I'm here with my first guest today, my dear friend Andy Godfrey. Andy, hello. Hi Andy, it's great to be here, great to be with you. Thanks for having me. So, you are wearing a couple of hats today because not only do you wear a assorted magazine, but you also represent Irish, Irish, or Kate, which we'll do another time. And also, I believe there's something to do with a book that might have been published just recently. Let's start there, shall we? Yeah, let's start there. For 40 years, I've been dreaming of writing a book that combines my passion for movies with my passion for Jesus. And finally, it's come out after 40 years. So, the book is called Confessions of a Christian Film Critic. It's a look at different genres of movies and what they have to say about the Christian faith. So, hopefully it's entertaining, hopefully it's fun, hopefully it's educational, hopefully it's challenging. That's the idea. Cool, and that's available on Amazon. We've got a newsletter coming out at the end of the month. If you wanna link to the book, sign up to our newsletter and encouraging inspiration thing, which also has Mr. Andy Godfrey's in there as well. So, I wanna come back to Sorted, but let's just sit with the book for now. When you had the thought of writing this book, what's the feeling? 'Cause I have my own ideas. But what's the feeling you had when you thought, yeah, this is actually gonna work? I didn't know if it was gonna work or not. (laughs) I'm an obsessive movie-goer. I mean, I go to the cinema three or four times a week. I have several thousand movies at home on DVD and Blu-Ray. My house is Walter Wall, movie posters. My best friend says this is why I live alone. But at the same time, I'm an obsessive about sharing my faith in Jesus Christ. And I wanted to write a book that movie fans would be able to pick up and read and learn about movies, but at the same time, weave in the story of Jesus, weave in the gospel message. So that was the thought, that was the ambition. And hopefully we'll achieve that ambition. There's a section in the back of the book that churches can use where we've suggested five movies, you can show in churches, get everybody together after the movie, have some fish and chips or whatever, and have a discussion. We've given you discussion starters. So it's a small book, but there's a lot crammed into it. And again, the idea was to bring the gospel message through movies, 'cause movies can help us understand and can illustrate the gospel quite badly. I think in a similar way that music can move us good and bad in different ways. It's very emotional, it's very powerful, but actually music can be such a force for goods. And I guess this is your same kind of thought, but not with music as such exclusively, but actually with the movies. - Yeah, I mean, for example, you take science fiction. So science fiction, there are three outcomes for the human race. We're gonna blow ourselves up, we're gonna move off the world to another planet, or in the world of Star Trek, we're all gonna live together in unity and harmony. What does science fiction say about the future? That's what it says. What does the Bible say about the future? The Bible says about the future Jesus Christ is coming back. So that's where we kinda go with that. Take the world of Disney. We don't live in a Disney world. There's no such thing as a Hollywood ending. Our world, we don't live in a Disney-fired existence. We live in the real world. And Disney recently have been taking some of their animated films and turning them into real life films. And I wanted to start out real life as opposed to the fantasy world. And again, with Jesus Christ in our life, even though life is tough and difficult and the cost of living out through the window or what have you, with Jesus Christ at the hell, everything can be okay. Real life can be worth living, even when it's tough and difficult if you've got Jesus with you and guiding it. I've got my different Andy Godfrey. We've just been talking about his new book, which has just launched, however, here at the Gathering 2024 in a film that swings him in Christian prison for men. Actually, he's got a second hat on. So you've talked about your book. What else are you here? Well, I'm really here to be on the sorted magazine stand with our good friend Steve Leg. So as you know, sorted is a Christian magazine for men. We cover sport, we cover fashion, we cover cars, we cover gadgets. We also cover movies. And in between all of that, we have interviews with famous people who are Christians. So in the new issue that's out at the moment, we've gotten into a Dan Walker, the broadcast journalist that Steve did. So yeah, basically that's the idea of the magazine. We wanna get non-Christians reading a Christian magazine. How do you do that? You talk about movies, you talk about cars, you talk about sport. And in between all of that, you slip in articles about the Christian faith. Sorted is 15 years old. We've just published issue number 101. And that's incredibly exciting. It's really exciting. We love Sorted as a family. It arrives in a house. It's always a race who's gonna get this one first. Now, when I was a big church festival a little while back, I was handing out some of Steve's magazines. And the first person I gave this to picked up the magazine and said, "Wow, "this actually feels like quality." And this is actually Christian magazine. And I said, "Yes, this is proper pucker stuff." So how would you explain it to somebody who's like, "Oh, it's just another bit of Christian stuff." It's nothing like that. So how would you say this more than that? It really is nothing like that. It's just an entertaining read. There's humor in there that we've got a Dr. Ken who writes about health matters. We have issues about money. All stuff that men need and advice that men need on how to handle your money, how to handle your marriage, how to handle your health. What are the latest movies that are out there? What are the latest cars? What are the latest cars? It's a really entertaining read. There is something in this magazine for everybody, for every man you can think of. There is something in there that's going to interest them. And alongside of that, there is the interviews with people who have become, we had Alice Cooper on the cover of a recent issue. And Alice Cooper, the rock star, has come out and said, "He loves Jesus." So we interview him. But bang up today, we do sell in W.H. Smith. So we've got to be quality. I'm forever rearranging the selves in Milton, Ken, so it reads to make sort of much more prominent on the shelves than it is. I get told off of that by the staff, but I'm not forever doing it. Because it's a magazine that we really feel God is using. We've had people converted and come to Christ through reading the magazine. It's been around our 15 years. God gave Steve Lake the vision for it 15 years ago. And I just feel that it's relevant, it's topical. It's up to date, but it's a good read. There's humor in there. We've got a guy called Jeff Lucas, who is a lovely Christian preacher, asked, "I've got a brilliant sense of humor." Whatever you want from a men's magazine, it's in there, including unfortunately, fashion, which Steve recommends some of the horrible shows that he wears, but we can't do anything about that. We could not do so much. So somebody wants to go out and get Sorted Magazine. There's two ways. You can either come to the gathering right now and you can get a copy here. But otherwise, what's the website? Okay, so the website is sortedmag.com. Sortedmag.com. Just go on there. 36 pounds. Now that may sound a lot given the cost of living, but that's three pound a month 'cause we come out six times a year. Get some issues for your church. I give a couple of issues every time it comes out to men who are on the fringe of my church. They love it 'cause they can read about the sport, they can read about the movies, they can read about the fashion and the gadgets in particular. But at the same time, they are reading the other articles about Jesus Christ and people who know Jesus Christ. So we are achieving a bit objective of getting the Jesus story out there through a high quality magazine that is appealing to men. And I know lots of ladies who love it as well, that it's appealing to men on a sort of really entertainment level. And it's just a great read. As I say, 36 pounds may sound a lot. A three pound a month. If you go on our website, there's all sorts of special offers where you can get a box of five, for example, there's a one-off of I Bound, that's great. We had Father's Day a few weeks ago. I know churches that bought copies of sorters and gave every man in their church a copy for a Father's Day gift. Great idea. So the magazine is comprehensive, it's full of great stuff, full of great humor, full of great articles, great film reviews, of course. And that's the way the magazine is, yeah, I just love it. Get yours at www.sortedman.com. Thank you, Andy Godfrey, for that. (upbeat music) Did you know, Pure 24/7 Radio has a shop? Well, we do. You can buy merchandise while supporting the work that we do here. Simply head over to www.pure247radio.org/shop. That's www.pure247radio.org/shop. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
