Taste and See with Paul Young: An Evangelistic Course Using Meals to Share the Gospel

What’s ‘Taste and See’ and why do you think it works?

Taste and See is a program where participants come along for four consecutive weeks to enjoy a meal together and hear more about the gospel of Jesus. It’s the main kind of evangelistic conversion engine that we use. It’s an opportunity to share a meal and get to know one another, but also to use food to help illustrate what we’re learning about.

It’s slightly different, just enough that I think people are interested and people’s friends might be interested in it. I think people are intrigued by the food idea.

Though the gospel is a word-based message, we’re also creative learners in many other ways – we taste stuff, we see stuff, we experience stuff. So it’s nice to try and engage those other senses, those other ways of processing information. That helps to put a spotlight on the gospel.

It’s nice to engage those other senses, those other ways of processing information.

You mentioned the term ‘conversion engine’. What do you mean by that?

A conversion engine is just a course or a program that you can use as your main go-to for introducing people to Jesus. So for some churches that’s Alpha, for some it’s Life, for some it’s Christianity Explored, or it’s Taste and See. Then it’s important to follow up each person with reading the Bible. That’s the kind of process that we take.

I think Taste and See is good, but I’m actually quite ambivalent about which course churches use – I don’t think it matters too much, as long as it clearly explains the gospel. What is much more important is that churches think carefully about the people they’re trying to reach, and adjust the course and resources to suit their particular context.

What is important for a gospel course to succeed?

It’s important that the people running the course are confident in how to run it, that they trust it, and they think it’s going to be a good thing. Part of it is just getting people in the room so they know what’s going to happen.

A lot of the success of a course is also due to the mission funnel around it.

So, do you have lay training in your church for conversations and mission? Do people understand where they’re at, and what their part to play is in the mission process at church? Do people know who to pray for?

Prayer is such a huge part of success. Helping and equipping your church to pray regularly for their friends is essential, and the fruit you see at the end is really just a product of all the other ways that God works through his people.

What has been some of the fruit from Taste and See?

I love seeing the real conversations that happen in smaller groups amongst the cohort. Once there was a group of five people in the middle of the table all discussing whether or not they thought Jesus was real, and there was only one Christian in the group! I just think that’s the best kind of conversation. You see people disagreeing with each other, drawing back on the historical documents, wrestling with: what are they actually saying? What do historians really think about Jesus?

That’s a great moment because you see people grappling with who Jesus is, and it’s not just the leader being a talking head.

A lot of churches would like to do something similar, but it sounds difficult to pull off a fully catered gospel course. How do you make it work?

So we split it up between cook, host and presenter. There’s people in your church who wouldn’t currently think of giving a 10-15 minute gospel outline themselves, but who love cooking and would love to see mission happen in your church. They could be a host, or provide the food, or invite people along to be a part of it. It’s a matter of asking them, and then helping them meet as a team with others.

So we have a couple of people that do the cooking for our courses, and we order in takeaway for the other half. We have various people who want to host, so we give them the resources and let them invite away.

I feel it’s never been the case that people don’t want to be a part of it. I think everyone wants to be part of a church that sees people come to know Jesus.