meeting the market place

Draft of an article, located here for feedback:

Back in February Bishop Andrew wrote an interesting article in this magazine, on the change in how our culture sees Sundays; from the days when local gold fields went silent for the day, to today’s era of buzzing Sunday markets and dwindling churches. He suggested opportunities as well as challenges in the changing landscape.  I found it stimulating at the time and would like to bounce the theme around from a couple of angles.

There was a postscript noting that Kyneton parish runs a farmers market.  We ran into that soon afterwards - a Saturday wedding at St Paul’s, walking in to the beautiful bluestone church with stalls and traders along side. In Bendigo too, I’ve noticed Christians actively helping run the farmers’ market; fostering community as the goal. So that’s all one angle; Christians in the mix, helping the wheels turn in these appealing little markets, adding to colour and vibrancy of the local town. Adding salt. Good on them I say.

From another angle I wonder if there is further opportunity here.  Can we see it as a move towards an eclectic and pluralist culture, a market place of ideas as well as goods and services? Back in January I’d run into another market on our holidays, and jotted on social media:   

Very Australia Day -beach in background, people lining up to get money in the town's only ATM in the pub. Festival a cross between a farmers market and an old time fair with dodgy stalls - maybe that describes aus too. The woman running the Ned Kelly coffee stall had done it all her life - tows their trailer as far as Darwin - and said her kids were the 5th generation to do rides and stalls.  Felt like a story waiting to be told there.

What I hadn’t said about the bright breezy scene, flags fluttering against the ocean backdrop, was, where is the church? I’d certainly felt that question though, wandering through stalls selling jams and wine and dipping hot wax casts. No doubt Christians were present as we were – and perhaps quietly helping organize it all, but still I wondered, why no visible and explicit witness in the open air? The tarot card readers were there and doing good business.  Surely we have something better for the spiritually curious? An intro booth for the local Alpha course? Perhaps a stall saying “Need prayer?” Evangelists offering to introduce seekers to destiny, the real new age inaugurated in Jesus, his resurrection the starting point of the new creation?    

Being a Sunday, no doubt people had sat in church in the local town, doing what we Christians do in our buildings, but I wondered if perhaps we should be more overt in the market; could be light as well as salt.

So that seeded some questions – what happens back here in Bendigo, my home town?  I heard a friend say the Sunday showgrounds market is perhaps the biggest weekly community gathering – thousands of people out and about- while most churches meet. I went and looked - chatted with self published authors amidst the pistachios and garden goods and teenagers playing cards.  Again I noticed the tarot readers were there and  watched earnest people disappear into the tent to have fortunes read.  I let the JWs run their pitch on me, seeing what it felt like to be evangelized in the market place.

Some friends do sometimes hire a stall there now. Its only $27 for a day, to start good conversations.    Others wander and evangelize, looking for people to pray for. Here is one story :  ….

I saw a young male stall holder and felt that God wanted to encourage him about being a good dad. Having no idea if he was a dad, I approached him and gave him the message. He was totally blown away. He got out his phone and showed me a message he had just written to his fiancé about how much he was trying to be a good dad!  …He had arthritis in his knee and had had surgery on his back. When I prayed for him his back went hot  … and after two prayers for his knee it was completely healed! This young guy covered in tatts gave me a hug when I left and knows that there is a God who loves him. How exciting is God!!!

           

If the book of Acts continued, one suspects these are some of the points of engagement that would interest the writer. I like the idea of Christians quietly assisting in the events – but we also have the best news to spread into the Sunday market as well, and ratcheting up our efforts perhaps makes sense as we move to a post Christendom era.  Salt, light and spreading fire. Can we be all three?