The BEAR essentials!

One particular incident that frames my university years was how one day a group of us christians who were desiring to see the power of God unleashed through our lives and onto our campus asked the question, "how can we draw a crowd large enough and keep them around long enough for us to be able to preach the Gospel to them?" Being at a universe where people tended to shy away from anything that looked remotely "religious", the answer to our question was obvious: FOOD!
But as the conversation progressed, we realised we needed something to get them to know that there was free food somewhere. The usual medium of posters and fliers on already overcrowded noticeboards would not suffice here. So like any normal, self-respecting christians we pooled together our slim financial resources...and hired a MASSIVE bear costume! Yes, you read that right. Our missional strategy was to a costume rented from a party-hire store!

So the big day arrived, the booked lecture venue was kitted out with tables laden with chocolate eclairs, chips, pies, coke, donuts and cakes, and the unlucky volunteer from our band of merry men donned the bear suit with a sign pinned to his front that read, "FREE FOOD IN LECTURE HALL 5 AT 12PM"
The response around campus was better than we could have ever ever imagined! Crowds flocked around our friend, people posed for photo's with him, others high-fived him...a few just were content to hug the massive cartoonesque bear that trundled amongst the students.

Come 12pm, our moment of truth, close on 200 hungry and very intrigued universty scholars pushed through the lecture hall doors. The tables were cleared quicker than you can say "Yogi Bear", but we were now all set to rock and roll. Without a moment to lose, I jumped up onto a table near the front and preached a stumbling version of the Gospel. Well, in retrospect it was nothing more than a bold declaration of who Jesus was to me and a question of "who do you say He is?". But as I came to the end of my weak oratory appeal to a crowd full of food but full of doubt, something very strange began to happen. People all around the room began to lift their hands, some more confidently than others, in an attempt to get my attention to pray for them to know Jesus like I did!
The very life of God, the miracle of salvation, the raiding of hell was happening before my very eyes and all on the back of a bear suit and some free food!

The crowd that day were hungry and they got fed...more than they could have imagined!

Reminds me of a boy who just had some fish-sticks and sandwiches for lunch...