Mike Rimmer spoke with author Andrew Swift

Mike: Was there anybody that you wanted to get hold of but you just couldn't work out how to do it?

Andrew: Well I did send letters - I remember I sent letters to T D Jakes; I sent letters to Joel Osteen. Because what I was trying to do, I was trying to get an American theme going. You'll notice in the book there are quite a few Americans. Brian Broderson from Calvary Chapel; There is an American theme and I was trying to get a few more from over there. But none of them actually responded.

Mike: You were saying about this being an evangelistic tool. Is that what motivated you to do it in the first place?

Andrew: It wasn't the motivation but it's certainly something that is really strong that has come out of it. And I think we are all called to give account for our hope. And that would be an evangelistic way of doing it - so I'm really glad it is an evangelistic tool.

Mike: And we've got to say that you're not making any money out of this?

Andrew: I'm not making a penny. The money is all going actually to Share Jesus International, which is Rob Frost's organisation that he started. That is now run by Andy Frost. And they did the Easter People event. Very evangelistic and it shares the heart of the book so that was an obvious choice. You don't make a lot of money with books. So it was a good decision to say look I'm not going to make any money, it's all going to Share Jesus.

Mike: You'd like to publish a follow-up to this one along the same lines but this next time around with ordinary people?

Andrew: Yes, with ordinary people. There is a chapter in 'My Reason For Hope' that does have ordinary people. It was a very conscious decision to put them in because the hope that we have is just as important as people in the public eye. We share the same experiences, we go through the same things, and therefore it was very important to put, what I call, grass roots people.

Mike: What did you get out of the experience of putting it together?

Andrew: I think just an accomplishment that I'd done something that I had a dream about and I have accomplished that dream. I think it's very important - I don't think we have dreams in our lives that are just to think about or to dream about, so to speak. I think if we have dreams we should try to accomplish them because God does really want us to live life to the full and accomplish our dreams. He's interested in them dreams. So I've accomplished something, just like I did with the surf shop.

Mike: What's next?

Andrew: Well, of course I'm in business, so of course I want to see my business still growing. It's a very hard time at the moment with people going out of business. But you know we need to stay focused on that. I also want to start a new book. And in the pipeline there's something called This Page Intentionally Left Blank. It's about dreams actually. So that's with the publishers at the moment making a decision. So hopefully next year we can come back and talk about that book.

If you want to share your own reason for hope, why not check out www.myreasonforhope.com.