So last week I met a stranger on the train. We soon got chatting and she manages several shopping malls around the UK, which led to a discussion around my role as I keep an eye on innovation in the High street as I think there are some good lessons for the church to learn as the culture and shape on the high street changes. We discussed how culture shifts and my role as Fresh Expressions is often about listening to communities and people and growing church from there. We discussed how innovation happens in businesses and her role in revamping shopping centres. We talked about imagination gaps, indigenous spirituality and being on the edge of the inside of organisations. We talked about the emerging role of social enterprises in the church and the great work they do. She was choosing some blinds on line for her house and fell onto a site that gave away 10% of their profits to charity and so found some from that shop. We discussed the social enterprise my daughter bought her wedding dress from and she had two (long story) to donate. So bear in mid the title of this post was Is this evangelism? Maybe but we are only half way through the conversation and I wouldn’t have minded if it had been my time to leave the train them as I would have been pretty chuffed to have had such a life giving conversation. So was it evangelism?

But like I said the conversation didn’t end with blinds. We discussed issues around inclusion and co-creating community, and the role of people of peace getting involved. We talked through how we grow community on our different settings at home and at work. We had a long chat around hospices and building places of joy, not brushing the real issues of life (and death) under the carpet and how we have sanitised how we connect as humans. We shared examples of how we are building community in our own spaces and the conversation moved onto discuss cafe churches. After unpacking cafe church for a while the conversation moved onto death cafes, and what she might do in the spaces she runs and manages. We finished with her committing to finding a few spaces to pilot a few death cafes and if needed to find a couple of community groups or churches to help and then as we were pulling into the station her leaving me her details in case I ever needed space in a shopping mall to start a Fresh Expression.

So was this evangelism? if she goes out (as planned) and starts a couple of death cafes does that count? Maybe she will be known in her business as the strange lady who starts death cafes, and wasn’t the something about being known by the fruit we produce…..

I was also well evangelised as I certainly wouldn’t mind working in her type of job…