I've been reading a great book lately, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, by Eugene Peterson, and it's had a long string of brilliant thoughts (where I say "Wow, I've never thought of that before"). The latest one was about hospitality, and how closely it's tied to evangelism.
He talks about how for Jesus and for the early Christians, evangelism and salvation was always very personal (not crowd-evangelism), and very often closely tied to meals. Much of Jesus' teaching was around a meal, and many of the illustrations he used were food-related as well.
There are some big advantages for this. It's very difficult to have a meal with someone and be uninvolved. It's always a relationship, and relationship is the richest soil for evangelism, isn't it? And serving meals to people gives us an opportunity to sacrifice ourselves for them, and that's what real living is all about. Or it's an opportunity to be blessed by other people's sacrifice.
But we've got a problem today, because meals are dying. Fast food has meant we can eat on the run, while doing other things (is multi-tasking really a good thing?). And if the TV or the laptop is on, that kills any conversation during meal times (and therefore kills relationship). I know I'm guilty of this one. And how many of us are working late and miss having dinner with friends altogether? not to mention our own family....
We're just not as good at hospitality these days as they were back then. But Eugene Peterson reckons it's not too late to fight back. As he points out, we've all got to eat. If we can only do it together, we'll be making a difference.
Have meals with the family. Invite friends over for a barbie. Enjoy the coffee breaks at work. These are the best places for evangelism, so we can't let them die!
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