Ivan Filby
Ivan Filby has had a distinguished career in higher education. He has a Ph.D. in Management and a MA in Evangelism. He taught at The University of Dublin: Trinity College for sixteen years before moving to the USA to chair the Management Department at Greenville University. Following a year as business school dean at Point Loma Nazarene University, Ivan returned to Greenville U to serve as its 12th president. He moved to Northern Ireland in 2020 for family reasons, where he writes, consults in Christian higher education, and helps pastor a local Free Methodist Church. Ivan is an ordained minister in the Free Methodist Church.
Ivan has authored two previous books: Livestream: Learning to minister in the power of the Holy Spirit (2021) and Speak Tenderly: Prophetic ministry seasoned with grace (2023).
Ivan and Kathie have been married for 32 years and have two grown children living in Chicago and Los Angeles.
He follows Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and his home team, King’s Lynn Town.
Ivan has run 21 fewer marathons than his co-author Mike Elms.
Jesus Unbranded Bundle (Paperback)
Stories without Spin & Stories with Bite
Jesus was passionate about getting his message across.
We can see his frustration as even his closest followers struggled to get it: "You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand.... How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread?" (Matthew 16: 8,9,11)
To remedy their lack of understanding, Jesus used props and storylines drawn from everyday life. Things that were culturally relevant. Stories that true faith-seekers could understand and relate to.
This begs a question: If Jesus were telling these stories to us today, here, and now, would he not realize that we are unfamiliar with the way of life of a first-century, middle eastern agricultural society?
Of course, he would. So, surely, he would create and relate stories rooted in the 21st-century? In the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, he’d find similar cultural touchpoints, so keen is he that all grasp his message and have an opportunity to respond to his claims. He would draw upon modern-day commerce, entertainment, media, technology, sport, medicine, and social protocols, and he would use them as physical, everyday analogies and storylines to communicate his eternal, spiritual themes.
He would keep the themes and messaging of the stories unchanged. But he would wire his words into today’s world. This is the authors' purpose in writing this book: Keeping the Stories of Jesus Alive!