The origins and recent evolution of a Gospel Partnership town-centre ministry!
Evangelism these days may not seem as easy as it was.
But we have to keep trying. What we have been up to in Guildford is no whiz-bang success story, but it might encourage others to see the kinds of things that are possible.
Back in 2008, when David Skull joined the team at Chertsey Street Baptist Church as Assistant Pastor, we began a new venture which was dubbed ‘the Guildford Bible Talks’ (GBT). This was a fortnightly, lunch-time gathering in a room at ‘The Star’ pub offering simple Bible expositions for Christians working or living in the town centre. It was pioneered by a couple, Tim and Georgina Vallance-Webb who were members at Cranleigh Baptist Church, just outside Guildford. This venture drew a few Christians and built something of a team spirit.
New Christian
However, after a few years, ‘The Star’ was to be refurbished and so it looked as if the meetings would soon have to come to an end. It was just at that time that a guy turned up at GBT in a Costa Coffee uniform. Rob was a new Christian, involved with Farnham Baptist Church and working in Guildford. He was very excited about the lunch-time expositions and asked: ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ Tim Vallance-Webb explained that GBT needed a new venue in which to meet. It turned out that Rob was the manager of the Costa Coffee shop in central Guildford and it was not too long before the fortnightly meeting moved there. The Lord had provided.
There is an area in the upstairs section of Costa which is self-contained while still being open to the rest of the shop. Chertsey Street, and other local Christians mainly from Gospel Partnership churches, put together some money and a lunch of assorted sandwiches, coffee or tea was provided each Wednesday lunch-time, free to outsiders. With the passing of time, solicitors Tim and Georgina Vallance-Webb felt the call of God and moved away to Australia as they took up work with MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) out there. But GBT was firmly established and the momentum kept up despite their departure.
Life Matters
By the summer of 2012 new people had got involved and after discussion and prompting by the evangelist, George Osbourne, it was decided to re-vamp GBT into something much more directly evangelistic. At this point, Alex Philippi, a Canadian who had been part of a Christian theatre group and had played field hockey for his country, was taken on by Chertsey Street as an apprentice for a year. He was asked to take a leading role in the work. The name was changed to ‘Life Matters’ and last autumn saw a group of Christians from local churches out on the streets with flyers advertising the meetings at Costa Coffee. The flyers, offering a free lunch and a talk at Costa, were handed out by a core group of eight to ten Christians on the High Street and to commuters coming into Guildford in the mornings at the train and bus stations. The talk topics, taken by various speakers and local pastors, were made much more evangelistic, with titles like, ‘Is God interested in me?’, ‘Can God really change someone’s life?’, ‘Why sporting success is not enough’, ‘Why do I need Jesus?’ and ‘Why is Jesus the only way?’
All this culminated in a lunch-time Christmas carol service at the Guildhall on the High Street. Glen Shotton, the pastor of Guildford Park Church, spoke. Again the Christians were out on the street offering hot drinks and mince pies and inviting weary Christmas shoppers in to sit down and listen to the gospel.
A few people filled in cards and took up the offer of group Bible studies at the coffee shop introducing the Christian faith. This was encouraging.
What one question?
What to do in the run-up to Easter? Something of a breakthrough took place. The idea was to go out onto the streets with hot-cross buns and this time ask passersby if they could ask God one question what would it be? This seemed to grab the imagination of many people. Of course, some did not want to know, but many were surprisingly positive. You could share your thoughts there and then or send something later on email, Twitter or to a Facebook page. They tended to take a hot-cross bun and chat. The idea was that, from the responses, the Life Matters group would sort out the top three most frequently asked questions and then invite people to listen to the Bible’s answers to those questions in the three weeks running up to Easter at Costa. The top three questions which emerged from this exercise were: ‘Why is there so much suffering?’, ‘What happens when we die?’ and ‘What is the purpose of life?’
Some of the conversations on the High Street turned out to be particularly poignant. One young woman, when asked, ‘What one question would you ask God?’ replied ‘I want to know why my husband died last year’, and then broke down in tears. The two Christian women who had approached her were able to comfort her and, with arms around her in the High Street, pray with her.
The talks which came out of this exercise attracted about 20-25 people each time. And, interestingly, quite a lot of other people who were in the coffee shop, but not actually in the area assigned to Life Matters, clearly lingered over their drinks and listened in at a distance. Some asked questions later.
Out of this Easter exercise three Uncover Bible studies commenced at Costa Coffee involving around a dozen non-church people. There was a group of women, who came together. Also there was a family from the Middle East, and even the husband started coming regularly to ask about the gospel.
These groups are still work in progress. But God does seem to be in it.
Are there any lessons?
Asking Alex Philippi what he felt the lessons from this outreach were, he said that there were four things. First: ‘Don’t be surprised at who may be interested in finding out more about Jesus. Many people look fairly grim as they go about their daily round with their “game-face” on. But we found a good percentage of such people opened up as we approached them with a cake, a smile and a question’.
Second, he said: ‘Never under-estimate the benefit of getting Christians out on the street engaging with people. It sharpens a Christian’s spirit and makes links with people who would never otherwise hear anything about Christ’. Thirdly, he said: ‘The exercise of finding out what’s on people’s minds, and tailoring our presentation of the gospel to try to address those things, proved particularly beneficial’. Fourth was that the idea of inviting those we are seeking to reach to a non-churchy, more neutral venue certainly seemed to pay dividends.
This kind of outreach, which evolved out of the original GBT, might just be worth trying elsewhere.
