30th september, 2006
i've just got back from spending my saturday morning in town doing what officially, i suppose, was "street evangelism". i say "officially" because it's not really what people imagine as street evangelism. most people imagine that to be somebody standing on a stool with a bible shouting across to the masses that they are all going to hell, and generally trying to cram his belief down people's throat. that wasn't what we did.
actually, there was a man there who was doing that. whilst i agreed with everything he had to say, i didn't approve of his method. cramming beliefs down people's throats is always a bad idea, and shouting in the market-place about hell will most likely put people off (though i do accept that it works for some people and does have its own advantages).
i was not cramming my belief down people's throats. what i was doing was cramming donuts down people's throats. a few people from the churches and i walked around abingdon town and offered people free donuts, coke cans, bottles of water or chocolate bars. we'd bought lots and lots of all of them, and had stuck a little sticker on each one saying something to the effect of "this is a gift from the churches in abingdon to show God's love".
now, if you're not a christian, you may be asking why on earth we'd spend lots of money on food and snacks and then give them out for free. well it's a very good idea in my opinion. firstly, people are happy because they get free food, which is always good, and secondly they will hopefully think of the church as a nice place, which of course it is. our aim is to show love to the people, which is largely what Jesus did. i don't think Jesus ever stood on a stool and preached to the town centre. He preached to those who wanted to hear what He had to say, but He never crammed it into people who were just walking by. He did however show love to anybody who was around, mostly via miracles. He sends us out to show such love to the people.
the theory is lovely, in practice it's a little different.
you'd have thought it'd be easy to give people free food. you thought wrong.
there is so much lack of trust between people in the world that nobody wanted to take a donut. they probably thought we'd done something horrible to it first. here we are with free food and drink and nobody wants to take any. it seems madness to me. we even overheard one family saying they were thirsty, but they wouldn't take our bottles of water.
when i go to new wine, it's like being in a town completely full of christians. whilst there are people there who aren't christian, you can feel the trust in the air. you can leave your keys in the shower and have them returned to you. you can drop some cash and have someone help you find it. in the shop all the CDs are left in the cases so you can test them in the CD players around, and they have no way of knowing if you'd stolen any CDs because they have no barcodes, tags or security cameras. they just assume you won't steal anything.
but out in the real world people keep their heads down, refuse to smile at you unless it's their job, and they won't even take free food off you if you offer it.
the world is a depressing place.
we also gave out cards with the food advertising the alpha course in abingdon and the upcoming youth event starring a comedy/scary magician (e-mail me for details).
we did meet one or two people who we already knew, who were happy to take donuts and cards, but otherwise we had little luck.
when i passed one of my friends, he said he'd been going round with our church's youth pastor, who'd been handing out cards and donuts left, right and centre. he just jumps in there with such a smile and confidence that you can't help but feel like he's a nice guy. then he gives you a card and a donut and you're off!
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