My church's youth group held an event today. It's called "R-AGE Olympics" (R-AGE is the name of our youth ministry by the way. We're not actually organising a really angry sports event.)
Anyway, for the event, I baked 100 cookies (actually, more like 130, but because we said we'd bring 100, and because 25 of them turned out looking more like mini pizzas than cookies, we've decided 100 is a good number to actually bring). I baked with my mom, and it was really fun. I really love spending time with her, and baking is something we both like to do (although obviously she's way better than I am!). It was especially cool because we've baked/cooked together so much that this time round, we were totally synch. We didn't have to talk to know that 1) she would combine the wet ingredients and I would combine the dry ingredients (we have this thing where we combine wet and dry separately; it's supposed to make a world of difference), 2) we would each take a tray to put the dough on and afterwards slide it to the left, 3) after the cookies came out of the oven, we would let them cool for a little while, and then flip them over to cool the underside, 4) we would slide the baking parchment off the tray so we could reuse the trays (I'm especially proud of this one because we didn't break a single cookie doing this!).
The icing was the tricky part, because on the night that we were going to ice the cookies, my grandma decided to come over, and the house became pretty busy. Nevertheless, 6.00PM sharp I got to work icing the cookies.
And my mom and I really were on the same wavelength, because we both thought of an idea at the exact same time: pray for each individual cookie! (Okay, technically, not pray for the cookie... more like "pray for each individual who will receive the cookie)
That, I have to admit, was tough too. It was hard concentrating on the cookie, on spreading the icing, on making sure not to get crumbs in the icing, trying not to mess it up and praying for it at the same time. Many, many times, I would suddenly realise that a) I wasn't actually icing the cookie anymore, just praying over it; b) I wasn't praying, but I was concentrating really hard on the cookie.
It struck me, though, that this is probably how God intended evangelism to be (metaphorically, of course. I'm guessing if everyone just sat around making cookies, the whole "more people, more like Jesus" situation would not be optimal).
You probably can't spend every day, every hour evangelising. Not everything you talk about will be about Christ. Your job is (most likely) secular. The songs you listen to aren't all gospel. Or at least, that's the case with me! And all these things are kinda like making cookies. You're doing it for a great cause - every second you're alive, you are living for the risen Saviour, right?
And then there's also the spiritual aspect of everybody; when we pray, read the Bible or devotional material, when we go to church, when we worship, when we fellowship with other Christians, the list goes on. And this is like praying for cookies!
As Christians, I suppose the idea is for us to be able to balance both. The problem is that sometimes we can't - sometimes you focus fully on icing cookies, and you forget about praying for them. Sometimes you pray for the cookies, but you forget about the actual cookies.
Evangelism, for me, has been like that. Sometimes, occasionally, I manage to socialise and evangelise at the same time. But mostly, I'm either frivolously fraternising and failing to share my faith, or I'm really revelling in my religion in a really internal way.
I guess at the end of the day, both of them matter - you can't share the gospel with people if you don't know anybody, but you also can't share the gospel with people if you don't know the gospel.
So yes, point to ponder^
In related news, here are pictures of the cookie-making process! All 100 of them 100% prayer-proofed (you get what I mean ahaha)
 |
| Two trays of freshly-baked sugar cookies (they're upside down though) |
 |
| Dining table set up to ice 100 cookies phew. |
 |
| Halfway through the icing process (and in the background you can see the halloween-esque pizza cookies my brother iced!) |
 |
| 75 sports-themed cookies, all individually prayed for! |
 |
| So there's tennis balls (even though there wasn't any tennis at R-AGE Olympics), basketballs and soccer balls! |
 |
| You can check out this hashtag on Instagram and Twitter! You'll see everybody else's experiences and stuff too (: |
Anyway! This might be happening again next year so I really encourage you to stay tuned to this blog, and if it pops up, I'll post the website on here so you guys can be a part of it too (:
No comments:
Post a Comment