By Paul 
A few weeks ago I decided to move to a sim only contract so popped into a local phone network shop to have a conversation about what was on offer. That part of the conversation wasn’t at all surprising, simply polite and obvious. The conversation took a surprising turn though once the guy who was serving me asked for my occupation. “Baptist Minister” I said to which he simply said ok, tapped it into the computer then paused…
“Do you find it difficult to talk about God?”
Not exactly what I as expecting, in fact in twenty three years of doing this great job it’s the first time I’ve ever been asked that. What followed was a really engaging and animated discussion. My sales rep friend was a Muslim and his experience of living in the UK was that people were not very open to talking about God and he wondered how I fared as it was my job to talk about such things.
I’d heard that Muslims in my area were open to talking about spiritual things but I was stunned at how quickly the conversation moved and how enjoyable and engaging it was. We talked about God, secular society, heaven and hell, who gets to go heaven, Jesus, the cross and various other things along the way. In a relatively quiet shop with at least one of the other members of staff listening in it felt like a an hour well spent. Surpising when I only went in for a sim card.