Evangelism and cooking: Some food for thought

Evangelism and cooking
Some food for thought:




O, scent of daubes (stews) of my childhood!
During the holidays, at Gemeaux, in the month of August, when we arrived in my grandmother’s dark kitchen on Sundays after Vespers, it was lit by a ray of sunshine in which the dust and the flies were dancing, and there was a sound like a little bubbling spring. It was a stew, which since midday had been murmuring gently on the stove, giving out sweet smells which brought tears to your eyes. Thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, spices, the wine of the marinade, and the fumet of the meat were becoming transformed under the magic wand which is the fire, into a delicious whole, which was served about seven o’clock in the evening, so well cooked and so tender that it was carved with a spoon.
Les Meilleures Recettes da ma Pauver Mere 1960 by Pierre Huguenin.



If you didn’t feel hungry before reading that introduction there is every chance that you do now.
I love food… I enjoy not only eating but also cooking it and often my bed time read could be a good cookery book! The mixing of flavours, heat of the stove, presentation on the plate can all can be very rewarding and of course there is always that special moment when someone sits down to the food you have prepared and give that very British nod of the head and moan of approval. I don’t class myself as a great cook but I enjoy cooking.
The last twenty years in the U.K. have seen a massive shift in our eating habits. We have been invaded with foods and cooking options from around the world including Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Indian, Spanish tapas and nouvelle cuisine from France… little portions of semi-cooked meat all dressed up in a raspberry sauce and a sprig of thyme. (The French incidentally never eat like this, they tuck into whopping big bowls of mussels, limousine beef or tartiflette served with olives, garlic and bread and all followed by hot apple pie and coffee)
Much as I enjoy the choice and glad that we don’t have to rely on seasonal food (sorry Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall) I wonder if we are in danger of dropping everything British and Irish to make small pictures on plates or eat curry so hot it would strip the paint of a car. Variety is of course the ‘spice of life’ but let’s never get away from our roots of classic food.
Boiled bacon and ham, beef and lamb stews, Sunday roast joints, chicken that tastes like chicken, vegetable broth, fried mackerel, sausage and tomato pie, jacket baked potatoes, bread and butter pudding, apple crumble, trifle or hot pears in a homemade custard!
In many ways our journey with evangelism through the Church has been much like our journey with food. We have been so busy painting nice pictures, searching the internet for new forms of media and cooking up events that explode in our senses with flashing lights, big sound and entertainment that sometimes we miss the point: a clear presentation of the good news of Jesus. We can spend 100 hours putting on a show and only 10 minutes marinating ourselves in scripture and prayer. When this happens we end up hiding the real meat under the dressings….
Zech 4: 6 says “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit”, says the Lord.
I wonder if I could spin a paraphrase of this by saying ‘not by lights nor by power point, but by my Spirit.’
Now don’t misunderstand me, I am all for creativity. Modern ways to express the message of Jesus are not to be binned…so long as we don’t leave people feeling empty, hungry and disappointed at the end. I remember a friend telling me how he and his wife spent £100 on a meal only to stop at the kebab shop on the way home. The promise of quality was there but it had no substance.
When we are serving up a feast of outreach, we need to ask ourselves some simple questions:
1. Will the message be clear or lost in the sauce?
2. In bringing new ideas are there some older ‘traditional flavours’ that we need to hold on to?
3. Have we spent too much time, money and effort on the side order instead of the meat?
4. You can’t cook a good stew in 2 hours… like evangelism, it’s better to take time than to rush it, burn it and have it ‘too tough’ to enjoy. Are you leaving your outreach to the last minute and then racing to get it ready on time?
5. Will the flavours work? Just as you don’t offer hot chili sauce to babies, neither should we make people suffer through a presentation which could damage their spiritual palate.

Once we have asked these questions we need to focus on the essential ingredients. What essentials should our evangelism consist of? There are 5 things that should be on every plate:
1. God’s love for us
2. Mans rebellion
3. Jesus in his life
4. Jesus’ death and resurrection
5. Our need to respond to and live for Him

Next time you’re in ‘God’s Kitchen’ to plan an outreach through your church or house-group draw a picture of a plate, write the 5 essentials in the middle and then work your sauce, dressings and side orders from there.

Onwards!!

Mitch