Some of our best discipleship and evangelism tools belong in the kitchen.
Stacy is the family pastry chef, so to speak. She whips up oatmeal cookies, an oddity in Ecuador, and churns out cinnamon bread and muffins. Recently, she’s been baking banana bread, also an unknown commodity down here. I find it puzzling, this lack of banana bread, considering that there are so many acres of banana trees down by the coast that we have local banana barons who greatly influence local economies and politics.
We own, as you can see in the photo, exactly two loaf pans; wedding presents, I believe, that have endured 21 years of use in three countries. I also possess an extensive coffee mug collection.
And with these objects, we disciple.
We invite folks over to drink coffee and eat banana bread. We discuss bad pastors and good Christians. Bibles are hauled out and positions debated. We drink more coffee. Alfredo and his son eat more than their fair share. We laugh. Stacy brings out more. They all head home, loaded with caffeine and bags of homemade cookies.
We visit homes around town, half-loaves in hand for each household. We give bread. We ask questions. We listen. We pray for the family, and leave with a lighter backpack. We ride the bus to the trolley, then the trolley to home.
Deaf girls from the school stop by on Thursday to nibble on cookies and sip hot tea. They pour out their news about angry fathers and absent mothers. A sister is pregnant and can’t remember the father. A brother is failing at school and will likely earn a beating.
Church leaders alternate between tea and coffee on Monday evenings. They ask about fasting as we chug hot beverages on cold nights. We ask them where they want the church to go in the coming months.
Two visitors joke about bringing some cuy (guinea pig) for a supper-time treat as a thank-you gift for all the cookies. Stacy laughs politely, and looks at me sideways in a silent plea for help. I snicker behind my coffee cup.
We work among a people highly resistant to the gospel message. They’ve been evangelized by Masons, Southern Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, fundamentalists, atheists, and Catholics. They’re tired of it, I think, and are uninterested in folks who view them as a ready-made, divinely-ordained congregation. They’re done being someone else’s audience, objects of ministry instead of humans with empty stomachs and emptier hearts.
Coffee mugs and plates of banana bread do not engender sermons. Admonishments fizzle when given while passing the sugar. The relationships that spring into life during these times will outlast any formal lesson or teaching session.
Someone on this site recently invoked the “they don’t care how much you know till they know how much you care” cliche. As far as I’m concerned, around here I have no chance of sharing the gospel until I’ve shared my coffee.
Glad that our CP dollars help missionaries like you, Jeremy.
I’m going to hypnotize our readers into reading this excellent post.
You are getting very sleepy. You are relaxed. You are feeling warm and fuzzy. When I snap my fingers, you will suddenly awaken and have an insatiable, uncontrollable desire to read this post.
SNAP!
Other than the Bible, what is your greatest ministry tool up there in, umm….that state you work in?
Door-knocking?
Funerals?
Blogging?
Yeah, I’ll go with blogging because I am self-delusional.
We have invested a lot in Upward Sports here. Been pretty effective.
RE: “We work among a people highly resistant to the gospel message. They’ve been evangelized by Masons, Southern Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, fundamentalists, atheists, and Catholics. They’re tired of it, I think, and are uninterested in folks who view them as a ready-made, divinely-ordained congregation. They’re done being someone else’s audience, objects of ministry instead of humans with empty stomachs and emptier hearts.” I have a sneaking suspicion that lost people in the States–at least a good proportion of them–are exactly like those you are trying to reach in Ecuador, with respect to what you say here, at least. At… Read more »
“I have a sneaking suspicion that lost people in the States–at least a good proportion of them–are exactly like those you are trying to reach in Ecuador, with respect to what you say here, at least.”
It is true in my community, David. And I’m with Jeremy, coffee and my wife’s treats are many times the best evangelism tools, especially my wife’s treats.
Now THAT’S a great insight! I never really considered the degree to which many North American communities mirror our people group here in that they’ve been preached to by too many groups.
Good point, my friend.
Jeremy,
That looks exactly like God’s tool chest on your sink. It doesn’t take anything big, but the small things when used for the Lord is what it
takes.
hot coffee, warm banana bread, lovely oatmeal cookies !
you have been blessed with the giving spirit of ‘The Welcome Table’
. . . where all meals are sacred
and where we remember to share what we have received from the Hand
of The Lord of Life
The empty cups, pans, and bowls, when filled with Christs love wins souls.
We serve in Europe. When my husband (who is a videographer) is asked what he does on the field, his reply very often is, “I drink a lot of coffee.” (Or tea, depending on if we’re serving in Western or Eastern Europe at any given moment.) Europeans are beyond post-modern. Many identify themselves as post-God. But in our experience, if you come to our flat, drink coffee with us, eat some weird American baked goods (Kellye, why is your cake wet? No, no…it’s moist. That’s not the same thing) and spend time with our children, you can’t forever resist the… Read more »
Ahh, yes, the complaint of wet American cakes. They say that in the Middle East as well.
In parts of Eastern Europe, we endured lectures on the dangers of warm bread and watched people say “Hey…this bread is soft. Needs to go back in the oven.”
Kellye Hooks,
I don’t think you have anything to worry about. I have never had moist cake. My wife thinks the smoke detectors are timers for the oven.
I don’t even have a dog or mice in my house, they all went to the neighbors to stay.
When folks come to my house to stay for a while, they bring their on food.
I hired a chef to teach my wife to cook, he left with first and second degree burns all over his body.
Great article. For many Americans now, being invited to someone’s home is pretty counter-cultural. We as Christians need to lead the way in bringing people into our homes and visiting other people’s homes. Since I work with South Asians who have a more hospitality-based culture, I try to get myself invited to people’s homes any chance I get. The key is that these methods all take time and openness on our part for disciple-making to occur. There’s no chance in pretending we have it all together when someone is drinking tea in our house, with the kids throwing a fit… Read more »