Taking God’s message to the coffee shop

FAITH MATTERS

It’s Saturday morning, and you make your way to favourite coffee shop for the caffeine boost needed to start your day.

You pick up your coffee, unfold your newspaper and get comfortable at your table.

As you begin reading, you pick up a different vibe in the place, so you look over the top of your paper and notice that at the other end of the shop, a group of 20 or so people are having a group conversation.

You can’t be sure, but it really sounds like, among other topics, the group is talking about God.

And then you hear someone say, “Amen!” and you think to yourself, “What is this? A church meeting?”

And that’s exactly what it is. My question for you is, are you comfortable with that? Would you be inclined to participate, even if it’s just to listen? Or would you be more likely to complain to the management?

I recently attended a seminar on a program that originated in the U.K. that saw a chain of coffee shops welcome a project in which a church group began holding meetings and services in their spaces. The project is still ongoing, and has proven itself to be a very effective method of getting church people and the message of the gospel beyond the walls of the church building.

It’s a new style of evangelism that takes the best aspects of missional outreach and merges them with practical applications in the lives of the participants.

It makes me think a lot about the early church that we read of in the opening chapters of the Book of Acts - theology addressing real life situations, a Christ-focused spirituality that changes lives in real and meaningful ways.

As the prominence and influence of the church in recent decades has diminished, the need for the core truths of Christian faith have never been more needed. What needs to change is the way in which we present those truths.

The message doesn’t need changing, but the way, and perhaps the places, we share the message needs some updating.

My last column was about the foolishness of asking people “to leave their faith at the door.” That rarely ever happens, so to pretend that it does is really an empty request.

I’m convinced that our societies need to see, hear and interact with Christians in every area of our communities. We need to be active and worshipping in all places - coffee shops, libraries, parks, community centres, downtown streets, suburb avenues, and yes, even our church buildings. Perhaps if we had more people in the former places, we’d see more of them in our churches.

But it’s never about just sharing our worldview through a sermon or conversation. To borrow a phrase from the 12-year-old Jesus, we must be about the work of the Father.

That means new expressions of faith that benefits people, in new ways, in new places.

And maybe you can enjoy a double-double will doing it.