my friend tried two approaches. we tried offering them the food first, and we tried mentioning the church first. frankly, neither seemed to work.
my current theory is that it's all down to confidence and general manner/charisma. i'm sure i'll get better at it.
after a while of not much working (and plenty of my friend complaining about my cowardice in approaching people) we decided to head down to the abbey meadows in the hopes of finding more success in a less crowded place.
four of us, all young people, found that the meadows were almost entirely empty, despite usually being full of teenagers with little to do. we did find a few parents playing with their children in the park, and i suggested we try them.
we walked up to each of them in turn and one of us (not me, i'm a coward) told them that we were from the churches in abingdon and that we were giving out free food and drink.
finally - people said yes. the parents loved it, because their kids got a free snack. we then handed each parent an alpha card and headed off.
wonderful.
afterwards i still had half a bag's worth of snacks and drinks, but we called it quits there. we bought some chips for lunch and i got a lift home, at which point it promptly started pouring down with rain.
i thought it was a successfull morning. i learned many things about the general public, about street evangelism and about how God works in these things. other good things included a load of people getting free food, and many people getting cards advertising the alpha course.
hopefully these things will help people to realise that the church is a cool place, and also maybe help them realise that Jesus, who runs the church, is a fairly cool guy.
