Last Wednesday (2nd), Trent CU did Text a Toastie instead of their usual main meeting at student halls Blenheim and Norton. How does Text a Toastie work? Basically you hand out leaflets with a mobile number which you can text with your order of filling (ham, cheese, baked beans) flat and room number and your question about Christianity. Once your toastie is made, someone from the CU will deliver it to your door and answer your question.
We advertised it from 7 – 9pm and after a slow start it began to pick up quite quickly with several orders coming through with some really good questions. I didn’t know how it was going to go because I have never helped with a Text a Toastie before , but it went really well, and no one asking questions was rude or aggressive. Often it was people sitting in their flat kitchen with their friends ordering toasties at different times with different questions, so we ended up talking to the same group of people several times but that was good as everyone could hear what answer we gave for the questions.
At the end of the night we had answered 13 questions and I can’t remember how many toasties we made (as some had asked for two) and here is the list of questions that were sent through by text that night.
1) Does God answer your prayers straight away?
2) It’s a bit of a tough question but who created God?
3) Hello. I was just wondering does God forgive all? If so how do you have to show you know you have done wrong?
4) Will God forgive anything that I do?
5) Is God ok with art and music? (this was the one I jumped at to answer!)
6) What’s the difference between Catholics and Protestants?
7) What is the date of Jesus’ true birthday?
8 ) Is there such a thing as Heaven and Hell?
9) Is God ever going to visit earth?
10) Does God forgive all sins?
11) Where did Noah keep the woodpeckers in the ark? (this was one of my favourites)
12) Does God really allow us to eat meat? Isn’t it cannibalism? (only if the meat you’re eating is human meat, then yes)
13) Why is Jesus often depicted as a small framed white man when he was most likely dark skinned and strong due to his profession?
It was really interesting that 3 of the questions were about forgiveness of sins, obviously it’s an issue on most peoples’ minds. Hopefully the answers we told them about God’s grace and love will give them the opportunity to think for themselves whether they believe it to be true or not, and hopefully they’ll keep pursuing truth.
