Podcast: Gratitude in and for Britain with Girma Bishaw

In this fourth episode of the new series of the Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast, hosts Graham Nicholls and Lizzie Harewood sit down with Girma Bishaw, Director of the Gratitude Initiative, to talk about:

• his coming to faith and his journey from Ethiopia to the UK;
• his gratitude for the UK’s welcome and admiration of its strengths;
• his desire to help other Christian immigrants share responsibility for mission to the UK;
• the way the UK has been blessed by generations of immigrants;
• the theological and practical value of gratitude;
• and the importance of celebration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeJ3pXooEFo

Graham Nicholls (0:11)

Hello and welcome to Affinity Talk to Gospel, a podcast dealing with contemporary issues in the church and in the world from a Christian perspective. This is Graham Nicholls and alongside me in terms of hosting is…

Lizzie Harewood (0:26)

Is… have you forgotten my name Graham? Hi, it’s Lizzie Harewood.

Graham Nicholls (0:30)

I was trying to give you a kind of big build-up.

Lizzie Harewood (0:32)

I know you were! I’m Lizzie and we’re joined today by Girma. Is it – Girma, is it Bishaw, Bershaw?

Girma Bishaw (0:40)

Bishaw, yeah, you’re right, Bishaw, yeah. 

Graham Nicholls (0:45)

Girma, it’s lovely to have you with us.We’re going to get to talking about your book and your kind of ministry really to do with gratitude, but just tell us a little bit about Christian experience and a little bit about coming to this country. I know it’s a long story, but trying to compress that bit down if you can.

Girma Bishaw (1:04)

Yeah, so originally from Ethiopia, I grew up in an Ethiopian Orthodox background, so very religious family. In the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition, you leave reading the Bible to the priests, so they are the ones who have traditionally – although they might not encourage that – traditionally you leave the Bible reading to the priests, and just the fact that you have a Bible in your house is a huge bonus that would drive away evil. But there is a kind of respect and fear of God that His transcendence is more emphasised than His eminence, you know, His grace. And so we celebrate all Christian festivals like Christmas, Easter, but it is that application of the gospel, that personal encounter was what was missing. So I grew up in that kind of environment where, as I said, with the fear of God and also a desire to please Him, but I found it very, very kind of difficult. And I think at some point, I might have given up even because of the burden and kind of the guilt. So that was a kind of environment. 

Girma Bishaw (2:35)

And then in my teenage years, I think when I was 17, I met a brother, a Christian who was actually backslidden at that time in a college, and he invited me for lunch to his home. And he never talked about Christ, he never talked about the gospel. But when I went to his house and interacted with his family, I saw something was different. And on every Saturday lunchtime, they have this Bible study, they used to have these evangelists come into their home and kind of lead a Bible study. That Saturday, I was there, and he took me to his room. He locked me in and I remember he put Bob Marley, you know, the music on and kind of loudly, he didn’t want me to know that he’s actually a Christian, evangelical Christian, and the family is. And out of respect for his family, he attended that Bible study. 

Girma Bishaw (3:44)

So at some point when the music was kind of the break room from one song to another, I heard a song. So I put the volume down. And then I started to listen, I realised they were singing evangelical songs, and I was kind of surprised. And then I asked him afterwards, and he didn’t want to talk about it. And his father invited me the next day, the next Saturday, the next week Saturday, and I insisted that I should be in that Bible study. So despite his resistance, I insisted and I attended that Bible study and heard the gospel. The evangelist knew that I was new. So he unpacked the gospel and I really heard the gospel in a new way, really impacted by what Christ has done for us. And how he paid a price for my sin. And he provided not only forgiveness of sins, but actually a power to deliver us from the power of sin. So that was a very transformational moment. And the journey began that afternoon. And by the grace of God, my friend also, later on, repented and he came back and we worshipped God for a long time together.

Graham Nicholls (5:13)

So, a wonderful story, and encouragement to lots of us to keep on going in witnessing. And were you then in Ethiopia? Or by this time, were you in the UK? Because you came about that age to the UK, didn’t you?

Girma Bishaw (5:25)

So I came two years after I came to know the Lord. So I was in Ethiopia. And during that time, Ethiopia was in civil war with Eritrea – Eritrea independence, you know, Eritrea was trying to be independent. Almost 90% of my friends were Eritreans. So really fighting with Eritreans was fighting with my friend’s family. And also – that’s actually the problem with civil war. And also, I think the government – the communist regime at the time – was sending young people to war front with inadequate training and preparation, very speedy way of passing us to the war front. And we used to see quite a lot of people coming to our local hospitals, amputated, and, you know, kinds of things. So there was a fear and all our families wanted us to find a way to leave Ethiopia. So that was my reason to leave Ethiopia.

Lizzie Harewood (6:53)

And what happened when you got to the UK? What were you doing when you arrived?

Girma Bishaw (7:00)

So I was very young. That was my first time leaving my family. I had absolutely no idea about Britain, nothing. And I didn’t speak English. I read English. We did study in high school, but it’s not a language that I spoke about. So it was a very daunting experience for me. And the way I came with tourist visa, that was also funny. And also, for me, it was a miracle. Because at a time when every Ethiopian young people wants to go out of Ethiopia, for British Embassy to give a tourist visa for a young man who doesn’t speak the language, he have absolutely no idea about Britain. And also didn’t have any money, really – I had $250 in my pocket. 

Girma Bishaw (7:58)

So I remember when I was preparing for the interview, at that time there was no internet or anything to Google what’s attractive – what attracts people to tourist attractions in London? So I had to go to the library and study to try to find books and information about London. And so I was prepared to say, I want to see the Big Ben and Madame Tussauds and the Buckingham Palace and those kind of things. So I came here and at the airport, obviously, they can see that the tourist visa was real. I mean, it’s authentic. And they can see that I don’t speak English and I don’t have a lot of money. And I don’t know anything about Britain. So it was they kept me about three hours and then left me. So they asked me to go out. 

Girma Bishaw (9:05)

So the fact that I was in the Lord, I think, and that relationship was good, gave me that peace. And I was really felt that he got me, that I’m not alone in this journey. And so the day after the Ethiopians I met, they took me to home office and I asked for asylum. And afterwards I was told that they were Ethiopian Fellowship, Christian Fellowship, this was the people who came here to study when the situation back home changed they remained here in Britain, and they started that fellowship. So I joined that fellowship. And that was, that was, that was actually helped a great deal.

Graham Nicholls (10:04)

Yeah, there’s a lot about that story and that experience. But what I’d love to do is to, to get to your kind of big idea in the mission, and then maybe kind of reconnect it with your experience of coming over here. Kind of, we’ll go back around on it, as it were, because I know that you appreciated coming to the UK.So what’s the, what’s the kind of big idea of your book and the ministry that you started up alongside, you know, all the other things you’re doing and being involved in the church and so on. But what’s, what’s the big idea of this ministry?

Girma Bishaw (10:37)

So, as you said, it is a long story. But after a few years, and after studying, after sensing the call of God to ministry, I responded to that call and studied theology. And I was invited to be the pastor of the first Ethiopian church in London. And I pastored the church for 18 years. Now, just after 10 years of pastoring Ethiopians, we are speaking our own languages, we eat our food, we associate with our own people, we have our own Ethiopia within London. So that was a comfortable kind of place to be. But the question of – we are living in a very cosmopolitan city of people from all over the world here. And also, the fact that the second generation is coming up, and their mission field is different from our own. 

Girma Bishaw (11:44)

And also, the question of what is my responsibility for the host nation, really created a lot of questions in my mind. And as I reflect on that – I mean, earlier on, I was really grateful for the fact that I was received, and also given a place to live, and a money to live by, an opportunity to work and to study and to be a contributor to society. So that privilege, I think, that generosity have been hugely, hugely appreciated. So that appreciating, I became very observant of the good that I see in this country. And as pastoring immigrant church, when you testify or write a letter for someone, a member of your church, who is asylum seeker, you have to back it up by going to court. So I used to go to court quite a lot, and sitting at the back and just observing how this man or woman who couldn’t live in his own country at the time. Ethiopia, as I said, Ethiopia was in that situation. And that now this, there’s this judge there, and there’s a solicitor, and a lot of money is invested in that and trying to make sure that if that person is returned back home, no harm would find him. And just sitting there and this man, you know, it’s like, this is kind of treating the person as a human being and really with dignity.

Girma Bishaw (13:36)

And with that, I really deeply appreciated how Christian values – the fathers, really worked and prayed hard to instigate that Christian value in the British institutions and how that really helped us to feel that we are treated as human beings. And I think those kinds of appreciation – that really increased my appreciation of what it means to be in Britain. So, it’s maybe around four years of wrestling with those ideas, I felt that my heart was outside of the church building than inside.And I couldn’t continue just to pastor the Ethiopians, but I wanted to work with other ethnicities to help them to be more missional, to consider that this is actually our country. What helped me was to discover my transnational identity in Christ, to have given me transnational responsibility. So that the fact that I am as responsible for the mission of God in this country as any Brits, and that means to have his heart for this nation. And because you can’t share the gospel to people that you don’t love, you can’t pray earnestly for the country that you don’t care about. So the fact that to be present for God where I am, to have his heart for this nation and really to see his kingdom come and his will be done on earth became a passion to me. 

Girma Bishaw (15:30)

And that I, as I stepped down, I started to see to notice a lot of things that really, I struggled with. Our unity sometimes in a diverse leadership context is very shallow. There are elephants in the room that there are issues that we don’t want to talk about, because we don’t know how to talk with, there’s no framework that helps us engage in a constructive manner.And also how I saw how we are very much negative orientated – that our public arena was very much focused on the problems and the small minorities’ voices dominating that public arena and really shaping how we see one another. And I found how cross-cultural mission became a problem because of the division and animosity and all kinds of negative things that we think about each other. So the question of, okay, what can we do? What is the way forward? 

Girma Bishaw (16:44)

And as I pray and contemplate – and obviously, that is the heart of gratitude and appreciation – helped me to discover the whole concept of gratitude. I saw gratitude, not as this passive response to the good that we receive, but actually theologically and biblically, it’s an active posture of acknowledging the good. The good needs to be acknowledged first before we engage with the bad. The good came first, not evil. So if the good came first and if the good God created the world and that his goodness is intrinsic to nature, then the good needs to have a primacy in the way we see the world, in the way we see others. So I saw gratitude as hermeneutic principle to see, to interpret the world and to see the world in the goodness of God. So to really to start from there. So that’s kind of the…

Graham Nicholls (17:54)

Yeah, it’s a big idea. Lizzie, did you want to interrogate that a little bit?

Lizzie Harewood (17:59)

Yeah, I’ve got so many questions for you. I probably should write them down. There’s a couple of things – without wanting to have that negative kind of posture – you obviously saw that there was something that was missing in the attitudes of people in the UK for this very venture to start. And yet it was being in this country and perhaps this culture that led you to that sense of overwhelming gratitude. And I just think that’s quite an interesting kind of reality to be in, because I suppose I would also say – and this is only when you take a step back – that we are very quick in our nation – and this could be across many different cultures – but I know particularly from someone who’s always lived here – there’s a tendency to be stoically grumbling all the time about everything and not necessarily realising the many blessings that we have in our nation, or perhaps taking them for granted. I just wondered, could you reflect a little bit on – you talked about how you saw the Christian values running through our institutions. And I don’t want this to become a patting ourselves as a nation on the back, but what do you mean by that? And how did that act as a contrast to what you’ve been used to?

Girma Bishaw (19:40)

So, one of the benefits of coming from outside is that you can be able to see things from a different angle. When you are inside, you can take things for granted, not necessarily undermine it or undervalue it, but actually, it doesn’t really come to mind quickly, and you don’t really see it, you see the problems and negatives and the changes. And so that helped me a lot, because I came from outside, and I just started to see things – as I said to you, the institutional values that we have here and the British values – whether it is tolerance, whether it is law-abiding citizenship, whether it is equal rights, whether it is generosity… the fact that I came, I didn’t contribute anything to this country – as far as I know, my family, my parents, my grand[parents], no one contributed – and I was received and treated as a human being and was provided all that. 

Girma Bishaw (20:52)

And I think the other thing I really appreciated was the dynamics. Now, maybe, because we talk about a lot about migration, we might find it even difficult to recognise, but I think one of the things I really appreciated in this country was the relational dynamics between the host nation and the international community in this country, the migrant community. Now, the reason why I’m saying that is because I have been to many countries in Europe and other nations. And I have had a conversation with the migrants, Ethiopian migrants and others, and what I saw – the dynamics between those migrants and the host nation – what we have here is absolutely amazing. And with a huge potential to be exemplary, to be really very powerful, it could even be by far, even be better. 

Girma Bishaw (22:04)

Now, I came back and, after reflecting all that, I came back here and [I was] really thinking, how did this come about? And obviously, I think the Christian values of Britain in terms of the Christian fathers or mothers who have really prayed and really worked on that, whether it is the Magna Carta, or the whole freedom of the individual – all the Christian foundational work that has been implanted in this country – it had played a huge role. And also, I think, maybe Britain’s exposure to the global culture, at some point –Britain have been ruling the world at some point – that exposure brought some cultural maturity. But also, I think the first migrants who came to this country, the Caribbeans, and some of the Asian community who came in the 50s, and the 60s, and have had a really tough time in Britain. But their struggle contributed to the betterment of Britain. So the Britain I came to know, is not the Britain they came to know at that time. So I think all those contributed. And the willingness, the very pragmatic culture, our response to logic and reason, when we are in this country, I think, when [something is] logically explained, when we are really challenged in a reasonable way, there is that pragmatic approach to embrace reason and to change. So that contributed. And I think, with all that, I started to see the beauty that we have in this country. And I think that’s why, for me, at this moment, starting the conversation about migration from the boat is problematic for me. So yeah, so I don’t know if I if I answered your question.

Graham Nicholls (24:31)

Yeah, that’s really interesting. There are quite a few threads to pull. So it’s deciding which thread to pull next. Just for a moment, just rooting it back theologically, I think, from chatting with you before, and just reflecting on what you’re saying now, that in the Bible, in Scripture, there is an encouragement to be grateful for salvation. And there’s an encouragement to be grateful for all the benefits God gives us in life. So I think both those threads run through.And having had a chat with you in preparation for this, I suddenly started noticing more [about] the idea of having gratitude in your hearts when God’s people are singing together. And of course, that is gratitude for salvation. But I think the prayer for the daily bread is also reflected in thanksgiving for our daily bread.So I got all that idea. Just tell me how having a posture of gratitude helped you with dealing with – sometimes immigrants, sometimes perhaps white British people who were sceptical or cautious about each other? How does that for you play out, that posture? What does that look like when you’re trying to either evangelise or just encourage fellowship?

Girma Bishaw (25:55)

I think that’s a very good question. Because the difficulties when we are talking about a familiar word, is that people think that we are saying what they are thinking. And I think gratitude has been seen as this, softness, this blindness to the bad and the injustice that’s happening. It’s just this politeness that’s to say ‘Thank you for kindness.’ I mean, we say you can’t teach British public to say ‘thank you’, really, because, that’s our default positions. I don’t know how many times in a day we say ‘thank you’. But that’s when we talk about gratitude. That’s not what really I’m referring to. 

Girma Bishaw (26:48)

I think theologically, gratitude is not a sporadic episode. It’s actually a posture in life. It’s a stance in life. It is for me, the pre-fall posture, the pre-fall emotion that enabled human beings to enjoy the giver as well as the gift. That is a posture. It’s a theological decision to start by acknowledging the good. So the good needs to be acknowledged first, because the good came first. The good is primacy. The goodness of God is in creation. And if we start from the good – that we can be able to be above the spell of evil that is thrown at us. So I think that’s why the definition is very, very important. Gratitude for me is an acknowledgement of the good, because the good has a primacy over evil. So when I acknowledge the good first, I transcend the evil that is thrown at me. And then I can be able to engage with evil from a place of freedom without being free from its spell. That is when I can be able to overcome evil with good, because good has more power than evil. 

Girma Bishaw (28:17)

So acknowledging the good throughout the Bible, we see that the goodness of God is not eliminated by the fall. It was the fall, the sin, evil, [which] tries to distort the good.So that’s why in Isaiah, we see Isaiah crying out [that] the whole earth is full of the glory of God. And that in Romans, Paul was saying, challenging the fact that while the power and the goodness, the glory of God is known, we were not willing to give due glory and thanksgiving to him. And that ingratitude led humanity to all kinds of things.

Girma Bishaw (28:59)

So we see how – just to give an example – how Jesus interacted with Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was ostracised by his people, or was seen as this oppressor, and collaborating with the oppressors. And despite all that criticism, Zacchaeus was able to live and practise and justify his actions and live that way for many, many years. Now, this time, Jesus came, and he said to him, the Son of man wants to be at your house. And he, obviously, he knows who Jesus was. I mean, he knows that Jesus knows about him, and Jesus knows who Zacchaeus was. But Jesus’ focus was the fact that Zacchaeus was a human being, and also that he’s the son of Abraham. And Jesus being Jesus, he might have seen some kind of desire to change. So he went in, and obviously, Zacchaeus would expect Jesus to talk about ‘Why are you doing this? Why don’t you stop?’ And [be] kind of challenging. [But] he didn’t say anything. Jesus somehow created this environment of grace, where Zacchaeus encountered his own sin for the first time, that grace. 

Girma Bishaw (30:33)

So gratitude, that acknowledging the good, starting with the good, that creating – it creates a space of grace for people to encounter their own sin.They don’t need to fight. That helps people not to be in their survivor mode, to fight or flight, try to defend or something. So it gives them that place, a space where it’s that space of psychological free space. And that is where an encounter happens. So when they acknowledge the good, things change. You know, people, when you start acknowledging the good, things change. So just to give you an example, two examples of my own journey. 

Girma Bishaw (31:16)

Now, I remember, in my ministry time, there was a minister that I worked with for a very long time. She was a very good friend, and we have been ministering many, many years, and family, friends like that. But somehow, she misunderstood something, and she humiliated me publicly. I mean, she contradicted me publicly in a very big way, in a way that could actually, that I could be misunderstood by the observing congregation. And I was furious, and she was not my – I was not accountable to her or anything.There was a board that we both are accountable. And if there was any problem, she could have talked to me. And also, she could have to talk to the board if there is any problem.But that action was absolutely wrong. And I was furious. And obviously, I wanted to respond negatively, but to defend myself. But the board was really unhappy about what happened. So they wanted to have a meeting with us. So they gave us three days or four days to meet them within the next four days.

Girma Bishaw (32:37)

So within that three days, I was, initially, I was so angry. And I was just asked – how did she… and all kind of thing. And then I started to think about – I just zoomed out, zoomed out, and I zoomed out. And I just started to think about how we met and what she had been to me and her prayers and how those difficult – some of the difficult times that she was there with me and how all the goodness that I have seen in her life started to unfold before me. Before that, the problem she caused was in my face and covering everything. So when I started to think that, then my emotion starts to change, my anger starts to change. And I just saw, I just said, okay, this, this event is really deleting all the good that I’ve been and I saw how that is not right. So I decided to start from the talking about what she meant to me and how she had been a blessing to my life. 

Girma Bishaw (33:41)

So when we went to the meeting, obviously it was very tense and the board was expecting a fierce kind of encounter, and she was really ready to defend herself. So when they asked one of us to start, what we saw that time, this meeting was really wrong. And I just want to tell what happened. So I started talking about how we met and how she had been a blessing to me and everything.And I’m not trying to flatter her. It was a real story. Things started to – the room changed totally, the way they sit changed, the way she… and then eventually, ‘I have absolutely no idea why she did that.’ And I just want you to tell me why. And then she started, you know, because she she misunderstood something. She was angry. And she said that, and ‘I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’ And the whole thing was… Now, she was disciplined. But our friendship continued until this day. So the things would have been gone another way. If I start, I could have a right. She was wrong, the wrong, I could have fought that and then she would be disciplined and then our friendship would have been over. So that – how we can actually acknowledge the good is – it’s not a weak thing. It’s not a defeat. It actually results [in] a more preferable answer.

Girma Bishaw (35:17)

Another example, just short one to give you. I met this couple, it’s actually in the book. I met this very posh English couple in central London, the West End, and they were waiting for a pickup. Really posh, I can see. And so they, I was just waiting for a friend of mine. And there were two people, passers, and they were talking about, I think at the time, some kind of political conversation. And they made us laugh. And the lady started to talk. And she said to me, “I’m really ashamed of my country, Britain – look at immigration, look at Brexit, look at hate crime, look at racism, look at this”. She just narrated all kinds of the problems, she’s listed the problems. And obviously, as an African, she expected me to agree with her and maybe add some more of the problems. So I said to her, “I’m sorry, madam, I don’t agree with you.” And she said, “What do you mean, you don’t agree with me?” I said, “Because Britain is not just that – there are qualities in this country that we sometimes take it for granted.” And I listed some of the things I was contemplating at the time. 

Girma Bishaw (36:36)

And then she came over and she said, “I’m sorry for asking, where are you from? How can you say this about Britain?” I said to her, “I came from Ethiopia, as a young man, when Ethiopia was in civil war, with $250 in my pocket, knowing no one. And I was received, I was given a place to live, a money to live by opportunity to work, to study, and to be a contributor. So I am what I am today by the grace of God and by the generosity of the British people. So when I talk about Britain, I cannot start from the negative.” So she started crying. She said, “Oh, no, no, no, you gave me hope for my own country.” And she said, “Where would Britain be without the migrant community? Look at NHS, look at this, look at that.” I said, “No, no, no, we are the one who are grateful.” She said, “No, no, we are the one.” She would just keep on reciprocating gratitude. And the atmosphere that was created is so beautiful, that she didn’t want to go and her husband was standing there looking at his wife falling in love with this African man! But if we had time to talk, and if there was any negative experience that I had in Britain, she could have listened to me. And we would have – healing could have taken place and reconciliation which would take place.So gratitude creates this environment where new beginning is possible, where reconciliation is possible where we can actually listen to one another. So it’s a very powerful, powerful posture.

Lizzie Harewood (38:08)

I was listening this morning – I mean, entirely different context – but I was listening to an interview with the most wonderful woman, Corrie Ten Boom. And it was probably in the 70s or 80s. And she was talking about gratitude. And she said that she and her sister were grateful for being infested with fleas and mites, because it meant that the wardens who were obviously in charge of Ravensbrück where they were, they wouldn’t want to come into the rooms where they were all sleeping and staying, which meant that they could have Bible studies because they managed to smuggle in a Bible. And Bibles were outlawed in the camps. And she said, “And twice a day, we would have Bible time where we would read the Bible and talk about Jesus.” And she said, “And many souls came to know the Lord Jesus.” And she said, “And I give thanks for the infestation. It was horrible, but I am so thankful.” And my heart just gosh, my heart felt because I think my posture is the entirely opposite direction. And I think it’s very hard. I wonder, I know many people and indeed possibly like this myself, perhaps my heart is hard and I find it very difficult to be grateful and to have that attitude that she adopted and that you’re clearly encouraging. How can we try and encourage people to work through a sense of bitterness and ungratefulness when it’s so unnatural, particularly for Christians?

Girma Bishaw (39:51)

So I think experiencing unmerited grace, unmerited generosity, unmerited kindness really helps us to trigger gratitude within us. You know, there’s nothing as the gospel that actually could erupt that heart of gratitude in us. The fact that that God, for God, we are so precious that he has given everything – he’s given up in his life to save us and to recognise that love. I think that grace is fundamentally a very profound incentive that motivates us to create a heart of gratitude within us. And I think that’s the first thing. And as you said, our society, I mean, morning to evening, we are bombarded with negative negativity, negative news. If there’s no negative, you know, wrong happening, or some kind of bad thing happening, there’s no news. So that actually affects us in a big way. 

Girma Bishaw (41:24)

And I remember that is a proven fact as far as I know. There was a university in America, in Arizona, the neurology department studied that. And in the day 70% of our thoughts are negative about ourselves, about others. And you can imagine the psychological, the social implication of that negativity within our society. So I think it’s just taking a practice, as I said, the gospel experience in that, reflecting that love is, is refreshing, applying that love to our heart is, as Christians, I think, the main source of gratitude for me. And also, really benefiting from the experience of gratitude, even in our children. When the children come home, angry or sad, we ask them what happened – what’s wrong with you? But when they come happy, we don’t ask them what caused that happiness – because somebody have given them something or somebody say something good or something good happened. So that reflecting back and addressing that source and counting that and acknowledging that is a huge help to encourage even from our childhood to grow in an attitude of gratitude, pausing to reflect on the cause of that good things that’s coming. 

Girma Bishaw (43:20)

So I think for me, it’s practising – sometimes even [a] discipline – whether it is in the evenings, thinking about, ‘okay, in my workplace, there was a difficult situation.’ And my acknowledgement of the good first, not to flatter, but actually taking time to reflect the good before I engage with addressing the bad that is happening. How did it help that conversation? How did it help me? How do you tell the other person? How did it help the team? That kind of reflection would really help us to keep on practising that and see that it actually benefits us, it brings – it creates an environment of flourishing from within, from our system. As human beings, no other emotion, other than obviously love, that actually is a benefit to our system. Any other emotion is, you know, causes all kinds of problems within us. So it’s really taking one day at a time and reflecting and learning that it actually is a benefit to us and others that could encourage that gratitude attitude within us, and having conversation with other people – what happened today, sharing the good that happened, and also the result of that exercise.

Graham Nicholls (45:54)

What’s interesting is Jesus and Paul, when writing to the churches, so the seven churches in [Revelation], and Paul in most of his letters, he often has some quite difficult things to say, but he almost invariably gives thanks for them at the beginning of those letters.

Lizzie Harewood (45:12)

Yeah.

Graham Nicholls (45:13)

Now he’s not using it as a technique, I think, as you have been saying, Girma, it’s a posture that he has – that yes, they may be encouraging heresy or, you know, not loving each other or whatever it is. But he will begin by saying, I’m so thankful for God’s work in your hearts, I’m thankful for the love you had, I’m thankful for the way you received me, you know, and Jesus does the same to the seven churches, even though he has some pretty tough things to say. So it’s very much a biblical model. I want to just shift gears a little bit – we’ve probably got four or five minutes remaining. Avoiding the detailed policy decision issues, what would you love Christians to be saying about immigration and integration? So I don’t really want to get [into details], because Christians listening to this might have different views about precisely what the policy should be kind of out there, but in terms of our dialogue, what would you love Christians – what would you love to hear, or perhaps you’re already hearing it – but what would you love to hear when people talk about immigration and integration?

Girma Bishaw (46:20)

So I think I raised a little bit about where the starting point should be when we talk about migration. Starting from the boat is a problem – because when you start to talk about the boat, the influx of immigrants from France, you tend to, when you raise that, you would be seen as anti-immigrant. And also people might not want to raise those things, because they would be labelled as anti-immigrant. So you find these people who have frustrated and raise those issues, some of them hide it behind. I think the best place to start for me is to celebration, to celebrate the many, many years, hundreds of years of Britain’s hospitality to the migrant community in this country and also the contribution of those migrants, migrant communities to the betterment of Britain in many ways. 

Girma Bishaw (47:30)

So if we start by celebrating, acknowledging, those things, then when we raise the difficulties that we’re facing today, it will become objective, we are not… Raising those wouldn’t make us anti-immigrants or otherwise. So I think that there’s a tendency to consider celebration as weak, but celebration is actually a very powerful thing. You know, in the Bible, God gives to his people celebration after every revelation. After a significant historical event, he asked them to celebrate because [in] celebration, you are internalising what you value most. What you know, you are celebrating, you are communicating. Celebration is communicating – you are communicating what you value most, what make us who we are. And also, it’s also preventative, you actually prevent those things which doesn’t agree with what you value most. And so starting the conversation of immigration should start, as I said, from the celebration of the past, that I think [would be] helpful to do it.

Girma Bishaw (48:47)

And also, I think we need to create a space where people will be free to start because I always say that you cannot expect hospitality to grow while you are ignoring the concern of the host. No matter how right or wrong the concern of the host is, the host needs to have a safe environment where its concern is heard. So I think as churches, we need to create a space in our churches where people could share, no matter how bizarre their idea is, their frustration is. I think if we don’t do that, then we are consuming, all ideas from somewhere else. And the way we think about things might not be the right way. So creating that space and having a free conversation and listening to the people is very, very important. And when we talk about, as a nation, protests, when we talk about migration, that aspect of celebrating the best that we have in this country, celebrating the values that we have in this country, not only creates an environment [but also means] that when we invite people to be integrated, they know what they are invited to integrate to, because we are celebrating, we are highlighting, we are communicating what we value, what Britain is all about, what Britain values most, what we are. So in the absence of that clarity, in the absence of that celebration, in the absence of that vocal articulation of what we are, people don’t know what to integrate to. Just because I speak English, by coming here, I speak English, doesn’t mean I’m integrated. The values [and] cultural norms that people are invited to integrate needs to be clearly celebrated as a nation.

Girma Bishaw (51:10)

And I think the other thing, just to finish, you know, when we think about Britain’s multicultural political ideology, that came about from Britain’s generosity in a way. Because realising that culture, cultural expression matters for human flourishing, [for] individuals flourishing, so people are given freedom to exercise and to be themselves, to be their culture within Britain. But in the absence of umbrella culture – where the unity that brings us together – diversity becomes a huge problem, because even in the church, diversity is meaningful, because we have something that unites us, which is Christ. But in the nation, if we don’t highlight those cultures, if you don’t have this uniting kind of culture norm that we celebrate, but we are invited to celebrate, then where are we asking people to integrate to?

Graham Nicholls (52:17)

Absolutely brilliant. I love that. Yeah, really interesting. Yeah, it’s a bit like in the church, you can’t celebrate diversity as a value in itself. You can only celebrate diversity if there is unity. And in the case of the church in Christ, I love the way you articulate it in terms of the nation state as well, that you can’t just celebrate diversity, it’s diversity under the umbrella of the host. Do you know what, Lizzie, I’m going to give you the privilege of the last question. So think of one.

Lizzie Harewood (53:03)

Oh goodness, I’m normally very good at coming up with something that’s quite sensitive. Well, maybe, where can we learn more about thankfulness, about gratitude, where can we find your book? I don’t know if that’s what you mean, Graham, but…

Graham Nicholls (53:03)

That’d be good. That’s a good question.

Girma Bishaw (53:05)

Yeah, so it’s an Amazon – IVP is the one who published it and you can find it on IVP. 

Graham Nicholls (53:03)

Give us the title. 

Girma Bishaw (53:05)

It’s The Gratitude Way: Creating common ground in a divided world. There is a sociological, theological… I have interviewed Miroslav Vov. I have just a few pages of Miroslav Vov. There’s a psychologist who I interviewed and also a few, two other Christian practitioners that I interviewed included in that book. And I think it gives the overall picture of what I’m talking about.

Graham Nicholls (53:46)

Wonderful. We’ve really enjoyed chatting with you. So thank you so much for your time.

Lizzie Harewood (53:55)

Absolute pleasure. We are very grateful.

Girma Bishaw (53:55)

Thank you very much.