INSPIRE Summer 2024: Oh Taste and See!
By Sam Oakes, Eastbourne Hub Leader
I remember as a young Christian handing out tracts and hoping for the opportunity to follow up with a conversation and perhaps the chance to pray for somebody. More often than not this felt impersonal and unfruitful, like scattering seed to the wind.
Another memory is the fun I experienced walking through French supermarkets and being handed free samples of different foods and treats although, being a child, there was little chance of any direct sale taking place.
My heart is that our schools work should be more like handing out samples than tracts. We want children and staff to ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good’. We don’t just want to talk about Jesus, but to speak with words of life taught of the Spirit that offer the opportunity of encounter (John 6:67-68, 1 Cor 2:13).
I love the anti-consumeristic irony of what Jesus said to the woman at the well, that anyone who drinks of the water that he has to offer will never thirst again. Surely, we want people coming back for more?
In schools, as we speak to children and staff, we are sharing the good news of a living God, who amongst other things has come to satisfy our innate thirst for life. We are not inviting people to follow ourselves or join our club but pointing them to Jesus.
This term in Eastbourne we have been thinking about how we can offer opportunities to meet the living God. We prayerfully seek to ask stimulating questions, lead reflective responses, create prayer spaces and take up every opportunity to share tasters of the bread of life.
We are not waiting for the harvest, it is already ripe. The task is to go into the fields and to learn on the job as the Father teaches what is appropriate for each grain (Isaiah 28:26-29).
