Leah Sax:
Hello and welcome to episode 23 of Delight Podcast. My name is Leah Sax.
Adam Curtis:
Hello, and I’m Adam Curtis.
Leah Sax:
Hello Adam Curtis. Today’s episode, our lovely topic is discipleship and my very good friend Phil Short is going to be our guest. He is currently the youth pastor at my church, Christ Church, Mayfair. Whoop whoop! But he also has a fabulous little claim to fame, which is that he was Westlife’s touring guitarist.
Adam Curtis:
Oh, I what love about this episode is that we get to see a lived example, a lived experience of someone who’s being a disciple of Jesus Christ. But actually this episode Leah, it just picks up on so much of what we’ve done here in Delight Podcast like it picks up on our relationships episode In episode 13, it picks up on the work episode, Episode 18 church episode, Episode four picks up on the joy of friendships, which we covered in episode eight. It picks up on how all of life is for the worship and glory of God, which we looked at in episode 12, and it’s just so exciting to see these truths, which we’ve been exploring in this podcast, just how they’re embedded in someone’s life as they live for Jesus.
Leah Sax:
Indeed,So if you have listened to those podcasts, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t listen to this episode, because this is like practical application. Plus, like Phil is really cool. Anyway, let’s see what Phil has to say.
Adam Curtis:
What it means is that you should go back and listen to those episodes once You’re done with this one.
Leah Sax:
All right, all right. Adam. And now over to Phil’s testimony. Is that okay, bro?
Adam Curtis:
That’s okay.
Leah Sax:
Hello and welcome Phil Short to Delight Podcast.
Phil Short:
Yay!
Adam Curtis:
I can tell you what a start. What a start. We’re not going again.
Leah Sax:
We’re not going again. We’re keeping that. Phil, welcome. It is a delight to have you. Who are you and what do you do?
Phil Short:
My name? Leah, in case you’ve forgotten, is Phil. But for your listeners. Yeah, my name is Phil short and me and Leah are very old friends. We go back about 15 years, I think, isn’t it? Gosh, that’s a long time, I know, um, but who am I? I am, uh
Adam Curtis:
This could be haaaaard Podcast.
Leah Sax:
Let’s start with the beginning. So what did you study like? What did you do for a while? And then we’ll landed with what you’re doing now friend.
Phil Short:
Yes. Thank you. Yes. Well okay. So yes. So my names Phil Short I, I’m a bit of a perfectionist which means I overthink how to answer questions in the right order. So I just don’t talk. So I moved to London 15 years ago to go to music college. I studied at a school called Tech Music Schools that no longer exists. I got a Bachelor of Music from there. And then up until recently, I was a professional guitar player for 12 years. I took one year off to do a ministry internship at Christ Church Mayfair, where I go to church with Leah in 2013. That was also the year I got married to my lovely wife, Emily. Oh she’s fabulous . She is. Fabulous indeed. I have been a self-employed musician for all of that time.
Leah Sax:
Share with the group the musician. Highlight that the world might like to hear about.
Phil Short:
Okay, so the musician highlights is in the last few years I’ve been the touring guitar player for Westlife. For people who are of that vintage and remember a bit of flying, flying without wings and all of that kind of stuff. The last few years, that’s what I’ve been doing. Started working for them in 2019. Yeah, and that was a very exciting time and a huge privilege to get to work on a gig like that and, and play some, play some iconic venues, play some really big shows.
Leah Sax:
Wembley.
Phil Short:
Like Wembley.
Leah Sax:
I’m just I’m just helping you. Like, you’re just.
Phil Short:
Helping me here.
Leah Sax:
I’m helping you share the thing. Not so British with the CV. Yes.
Phil Short:
Not so British. Yeah. I say blow your own trumpet, Phil. Come on.
Leah Sax:
Well, in saxophone. Guitar. But. Yes.
Phil Short:
Oh, yeah. So that’s that’s what I’ve done. And then I’d also been lecturing at Bimm University in Fulham as well for the last seven years, teaching mostly guitar technique and improvisation. But yeah, I’m covering on a couple of other things and then just whatever other bits and pieces come round. Lots of wedding gigs, mainly, uh, work together in our own function band for a lot of years as well. They were very fun gigs. We had a good time.
Leah Sax:
And what do you do now? Because you’ve got a new gig at the moment, yes.
Phil Short:
And now, as of six weeks ago, I am now the youth pastor at Christ Church Mayfair. So I have retired as the word that I’m using. I have retired from professional music. I am now pursuing full time vocational ministry, and that looks like being the youth pastor at Christ Church, Mayfair. And I’m also studying theology part time alongside that as well, which is a part time master’s over four years.
Leah Sax:
Oh blimey. So you’ve accomplished a lot, young man. Let’s go back to the earlier days. How did you get to know Jesus?
Phil Short:
Yeah, I grew up in a Christian family. I was very fortunate to have Christian parents. They taught me the gospel over my life. I have realised more and more that I was quite lucky and fortunate to have the parents that I had. Not everybody had as loving parents as I’ve been fortunate to have, and I kind of took that for granted a lot. So I’m very grateful to the Lord for that privilege and that blessing. I can’t put a precise time on when I became a Christian, probably between the ages of eight and ten, I can remember a time when I was very religious and I kind of knew the Sunday school answers, but I didn’t realise that it was a relationship with God or a relationship with Jesus, to be more specific. But probably around that time I understood a very basic level. I need to put my trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of my sins, and I couldn’t have given you any more than that. It was just God’s grace and the work of the Holy Spirit in my life that I just felt the call to put my trust in him.
Leah Sax:
What has kept You going as a as a believer in those years since you were a young Phil Short?
Phil Short:
I think churches are a really big, important part of that, not just church as an idea or as an institution, but churches, actually people. So I don’t know what your perception of church is, whether you just think of like a particular type of building or whatever, you know, that’s a church building. It is a building that houses the church, which is the people, like a garage, houses, cars, actually church, family and in particular actually my like Sunday school leaders. And my youth leader is a guy called Pete Walkingshaw, who’s now a pastor of a church up in Carlisle. If he ever comes across this podcast, I’m eternally grateful for the fact that he ran youth group when I was the only youth.
Leah Sax:
Oh wow.
Phil Short:
It’s not really a youth group, but he ran it.
Leah Sax:
That’s a servant heart.
Phil Short:
Yeah, which is amazing because he, like he cared about the young people in that church knowing about Jesus. And just because I was the only one in a particular age bracket at the time, because of his convictions about Jesus wanting to call all people to himself, he made that effort with me, which which is amazing. So it’s been with particular people, student workers. When I moved to CCM, older brothers and sisters who invested time in me, but also through friends I think is a really important one as well. Christian friends have been absolutely key to keeping going with the Lord. And when I was a teenager, actually, things like summer camps and stuff like that were were really crucial. I didn’t have any Christians my own age growing up. God used camp to help me keep going because I’d turn up every year and be like, wow, there’s like 15 other teenagers who also trust in Jesus and don’t think it’s bonkers for following him. So that kind of helped to keep me going a little bit.
Leah Sax:
How do you think you’ve helped others in church flourish in faith?
Phil Short:
I think the simplest one is is just being part of church family, just being there, being there and turning up to things. And I think over the years that’s fluctuated. Sometimes I’ve been really invested in prioritising that and other times less so. And that’s just gone with different seasons of. Life and where my spiritual maturity has been at at various points. And it’s challenging in London, like we go to a central London church, London life is is very busy. The busy musician schedule is very busy. It’s very hard to negotiate as well. That’s a challenge when you’re there. It is really encouraging to people that you’re there like, oh wow, you know, you’ve made the time to be there. You know, I’ve always found it really encouraging when Leah, you’ve turned up and like, you’ve literally just got back from a gig just flown in from somewhere and then you know, you’re there and you’re knackered, but you’re there and that’s a, that’s a really encouraging thing. But in other like practical ways, over the years, like me and my wife have been involved in leading Bible study groups. We’ve done that over the last ten years, and we have a new responsibility now where we are part of a smaller team helping to equip and train up the other Bible study group leaders in the church, which feels quite daunting. It’s quite a big responsibility, but also really exciting. I hope that through that ministry that that is encouraging to other people.
Leah Sax:
Well, as the receiver, as somebody who’s in the Bible study on the grassroots at the moment, I’m very thankful for that. I’ve been I was actually before we started recording, I was telling Adam how much I’m enjoying it this time. So thank you for all that work, brother.
Phil Short:
Oh, well that’s good. I’m glad to hear that. But yeah, I think I think the main one though is the mutuality through deep friendships actually. So that’s been encouraging for me. But also I’m able to encourage them. So in our friendship and with our other friends at church, like Ben Slee, who’s been on the podcast a few seasons ago, is a really close friend of both of ours. It’s been through intentional community with those people sharing life. And this is the thing about being a Christian, right? Like the thing that you have in common over everything else is your trust in Jesus Christ. Like he is the common denominator that pulls you together. And deep friendships often form around a common denominator. So for musicians, it’s music. For guitar players, it’s the type of guitars that you’re into or whatever. Like as silly as that might sound. Yeah. See, a lot of my like, close friendships with other musicians, that’s the central thing that holds it together is the common thing. But in the church, it’s Jesus Christ. He is the person who brings us all together. And so in that there’s a particularly unique, profound way of living and being able to be open and honest with each other and there to be like a trust in deep friendships you don’t have with every single believer. But but with a small handful, you can have that. And that’s one of the great blessings of being part of the people of God. And so actually, I can encourage you and you can encourage me. So not just saying nice things to each other, but also where it’s needed, like, hey sister, come on now. Exactly right. This is not the way we do things and you know that. And people have had that with me and I’ve had that with with other friends.
Leah Sax:
I know this podcast is in no way about me. Phil’s the guest, but brother, uh, one of my strongest and most actually weirdly treasured memories, and I’ve shared this with a number of people is when the first Sunday I came back to church after my father passed away last year, you came up to me, brother, and wept in my arms with me. And that was the most beautiful, loving thing that I’ve received and really embodied what it means to weep with those who weep, mourn with those who mourn. And it was just such an encouragement. And I just I want to thank you for that, because that was just a beautiful picture of how Jesus binds us together and how he loves us. So I want to say thank you for that.
Phil Short:
Well you’re welcome.
Adam Curtis:
Good grief team, you’re going to make me weep.
Leah Sax:
Thank you so much for being a part of the Delight Podcast family. Let us know what you thought of today’s episode by answering the question you can see next to today’s episode In your app of choice, you know you can find us @DelightPodcast and DelightPodcast.com has a full transcript of today’s episode. Thank you for listening, liking and sharing.
Adam Curtis:
I wonder if in our modern culture, people think that being a Christian is the same thing as belonging to a football club. Clubs have their own language and songs, their own community and physical spiritual homes, and they definitely require a certain amount of loyalty from their fans. And some people think, well, just like church, we use strange words. We have our own songs. We gather in a in a building and we expect people to turn up fill. Is that fair? Is being a Christian the same thing as belonging to a football club?
Phil Short:
I think it’s really funny. No, no it’s not. I don’t think it’s the same at all. You know, even with some of the parallels that you sort of mentioned that you’ve highlighted, I think being a Christian is very, very different to being in a club. Um, it’s actually way, way better, way better than being in a club. And we’ve kind of touched on it already in the podcast that it’s actually it’s much more actually being in a family rather than being in a club. Like the main thing to to get across is how do you become a member of a club? You have to earn access or membership in some way. So that might be, you know, if you take like a silly American film and initiation process, you have to do some stupid thing or some daring thing to prove yourself worthy of being accepted into, you know, the boys club or whatever it is, or you have to buy your way in, like so if it’s a football thing, you know, if you’re a punter, you got to buy a ticket to get into the ground. If you’ve got more money, you can buy the VIP ticket and you can maybe get invited to a dinner where the football team will be there, and you can be in the presence of the football team. Whoa.
Phil Short:
But all of that is dependent on your resources, right? Like you have to do something. You have to have enough money to be able to buy access, or you have to, like, be impressive enough. Like, even if you’re the footballer, you’ve got to earn your privilege of being on the team. If you want to push the club analogy a little bit harder, getting into God’s club, it’s actually impossible. If you think you can buy your way in, you actually can’t buy your way in. The price of admission is way too high. There’s no financial thing that you can pay. There’s nothing that you can do to achieve access to God and being in his club. That’s quite hard for us to get our heads around, because that’s not how we’re wired on a social level. Like that’s not how we operate within society. Everything is about I’ve earned my place here, I did the hard work in my exams to get into the university, so I deserve to be there based on my own merit and what I’ve done. The thing with our relationship with God is it doesn’t work like that. God’s standard is absolute perfection. You never, ever do anything wrong. And it’s not that Just like you never make a little mistake or do anything wrong, it’s that you perfectly love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Phil Short:
And actually, that’s the root of all of our sinful behaviour. To use our Bible phrase, everything that’s evil in the world. Actually, its root comes from rejecting God as creator, no matter how small or insignificant we might think Our mistakes, if you like, are that we’ve made. The fact remains that actually we’ve broken the standard required to be able to enter this club, so it’s impossible to get in, and there’s nothing that we can do to reverse that. And we can try really hard, but actually we don’t have what’s necessary to be able to, to give us access. So lots of people have said to me over the years, oh, I could never go to your church because I’d go up in flames as soon as I’d walk through the door, which is kind of funny. I kind of know what they mean. They’re like, oh, I’m too rock and roll, man. You know, all the all the drinking and the late nights out and whatever. Like, you know, I’m not holy enough quote marks to be able to, you know, be part of a community like that, which is hilarious that people say that. But there is an element of truth to that. But that’s true for every single person. And Christians are people who realise
Leah Sax:
That’s Exactly it.
Phil Short:
That that is their state before God. Christians aren’t Christians because they think that they’ve earned their way in, or because they’ve figured out how to buy God’s acceptance. Actually, Christians are people who realise that they don’t have anything. The good news about the gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ, is that Jesus came to actually make access possible for us to be able to join God’s family, not just be part of a club where hopefully I might get a little bit of a glimpse of the superstar, but I’m like, way back. And if I’ve got more money, I can go up to like a seat at the table. God invites us to be part of his family and he loves us as children, so he brings us into the closest, most intimate.
Leah Sax:
Yes.
Phil Short:
Relationship. Actually, that’s what’s going on. So it’s not a club, it’s a family and you can’t buy access to it. God has made access possible and so it’s a gift. So the Bible uses the word grace. And grace just means something you don’t deserve. So we don’t deserve to be part of God’s family. But because he loves us, he’s made it possible. And so how has he done that? Well, if you’re a Christian and you’re listening to this podcast, then you know that the way that he’s done that is through Jesus coming to earth, living the life that we could never live, and then going to the cross and paying the penalty, absorbing God’s wrath for all of our sin in our place. And then he gives us his righteousness. That’s just a posh Bible word for perfect record so that we can be acceptable to God. There’s a swap that takes place. It’s all on Christ’s work at the cross. That is how we’re part of the family of God. There is nothing that you and I can do to be loved anymore, or to be loved any less, because it all hinges on Christ’s work. And so the Christian comes to God, comes to Jesus, and says, I have nothing to bring. I need to receive your grace. I need to receive your forgiveness.
Adam Curtis:
Oh Amen. It reminds me of that great hymn of old. I think it’s called Rock of ages. Nothing in my hand I bring simply to the cross I cling. And I love the fact that we have started this conversation about discipleship with a real, beautiful explanation about grace and how we enter into being part of God’s family. Now let’s zone in a bit on being a disciple. So when we’ve entered into this, this family of grace, and the Bible then uses a term to describe one of those people who have entered in as a disciple, what is a disciple? Can you define that term for me?
Phil Short:
A disciple of Jesus is someone who follows in his footsteps or is a follower of Jesus. This whole thing like Twitter and Instagram and stuff like that, where we have followers, it kind of all like, this is like a new phenomenon. Well, it’s not really follow. Like being a follower of something is as ancient as the world itself. So, you know, back in the ancient world, you know, you followed various other people, other teachers, other prominent figures. Jesus says, hey, follow me. I will show you the way, like a come and follow me. Okay.
Adam Curtis:
So like we follow someone on Twitter, is that the idea of following Jesus?
Phil Short:
Yeah. No. Not quite, not quite. Because on Twitter or Instagram we are, uh, we’re just observing somebody else. And you know what they kind of put out. So is being a follower of Jesus just being an observer of what Jesus does? Well, no. That would make you an observer. The following part is literal. Like you literally follow what Jesus does. Where Jesus goes, you go. And that’s the pattern. So a really helpful way to show this, because it’s really important that we listen to what Jesus says being his disciple is, rather than just like what I think it is.
Leah Sax:
Preach Phil Short! Tell us what Jesus said.
Phil Short:
So Matthew 16, the key verse is, is verse 24. But I’m actually just going to read 21 to 27. So this is Jesus with his disciples, Matthew 16:21. From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed, and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Never, Lord, he said, this shall never happen to you. Jesus turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me. You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns. Then Jesus said to his disciples, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. The central part of that section is in verse 24. Jesus said to his disciples, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.
Phil Short:
So that is the pattern of discipleship that Jesus lays out, and the verses around it explain why that’s the pattern. So three things. The first thing he says is whoever wants to be my son must deny themselves. Jesus denied himself. So Philippians 2 Paul says, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Jesus denied himself he was the king of the universe. He was the rightful ruler over all of creation. And yet he denied himself for the sake of the church. By humbling himself, even to death on a cross that he definitely didn’t deserve. So that’s the first thing you deny yourself, like Jesus does. Total denial. Second thing, he took up the cross. What is Jesus’s pattern? What kind of king is Jesus? He’s a suffering king. That’s a phrase that you’ll hear. People bandy around a lot. You know, he’s a suffering messiah. What does that mean? What does it mean to be a king? In human terms, it means to have power and be in charge and not be subject to anyone else but to rule over things.
Phil Short:
But Jesus says, actually, I need to suffer. The Messiah must die. So you look back In the earlier verses, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and raised on the third day. Why does Peter take him aside and rebuke him? Because Peter has this idea in his mind. Hold on a minute. That’s not the kind of Messiah that I want. I want a messiah who’s going to overthrow the Romans. I want a messiah who’s going to come in glory. You know, I want a powerful Messiah. I want a messiah in my human understanding of what I think a messiah looks like. Peter’s understanding, and all of our understanding is too small of what our greatest need is. Peter thinks his greatest need is to be liberated from the human oppression that he lives in. But actually, Jesus came to release us from the penalty that we should pay for our sin, for our rebellion against God, for the captivity that our sin has, that that’s our biggest enemy. That’s our eternal enemy. This is why Jesus rebukes him and says, get behind me, Satan. It’s not that Peter is literally Satan, but already in the gospel, Satan has tried to tempt Jesus by saying, hey, you don’t have to be a suffering Messiah, You know Jesus. Remember, Jesus is fully human as well. Hey, you can avoid suffering. Hey, if you just bow down to me, I will give you all the kingdoms of the world. And Jesus says, no suffering first glory, later suffering first glory later. That is a refrain Jesus goes to the cross and suffers because it’s through that suffering that he defeats sin and Satan and death, and becomes ruler of the whole universe and liberates us from our eternal destiny to be under the wrath of God forever. There’ll be lots of false gospels out there that say, put your trust in Jesus. You can have £1 million. Your life will be perfect. He will give you a comfortable life now. He will give you heaven on earth now. And that’s not true. Jesus doesn’t say that. Jesus says you must pick up your cross. The final bit is follow me. Where does Jesus go? He’s raised from the dead, and he’s seated at the right hand of the father in heaven, ruling over all authority and power and dominion. And so actually, if you’re a Christian, you’re united to Jesus. What happens to Jesus happens to you. So Colossians would be really clear on this. You follow Jesus through that suffering, but you also follow Jesus into glory. And that is the promise for the Christian. It’s suffering now and it’s glory later.
Adam Curtis:
And it’s so important, isn’t it? Within Jesus words that we’re denying ourselves, we’re taking up our cross and we’re following Jesus, and we’re following him into his death, and thus we die to sin, that we don’t want to do these things which which actually caused God to pour his wrath on on humanity, these things which actually cause us to break, uh, the most vital and important relationships, these things which are defined by selfishness. Actually, we don’t want to do those things. And instead, because we’re following Jesus into his death, we’re also following him into his life that actually now we want to live this righteous, pure, godly, glorious life, um, this life which is filled with his life and overflowing with his life.
Phil Short:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It’s not that that’s not challenging. Our sinful natures want us to save our lives now. We want things for ourselves. And so when we become Christians, we experience that battle. So that would be like if you’re a new Christian, if you’re a young Christian, why is it not easy following Jesus? Then why isn’t it easy walking in his ways and denying myself things that I I feel like I want, but I know that that’s not how I should live anymore, Now that Jesus has saved me and I want to live for him. But why do I find that a challenge? Well, because we’re still in bodies tainted by sin. We still live in a world that’s fallen. But now you do have the Holy Spirit who is equipping you to do that. And so I think here Jesus is saying you will experientially, you will be denying yourself to follow me. It’s not going to feel like a walk in the park.
Adam Curtis:
Now, you’ve told. Me in the past that in 2016 you won a guitar contest.
Leah Sax:
Yes, all of church went down to watch him. Adam.
Adam Curtis:
Oh, okay.
Phil Short:
I felt very Loved in that Moment.
Leah Sax:
We all walked from, like Christ Church Mayfair to the 100 Club on Oxford Street, including our wonderful senior pastor Matt, and we were a little fan group. Anyway, sorry Adam, your question.
Adam Curtis:
I just quite enjoying that description there of your senior pastor. It makes him sound like a senior citizen.
Leah Sax:
Oh no, he’s a he’s a young senior pastor. He’s probably, I think. He’s only got, I think only got ten years on me. How young is my voice, anyway?
Adam Curtis:
A spring chicken is what we want.
Leah Sax:
Exactly right. Exactly right. We love Matt Fuller, FYI.
Adam Curtis:
Anyway, in 2016, you want a guitar contest with lots of your fan base in the room. And I think it seems fair to say that that contest changed your musical career substantially. What’s life been like since winning that guitar contest and playing for big bands like Westlife?
Phil Short:
It was a very exciting time. It did significantly change where my career was going and it opened up lots of opportunities. It was kind of a last hurrah for me, really, because the music industry is such a challenging industry to work in and it can ebb and flow, and I’d been through a fairly long season of it, feeling quite tough and feeling like it hadn’t really it wasn’t really picking up. And I was kind of thinking, look, I don’t want to, but I might need to consider doing something else because I feel like this isn’t working. And the opportunity to enter the competition kind of came round and I thought, look, this could just be like a a last hurrah. I don’t expect to get to the end of it. But even if it’s just something that helps put me back on the map and for people to remember that that I exist and maybe they might call me for a gig. The backdrop to that had been that in 2013, I’d been an intern at church, a ministry intern, and the music industry moves extremely quickly. So, you know, if you say no to things, people move on to the next person and then that’s the person in their mind and that’s the person they call. And so you say, no enough times. Lots of people thought I’d left London when I hadn’t. And so going back into trying to build a career had been quite difficult.
Leah Sax:
and the contest had quite a low key name. It was called Guitar Idol, wasn’t it?
Phil Short:
Yeah. Which like when it first, when it had first started, like off the back of Pop Idol before X factor was like really what it is now. In God’s kindness, I actually won that competition, got first place as an international competition. So it was a big deal. It was like the the biggest guitar competition on the planet. So we had finalists from Israel, America, Germany, India, a couple of us, me and one of the guy from the UK. And so in God’s hands I managed to win. And so that opened up the opportunity to start lecturing at my old university. My old tutor’s got in touch and said, hey, why don’t you start coming, doing a bit of teaching, see how it goes. People started calling me for function work, so I started doing lots of that, started doing stuff with guitar magazines. Combined with two things the Westlife gig came about partly off the back of the competition, but also off a recommendation of an old friend of mine who’d been called to called for the gig, but he wasn’t available, and so he’d put me forward. But because I had this stuff online around the competition, yeah, that created a bit of a buzz. And they were like, oh yeah, that this guitar player is exciting and there’s a buzz around him. So, you know, we’d like to hire him. And that came Unlooked for actually at the time. Yeah. Because for a very long time I’d really wanted to do that sort of stuff and then had made peace that that aspect of the industry wasn’t going to happen for me, and actually had got to a place where I felt content over the last. How long ago was that now? Seven years ago. Gosh, a long time. So like over, over the last seven years, in God’s kindness in bringing me to in many ways to to the top of the game, playing for a huge band. And I got to do my thing as well. I got to like shred solos, um, and stuff, you know, in stadiums.
Leah Sax:
I came and saw you on tour. Everyone else was standing up and whooping for Westlife, and then they’d sit down, whereas we did the opposite. We sat for Westlife and when the guitar solos came on, we were like, yeah!
Leah Sax:
Sorry, Like, it’s true. Like I remember me and Kat Bax, our lovely friend, our bass player who we love. Shout out to Kat Bax!
Phil Short:
On Instagram. It all looks like woo hoo! Yeah, like the best thing in the world. And don’t get me wrong, like, don’t mishear me like, it’s a huge privilege to get to do that sort of work. There’s lots of people who would, you know, give their left foot to have the opportunity to do that. But the thing is, it’s all fleeting and you have that high, and then you come right down again. You know, like Ecclesiastes, which is a book in the Old Testament, talks about these kinds of things being vapour, being mist, like a chasing after the wind. And everybody knows this experientially. You get the thing you think you really wanted, and then something else comes along or the bar moves. It promises complete satisfaction, and it gives you that momentarily. But it’s never lasting. All sorts of very successful celebrities who struggle with all sorts of things and the rest of the world are like, I don’t understand. You have everything. It’s because those things don’t actually ultimately satisfy, and we just don’t believe that that’s true. And it doesn’t matter how many ministers you listen to who say that to you. We all go, oh yeah, I understand that in theory, but deep down we don’t really believe that. We think, oh, but I would if I just had a little bit more until you kind of get there and then you realise for me, God was very kind. I’d got to a place where I felt really content with where I was at, and then he gave me the Westlife gig, and then through that showed me, okay, well, this is what it’s like to be right at the very top, and I’m just going to shove you straight in at the top and show you that actually it’s a good.
Phil Short:
Thing to be thankful for, but it doesn’t deliver what you think it’s going to deliver. I want to like stress, to not be misheard here. Enjoying our careers and doing well is a negative thing. No, it’s a good thing. That is a good thing. It’s a gift from the Lord. Our constant struggle is walking the tightrope of the good gift being the thing that will ultimately satisfy me, rather than God who’s given you the gift, being the one who will ultimately satisfy. And that’s a constant tension that every Christian is constantly walking. And I just found being a Christian in that environment. For me personally, this is just me. This is not true for everyone else. I find it challenging in the sense of I am just a bit of a people pleaser. That’s like a deep flaw of me. So I crave the recognition of others far too much. Actually, having all of that success in lots of ways was unhelpful for me in the sense of I valued that too much, that it was actually meaning that I was taking less risks for the gospel. I was being less open about my faith because I was worried about, oh, but you know, people don’t like Christians anymore or, well, anymore, you know, especially in the creative world.
Phil Short:
Aren’t you all bigoted people who don’t like people who live different lifestyles to you? Oh, what if they ask me really awkward questions about marriage and sexuality? Or actually, I just I’ll just be a little bit quieter about about faith and was giving in to my fear of man rather than loving people by holding out the hope of the gospel. And actually, most people are actually quite up for having a real conversation about those things. I had this idol of wanting to be liked by other people, rather than actually having my identity in being loved by God. Ultimately, I didn’t want to deny myself and pick up my cross in my discipleship in this way. And so actually, I just felt increasingly challenged about that. I think God, in his kindness, brought about a dissatisfaction with worldly things or a disenchantment. Sorry, is the word. I’m looking for a disenchantment. Of course, you can follow Jesus faithfully in a touring Christian career. In a music career, of course you can. Absolutely. And there’s lots of people doing that brilliantly. But the big question that we always get asked by our pastoral staff at church is, what is the best way that you can live for eternity now as you so not here’s a blanket thing every Christian has to do this but you through prayerfully thinking it through with wisdom from friends who know you and how you’re wired. How can you be most effective in in serving the gospel and living out your own discipleship.
Leah Sax:
Which is beautiful because we do the same job but came to different conclusions.
Phil Short:
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And like I’ve got some other Christian friends who aren’t gigs, like just like Leah, they are just like the gospel pours out of them and they’re just like, yes, I go to church and this is what I think. And oh yeah, how are you? I’m just really grateful. The Lord has just blessed me in this way this week. You know, that, that kind of stuff. Not everybody. But Leah speaks like that. I’ve got other friends who speak like that. It just the gospel just spills out of them and that’s brilliant. Whereas I was like, oh yeah, I’m fine.
Phil Short:
Got this, Got this thing with church and being really, really kind of quiet about it. How can I be most beneficial to to serve the gospel actually, like the the career is a good, good thing. But I’m making it an idol. But but Jesus says like, if something causes you to sin, chop it off. If your left hand or your right hand causes you to sin, chop it off your eye, gouge it out. His point is not like literally gouge it out. His point is like, be that ruthless with things that stop you from following the Lord, because it’s better to go without those things. Suffering now for glory and eternity.
Adam Curtis:
We can spend A lot of time talking about work, and actually part of our conversation today is we want to put you through your paces, Phil, but we also want to think broadly about the topic of discipleship and how it touches in different areas of life. So let’s move quite dramatically from from your working life field to your married life. And let’s hear how being a disciple of Jesus, denying yourself, taking up your cross, following him, how being a disciple of Jesus has impacted your your marriage life. Could you tell us a story about how you and your wife met?
Phil Short:
We actually did grow up in the same church. Um, okay, I but I’m three school years ahead.
Adam Curtis:
Okay, so it meant you never spoke to each other as teenagers because that’s the awkward teenage years.
Phil Short:
She was quite good friends with my younger sister, who was a school year above her.
Leah Sax:
Oh, lovely Anna.
Phil Short:
Yes, with my delightful sister Anna. They were good friends when we were kids. I mean, they still are friends, but when? But when? Um. Uh, but yeah, when we were growing up.
Adam Curtis:
This isn’t the story about Your sister. Tell us about how you met her.
Phil Short:
Sorry Yes. We re met, if you like. After I’d already gone to university, uh, through the summer camp that we both served on for the last ten, 15 years. Uh, that was just before she was about to go to university in Leeds. Um, and I was in London. Um, and I kind of thought. Well, she’s going to go to Leeds and probably like marry the president of the Christian Union at Leeds. So just don’t even bother entertaining it. But kind of over that summer, there are a few things that happened that meant we just ended up hanging out a fair bit, and I actually manufactured a social gathering at Christmas just as an excuse to talk to her. Um, so there have been like a few things. And then we’d been like sort of staying in touch via sort of Facebook and stuff like that as it was back then. Yeah, we started dating and then.
Leah Sax:
It was very cute. Can I just say, I remember this is how long I’ve known Phil. He came back and told me about his first date ever with Em, and you were so excited. I remember walking down Piccadilly being like, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, what.
Adam Curtis:
What? When? Give me the date. When was the year of the first date?
Phil Short:
February 2011.
Adam Curtis:
February 2011. And then you guys got married in.
Phil Short:
July 20th, 2013.
Leah Sax:
Well done for remembering your Anniversary brother
Phil Short:
yes, I Know, I was like, oh, my day is, forgetting my anniversary…on a podcast!
Adam Curtis:
Yeah. Publicly on a podcast.
Adam Curtis:
Okay, okay. So you’ve been married quite a few years now. So I feel like I’m asking you almost an unfair question for you to look back, but did you bring any misconceptions of marriage into your marriage?
Phil Short:
I think I think misconceptions is maybe not quite the right word. Probably I would use the word more naivety. Okay, because our church in the evening congregation, the congregation is mostly made up of like 20 to 30. You go through seasons of lots of weddings happening. So around that time there’d been a season of lots of weddings at our church. So I’d heard lots of great wedding sermons on, you know, this is what it means to be married. And husbands are to love their wives like Christ has loved the church. And it’s a beautiful picture of the gospel. And and as a, like, young guy in his early 20s. You know, it’s like, yeah, that’s right. This is, you know, this is what it looks like to be like a proper godly man. You do this and you do that, and you understand this and you understand that. And often with anything in discipleship, what you really believe deep down in your heart comes out when it’s tested. I think this is still the case now. I think by and large, in the Christian church, marriage is idolised as your life will be more blissful if you’re married than if you’re not. But this idea of like marriage will complete me and it won’t. It’s not supposed to. When your marriage hits a season of things that are hard, challenges that come along, you know that might be internal challenges for us. It wasn’t internal challenges. It was external difficulties that.
Phil Short:
Made marriage feel like a pressure cooker. How am I going to live through that suffering in a way that Jesus calls me to? Marriage is ultimately a picture of Christ’s love for his church. Ephesians five is the classic go to passage for that. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, giving himself up for her. For a particular purpose, so that he can present her as holy and blameless in his sight on the last day. That’s the call for husbands. Wives are called to submit to or follow willingly. Follow. It’s give not demand. It’s follow the lead of that husband. If you’ve got a husband who’s trying to imitate Jesus, that’s an attractive thing that you want to do. But the whole point is that it’s a picture of showing the relationship between how Jesus loves his church. Actually, the burden is on the on the husbands. Actually, yes, because the wife is never called to die to herself for the sake of the husband. Only the husband is called to do that. If you’re in a marriage that feels tough, it’s like, well, actually, I need to die to myself, to love my wife for her benefit so that she can flourish. That can be really hard. You know, your two broken people and you live in a broken world that can make that hard as well. And the world around you will say, if marriage is too hard, just get out of it.
Phil Short:
Our culture is obsessed with marriage and also doesn’t think very much of it. You know, at the same time there’s like a dual thing going on. Not everybody who’s not a believer will think that. They’re like, I’ve got unbelieving friends who value marriage very highly. But the general narrative is, if anything is difficult in your life, do what’s best for you and cut it out. And Jesus says, don’t do that. Jesus says, deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me and give yourself up for the benefit of your wife so that she can flourish. And actually, like, I really needed to do that in our marriage for my wife’s benefit because she was really struggling and that was really costly. But actually that was really good for her. And actually it was really good for me because it exposed my own selfishness. It exposed my own thinking like, oh, you’re actually like, if I get married, life will just feel blissful. But what does it show me? It shows me, actually, every time I feel like I make a sacrifice and deny myself for the benefit of my wife, that’s a small lesson where God goes, hey man, you think that you gave up a big thing for your wife? It’s not as big as a thing I gave up for you. You think that your spouse doesn’t deserve your love right now? You never deserved any of my love.
Phil Short:
And yet I still died for you even when you hated me. So you get on, and you give yourself and you, and you love her because that’s what you’re called to do, you know? And actually, the big point is the whole point of that is it’s supposed to be a small picture of displaying the reality of the gospel to the rest of the world in saying, in commitment to marriage, we don’t just quit just because it gets hard. I’m talking about the normal dynamics of healthy, godly marriage I am not talking about. Sinful, criminally abusive situations where actually you need rescuing from that situation. So just to make that explicitly clear, you know, if you have been in a situation where actually I needed to get out of that marriage because because that person was abusive in whatever way, it’s right that you got out of danger. A whole book of Ephesians, God has saved the church for a specific purpose. He has saved us so that we can be forgiven for our sins, but for a purpose. So Paul uses the word hope. Our hope is all of our sins have been forgiven, and we are now in the family of God. But that hope is part of a calling, and the calling is to be a part of God’s church that displays this element of God’s glory to the whole universe.
Leah Sax:
I’m definitely biased with this, but I really love how being a disciple is, being a relationship with other believers and walking that step and that life together, pointing each other to Jesus and how necessary that family is.
Adam Curtis:
And of course, you’re biased with this because you’re one of the people he’s walking with.
Leah Sax:
Yeah, he is one of my best friends. I definitely just a bit sneaky on that one.
Adam Curtis:
No no no no no, I should have Guessed this was where we were going.
Leah Sax:
But it’s beautiful because like, as I said, like I’ve seen it lived out with him. So, like, it’s really precious to me to see a brother live as a disciple and see him grow and him be a brother to me in that awwell.
Adam Curtis:
The thing which really stuck Out to me was how being a disciple, it impacts all of life. There is no secular sacred divide. Actually. Following Jesus impacts someone’s marriage, impacts their work, it impacts their priorities. And that is just such a holistic and beautiful picture of what it is to follow Jesus.
Leah Sax:
At this stage of the game, it’s hardly going to be a surprise, especially as I know our guest today actually listens to our podcast. I’m not suggesting other guests don’t listen. Anyway, back on point. Leah, um, our bonus question this season for you, Phil, is which Bible verse is it that brings you most joy?
Phil Short:
I think the thing that’s blown my mind.
Leah Sax:
Tell me!
Phil Short:
Is actually Ephesians, because that’s where I’ve been spending a lot of time, 22 to 23 And God placed all things under his feet. That’s Jesus, and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. God has given you all of these incredible blessings in Christ. For the purpose of Jesus being a ruler over everything, having all things placed under his feet and appointing him head over everything, but not just for the sake of it, but for the church. And then the whole thing is so that the church can then be his victory, his trophy that throws glory back onto him.
Leah Sax:
Thank you so much to Phil Short for being our guest on this episode 23 of Delight Podcast. Next week our guest is going to be ourselves.
Adam Curtis:
I think we should have had a drum roll. We should have had a drum roll before.
Leah Sax:
And we are going to be looking at the topic of the gospel until next week. This is Leah and Adam delightfully signing off.Bye bye.
Adam Curtis:
Goodbye.
Delight Podcast 