We are designed for adventure as believers, that we're not designed for safety,

that actually the best stuff happens, and the most profound discipleship

and transformation and change in people's lives happens when we're in a, when we're in a challenging space.

Well, hello everybody. This is Simon Gilbo with Inspired and I'm thrilled to have an old

mate this week. His name's Andy Flanagan. Hi, Andy. Hi, Simon. How are you? Yeah, great stuff,

mate. So Andy and I, we go back about 20-ish, maybe 25 years. And back then, Andy, you were a sort of rock star with, Christ. Maybe that's picking you up a bit too much in the name. Well, I think folk star might be more accurate, Simon, if you told you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a bit too crusty. And you were a medic, and you now have Christians in in politics and you did loads of campaigning.

So there's loads of stuff we're going to cover.

But yeah, let's get cracking straight into it.

So Andy, obviously from your accent, you're not from England, you're from Northern Ireland,

you're from Northern Ireland, brought up and ported down.

Give us a bit of context to your story.

Oh, I love the homeland so much.

I love just thinking about it, just even hearing you say the words North Atlanta.

Loved growing up there and such a privilege to grow up with an amazing mum and dad who, you know, my mom was actually, my dad ran the Sunday school at the church we attended and my mom was a Sunday school teacher.

And I used to notice that

every Sunday after all the classes finished there would often be my mum sat with her head

bowed with one of the girls in her class just you know with their head bowed and I would

I remember just saying to mum I must have only been like six or seven at the time I said

mom you know what's what's going on going on when, when you're doing that?

And, and mum would say, oh, that's, that's one of the girls who's decided to ask Jesus into their

heart and become a Christian. And I was like, oh, cool, can I do that?

Yeah, so I remember really specifically sitting in my bedroom with my mum praying,

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