encouraging. In St. Albans, we came to see how you were doing. Yeah, and I loved that, it was such a boost. But I had a companion with me all the time and I had a team that were driving in case there was any kind of emergencies. We had one or two funny things happen. We had some people gather and join us,
which was fine, but we had just like a few people that gathered, and there was just one day they were walking with us, and I couldn't work out this couple. They seemed to know each other but also didn't know each other. So I said to my partner, my guy, I said to him 'you need to find out what the story is here'. So he kind of fell back and he started to chat to them. So I'm walking on with the cross, he caught up with me, and he says 'you are never going to believe this'. I said 'what is it?' 'They saw you on TV, on a christian channel. They're on a blind date, this is the first time they've met.' Can you imagine that? I was walking, saying 'this is not what this is for'. [LAUGHTER] Bonuses! Things you'd never expect.
Did you find any opposition as you were walking? Well, we did. And there was a part of London that we were walking through that, maybe the best way to describe it is that it would be a place
where other religions are worshipped quite openly. And so you had to be sensitive? We were being sensitive, we were walking through, but at one part a group of these men gathered
around me, and they started to ask about the cross. And they wanted to know, and I'll be honest
with you John, I was frightened. And what I did is, I had a group praying for me and as
they were talking to me, I was texting this group that were praying for me, and I was texting
the words 'I am scared', but what happened is because of the predictive text, and because I was there, it came up as 'I am sacred', I am sacred. But the thing is John, do you know what I felt? I thought, do you know what, God the sacred in the scared. Isn't that where we
often find God? In our biggest challenges, in our biggest fears, in our biggest moments. Often it's the sacred in the scared and in that moment, I wrote 'I am sacred'. I thought, do you know what? I am in this beautiful moment with God. My prayer team were praying and we were just able to calm things down and move on. And we just keep on praying, we keep on praying, that as we walk the cross through these kind of areas, that God will change these areas, and that the
message of Christianity will come through. So over the years then, Mark, you've seen many people's lives transformed. Yes, I mean most exciting, I was at the NEC in
Birmingham a few years ago, and I really was praying and believing for lots of people. and I remember there was 1,300 people made a first-time response to God, and I mean,
I know I'm speaking to ... you're you're such a great evangelist, but I know you've seen hundreds, thousands, but that moment where you see 12-year-old girls and 50-year-old men absolutely weeping as they're responding to the powerful message of the Cross, it is so humbling isn't it. People think 'oh you must have walked out there ...' No, no, no. You're humbled by it. So humbling. So amongst many of the messages, you've already mentioned it and highlighted
it several times, you keep coming back to the Cross. Go on, explain the Cross to us.
I'm Scottish right, and I think that the the Cross is like this. Imagine a beautiful Scottish castle, and it's cold and wet outside, and you'd
love to get in there. You can see the lights on in the castle and you can smell the food, but there's a huge big trench around the castle and you can't get to it. And however much you would like to get in you can't go under it, you can't go ... you can't get in there. You know there's a welcome in that castle for you, but you're out in the cold. You are out in the cold. But then what happens; the drawbridge comes down and you're able to come over the drawbridge into the welcoming arms. And for me, that is the message of the Cross. God is warmth, He's got a celebration for us, He's got the best life for us, He's got peace and destiny and hope. And we can't get in, we've messed up, we're out in the cold. All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God. But what does God do? He sends Jesus on the Cross, and the Cross is the drawbridge that comes down, Jesus came down from heaven, he would
come low, low down so that we could actually come through the Cross, through the drawbridge, into the arms of God. How amazing that God's Son would make himself the floor, the ground, the dirt that we were able to walk over into the arms of God. He humbled himself to become the drawbridge and that we can come through the drawbridge into the arms of God. How grateful are we to Jesus. How honouring that Jesus would do this. And we can be welcomed into God's arms and enjoy the feast. That is such a beautiful picture. That drawbridge, as you said it I could almost see it coming down, coming down, so that we can go across it. Mark, for anyone watching this
programme today who hasn't crossed that that bridge, hasn't walked in, could you pray for our
viewers to receive Jesus Christ? Please do. Perhaps you're watching this and you feel out in the cold; you've never made that commitment. Why don't you just pray this prayer right now? This
is the prayer: Dear God, thank you for sending Jesus. I'm sorry about my stuff, about my rubbish,
my sin. And I come now through the Cross into your arms, God. Thank you for your forgiveness. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. If you prayed that prayer, God has answered it in Jesus, by his Holy
Spirit. And we want to announce and pronounce his forgiveness over you, and may you know his peace and his presence and his protection as you continue to follow Jesus, amen. Mark, thank you so much. What about the future, Mark? How do you see the future at the moment
or in these interesting times? Yeah, well I think two things. I think I'm gonna continue
doing the comedy shows, and I think I'm also excited about some podcasts that I'm doing with different people. Talking to them about my soul and how I can speak to my soul. And so I've got those things going on and yeah we're just saying 'God, what does the new normal look like?' and we're flexible and ready and we just want to get that Gospel to as many people as we possibly can.
And you've recently introduced on your podcast my friend Christine Caine? Yeah, yeah, I'm so excited about this because we were talking about Soul Focus and about speaking to our soul and I've heard Christine say some great things on that so I was excited to get the chance ...
Mark, thank you so much for joining us on Facing the Canon. A delight, always, to see you and thank you for being on the programme. Thank you. Well, wasn't that inspiring.
Truly inspiring and very moving and challenging. It's great to hear again how Mark responded to God's call to walk up and down, south to north, east to west and to
symbolically place and position the Cross in the United Kingdom. Well, it's the
Cross of Jesus we need to cling on to and that message came through really loud and clear today. And we thank Mark and we thank God for Mark. I hope this has inspired you. Thank you for joining us on Facing the Canon and please join us again.
