Christianity in the Pub!
The Revd Vaughan Roberts is Rector of St Ebbe’s Church, a city centre church in Oxford. He explains the thinking behind a helpful evangelistic course which used to be run by St Ebbe’s.
Christianity in the pub?! That has been a common reaction when people hear about Tavern. St Ebbe’s is a large church with many students in the congregation, bang in the centre of Oxford. We have been running Tavern as an evangelistic outreach for 7 years now [in 2004].
Tavern started in Spring 1997 as a follow-up course to the University Christian Union’s triennial mission that year. It was aimed purely at students at that stage. People often wonder why we came up with our own course? At the time, Alpha and other “off-the-shelf” courses were all too long. Oxford terms last only 8 weeks, so we really needed a course of 5 weeks or less. We designed the Tavern course, so called, because we ran it in the Parrot pub, over the road from church.
Tavern has been running ever since at St Ebbe’s. We have one course each term (3 a year), and it now includes non-students as well. While Christianity Explored, Alpha, Emmaus and others each have different strengths, we find that Tavern, with its short duration, and simple gospel proclamation still works well for us.
What is it?
Tavern is a 5-week evangelistic course, run in a local pub. The format of the evening is very straightforward. People turn up at 7:00, and grab some food. We allocate people to tables. At 7:30 there is a short talk from the front, usually up to about 10 minutes. The talk will be taken from Mark’s Gospel each week. After the talk, there is an hour for round-table discussion. Any question is welcome, and each table has two trained leaders from church to answer questions. If there are no questions, the leaders will also have prepared a few questions themselves on a passage from Mark’s Gospel, and so a short Bible study will ensue.
The course covers the following ground:
- Who is Jesus?
- Did he rise?
- What’s gone wrong?
- Why did he die?
- So what?
This seeks to show he is both fully God and fully man, and also the Creator and rightful ruler of the world.
Here we look at the overwhelming evidence for the resurrection, picking up the themes from week 1, showing again Jesus to be the Lord.
This week shows that mankind has rebelled against God, has rejected Jesus, and deserves God’s righteous judgement.
Here we explain the cross, that Jesus died to turn aside God’s wrath, to pay the penalty each human deserves for their sin, so we can go free.
The final week covers the cost of becoming a Christian – what changes we need to make to our lifestyle, and our priorities; and also shows how we respond and appropriate Jesus’ death for ourselves.
Why a pub?
With a large congregation convinced of the power of the gospel, St Ebbe’s has always had a lot of newcomers in church, and people being born again regularly. However, it struck us that, despite our apparent “success” we were only really scratching the surface of a large city (Oxford), full of people who don’t know Jesus. Talking to our congregation, and also to non-Christian friends, we realised that church buildings are a major barrier to huge swathes of the modern British population. Church buildings are seen as “our” territory by non-Christians, and can be forbidding places.
So we decided that if non-Christians wouldn’t come to us, we would go to them. The pub seemed to be the obvious place. It is where everyone feels comfortable, and it is also a place where men and women alike regularly discuss important issues in a relaxed fashion. Experience has shown us that it is a place where many non-Christians feel most comfortable discussing the claims of Jesus.
The pub is also a great place to introduce people to the Christian faith, because it shows them Christianity is primarily about people meeting Jesus in His Word, not about religious rituals and church services.
What’s the key to success?
Success is a very dangerous word in evangelism. Obviously, true success will not be proved until heaven. But, in so far as we have seen large numbers attending regularly and a steady trickle of people come from death to life, there are a number of factors.
Most important are Bible and prayer. All the talks are simple explanations of Mark’s Gospel. All of the leaders are mature Christians who know their Bibles well, and are trained to answer questions with an open Bible, not just from their own opinions. Our leaders are also taught that prayer is the most important thing they can do. We are all very aware that the power of our own reasoning, our own persuasive language and rhetorical skills will not actually bring anyone to faith. We share a conviction that only God by the work of His Spirit as His Word is proclaimed can change people’s lives, so the whole work is supported by prayer, not only amongst the leaders, but by the whole church family.
Then, food is vital. Many of the best evangelistic courses share as a format the use of a meal. It is over dinner that tables of strangers get to know each other every week. We encourage leaders to meet guests outside the course as well. Jesus showed his love and fellowship by eating with people, and it is a great model. Once you’ve shared a number of meals with someone, it is so much easier to talk honestly and naturally.
Allowing people to ask any question is vital. Many questions are just red herrings, but it is crucial that we have the integrity to allow any question, and to be honest if we don’t have an answer.
Finally, Tavern would not work if we did not have church members bringing friends. On an average night we may have 80-100 people in the pub. Maybe 1 or 2 might have come because they have heard about Tavern on the grape-vine or saw it advertised at church. 99% come because a Christian friend has invited them and then come with them. A church family that does evangelism with enthusiasm only happens because of regular teaching of the gospel from the pulpit every Sunday. When the congregation is convinced of God’s love for them, his power to bring people to faith, and the wonder of Jesus’ death saving them from Hell, they cannot help but tell their friends, family and colleagues.
Practical hints
Most pubs outside central London will be delighted to give you a room rent-free or for a minimal charge on a Monday or Tuesday evening, if you can promise 30+ people buying drinks. We are even allowed to use the pub kitchens to cook our own food.
We find most of our guests prefer to pay for their own food, so that they do not feel indebted to us in any way.
We put Mark’s Gospels rather than Bibles on every table. It is a good discipline for our leaders to answer questions simply from Mark. It is less frightening for people who have never seen a Bible before. Also, the guest can take Mark away with them, read the whole thing in a week, and they do not feel that the table leader has an unfair advantage or a position of power, because they are both using the same text. Most importantly, we are persuaded that it is the Bible itself which God uses to convert people: we have seen probably more people become Christians by taking Mark away and reading it, than by having endless discussions with us!
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