Listening In preview - Phil Cooke

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next, a preview of Listening In.

This week, host Warren Smith talks with author and media specialist Phil Cooke. He’s one of the nation’s experts on the use of media in a Christian context. Cooke says messaging is much less important than integrity.

PHIL COOKE: I’ve often said, we don’t have a marketing problem, we have a Salesforce problem. It’s like going into the Coke, Coca Cola headquarters and everybody there’s drinking Pepsi, something’s wrong. 

The truth is many people listening to this, this podcast at this moment, are probably dedicated Christians serious about their faith. But the truth is, if you look at the statistics, so many Christians are not living the life that God’s called us to live, that naturally suddenly see why the world looks at us and thinks, oh, if that’s who they are, then that, you know, it’s totally hypocritical. And they’re, they just walk away.

WARREN SMITH: You wrote an article 8 Reasons Why Christians Have Lost their Credibility in their culture. You mentioned prayer. You mentioned showing up for church. But you also mentioned some other things as well. One of the things that you talked about was becoming a better neighbor. Can you say more about that?

COOKE: Sure. In writing the book, we discovered a study that indicated something like 74% of Americans don’t know their neighbors names. And I thought, oh, my gosh, what a place to start. There’s a fantastic evangelist in the UK named J. John. Love J. John. He’s just fantastic. And he has a great saying that, hey, you want to be a missionary? Great. Go next door. You know, you don’t have to launch an international ministry to make an impact. Just go visit your neighbor. And you don’t have to take a tract. You don’t have to even witness to them. Just go meet them, take a pie, get to know them. 

And I just think that we live in a world today where we don’t know the person in the next cubicle in the office. We don’t know our neighbor, but next to us or behind us. And so I think we start just by reaching out and just starting, you know, developing relationships with people and that makes a huge, huge difference.

REICHARD: That’s Phil Cooke talking to Warren Smith. To hear their complete conversation, look for Listening In wherever you get your podcasts.

(Photo/Phil Cooke)

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