January 1, 2025 • 31 mins
In this episode of the Christian Book Blurb podcast, host Matt McChlery speaks with author Richard Littledale about his new book, 'In Step with God: 101 Devotional Walks Through the Bible.' They discuss the metaphor of walking in relation to faith, the importance of community, and how to approach scripture with a fresh perspective. Richard shares insights from his book, emphasizing the significance of walking hopefully and companionably with God and others. The conversation also touches on Richard's slate craft hobby and his love of pasta!
Links
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Visit Matt McChlery's website mattmcchlery.com
Visit Richard Littledale's website richardlittledale.co.uk
Takeaways
- Walking is a metaphor for the Christian journey.
- Choosing the right footwear symbolizes preparation for spiritual walks.
- Walking meetings foster better conversations and connections.
- The Bible is a complex landscape that requires careful navigation.
- Walking hopefully means expecting to encounter God in daily life.
- Companionable walking emphasizes the importance of community in faith.
- The book encourages active engagement with scripture through walking.
- Each walk in the book is designed to be accessible and relatable.
- New believers should expect surprises on their journey with God.
- Long-time believers can find new insights by slowing down and reflecting.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Guest 00:58 The Theme of Walking with God 02:42 Choosing the Right Footwear for the Journey 05:48 Structure and Organization of the Book 08:29 Exploring Specific Walks in the Bible 11:35 The Importance of Walking Together 14:05 Encounters with Biblical Figures 17:10 Reflections on the Journey of Faith 19:53 Advice for New and Long-Time Believers 22:38 Author's Life and Future Projects
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is Christian Book Blurb brought to you by author and songwriter Matt McChlery Get abehind the scenes glimpse into the lives of some of your favourite Christian authors.
Hear about their books and faith.
Also, why not check out my website, mattmcclery.com.
Hello and welcome to this New Year's Day episode of the Christian Book Blurb podcast.
(00:21):
I'm your host, Matt McChlery.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
It's great to have your company here.
Now on today's show I'm going to be meeting another amazing Christian author and learningall about their books, their lives and their faith just to help you grow in your
discipleship one book at a time.
And today I'm going to be speaking about keeping in step with God with the author RichardLittledale.
(00:48):
Hello Richard, welcome to the show.
Hi there, great to start the new year with you Matt.
Yes, happy new year.
Do you find that they come quicker and quicker each year or is that just me?
No, no, I think that's a universal thing.
Time speeds up as we slow down, I think.
In my 60s now and finding that more and more.
Well, thanks for joining us.
You have written and just released a great new book called In Step with God, 101devotional walks through the Bible.
(01:15):
And when I saw it, I thought it would make a perfect companion as we started the new year.
So.
Why the theme of walking?
What was the inspiration behind it?
Okay, well there's three different things really, and the first and simplest is simplythat my life has changed a lot.
You two years ago I retired from a lifetime of pastoral ministry, and so the pace of mylife has changed a lot.
(01:37):
I'm now living on the coast of North Wales and I walk a lot, so that was part of it.
There's also the sense that the Bible is a really complicated landscape.
It's got hills and valleys and dark forests and narrow alleyways and it's really easy,Matt, to get lost in there.
Really easy to get lost in there.
All the alternative is that we kind of fly over the top and only see the landmarks thatare visible from the air.
(02:01):
So I wanted to write a book that would get us down to ground level and move at walkingpace through the pages of scripture.
And the other thing is, particularly in the last of my pastorates,
I found that the vast majority of my meetings with people were walking meetings.
And by that I mean that rather than sitting down either side of a table or in my office, Iwould arrange to meet with people and to walk and talk together.
(02:29):
And I found the conversation flowed so much better when doing so.
And I know that I do my best praying when I'm walking.
There's something about the rhythm of it and the time you give to it.
that allows you to talk with God.
And I'd love to think that some people listening to this will say, right, it's the firstday of the year with my first footstep, I'm going to step out with God.
(02:53):
So there's the kind of background to it for you.
That's great.
And in the introductory pages of your book, you talk about the importance of choosing theright footwear for a walk.
And then you talk about all the different kinds of walking, like treading softly and...
treading hopefully and so on.
How might this walking metaphor also fit for us now as we are embarking on a journeythrough the new year together?
(03:21):
Well, as you say, I talk there about various different ways of walking, but I would pickout just two of them.
And the first one is one that you've mentioned, walking hopefully.
You know, there's a whole year stretching out ahead of us, 365 days.
How many opportunities are there in those days I wonder?
So to embark on this walk hopefully and say, I am fully expecting to encounter God alongthe way.
(03:45):
Isn't that a brilliant way to start the year?
And also that sense of walking companionably.
I'll be honest, I love walking on my own with my dog.
I find it to be a very restful time of day.
I find it to be a very prayerful time of day.
But I also thank God from the bottom of my heart.
for the people who have walked this Christian journey with me.
(04:07):
From the moment when I became a Christian in my mid-teens to now in my early 60s, I thankGod for the people, old and young, who've walked alongside me.
So starting on this 2025 walk, do it hopefully, fully expecting to find God round everycorner, and do it companionably, thanking God for the people who are prepared to walk
(04:28):
alongside you.
Now, your book has a
101 walks in the Bible that you explore.
I'm sure there are many more when we look at the whole of scripture.
What made you select the walks that you did?
And is there a structure or order to it or was it just sort of scatter gun approach?
(04:51):
Did you start in Genesis and kind of
work your way systematically through.
How does it work?
How does it fit together?
Well, let me confess first of all that I had originally intended it as a 365-daydevotional.
Given how much effort and work it was to write 101 of them, I'm glad that I changed mymind about that.
Also, it would have been the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica, I think.
Do you know, there wasn't any order to it as I was writing it.
(05:14):
It's very important to me that I can write by instinct.
You know, I'd handed this project over to God.
I've got this
lovely location where I sit and write overlooking the coast.
And I simply wanted to write as they occurred to me.
So I did that and I wrote all the walks and then I kind of road tested it with two orthree people and said, well, how should I organise them?
(05:34):
And the feeling was overall, it would be best to organise them in biblical order.
Now this will make you laugh because I write on the computer, but I find it really hard toreorganise things on there.
So I lighted up.
with 101 pieces of paper with the name of each walk on them, reorganizing them on mykitchen floor.
(05:55):
And after I'd done that, I then changed the document in order to fit.
And I have to confess, Matt, I like to think I'm quite good with words, but I'm absolutelyrubbish with numbers.
So when I finished this, I checked it and I double checked it and I triple checked it.
And I had written 105 of the blooming things.
So I've actually had to lose some, or maybe we could say I'm keeping them in volume too.
(06:19):
But yeah, so that's kind of how it came about.
So it's very important to me that I wrote by instinct rather than by rote, but afterwardsI then organized it so that for those who are working their way through it, they can do so
in a way that kind of falls in line with the warp and weft of scripture.
And this is a really unusual thing for an author to say.
(06:40):
really hope that everybody who reads this book keeps putting it down.
Because the whole idea is that you read a bit and then you dwell on it, then you readanother bit and then you dwell on it.
And it's not just reading on it and dwelling on it because quite a few times in the bookyou say, okay, read it, dwell on it.
Now put your shoes on and go outside and have a walk.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
(07:00):
And very often with a very specific thing to pray about.
It might be thanking God for somebody.
It might be
deliberately dwelling on a sadness that you have, that you don't often talk to God about.
It might be taking a little list of people that you're concerned about in your pocket andtaking it out every once in while in the walk.
So yeah, it's quite a deliberately active book saying to people, read this, take it outwith you.
(07:25):
And it doesn't matter, Matt, it doesn't matter whether you're walking around the corner tothe post box or whether you're walking up and over Mount Snowden.
It really doesn't.
It's about that combination of
motion and prayer.
That's what really matters to me.
And it's been really interesting to get some feedback already from people who using thebook.
I've got a friend who's a school teacher in Texas, and she sends me a photo each day.
(07:50):
And because of the time difference, it's her morning and my afternoon.
And she's sitting there at her desk in the classroom waiting for her students to turn up.
And she'll say, I'm on walk number 10 or 12, whatever.
And there's also a lot of people in my church who are starting to read it.
And so I get these little messages saying, you know,
I'm on walk 10 or I'm on walk 13.
It's lovely because there's a sense that we're kind of doing it together.
(08:11):
yeah.
And just when you're talking about your friend kind of reading it at the classroom deskwaiting for the children to arrive, it is a kind of book that it's a quick little stab,
isn't it?
It's not it's not vast tomes of pages and pages of
know, why don't we think about this thought today and there's loads and loads of stuff tosort of get through.
(08:34):
It's very short, very quick, very sort of here's a little encapsulated thought and thenyou leave it there.
and that's absolutely deliberate, you know, because I wanted it to be accessible.
And you know, one of the, it's not quite a review, you know, one of the responses thatI've had that thrills me the most is a young mum with two exceptionally lively boys who
(08:55):
said to me, I like this book.
because I can cope with it, because I can read it without falling asleep.
Because she's so tired when she gets around to reading it.
And actually, those accessible little chapters are just what she needs.
Let's have a look at some of the walks then.
Let's...
Yes, dive in.
Open the pages and dive in a bit.
(09:16):
So walk 52 in your book speaks, and I like how you call them walks rather than days.
Because devotionals often say day one or they're even dated.
But you start with walk one.
That's quite good.
Let's stay active.
Yeah.
So walk 52 speaks about Jesus walking into the wilderness.
And what does this have to say to those who are experiencing a wilderness walk themselvesat the moment?
(09:42):
I think, the most important thing it has to say to them is you are not the first to gothere.
You know, Jesus has been there ahead of you.
And it's very easy to think that the suffering of Jesus consists entirely of the events ofthe Passion Week.
But it doesn't, you know, the suffering of Jesus starts way, way back.
And the interesting thing when we read this story in the Gospels is right at the momentwhen you expect him to kind of explode onto the world stage and reveal to everyone that
(10:12):
he's the Messiah, what's the first thing he does?
walks off into the wilderness.
Walks away, yeah.
Walks away.
And there are times when we all feel distant from God, when we all feel that nobody aroundus understands us, where we all feel that life has become a rather dark place.
And when that's the case, a walk like this one, where we walk with Jesus into thewilderness and see that he's been in some pretty naff places too, can be a real
(10:41):
encouragement, I think.
So yeah, I hope you're encouraged today if you're listening to this.
And yes, it's the new year and we're talking about hope and bright future and things, butyou really just aren't there.
You're not feeling that today because you're in a dark place or you're feeling distant orfeeling a bit lost.
Yeah, just know that Jesus is there with you, wants to meet you in that place of pain andin that place of distance.
(11:09):
Yeah, I think also New Year can often be a time of heaviness.
If you are anticipating difficult things in the year ahead, then whilst everybody else ispartying, you feel, yes, but what if?
And so it's good to encounter that Jesus in those moments.
Walk 42.
Walk 42 looks at Ecclesiastes, one of those interesting books of the Bible.
(11:36):
don't if many people read it, well they know a certain bit of it really well, and then therest of it is kind of, well, you know, we don't go there.
But Ecclesiastes chapter four verse 10, which says, if either of them falls down, one canhelp the other up.
And your reflection looks at sort of living the Christian life together, coming back tothat whole idea of
(11:59):
companionability that you spoke about a bit earlier on.
So why is it so important that we walk the Christian life together with others rather thanseeing it as a sort of a solo mission?
If you look at the story of the Bible, we start as companionable creatures literally fromday one.
know, God created two people and placed them in the garden.
(12:21):
There is an interdependence that is part of our DNA.
But I think also we become more truly ourselves in our encounter with other people.
Actually, whether that's for good or bad, know, whether they annoy their life out of youor whether they build you up.
In those encounters of both kinds, you become more truly the person that you were meant tobe.
(12:47):
I think those of us who are part of Christian communities, be they great or small, we'llrecognise that.
We'll recognise that those times when we kind of rub shoulders with other Christians, someof whom we agree with and some of whom we absolutely do not, it's in that whole process
that we end up being shaped into the likeness of Christ.
(13:09):
At these moments, I love to go back to the idea that Jesus was a carpenter, and acarpenter will not put down a piece of wood until he's happy with it.
And he'll cut it and he'll plane it and he'll sand it and he'll shave bits off it until itis exactly the shape that it needs to be.
And I know God's busy doing that with me.
I know he's busy making me into a version of me that he thinks looks a bit more likeJesus.
(13:32):
And there's one heck of a long way to go.
But I do know that a lot of that process comes.
through my encounters with other people.
So yeah, walk with others and recognise that some days that would be brilliant and somedays it will be a trial, but do it anyway, because that's the way God wants it to be.
And I love this idea of a walk as well and walking with others, I'm sure, have you donelike really long walks, like coastal paths and that sort of thing?
(13:57):
I hesitate to say I haven't, no, you know, I would like to.
It's not always possible with a dog who can only walk, you know, 40 minutes at a time,although I am.
registered to go and walk the last 100 kilometers of the Camino de Santiago later thisyear.
I'm excited about that.
So yeah, will be a five day walk.
I personally haven't done really long walks either, but I have read stories of people whohave and that sort of whole process of walking, there's all sorts of things and it's
(14:24):
almost like life.
You have highs and lows, have sunny days and rainy days.
You have days when your feet are feeling great and days when your feet are feeling really,really awful.
just walking, and as you were saying, walking with others, we walk together through thehighs and the lows.
And sometimes that walk we find really difficult, but sometimes that walk we can findreally helpful.
(14:48):
And we can also maybe be helping others on the walk as well as we walk with them.
Often without knowing it.
Yeah.
We're not aware of the degree to which we're helping.
Yeah, absolutely.
yeah.
I love Ananias in the Bible, his story is great.
And you've picked up on it in one of your walks and on day, not day, sorry, walk, walk 93.
(15:09):
You caught me there.
So walk 93, where Ananias is told to go to Paul while he would be Paul.
He's still Saul at the time and he's just encountered Jesus, but he's this Christianmurderer and
God's told you as a Christian, go and speak to this chap, you know, so he's taking hislife into his hands.
(15:30):
What can you tell us about the story and what you drew out from it?
It's one of those stories that I've known ever since I became a Christian.
But, you know, when you actually start to think about it, that must have been terrifying.
know, even if it was a walk that took him, you know, six minutes, it must have felt likeit was an hour.
(15:50):
know, that sense he was walking.
me...
Go on.
I find it terrifying knocking on the neighbour's door, the grumpy neighbour's door, topick up the parcel delivery that was left there by the delivery driver, let alone someone
who might finish me off in two seconds.
Absolutely.
Here's a little quote from that walker.
How tough those footsteps must have felt.
Did he stop and think, just before he knocked on the door of that house in StraightStreet, that he might never come out of it alive?
(16:15):
Was there a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach about what his fellow Christians wouldsay if they knew he was here doing such a thing?
This walk could have been his last.
Now we know that it wasn't, but goodness me, he didn't know that, did he?
Not until he'd gone through with it.
And I'm pretty sure it's that walk where I encourage people after it, when they go outwalking, to think of some of their Christian sisters and brothers whose life will be on
(16:40):
the line today because of their obedience to Jesus.
Because that's going to happen.
There will be people, even whilst they're listening to this podcast today, whose life willbe at risk simply because they're doing what Jesus has asked them to do.
And it's very easy to forget them when our Christian lives are quite comfortable, but theyneed our prayers every day.
(17:00):
Yeah.
And I think just looking at those three different walks that you've got in your book,you've got 101 of them.
Well, sort of almost 102, I think.
Tell me about that 102 in a minute.
But just those three that we've looked at together, I hope give you the listener aninsight into how, yes, okay, it's talking about little walks and distances that people
(17:27):
have traveled in the Bible, but there's so much ground that's covered.
mean, just in those three things, we've had
Jesus in the wilderness and sort of suffering and trials and the difficulties of life.
And then we've also looked at walking together and supporting each other and building eachother up in the faith.
(17:47):
And we've also had this sort of walk of bravery and being obedient and following.
So, yes, it's about walks in the Bible, but it's also about so much more than that aswell.
Yeah, in a sense, those walks are windows into our own lives.
and also windows onto the vast landscape of scripture.
(18:08):
kind of open both ways.
At least that's what would hope.
Yeah.
So in your book, 101 devotional walks through the Bible, why is there walk 102?
Because that's up to the reader to find it.
I think there are, you mentioned it earlier on, there are far more than 101 walks in theBible.
There are hundreds of them.
And what I wanted to do was to say to people, if you've enjoyed this exercise, then don'tstop.
(18:33):
as you close the last pages of the book, don't stop, find some others of your own.
Because I think people, I hope people will actually start to do that.
And if they've found this a helpful way to progress through the Bible's pages, by walkingalongside people, then I hope they'll do some more of it and it will become a kind of
devotional technique for them, if you like.
So if you wanted to get a sort of kickstart your devotional reading this year, why don'tyou check out Richard Littledale's new book, In Step With God?
(19:01):
101 devotional walks through the Bible.
Now out of your 101 walks you've written about, Richard, which spoke to you the most whenwriting it?
I'll be honest with you, it was the last one, walk number 101.
It talks about a picture in Isaiah where at the end of days everybody's coming home.
(19:23):
They're coming home hand in hand, the older carrying the young.
It's a very beautiful picture.
And again, if you'll forgive me, I'm just going to pick up a little bit of the text fromthere.
We all have people with whom we have walked, but who walk with us no longer.
We miss their conversation and their easy presence.
We miss the unmistakable sound of their footsteps as they fall beside us, and in somecases the feel of their hand in ours.
(19:46):
We miss their comments on the sights of the journey or their encouragements to completeit.
In short, we miss them.
The remainder of this journey is made more bearable by the prospect that we shall pick upthat journey again one day, when the time is right.
When we do so, the landscape will be different, but so will the journey.
Rucksacks will be unnecessary, since there will be nothing to carry.
(20:10):
And the prospect of getting lost will be irrelevant, since all will be found.
Really, really beautiful and a great way to finish the book.
If someone is new to walking with Jesus and they're listening to this podcast, what advicewould you give them for their new journey ahead?
In some ways, I come back to what we were saying earlier on, I would say walk hopefully.
(20:31):
Walk on this journey, fully expecting God to take you by surprise.
That would be one thing.
And I think be alert to the little signs and symbols of his presence.
My dad was a very, very keen walker.
And so he would try and take my brother and I on these great route marches.
And I was the little one.
So I was always at the back, struggling to keep up.
(20:53):
finding the whole thing rather difficult.
And I can remember him taking me one side and saying, look, Richard, the way to enjoy along walk is to concentrate on the things you see along the way rather than thinking about
the end.
And it was really good advice and it helped those walks to go by a whole lot better.
And I suppose I would pass those on to the new Christians that you've described.
Don't worry too much about how long this walk is.
(21:15):
Worry about what you're seeing along the way and keep alert for it.
That's really good.
And of course, having spoken to people who are just starting the journey of faith, whatwould you say to those who have been walking this walk for a very long time, who've been
Christians for a long while?
What advice would you give them?
Well, what I would do, I would say to them, I'm going to make a confession to you.
(21:38):
And here it comes.
By the time I wrote this book, I had been a minister for almost 37 years.
I had preached sermons
twice a Sunday for most of those years.
The Bible was my workbook.
I used it every single day at work.
And yet, when I started to read it this way, it came alive to me again.
So there were stories that I've put into these walks that I have read and preached on andled Bible studies on dozens of times.
(22:06):
And yet I found that when I slowed my pace down to walking pace,
and said to myself, right, I'm going to walk alongside Martha into the kitchen with Jesus.
I'm going to walk alongside Moses as he goes up the mountain.
I found that it revolutionized it for me.
So what I would say to them is be prepared to have some scales fall from your eyes.
(22:28):
Be prepared to see these old familiar passages differently because God's not done with youyet.
We'll be back speaking with Richard Littledale.
all about his life and his faith after these messages, so do stay tuned.
Hello, welcome back to the Christian Book Blurb podcast.
I have been chatting with the author Richard Littledale all about his new book, In Stepwith God, 101 Diversional Walks Through the Bible.
(22:54):
Now that we've had our break, Richard, we like to find out a little bit more about theauthor.
dear.
Nothing like putting you on the spot.
What do you do for fun?
Well, as you know, I walk.
We've talked about that.
love my garden.
I used to hate gardening, but about five years ago, I fell in love with it.
(23:16):
So I spent a lot of time doing that.
And I also found that I've got really into some different kind of forms of craft that Ican do in this place.
There's a lot of slate around me.
There's a lot of places where there are, millions of pieces of discarded slate.
And so I get quite into engraving those with pictures, started working with resin on thosetoo.
So you can kind of create little landscapes.
You can put lakes and rivers on them.
(23:37):
I then I take Monopoly hotels and I repaint them as Welsh cottages and I mount them inthese little landscapes.
yeah, there's all sorts of things I do to stop me getting bored.
Never a dumb moment.
good, I like that.
When you buy your little Monopoly hotel, do you have to buy a whole Monopoly game set orcan you get them individually online somewhere?
(23:58):
Well at the moment I'm busy cannibalizing my old Monopoly set, but once I've used thoseup, I'm hoping that I can go to some online retailer and buy an us big bag of them.
Otherwise I'll never be able to build hotels in Monopoly again, will I?
You've spoken about being retired from...
from ministry.
are you enjoying the good life as it were, sort of feet up, cup of coffee in the morning,a little stroll in the afternoon, sort of people's often picture of retirement or does it
(24:26):
look rather different for you?
My children would be the first to tell you that I'm incapable of doing what you've justdescribed.
And in some ways it was a partial retirement because for the last probably 10 or 20 years,
I had combined my pastoral ministry with writing and broadcasting.
And so in some ways, the move to this phase of my life was to say, look, let me give thosethings time and space to grow.
(24:48):
So I'm doing a lot more of both of those things.
I'm also mentoring somebody who is training for Baptist ministry, which is an enormousprivilege and I absolutely love it.
It's very interesting though because I had a picture of this part of my life where I wasgoing to be busy speaking at conferences and preaching at churches and that hasn't
happened.
(25:09):
It wasn't the plan that God had for me.
The plan he had for me was to invest in people and in this young man in particular and I'mthrilled about that.
Absolutely thrilled.
I don't mind it's not the way I had envisaged it.
If it's the way God envisaged it, that's fine by me.
Do you have any favourite things to eat?
or maybe even places to eat.
goodness me.
Well, I mean, I could probably live on pasta.
(25:31):
think I might be secretly Italian.
I never met a pasta meal I didn't like.
So, yeah, I do love that.
And then in terms of places to eat, there's a little coffee shop near me that I got toknow when I was first house hunting, actually.
And it's just a lovely place.
It's a lovely place of community.
And in fact, they've ended up.
helping me with my next writing project, which we'll maybe talk about in a minute.
(25:52):
But it's been lovely to collaborate with them as a place that is not a Christian place,but they know that I'm a Christian and I'm writing what they might deem to be a religious
book.
But they've been more than happy to collaborate with me.
And I love that.
I mean, love I love the food and drink there.
But actually, what I love more is this place that is a sense a place of connection andcommunity.
(26:13):
Well, I think let's not hold our listeners in suspense for
any longer.
Tell us more about this collaboration with your coffee shop and this book and everythingelse.
excuse to go and have coffee and cake, you know.
Do you get it for free or do you still pay?
No, sadly, I still pay.
So my book after next, and again, I talk about the next one in a minute, but the bookafter next, which I'm in process of writing at the moment, is all about friendship.
(26:37):
And so I went to the owner of the cafe.
said, look, what I would like to do is to put some little cards out on your table.
And on the one side, it explains all about the book I'm writing.
It has a QR code, which takes people to an online portal.
And on the other side, it has, to me, a friend is dot, dot, dot.
And they can either go to the online portal, they can fill it on the card.
And I've had over 50 of those filled out in this coffee shop.
(27:02):
one of the reasons that that's happened is that they didn't just leave them on tables,they had them at the till.
So when they welcomed people and showed them a table, they said, would you mind fillingthis out for a friend of ours who's writing a book?
And I had so much rich material from that.
And some of them were in brown crayon, and some of them had got coffee stains on, and someof them were bit crumpled up, and some of them people have written so much that it
(27:23):
squeezed in round the edges.
But what a great opportunity for a Christian author to hear from those who are not part ofthe household of faith, but who really have something to say about friendship.
And I'm hoping that a lot of their quotes will form the chapter heads for the chapters inthis book.
And then my hope would be,
that I can produce the entire collection of them as an appendix so that people can seethem for themselves.
(27:46):
Because it proves that this has touched on a raw nerve.
You know, this is something that really, really matters to people.
Well, it really does.
And I don't know, you might be aware that this theme of friendship is one that otherChristian authors and things are tackling as well.
You might be aware of Sheridan and Voicy.
and Phil Knox.
(28:08):
haven't seen Sheridan's.
Yeah, well, he's doing it in a slightly different way.
So Phil Knox has done a book on friendship and has kind of worked with Sheridan and he'sdeveloped something called the Friendship Lab, which is like an online website type thing.
yeah, it's all very interesting how friendship is really important, but how God's speakingto different Christians.
(28:32):
in different ways to approach the same topic really.
It's very interesting.
And for me, there were two drivers for it.
The first was I am in this very different chapter of my life.
I'm here as a single man now.
I don't live near any of my family.
It's a new place entirely.
So friends have become more important in their landscape than they've ever been before.
(28:53):
But also one of the things that retirement gave me time to do was to revisit the belovedBonhoeffer of my youth.
And I had forgotten.
that literally a few months before he died, he started to write a theology of friendshipand never finished it.
So I wanted to kind of pick up that baton really and run with it.
good.
(29:13):
And what was your other book?
You said you've got one that you've already written, I believe, and it's kind of in thepublishing process at the moment.
It's such a slow process.
Those wheels turn really slowly.
yeah, tell us about that.
out in the autumn of this year and it's called What Happened Next?
And it takes 52 Bible stories and asks that question, what happened after that?
(29:35):
So for instance, you take the feeding of the 5,000 where we're told that 12 basketfulswere left over.
Well, who got them?
And what did they say when they were handed them?
And what did they think about it?
Did they have a lovely meal?
Did they have it all together?
Or the ripping of the temple curtain?
Who mended it?
How did they feel about it?
What did they think?
So it was such fun, such fun to write.
(29:57):
And again, it's a means of getting people to engage their imaginations with the pages ofscripture.
And I had an absolute blast writing it.
Loved it.
And what's that?
What's it going to be called?
It's literally called What Happened Next.
What Happened Next.
Okay.
And who's publishing that one?
That's authentic.
Authentic as well as the one we just talked about today.
(30:19):
wonderful.
Really good.
I look forward to that.
Where can people find you on social media, etc?
If you've got a website and more importantly, where can people buy your books?
Well, they can buy my book anywhere that they would usually buy a book whether that's in aChristian bookshop or online through the usual e-tailers So they can do that They can find
(30:39):
me at richardnittledale.co.uk or on I'm not allowed to call it Twitter anymore.
I'm like on X I'm at
and on Instagram I'm bespoke words so they can find me in all those different places.
Great and for the benefit of our listeners I will put a link to your website in thisepisode's show notes so people can click over there and obviously find out all about you
(31:03):
and obviously find other links to things like where to buy books and where to follow youon Facebook and all that kind of stuff over there.
So do go and check that out.
Well, Richard, it's been fantastic speaking with you today, all about your book, In Stepwith God.
Thank you so much for joining us here on The Christian Book Blob.
Thank you, Matt.
And thank you as well for listening to this episode.
(31:26):
Don't forget, an episode comes out on the 1st and the 15th of every month.
So I'll be back really soon speaking with another Christian author, all about their books,their life and their faith.
So do join me again then.
Thank you for the pleasure of your company and I look forward.
to seeing you again really soon on another edition of the Christian Book Blurb.
(31:47):
Thank you and goodbye.
This is Christian Book Blurb brought to you by author and songwriter Matt McChlery Get abehind the scenes glimpse into the lives of some of your favourite Christian authors.
Hear about their books and faith.
Also, why not check out my website, mattmcclery.com.
Hello and welcome to this New Year's Day episode of the Christian Book Blurb podcast.
(00:21):
I'm your host, Matt McChlery.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
It's great to have your company here.
Now on today's show I'm going to be meeting another amazing Christian author and learningall about their books, their lives and their faith just to help you grow in your
discipleship one book at a time.
And today I'm going to be speaking about keeping in step with God with the author RichardLittledale.
(00:48):
Hello Richard, welcome to the show.
Hi there, great to start the new year with you Matt.
Yes, happy new year.
Do you find that they come quicker and quicker each year or is that just me?
No, no, I think that's a universal thing.
Time speeds up as we slow down, I think.
In my 60s now and finding that more and more.
Well, thanks for joining us.
You have written and just released a great new book called In Step with God, 101devotional walks through the Bible.
(01:15):
And when I saw it, I thought it would make a perfect companion as we started the new year.
So.
Why the theme of walking?
What was the inspiration behind it?
Okay, well there's three different things really, and the first and simplest is simplythat my life has changed a lot.
You two years ago I retired from a lifetime of pastoral ministry, and so the pace of mylife has changed a lot.
(01:37):
I'm now living on the coast of North Wales and I walk a lot, so that was part of it.
There's also the sense that the Bible is a really complicated landscape.
It's got hills and valleys and dark forests and narrow alleyways and it's really easy,Matt, to get lost in there.
Really easy to get lost in there.
All the alternative is that we kind of fly over the top and only see the landmarks thatare visible from the air.
(02:01):
So I wanted to write a book that would get us down to ground level and move at walkingpace through the pages of scripture.
And the other thing is, particularly in the last of my pastorates,
I found that the vast majority of my meetings with people were walking meetings.
And by that I mean that rather than sitting down either side of a table or in my office, Iwould arrange to meet with people and to walk and talk together.
(02:29):
And I found the conversation flowed so much better when doing so.
And I know that I do my best praying when I'm walking.
There's something about the rhythm of it and the time you give to it.
that allows you to talk with God.
And I'd love to think that some people listening to this will say, right, it's the firstday of the year with my first footstep, I'm going to step out with God.
(02:53):
So there's the kind of background to it for you.
That's great.
And in the introductory pages of your book, you talk about the importance of choosing theright footwear for a walk.
And then you talk about all the different kinds of walking, like treading softly and...
treading hopefully and so on.
How might this walking metaphor also fit for us now as we are embarking on a journeythrough the new year together?
(03:21):
Well, as you say, I talk there about various different ways of walking, but I would pickout just two of them.
And the first one is one that you've mentioned, walking hopefully.
You know, there's a whole year stretching out ahead of us, 365 days.
How many opportunities are there in those days I wonder?
So to embark on this walk hopefully and say, I am fully expecting to encounter God alongthe way.
(03:45):
Isn't that a brilliant way to start the year?
And also that sense of walking companionably.
I'll be honest, I love walking on my own with my dog.
I find it to be a very restful time of day.
I find it to be a very prayerful time of day.
But I also thank God from the bottom of my heart.
for the people who have walked this Christian journey with me.
(04:07):
From the moment when I became a Christian in my mid-teens to now in my early 60s, I thankGod for the people, old and young, who've walked alongside me.
So starting on this 2025 walk, do it hopefully, fully expecting to find God round everycorner, and do it companionably, thanking God for the people who are prepared to walk
(04:28):
alongside you.
Now, your book has a
101 walks in the Bible that you explore.
I'm sure there are many more when we look at the whole of scripture.
What made you select the walks that you did?
And is there a structure or order to it or was it just sort of scatter gun approach?
(04:51):
Did you start in Genesis and kind of
work your way systematically through.
How does it work?
How does it fit together?
Well, let me confess first of all that I had originally intended it as a 365-daydevotional.
Given how much effort and work it was to write 101 of them, I'm glad that I changed mymind about that.
Also, it would have been the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica, I think.
Do you know, there wasn't any order to it as I was writing it.
(05:14):
It's very important to me that I can write by instinct.
You know, I'd handed this project over to God.
I've got this
lovely location where I sit and write overlooking the coast.
And I simply wanted to write as they occurred to me.
So I did that and I wrote all the walks and then I kind of road tested it with two orthree people and said, well, how should I organise them?
(05:34):
And the feeling was overall, it would be best to organise them in biblical order.
Now this will make you laugh because I write on the computer, but I find it really hard toreorganise things on there.
So I lighted up.
with 101 pieces of paper with the name of each walk on them, reorganizing them on mykitchen floor.
(05:55):
And after I'd done that, I then changed the document in order to fit.
And I have to confess, Matt, I like to think I'm quite good with words, but I'm absolutelyrubbish with numbers.
So when I finished this, I checked it and I double checked it and I triple checked it.
And I had written 105 of the blooming things.
So I've actually had to lose some, or maybe we could say I'm keeping them in volume too.
(06:19):
But yeah, so that's kind of how it came about.
So it's very important to me that I wrote by instinct rather than by rote, but afterwardsI then organized it so that for those who are working their way through it, they can do so
in a way that kind of falls in line with the warp and weft of scripture.
And this is a really unusual thing for an author to say.
(06:40):
really hope that everybody who reads this book keeps putting it down.
Because the whole idea is that you read a bit and then you dwell on it, then you readanother bit and then you dwell on it.
And it's not just reading on it and dwelling on it because quite a few times in the bookyou say, okay, read it, dwell on it.
Now put your shoes on and go outside and have a walk.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
(07:00):
And very often with a very specific thing to pray about.
It might be thanking God for somebody.
It might be
deliberately dwelling on a sadness that you have, that you don't often talk to God about.
It might be taking a little list of people that you're concerned about in your pocket andtaking it out every once in while in the walk.
So yeah, it's quite a deliberately active book saying to people, read this, take it outwith you.
(07:25):
And it doesn't matter, Matt, it doesn't matter whether you're walking around the corner tothe post box or whether you're walking up and over Mount Snowden.
It really doesn't.
It's about that combination of
motion and prayer.
That's what really matters to me.
And it's been really interesting to get some feedback already from people who using thebook.
I've got a friend who's a school teacher in Texas, and she sends me a photo each day.
(07:50):
And because of the time difference, it's her morning and my afternoon.
And she's sitting there at her desk in the classroom waiting for her students to turn up.
And she'll say, I'm on walk number 10 or 12, whatever.
And there's also a lot of people in my church who are starting to read it.
And so I get these little messages saying, you know,
I'm on walk 10 or I'm on walk 13.
It's lovely because there's a sense that we're kind of doing it together.
(08:11):
yeah.
And just when you're talking about your friend kind of reading it at the classroom deskwaiting for the children to arrive, it is a kind of book that it's a quick little stab,
isn't it?
It's not it's not vast tomes of pages and pages of
know, why don't we think about this thought today and there's loads and loads of stuff tosort of get through.
(08:34):
It's very short, very quick, very sort of here's a little encapsulated thought and thenyou leave it there.
and that's absolutely deliberate, you know, because I wanted it to be accessible.
And you know, one of the, it's not quite a review, you know, one of the responses thatI've had that thrills me the most is a young mum with two exceptionally lively boys who
(08:55):
said to me, I like this book.
because I can cope with it, because I can read it without falling asleep.
Because she's so tired when she gets around to reading it.
And actually, those accessible little chapters are just what she needs.
Let's have a look at some of the walks then.
Let's...
Yes, dive in.
Open the pages and dive in a bit.
(09:16):
So walk 52 in your book speaks, and I like how you call them walks rather than days.
Because devotionals often say day one or they're even dated.
But you start with walk one.
That's quite good.
Let's stay active.
Yeah.
So walk 52 speaks about Jesus walking into the wilderness.
And what does this have to say to those who are experiencing a wilderness walk themselvesat the moment?
(09:42):
I think, the most important thing it has to say to them is you are not the first to gothere.
You know, Jesus has been there ahead of you.
And it's very easy to think that the suffering of Jesus consists entirely of the events ofthe Passion Week.
But it doesn't, you know, the suffering of Jesus starts way, way back.
And the interesting thing when we read this story in the Gospels is right at the momentwhen you expect him to kind of explode onto the world stage and reveal to everyone that
(10:12):
he's the Messiah, what's the first thing he does?
walks off into the wilderness.
Walks away, yeah.
Walks away.
And there are times when we all feel distant from God, when we all feel that nobody aroundus understands us, where we all feel that life has become a rather dark place.
And when that's the case, a walk like this one, where we walk with Jesus into thewilderness and see that he's been in some pretty naff places too, can be a real
(10:41):
encouragement, I think.
So yeah, I hope you're encouraged today if you're listening to this.
And yes, it's the new year and we're talking about hope and bright future and things, butyou really just aren't there.
You're not feeling that today because you're in a dark place or you're feeling distant orfeeling a bit lost.
Yeah, just know that Jesus is there with you, wants to meet you in that place of pain andin that place of distance.
(11:09):
Yeah, I think also New Year can often be a time of heaviness.
If you are anticipating difficult things in the year ahead, then whilst everybody else ispartying, you feel, yes, but what if?
And so it's good to encounter that Jesus in those moments.
Walk 42.
Walk 42 looks at Ecclesiastes, one of those interesting books of the Bible.
(11:36):
don't if many people read it, well they know a certain bit of it really well, and then therest of it is kind of, well, you know, we don't go there.
But Ecclesiastes chapter four verse 10, which says, if either of them falls down, one canhelp the other up.
And your reflection looks at sort of living the Christian life together, coming back tothat whole idea of
(11:59):
companionability that you spoke about a bit earlier on.
So why is it so important that we walk the Christian life together with others rather thanseeing it as a sort of a solo mission?
If you look at the story of the Bible, we start as companionable creatures literally fromday one.
know, God created two people and placed them in the garden.
(12:21):
There is an interdependence that is part of our DNA.
But I think also we become more truly ourselves in our encounter with other people.
Actually, whether that's for good or bad, know, whether they annoy their life out of youor whether they build you up.
In those encounters of both kinds, you become more truly the person that you were meant tobe.
(12:47):
I think those of us who are part of Christian communities, be they great or small, we'llrecognise that.
We'll recognise that those times when we kind of rub shoulders with other Christians, someof whom we agree with and some of whom we absolutely do not, it's in that whole process
that we end up being shaped into the likeness of Christ.
(13:09):
At these moments, I love to go back to the idea that Jesus was a carpenter, and acarpenter will not put down a piece of wood until he's happy with it.
And he'll cut it and he'll plane it and he'll sand it and he'll shave bits off it until itis exactly the shape that it needs to be.
And I know God's busy doing that with me.
I know he's busy making me into a version of me that he thinks looks a bit more likeJesus.
(13:32):
And there's one heck of a long way to go.
But I do know that a lot of that process comes.
through my encounters with other people.
So yeah, walk with others and recognise that some days that would be brilliant and somedays it will be a trial, but do it anyway, because that's the way God wants it to be.
And I love this idea of a walk as well and walking with others, I'm sure, have you donelike really long walks, like coastal paths and that sort of thing?
(13:57):
I hesitate to say I haven't, no, you know, I would like to.
It's not always possible with a dog who can only walk, you know, 40 minutes at a time,although I am.
registered to go and walk the last 100 kilometers of the Camino de Santiago later thisyear.
I'm excited about that.
So yeah, will be a five day walk.
I personally haven't done really long walks either, but I have read stories of people whohave and that sort of whole process of walking, there's all sorts of things and it's
(14:24):
almost like life.
You have highs and lows, have sunny days and rainy days.
You have days when your feet are feeling great and days when your feet are feeling really,really awful.
just walking, and as you were saying, walking with others, we walk together through thehighs and the lows.
And sometimes that walk we find really difficult, but sometimes that walk we can findreally helpful.
(14:48):
And we can also maybe be helping others on the walk as well as we walk with them.
Often without knowing it.
Yeah.
We're not aware of the degree to which we're helping.
Yeah, absolutely.
yeah.
I love Ananias in the Bible, his story is great.
And you've picked up on it in one of your walks and on day, not day, sorry, walk, walk 93.
(15:09):
You caught me there.
So walk 93, where Ananias is told to go to Paul while he would be Paul.
He's still Saul at the time and he's just encountered Jesus, but he's this Christianmurderer and
God's told you as a Christian, go and speak to this chap, you know, so he's taking hislife into his hands.
(15:30):
What can you tell us about the story and what you drew out from it?
It's one of those stories that I've known ever since I became a Christian.
But, you know, when you actually start to think about it, that must have been terrifying.
know, even if it was a walk that took him, you know, six minutes, it must have felt likeit was an hour.
(15:50):
know, that sense he was walking.
me...
Go on.
I find it terrifying knocking on the neighbour's door, the grumpy neighbour's door, topick up the parcel delivery that was left there by the delivery driver, let alone someone
who might finish me off in two seconds.
Absolutely.
Here's a little quote from that walker.
How tough those footsteps must have felt.
Did he stop and think, just before he knocked on the door of that house in StraightStreet, that he might never come out of it alive?
(16:15):
Was there a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach about what his fellow Christians wouldsay if they knew he was here doing such a thing?
This walk could have been his last.
Now we know that it wasn't, but goodness me, he didn't know that, did he?
Not until he'd gone through with it.
And I'm pretty sure it's that walk where I encourage people after it, when they go outwalking, to think of some of their Christian sisters and brothers whose life will be on
(16:40):
the line today because of their obedience to Jesus.
Because that's going to happen.
There will be people, even whilst they're listening to this podcast today, whose life willbe at risk simply because they're doing what Jesus has asked them to do.
And it's very easy to forget them when our Christian lives are quite comfortable, but theyneed our prayers every day.
(17:00):
Yeah.
And I think just looking at those three different walks that you've got in your book,you've got 101 of them.
Well, sort of almost 102, I think.
Tell me about that 102 in a minute.
But just those three that we've looked at together, I hope give you the listener aninsight into how, yes, okay, it's talking about little walks and distances that people
(17:27):
have traveled in the Bible, but there's so much ground that's covered.
mean, just in those three things, we've had
Jesus in the wilderness and sort of suffering and trials and the difficulties of life.
And then we've also looked at walking together and supporting each other and building eachother up in the faith.
(17:47):
And we've also had this sort of walk of bravery and being obedient and following.
So, yes, it's about walks in the Bible, but it's also about so much more than that aswell.
Yeah, in a sense, those walks are windows into our own lives.
and also windows onto the vast landscape of scripture.
(18:08):
kind of open both ways.
At least that's what would hope.
Yeah.
So in your book, 101 devotional walks through the Bible, why is there walk 102?
Because that's up to the reader to find it.
I think there are, you mentioned it earlier on, there are far more than 101 walks in theBible.
There are hundreds of them.
And what I wanted to do was to say to people, if you've enjoyed this exercise, then don'tstop.
(18:33):
as you close the last pages of the book, don't stop, find some others of your own.
Because I think people, I hope people will actually start to do that.
And if they've found this a helpful way to progress through the Bible's pages, by walkingalongside people, then I hope they'll do some more of it and it will become a kind of
devotional technique for them, if you like.
So if you wanted to get a sort of kickstart your devotional reading this year, why don'tyou check out Richard Littledale's new book, In Step With God?
(19:01):
101 devotional walks through the Bible.
Now out of your 101 walks you've written about, Richard, which spoke to you the most whenwriting it?
I'll be honest with you, it was the last one, walk number 101.
It talks about a picture in Isaiah where at the end of days everybody's coming home.
(19:23):
They're coming home hand in hand, the older carrying the young.
It's a very beautiful picture.
And again, if you'll forgive me, I'm just going to pick up a little bit of the text fromthere.
We all have people with whom we have walked, but who walk with us no longer.
We miss their conversation and their easy presence.
We miss the unmistakable sound of their footsteps as they fall beside us, and in somecases the feel of their hand in ours.
(19:46):
We miss their comments on the sights of the journey or their encouragements to completeit.
In short, we miss them.
The remainder of this journey is made more bearable by the prospect that we shall pick upthat journey again one day, when the time is right.
When we do so, the landscape will be different, but so will the journey.
Rucksacks will be unnecessary, since there will be nothing to carry.
(20:10):
And the prospect of getting lost will be irrelevant, since all will be found.
Really, really beautiful and a great way to finish the book.
If someone is new to walking with Jesus and they're listening to this podcast, what advicewould you give them for their new journey ahead?
In some ways, I come back to what we were saying earlier on, I would say walk hopefully.
(20:31):
Walk on this journey, fully expecting God to take you by surprise.
That would be one thing.
And I think be alert to the little signs and symbols of his presence.
My dad was a very, very keen walker.
And so he would try and take my brother and I on these great route marches.
And I was the little one.
So I was always at the back, struggling to keep up.
(20:53):
finding the whole thing rather difficult.
And I can remember him taking me one side and saying, look, Richard, the way to enjoy along walk is to concentrate on the things you see along the way rather than thinking about
the end.
And it was really good advice and it helped those walks to go by a whole lot better.
And I suppose I would pass those on to the new Christians that you've described.
Don't worry too much about how long this walk is.
(21:15):
Worry about what you're seeing along the way and keep alert for it.
That's really good.
And of course, having spoken to people who are just starting the journey of faith, whatwould you say to those who have been walking this walk for a very long time, who've been
Christians for a long while?
What advice would you give them?
Well, what I would do, I would say to them, I'm going to make a confession to you.
(21:38):
And here it comes.
By the time I wrote this book, I had been a minister for almost 37 years.
I had preached sermons
twice a Sunday for most of those years.
The Bible was my workbook.
I used it every single day at work.
And yet, when I started to read it this way, it came alive to me again.
So there were stories that I've put into these walks that I have read and preached on andled Bible studies on dozens of times.
(22:06):
And yet I found that when I slowed my pace down to walking pace,
and said to myself, right, I'm going to walk alongside Martha into the kitchen with Jesus.
I'm going to walk alongside Moses as he goes up the mountain.
I found that it revolutionized it for me.
So what I would say to them is be prepared to have some scales fall from your eyes.
(22:28):
Be prepared to see these old familiar passages differently because God's not done with youyet.
We'll be back speaking with Richard Littledale.
all about his life and his faith after these messages, so do stay tuned.
Hello, welcome back to the Christian Book Blurb podcast.
I have been chatting with the author Richard Littledale all about his new book, In Stepwith God, 101 Diversional Walks Through the Bible.
(22:54):
Now that we've had our break, Richard, we like to find out a little bit more about theauthor.
dear.
Nothing like putting you on the spot.
What do you do for fun?
Well, as you know, I walk.
We've talked about that.
love my garden.
I used to hate gardening, but about five years ago, I fell in love with it.
(23:16):
So I spent a lot of time doing that.
And I also found that I've got really into some different kind of forms of craft that Ican do in this place.
There's a lot of slate around me.
There's a lot of places where there are, millions of pieces of discarded slate.
And so I get quite into engraving those with pictures, started working with resin on thosetoo.
So you can kind of create little landscapes.
You can put lakes and rivers on them.
(23:37):
I then I take Monopoly hotels and I repaint them as Welsh cottages and I mount them inthese little landscapes.
yeah, there's all sorts of things I do to stop me getting bored.
Never a dumb moment.
good, I like that.
When you buy your little Monopoly hotel, do you have to buy a whole Monopoly game set orcan you get them individually online somewhere?
(23:58):
Well at the moment I'm busy cannibalizing my old Monopoly set, but once I've used thoseup, I'm hoping that I can go to some online retailer and buy an us big bag of them.
Otherwise I'll never be able to build hotels in Monopoly again, will I?
You've spoken about being retired from...
from ministry.
are you enjoying the good life as it were, sort of feet up, cup of coffee in the morning,a little stroll in the afternoon, sort of people's often picture of retirement or does it
(24:26):
look rather different for you?
My children would be the first to tell you that I'm incapable of doing what you've justdescribed.
And in some ways it was a partial retirement because for the last probably 10 or 20 years,
I had combined my pastoral ministry with writing and broadcasting.
And so in some ways, the move to this phase of my life was to say, look, let me give thosethings time and space to grow.
(24:48):
So I'm doing a lot more of both of those things.
I'm also mentoring somebody who is training for Baptist ministry, which is an enormousprivilege and I absolutely love it.
It's very interesting though because I had a picture of this part of my life where I wasgoing to be busy speaking at conferences and preaching at churches and that hasn't
happened.
(25:09):
It wasn't the plan that God had for me.
The plan he had for me was to invest in people and in this young man in particular and I'mthrilled about that.
Absolutely thrilled.
I don't mind it's not the way I had envisaged it.
If it's the way God envisaged it, that's fine by me.
Do you have any favourite things to eat?
or maybe even places to eat.
goodness me.
Well, I mean, I could probably live on pasta.
(25:31):
think I might be secretly Italian.
I never met a pasta meal I didn't like.
So, yeah, I do love that.
And then in terms of places to eat, there's a little coffee shop near me that I got toknow when I was first house hunting, actually.
And it's just a lovely place.
It's a lovely place of community.
And in fact, they've ended up.
helping me with my next writing project, which we'll maybe talk about in a minute.
(25:52):
But it's been lovely to collaborate with them as a place that is not a Christian place,but they know that I'm a Christian and I'm writing what they might deem to be a religious
book.
But they've been more than happy to collaborate with me.
And I love that.
I mean, love I love the food and drink there.
But actually, what I love more is this place that is a sense a place of connection andcommunity.
(26:13):
Well, I think let's not hold our listeners in suspense for
any longer.
Tell us more about this collaboration with your coffee shop and this book and everythingelse.
excuse to go and have coffee and cake, you know.
Do you get it for free or do you still pay?
No, sadly, I still pay.
So my book after next, and again, I talk about the next one in a minute, but the bookafter next, which I'm in process of writing at the moment, is all about friendship.
(26:37):
And so I went to the owner of the cafe.
said, look, what I would like to do is to put some little cards out on your table.
And on the one side, it explains all about the book I'm writing.
It has a QR code, which takes people to an online portal.
And on the other side, it has, to me, a friend is dot, dot, dot.
And they can either go to the online portal, they can fill it on the card.
And I've had over 50 of those filled out in this coffee shop.
(27:02):
one of the reasons that that's happened is that they didn't just leave them on tables,they had them at the till.
So when they welcomed people and showed them a table, they said, would you mind fillingthis out for a friend of ours who's writing a book?
And I had so much rich material from that.
And some of them were in brown crayon, and some of them had got coffee stains on, and someof them were bit crumpled up, and some of them people have written so much that it
(27:23):
squeezed in round the edges.
But what a great opportunity for a Christian author to hear from those who are not part ofthe household of faith, but who really have something to say about friendship.
And I'm hoping that a lot of their quotes will form the chapter heads for the chapters inthis book.
And then my hope would be,
that I can produce the entire collection of them as an appendix so that people can seethem for themselves.
(27:46):
Because it proves that this has touched on a raw nerve.
You know, this is something that really, really matters to people.
Well, it really does.
And I don't know, you might be aware that this theme of friendship is one that otherChristian authors and things are tackling as well.
You might be aware of Sheridan and Voicy.
and Phil Knox.
(28:08):
haven't seen Sheridan's.
Yeah, well, he's doing it in a slightly different way.
So Phil Knox has done a book on friendship and has kind of worked with Sheridan and he'sdeveloped something called the Friendship Lab, which is like an online website type thing.
yeah, it's all very interesting how friendship is really important, but how God's speakingto different Christians.
(28:32):
in different ways to approach the same topic really.
It's very interesting.
And for me, there were two drivers for it.
The first was I am in this very different chapter of my life.
I'm here as a single man now.
I don't live near any of my family.
It's a new place entirely.
So friends have become more important in their landscape than they've ever been before.
(28:53):
But also one of the things that retirement gave me time to do was to revisit the belovedBonhoeffer of my youth.
And I had forgotten.
that literally a few months before he died, he started to write a theology of friendshipand never finished it.
So I wanted to kind of pick up that baton really and run with it.
good.
(29:13):
And what was your other book?
You said you've got one that you've already written, I believe, and it's kind of in thepublishing process at the moment.
It's such a slow process.
Those wheels turn really slowly.
yeah, tell us about that.
out in the autumn of this year and it's called What Happened Next?
And it takes 52 Bible stories and asks that question, what happened after that?
(29:35):
So for instance, you take the feeding of the 5,000 where we're told that 12 basketfulswere left over.
Well, who got them?
And what did they say when they were handed them?
And what did they think about it?
Did they have a lovely meal?
Did they have it all together?
Or the ripping of the temple curtain?
Who mended it?
How did they feel about it?
What did they think?
So it was such fun, such fun to write.
(29:57):
And again, it's a means of getting people to engage their imaginations with the pages ofscripture.
And I had an absolute blast writing it.
Loved it.
And what's that?
What's it going to be called?
It's literally called What Happened Next.
What Happened Next.
Okay.
And who's publishing that one?
That's authentic.
Authentic as well as the one we just talked about today.
(30:19):
wonderful.
Really good.
I look forward to that.
Where can people find you on social media, etc?
If you've got a website and more importantly, where can people buy your books?
Well, they can buy my book anywhere that they would usually buy a book whether that's in aChristian bookshop or online through the usual e-tailers So they can do that They can find
(30:39):
me at richardnittledale.co.uk or on I'm not allowed to call it Twitter anymore.
I'm like on X I'm at
and on Instagram I'm bespoke words so they can find me in all those different places.
Great and for the benefit of our listeners I will put a link to your website in thisepisode's show notes so people can click over there and obviously find out all about you
(31:03):
and obviously find other links to things like where to buy books and where to follow youon Facebook and all that kind of stuff over there.
So do go and check that out.
Well, Richard, it's been fantastic speaking with you today, all about your book, In Stepwith God.
Thank you so much for joining us here on The Christian Book Blob.
Thank you, Matt.
And thank you as well for listening to this episode.
(31:26):
Don't forget, an episode comes out on the 1st and the 15th of every month.
So I'll be back really soon speaking with another Christian author, all about their books,their life and their faith.
So do join me again then.
Thank you for the pleasure of your company and I look forward.
to seeing you again really soon on another edition of the Christian Book Blurb.
(31:47):
Thank you and goodbye.
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