Coffee, Sausage, and Transformation

Once a month, every month (except for July and August), we hold a "Men's Breakfast" event.

It is intended as a social event, with food and coffee provided. Normally we enjoy a sausage roll (mine is with haggis and brown sauce, but don't tell my doctors) and a breakfast beverage. The coffee is pretty good, and there is also tea and various fruit juices.

By intention it's a light event and one feels free to invite friends and neighbors. We try to steer away from controversies other than the occasional sports rivalry. The goal is fellowship and outreach, not conventional ministry. It's a Saturday morning of light banter and heavy food.

We rarely (but occasionally) veer off into conversations of a more substantive nature, such as balancing technology and tradition, or harmonising modernity and eternity.

I'm not sure of the combination of weather, food, and connection, but one morning this summer was different.

Somehow we veered onto talking about our faith journeys and how different and personal they are. We found that we "came in through different doors" so to speak. Some certainly from the weight of sin and guilt, some out out of misery, others drawn by love and the teachings of Christ. Some weighed down, some merely drawn and lifted up. Some convinced by a minister or family member, others by The Bible itself with no other humans involved.

There is no one experience of conversion for all people, and we can't pretend that our experience is the only experience.

And from this we turned to contemporary issues and modern trends. We realized that ultimately, our faith must rest on the belief that Jesus Christ is redemptive for all people in all generations.

The culture and life experiences of the younger generations today are different to ours, just as ours are different to our grandparents, and certainly all of us are not living the same lives as those disciples in 30AD.

When we view the world around us today, we can't condemn people for being different or coming from a different emotional or mental trajectory, nor from experiencing the call of God on their lives differently in a new cultural context.

The only place we can go with this is to recognise that Christ is redemptive and transformative to all people in all nations and generations, or else we could not have come.

Perhaps this is a realisation that can transform our approach to others both inside and outside the church.

If we could be reached despite our distance from ancient Judea, isn't it a lapse of faith to doubt that Christ can be redemptive and transformative in every age and circumstance?

I suppose that was a bit of theology that was heavier and richer than the breakfast.

Of course the next week we were back to sport and puns, and have been most weeks since.

I smile remembering the one breakfast when church broke out and we were so very real with each other. I guess God works in mysterious ways and unexpected times as well.