HopeFM & The Bizhear Podcast
Hope FM Best Bits - Andy Du Feu (Moorlands College)
90.1 Hopefam and Hopefam.com I'm very pleased to say that I've got a guest in the studio with me, Andy Duffer, the Principal and CEO at Morlands, and I'm sure we can talk a little bit about your background. I think you're originally from Jersey. Yeah, listen, I'm just going to stop you there. Like, you did a first-class job of pronouncing my name. To be honest, most people get it wrong. They go Duffer or Duffer or something like that. Get confused in terms of ethnicity, etc. But it's Duffer. To be honest, I hear it said so badly so often that I don't actually don't know how to pronounce anymore. My relatives on my father's side are all from Jersey, like prize cow owners and breeders and farm owners, lived in through the occupation of Jersey in World War II and things like that. So some really cool stories in my background. My name is actually quite impressive. Like, if you know the name Andrew means "man", it's manly, right? And to Fuhr, in French, for those who are listening in, you might already know this, it means "of the fire". So literally, Denzel Washington has nothing on me. Watch out. I'm the real deal. Thanks, mum and dad. Man of the fire. So I've got a lot to live up to, sadly. Absolutely, absolutely. So how long have you been at Morlands? Yeah, so I'm actually a graduate. So I'm a double graduate, did my undergraduate back in 2000 to 2003. I was a youth pastor with Malcolm Duncan as senior pastor at Springborne Elim, now BH1 Elim, and went off, was a pastor for a short time, seven years in Oxfordshire, came back, joined the staff team in 2011. The tour of the coast was too good. I'll tell you what, there's a gravitational pull south, which a lot of graduates, I mean, you've not left yet. I mean, you're still around in the area. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't have my mics on, but yeah, I'm a local grad who's stuck around, yeah. Yeah, there is that gravitational pull. Absolutely. When Colin Bennett got in touch and said, "Andy, there's a job going. Are you interested in applying?" It wasn't a hard sell, right? You said where was it? Yeah, that's right. And actually, it's one of the selling points for coming to Bible College. Come and study at Moreland's College. Who doesn't want to study theology by the beach? Absolutely. I tell me, one person who doesn't want to study theology by the beach, I mean, you could be in the middle of London, you could be in the middle of Birmingham. Like, come on. Look at the waves, look at the surf, the culture, the cafes. It opens the mind, I think. It really does. Looking out to see, it opens the mind. There's even songs about, like, oceans and... Right, yeah, that's right. You've got the new forest on one side, you've got the beach, and it's glorious. I live a solid half marathon away from the college, and so my half marathon route takes me down onto the beach, seven miles along the beach front, and then up through Christchurch to work. And so I cycled that earlier this week, earlier this week, today's Tuesday. So yesterday, I cycled into college yesterday, but I'll run it from time to time as well. Yeah, yeah. Well, I can't run. I was doing a Hadrian's walk with my brother last week, and that was 10 miles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a great section of the walk. Yeah. And actually, I found that you have to watch your footing all the time, because there's rocks and bits of Hadrian who all dropped all over the place. Yeah, right. But it was great. It was a really great walk. And, yeah, between, well, along by Steel Rig, and what was Sycamore Gap and all around the way. Yeah, of course. Yeah, so it was fabulous. Yeah, so you went past Sycamore Gap, so you saw the... I saw the stump. Yeah. Yeah, it's tragic. Well, I think it's historic hooliganism. Yeah. You know, it's vandalism of tragedy, really. Yeah. You know, don't replace that quickly, do you? No. But then there's fabulous area. Well, well, recommend it. Fantastic. You get a chance to get up there. But now, let's talk a little bit more about Bible colleges. Yeah. Sort of, they're placing our culture. Now, I've grown up in Bournemouth, so I've always known about moorlands. Yeah, that's right. You know, I think my uncle even went to moorlands when it was originally Matlock. Oh, yeah, Matlock, Bible college. So, you know, and moorlands seems to permeate our Christian evangelical society. Wherever you go in the country, there seem to be people. So, you know, what is your view of how moorlands can have an impact and should have an impact in our culture? I actually did a bit of a pilgrimage up to Matlock recently. So I was up at a conference, and Matlock was 15 miles away. So I whipped over there with a couple of grads, and we walked around the site, and it's basically a field now. But it was an evangelism training center. That's what it was. It had brethren roots and just equipping people to go out and share the gospel. But Matlock, if you've ever been there, it's basically one big field. I mean, there's a few shops and things, but like, why have we got an evangelism training center here? Now, it moved a number of years later down to Dallish. It had a period down there, and then moved across to First Verwood in the late '60s, early '70s, and then down to the current site, which was bought for 25,000 pounds, where it is now in Soppley, which is a fantastic environment. Great place to come and just retreat, get away from it all, study theology. I think one of the key things though is that that origin story, the origin story of being an evangelism training center, there's a practical application to what moorlands does. We talk about applied theology because we recognize that theology needs to be applied. It has to find some kind of outworking. And I guess it taps into the James passage, where James in James chapter two says, "Faith without deeds is dead." Now, we know that faith is faith. And we, by faith alone, et cetera, but faith must find some kind of expression. And I think that's James's point, is that if you love God, you'll do something about it. You naturally want to serve. It's so-- It's application. Absolutely. And it's relevant to the current society. That's right. So I don't need to be asked to volunteer in a church because I will get involved, because I am a disciple of Christ and I want to put my faith into action. So if you get me turned up at your church, I'm going to be involved. That's just guaranteed. So I think following on from that thought is the relevance of faith to every aspect of life, that we are not a vicar training factory. Sure, a number of people come to mourners. They study and they go on to pastoral ministry. I did that. A number of people go on to ordination or they might go to Baptist training or take up leadership in an FIEC church or like, but we do not just churn out vicar after vicar, pastor after pastor. We've got people who graduate, who go on to sit here with me on a radio show, like Pete next to me. But we youth workers, some of the best youth workers in the country, graduated at mourners college. I can name them. I'm not going to embarrass them on radio. I've got a guy right now who's about to graduate, a real passion for the business. And he wants to go and make a difference in the business world. I said, listen, when you get rich and famous, remember you're old college. But in sales and things like that, we need Christians. We need Christians who know their stuff, know their onions, who are at parliament, who are involved in social services, who are involved in teaching. And actually, a number of people do graduate and go into, they do their PGC. They go into teaching. And a number of those, even in the local area, the number of schools who have got Morland's graduates on staff who aren't involved in chaplaincy or church work. They're teachers. Get involved in the community, get involved with, you know, things that are part of the life we live in, because otherwise, salt and light doesn't work. That's exactly right, that's exactly right. Light is needed in darkness, and salt is needed where it needs some purification. So that's right. You know, there's a direct relevance for us to actually be outside the church, I always feel. If you think about Paul, the Apostle Paul, he was bi-vocational. You know, we know that he was a preacher and a teacher. Sometimes, actually, we give Paul more credit than Barnabas. Actually, Barnabas was actually called the chief speaker at one point, interestingly, all aside. But, you know, Paul was also a tent maker. Sure, yeah. And so this idea of actually living in the real world, not that pastoring isn't real world. I mean, you're dealing with some heavy stuff in that environment, for sure. But, you know, I know a number of graduates from Morelands who are bi-vocational. And that might be because the church doesn't have the money, the cash to be able to employ them full-time. It might actually be a heart thing as well, that they need to be out there doing those things. Yeah, 100%. No, that's, I think it's great. And, you know, as I say, I think over my lifetime, there's so many people that I've met who've been to Morelands or have association with it, you know, as you know, our pastor. He's ex-Moorlands. And he was referred to me by another ex-Moorland student. Yeah, there you are. You know, so its impact is phenomenal. And, you know, I think it's really great. We're fortunate to have it in our Bible Belt. Yeah, that's right. In this area, you know, and shining light for us, and how we can take it forward. So that's really great. Now, tell me about your first song. Yeah, okay, so this, so praise. It's done the rounds. So I've got a five-year-old, and he loves to wake up in the morning just bursting into song to the chagrin of his brother. Please be quiet. And this is one of the songs that he sings roughly like this. Praise the Lord. Oh, my soul. It's absolutely lovely. Absolutely love hearing that in the morning to wake up to. So it's one of those songs that just gets it going. Really exciting. I was at a church building opening recently as well, up in Norwich. Fantastic. A church, amazing architect, a brilliant story. And this is one of the songs they open with as well. It's like full of energy, just declaring praise to God. Fabulous. And let's hear that now featuring Brandon Lake. Song better than me. That's kind of why I do it. That was a great song there. Praise. I can understand why it was a great way to wake up in the morning, Andy. Come on, absolutely. Fabulous. So last week, I think, last Tuesday when I was at work, I couldn't make it. I was on holiday like Blair's always on holiday. But on the 18th, I think it had a local church's event, which I think would be interested to hear a bit more about. Yeah, that was absolutely fantastic. So Morland's a partner with Faithworks, Wessex. And we, real hard to ask the question, how do we better impact in a coherent way the BCP as the church? Monday through Saturday. Because obviously a lot of energy goes on to Sundays. And in some sense is rightly so. Because that's the time when you're gathering people to worship together, to sit under the word, to grow in that way. But actually service orientation and giving and impacting community. It's midweek, those are the days. That's what it's about, exactly. And I mean, there is a really interesting question there. You know, we've obviously got a real investment there, because if you are on the undergraduate program at Morland's College, you're involved in local church, in local mission. That's how we got to know Pete. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was at Twynum. That's right. You know, we made a friendship, went fishing. Absolutely. And here we are. I was rubbish at it, but it was good fun. I was in worse, I think. Why did you go fishing? I mean, why not? Yeah, that's out in the ocean. Oh, we're sorry. We live near the coast. So, you know, it's got to be done. So, you know, you think about all of those hours that we invest through students in the local area. I mean, there's an interesting question there for me, which is if you took Morland's College out of the connovation, just took it out of the economy, what would happen? What would be the impact? And if you think about it, the number of hours, voluntary hours, I think you would really decimate a lot of actual on-the-ground face-to-face ministry and impact. So, before we gathered on the Tuesday, Faithworks, Sabine and Alison, others had done a brilliant piece of work at starting to map the area. And so, they had engaged with 74 churches who had responded. And in 74 churches, they discovered that there are 38 toddler groups, 18 coffee and chat groups, 13 community meals, 12 offers of support for food. And just countless youth works and things like that, and children's ministry. So, the impact's really obvious. And, you know, that question about being salt and light. So, we said, what would it look like if we gathered together all of the folk from different churches? And we ended up on, we did it sort of morning and evening, because we realized that not everybody can do a daytime. So, we had a morning and evening slot and we gathered over 60 people from the local church, really good representation, really thankful to local churches saying this is a priority. And the conversation that Sabine in particular led was really rich, really thought-provoking. And there was a real hunger and desire to take the next step. Okay, what comes next? How do we start to take some of these thoughts and make them concrete actions? So, I think it's really great. I mean, I, for one, feel very much that, you know, casting out into the deep is what we need to do together as Christians. You know, because the fishermen and Luke Folly, they were fishing locally, you know, it's a bit like waiting in the church for people to come in. Whereas actually what we're supposed to do is take a, take a brave step, get outside the door, get out in the community. Yeah. And yeah, as we said, there are so many churches and Christians across this BCP area. Yeah. If we all pulled together, a matching impact. Yeah, that's right. And you, you, you're just, one of the health ways of conceptualizing it is, listen, you need to meet people's physical needs, the material needs, because right now we're in a situation, particularly post COVID, you've got the war backdrop, you've got the impact on the economy, the material needs are pretty obvious. And they're in your face. Do you remember the talk from Cameron years ago, he was talking about big society. Well, the church does big society. You know, that's what we do. Again, if you took the church out of the economy, I think it would be, I think our country would grind to a halt. So don't just take our works, but take our words as well, because you can't separate words and works as a Christian. I think it was a really great concept. And it was a shame, you know, the media as usual, wrecked anything that came up with a good initiative. Well, I think it was also, you know, there was a lot of politics, there was a lot of shifting responsibility, outsourcing, all that sort of stuff. I think the point though is, you know, the material needs are pretty obvious. And we can do a really good job of starting to reach into those, but don't just slice out cake and dish it out. Don't just package it up food. Don't just provide, you know, coats and things. Take that next step. And the next step isn't necessarily the spiritual need. The next step is actually the relational need, because people, you know, the epidemic of loneliness as it's being coined is very, it's just insane. Just an incredible backdrop to our society. The people lonely at every strata of society. Youth or children. They're lonely or feel alone, I think. And, you know, I believe that Jesus sends people to meet people. He actually, you know, we're his instruments, you know. So if we stay quiet, who's reaching them? Nobody, you know, part of the spirit, of course, which can reach. But I think it's really upon us all to sort of, we're all different. All in different parts of society, we've got different skill sets. And God made it that way. So that we're in each part of the world. We're built for relationship. We're built to communicate with one another. And so here you are, you meet the physical needs. And through that, you've got the relational opportunity to say how are you doing? Get to know them and find out their story. And then through that, you've actually got the opportunity then to meet the spiritual needs. So recognizing that there's the material needs, there's the relational needs, and there's the spiritual needs. And I think as a church across BCP, I think we could be really effective in that area. This isn't just about Crusades. This isn't about just big events where the gospel's preached. And absolutely, we need to have the gospel preached and communicated. But actually, you can do a bunch of work that makes, if you like, the soil a bit more fertile, a bit more receptive and makes an impact. You know, again, it's your faith. Exactly. Finding legs. Yeah, I mean, if the churches and Morlands and Hope FM, we all pull together. What powerful voice we've got potentially for the King of Kings, which brings me on to your next track, I think. Yeah, so I'm a King of Kings. It's just solid. And there's, I think the bit when I've heard people seeing this in churches, when the line and the church of Christ arises or something like that will rise. And the spirit lights the flame and there's that energy in that moment. It's a very declarational song, if you like. And so, yeah, I just thought it'd be a great one just to declare, to sing out if you're in your car right now. Great perspective when everything seems to be so difficult and so many clouds of doubt and everything else. Yeah. Just remember who actually is on the throne. Yeah. And a reminder to create the world who is in charge. And it's a reminder that it's his church, his bride, his investment right there, not ours. Yeah, 100%. So, well, thanks so much for joining us this morning, Andy. That's been great. And it's great to have you on. Great work at Morlands. Wish you well for the, I suppose, the next year. Yeah, absolutely. And getting new students from across the country. And it'd be a miss of me not to say if you're thinking about theological education and you're in the local area or far beyond right now, listening on the online. Morlands is a fantastic option. Our master's programs, really flexible, our flexible undergraduate program, which you can access from anywhere in the UK or beyond. Now that we've got student visa capacity, so just get in touch with us today. 90.1 Hopefem and hopefem.com.