Jesus and Pie

As a Christian, I firmly believe there is nothing more important than the saving death of Jesus on the cross to make salvation possible for all people. That belief is central to my life, and my hope and prayer for each and every person in the world is for them to come to a true loving relationship with God. As such, I believe there is huge value in talking about Jesus, and discussing the nature and implications of my beliefs. As a Christian, I am called to edify, instruct and spur on my brothers and sisters in the faith, and also to act as Christ’s ambassador, pointing those who don’t believe the Christian message to the hope, joy and salvation that is found in Christ alone. I think it’s good for all of us to discuss such things – after all, if what the Bible says is true, then we all have much thinking about our lives to do – Christians and Non-Christians alike. And yet how easy it is to spend all our time talking about much less meaningful things. I know this is something that I’m constantly guilty of.

As a pie-lover, I love pies. And sausage rolls, donuts, finger buns and pretty much anything else you can purchase at a bakery. The very thought of a bakery run makes me giddy with excitement. There are few greater pleasures than trying a new bakery and finding out how good it is.

So one day I thought to myself, “Why don’t I combine these two passions of mine?” And from this question was conceived the idea of Jesus & Pie. I like talking about Jesus. I like eating pie. I like catching up with people. I like making a meaningful contribution to God’s work here on Earth. I could try to do all four at once! I believe that God has given us good things (like meat pies for instance) with the intention that we enjoy them, but also that we use these gifts in a way that glorifies him. That’s exactly what I’m intending to do.

So in a nutshell, this is how it works (I hope it works, I really do) – I’ll be doing bakery runs all around Adelaide, catching up with someone (or multiple people) and discussing some aspect of Christianity. I’ll then put up a blog post summarising the things we discussed, a few of my thoughts on reflection, plus a brief review of the bakery.

Hopefully this is something that people find interesting and helpful, both in terms of working out a good place to grab a steak and pepper pie, but more importantly in thinking through some of the concepts and issues that come up in the discussions. If you would like to recommend a bakery, request a discussion topic or be one of my ‘bakery guests’, I’d be keen to hear from you. I’d love to catch up with people of all different backgrounds and beliefs (not just people who agree with me on everything), as I think that will produce a much more helpful and broad variety of discussions. And I’d love to chat about anything and everything – baptism, predestination, gay marriage, welcoming newcomers to church, existentialism… fire away! I can’t claim to be an expert at all of those things, but I trust that God will be at work through the conversations in some way.

I'm getting pretty keen for this, I hope that whatever you believe in and whatever baked goods you prefer, that you enjoy this theological and culinary adventure with me!