BAR NIGHT

I'm going to miss Bar Night next week. The family and I will be up at our diocesan camp where I'll be the chaplain for the week. I'm still trying to decide if I want to do the bar hopping thing the following week. I mean, the schedule for the past several years has been to be in every bar during the first week of the month; so I wouldn't want to confuse people by showing up at the wrong time. On the other hand, they might miss me if I don't show up at all. And I am getting way off the topic I had intended to write about . . .

So it has become part of diocesan lore that I do this bar night thing, "Theology on Tap," on a regular basis, and it is often the topic of discussion at convention, clergy conference and deanery meetings.

I received an e-mail from one of my colleagues this morning:

Hi, Ref,

I read this and immediately thought of you!

JS+

Speaking of evangelism, how about this one! Sometime back, I read
about an English church in Nottingham that practiced "servant
evangelism" by visiting local pubs and offering regulars a free drink.
They would sit down at a table with some of the regulars and say,
"Can we buy you a drink? We're just Christians from a local church
wanting to show you a token of God's love, no strings attached. You
don't have to talk to us. What would you like?" They would order a
round of drinks, pay for them, and then move to another table to make
it clear that there were no strings attached.

Sometimes that was all there was to it, but other times people would
say, "Come back a minute. Why are you doing this? Who are you? Why
would you buy us drinks?" And that would open the door to discussing
God's grace. The pastor claimed that the technique was highly
successful, if controversial.

My guess is that most congregations would find that form of "servant
evangelism" a bit over the top –– but it leaves the question hanging,
"What sort of evangelism are you practicing?" For too many
congregations, the answer is "None!"

Apparently I'm not the only odd ball out there. The only difference is that the above named parish apparently has a budget to buy rounds of drinks. Well, maybe not the only difference. Even if I did have the budget to do that, I wouldn't. I'll go into a bar, have a few drinks, talk with the people there about God, the church or whatever, but there's enough problems with alcohol here that I won't buy drinks for others.

So . . . bar night or free ice cream sandwiches on a hot day . . . what sort of evangelism are you practicing?