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Phil Knox is an evangelism and missiology senior specialist at the Evangelical Alliance and is trying to be a good friend.
He is passionate about making Jesus known and seeing communities thrive. He loves learning and has degrees in law and mission and evangelism. Phil is a married father of two young boys.
Phil is an avid runner, enthusiastic waterskier and once broke the world record for the longest five-a-side football match. He is also a performance poet and author of Story Bearer. The Best of Friends is his second book.
We managed to sit down to interview Phil Knox to talk about all these things including the recent release of his second book, The Best of Friends.
The Interview with Phil Knox
As an Evangelist, speaker and Missiologist, could you explain what these terms mean to someone who may not be familiar with them?
Of course! So an evangelist comes from the Greek word ‘evangel’, which means good news. So an evangelist is a good news person. I am a bringer of glad tidings!
A missiologist is a student of mission. I study and research how the church does effective mission and specifically the various journeys and factors in how people become Christians.
Then I talk about these things – so as a speaker, I preach or lead workshops regularly on these subjects.
How do your roles as an evangelist speaker and Missiologist complement each other in your work within the EA (Evangelical Alliance)?
So the Evangelical Alliance is the oldest and largest movement of evangelicals (good news people!) in the UK.
We have existed since 1846 to unite the church around the gospel (the good news!) and speak with a clear and effective voice into every layer of society.
One of the ways in which we serve our members is through inspiring and equipping the church to talk about Jesus. That’s where, as an evangelist and missiologist, I hope I am a blessing to them.
In what ways does being an evangelist speaker allow you to effectively communicate the message of evangelism to a broad audience to those of your faith and those without any faith?
Most people who become Christians in today’s context do so through relationships. So most of the time I am encouraging Christians to be active in sharing their faith with friends, neighbours, colleagues and family members.
I too try to put this into practice myself. But there are also moments when not-yet Christians also come to church or events, and I often speak at these too.
I regularly see people choose to follow Jesus and that is still one of the best things about my calling.
As a Missiologist, how does your understanding of missions and cross-cultural engagement inform your approach to evangelism, leadership and ministry?
One of the guiding principles of missiology is that the substance never changes, but the style regularly adapts to meet the need of the context.
As leaders in the UK, we have lots to learn constantly from those who engage cross-culturally, because they are those who are experts at bridging the gap between culture and the gospel.
How do you believe your roles as an evangelist speaker and Missiologist contribute to the successful management of mentorship programs within the EA?
One of our core values at EA is that we are relational. We recognise the world runs on relationships and so we love hanging out together.
I have a few people who are more experienced than me and some exceptionally talented peers who I am constantly learning from. We also have a number of really gifted, passionate young adults who are part of the team, who I have the joy of investing in, and opening doors of opportunity to.
Ministering with others is one of the great perks of working for a larger organisation.
Can you share any examples or stories where your dual roles have positively impacted your mentorship relationships and helped individuals grow in their faith and ministry?
My dad died when I was 21 and since then I have especially sought out wisdom from older mentors and those more spiritually mature than me.
No one could replace my biological dad, but I have a few father-like figures who help me along the way.
One particular moment stands out after I had served my heart out at a Christian festival, where an older leader just gave me a hug and said, ‘I’m proud of you.’ I’ll always remember that moment.
Over the years I have been given amazing opportunities. What I have tried to do is get out of the way of younger leaders when they have needed the chance to take on more responsibility.
Can you provide an overview of your two books on friendship and evangelism, and how they intersect?
I love writing and my two books are both in this area of relationships. The most recent, The Best of Friends is about how good friendship is and the pressures it is under in our world. It is a heart cry to our society and church to reprioritise it and draws on the example of Jesus and the way he invested his time in his friends.
It’s full of practical tips and my hope is that it will strengthen all of our relational muscles.
The first book, Story Bearer, is about how to share your faith with your friends. I’ve tried lots of ways to talk about Jesus with my not-yet-Christian friends over the years, but the most effective has been to share my story. This book helps us all discover our story of faith and communicate the good news clearly and relationally.
How did your personal story influence the writing of these books? Were there specific experiences or relationships that inspired you?
My books are full of personal stories. I’ve had many failures and a few successes when it comes to making friends and sharing faith.
I love authors who are vulnerable and honest, and I’ve tried to be my authentic self on the pages of the books I’ve written.
As a wordsmith, when did you realise the power of storytelling and its impact on conveying messages and connecting with readers?
I’ve always loved stories. I was an avid reader as a child and love how narrative captivates the heart and mind.
When I wrote the first book I researched the neurology of storytelling and uncovered how powerful it is and why advertisers, music video producers and social media gurus are obsessed with it. But the real master is Jesus.
He used stories to plumb the depths of the truths of the universe. As I have sought to connect with audiences, as a speaker or writer, I have found nothing beats telling a great story.
In your book you touched on mental health and friendship, you discuss that people have an average of 150 friends. Why is this average significant, and what role does it play in our lives?
First a point of clarification. 150 is the upper limit of our capacity for friendship, but it is remarkable how many social groups meet this number.
The idea that we have relational capacity is hugely significant because it means we need to invest our time well.
We have finite energy and time and yet most of us end up spreading ourselves so thinly across so many people we struggle to gain the depth of friendship we need.
150 is the upper limit of our network, and it’s a good thing to have lots of connections, but not at the expense of a few really close friends.
Within a circle of friends, how important is it to have three great friends? And why is having one best friend particularly important when it comes to your mental health?
So as well as thinking about having a good network, having a few close friends is so important.
There’s no fixed number for this, but Jesus had three so that’s a good start. We need these friends especially to be vulnerable with, and to share our hopes, fears, struggles and dreams with.
These are the friends you call when you get a new job, a baby is born or you find out the cancer is back. They are there for the mountaintops and valleys of life.
The stat around one close friend is that if you have just one friend who is in your inner circle, you will be way less likely to suffer the adverse health effects of isolation and loneliness. You can explore the science behind this in the book.
How does having a diverse set of friends serve as an antidote to the crisis in our society? How does it promote understanding, empathy and unity?
One of the challenges in our society is that statistically, we are less likely to be friends with people who are different from us.
The saying, ‘birds of a feather flock together’ is true in friendship and that’s not altogether a bad thing.
However, if we are to see the dangerous divisions that we see in our world across age, race, politics and wealth healed and people trust one another, we will need to get to know and be friends with people who we have less in common with.
As I have gotten to people who are older, younger, richer, poorer or those with a different story or skin colour, my life is richer, but it also means I am less likely to stereotype and build unnecessary walls. If we all did that it would make a huge difference.
In your book, you mention the enjoyment of having a kebab with friends versus having a salad on your own. Could you elaborate on the significance of shared experiences and companionship?
Time is like oxygen to friendship. When I go a few days without seeing my best friend, I really miss him and feel the need to reach out.
We have journeyed through the highs and lows of life together.
Over the last 20 years, we have lost three parents and a sibling between us. We have stood next to each other as best men as we have married our wives.
We’ve been on adventures as well as just met up for lots of cups of tea and trips to the gym. All of this, the extraordinary and mundane, contributes to a depth of friendship that means we can be honest, real and share life together. It makes all the difference.
Your book was first published during the lockdown period. What were some of the challenges you faced during the launch, and how did you overcome them?
The book was published the week all the bookshops closed! I was honestly devastated. So we had no physical, in-person launch party and all the speaking engagements for that year were cancelled. So like everything else, we went online.
We had a super fun Facebook live launch with giveaways and selfies from all over the world and I ended up trying to fulfil speaking engagements on Zoom instead.
It wasn’t ideal, but we innovated and the launch parties for the second book made up for it!
What would you like readers to take away from both of your books? Have you received any feedback so far that resonates with your intentions?
My deep prayer for The Best of Friends is that there are fewer lonely people and we are all more intentional in pursuing deep friendships that beat superficial connections every time.
Already people have responded to the book in an amazing way and the need for friendship in our world has been expressed by the fact that I’ve had columns in national newspapers and several TV and radio appearances.
Story Bearer has been out longer and my favourite feedback from that was the story of a man who read it and then led his son to the Lord in the car on the way home from football!
In a world dominated by social media, why do you believe it's crucial for people to seek real friends instead of mere followers?
Social media is brilliant for helping us to connect with lots of people, but is a poor substitute for face-to-face connection.
It also gives us the illusion of friendship. Facebook friendship is cheap – you just click, ‘Accept’. But real friendship is costly – it demands our time and devotion to one another.
My deep encouragement to us all is to pursue depth over superficiality, trust over suspicion and quality over quantity. Friendship is so good for us. It really is a matter of life and death.
A huge thank you to Phil for finding the time to sit down and speak with me. I hope you enjoyed this post getting to know Phil and the incredible work he's doing.
You can buy either of Phil's books by using the Amazon affiliate links below
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You can also keep up to date with Phil through his website or on Twitter, where he's @philknox or Instagram where he's @mrphilknox.
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