Good shoes won't save you this time

One night in Scotland i was lying in bed at night unable to get to sleep. What was on my mind? Lunchbars...lunchbars! I was happy to enough to lie there and think about it for a while, until i realised that a) i no longer have anything to do with RUCU, and indeed, haven't for sometime, and b) i wasn't sure then if UniSCU even had lunchbars...but i had to sit through it, and now so must you!

What's the point of Lunchbars?

I think they're great. I think its a really easy way for people to invite their friends along to a 'CU thing' without being worried about the singing or the praying (because there isn't any!). I also think its a good way, especially if you've got a good question to talk about, to get people in from off the street/in front of the library. People who may simply want to come and shout the speaker down, people who would never normally think about coming to church or a CU main meeting, but might come and hear about 'Why God allows suffering?' or 'What would Jesus say to David Beckham?'

What about titles?

Are some titles better than others? I think so. Obviously, there are some ones that will always be good to deal with, like the already mentioned 'suffering' one or maybe 'Don't all religions lead to God'. Lunchbars are good to deal with topical issues as well. After the Tsumani on Boxing Day 2004 there was a time for Christians to respond to why these sort of things happened as it probably was something that a lot of people were talking about. If nothing else, lunchbars can provide easy access apologetics training for Christians having to deal with these questions.
The point of a lunchbar is obviously to engage and to provoke, but also to preach the Gospel. It would be a great shame to have a room full of non-Christians who were obviously prepared to step out a little bit and come to something like this, and then not to proclaim the Gospel. This is a great oppotunity to point to Christ and Him crucified. This is why i think that some titles are probably better than others. The 'religions' or 'suffering' titles are obviously more condusive to talking easily about Jesus and the Gospel. Obviously there shouldn't be a feeling of pushing everything to the side just to preach the Gospel...actually maybe there should be. Sensitivity is obviously needed, as someone coming to a 'suffereing' lunchbar could obvioulsy be more concerned with why God let her family die, more than why God allows tsunamis. But preaching the Gospel has got to be paramount.

How often should they be?

At Reading we normally had them every fortnight with one every day during Mission Week. Although i think the last term i was on committee we had them every week for four weeks right in the middle of term, which worked really well to build up a momentum, but then left a bit of a gap at the end of term. It'd be great if they could be every week, although that would obviously put a lot of strain of resources.

[also, blogging resumes on Foxhill Close]