Humans of the Estuary: A Different Path to Sharing the Gospel

I’ve been sharing my faith in both awkward and more sophisticated ways since I became a Christian at 19. I’m no stranger to writing the icons for Two Ways to Live on paper or, once, in the dirt. While doing walk-up evangelism, door-knocking, and annoying family members at Christmas and Easter I eventually learned what I hope are more sensitive and thoughtful faith-sharing skills for secular workplaces and other friendships. However, I don’t think I’ve enjoyed sharing my faith with people more than in these last few years in a philosophical discussion group we call our “estuary”.

The ministry I work for, City Bible Forum, runs an annual campaign in the month of September encouraging people to seek to initiate spiritual conversations. AFES is running the year-long Meet Jesus campaign along similar lines—with a focus on encouraging university students to read one of the Gospels with a friend or classmate. I would like to share my experience as one example of how you can find people open to such conversations.

Our Estuary
The group in its current form[1] has been running since 2021. We modelled our gatherings on the concept of estuary established by Reformed pastor Paul VanderKlay, whose discussion groups run adjacent to his formal church ministry. Just as a geographical estuary is where salt water and fresh water meet and new life forms thrive, these groups encourage discussion and understanding between diverse people. It is one example of what sociologists call “third spaces”. The ministry I work for, City Bible Forum seeks to be a strategic catalyst for and to proactively nurture groups that create third spaces where spiritual conversations can take place, which will lead to sharing the gospel and reading the Bible.

Our estuary is advertised on a community web platform called Meetup, and it has drawn together an extremely diverse group of Christians and curious people to talk about meaning, truth, faith and God. We’ve discussed Jordan Peterson, Ian McGilchrist, René Girard, Paul Kingsnorth, Mary Harrington, Jonathan Pageau and more. We try to select topics that aren’t just intellectually stimulating but create a sense of salient meaning to our common experiences of anxiety, confusion and hope for the future. We’ve delved into why people behave badly, why people behave well, how our brains work, and how we can know what’s true. We’ve had some deep discussions about totalitarianism, Trump and nihilism. Nearly every week, Jesus, the Bible or God comes up in natural ways that are part of a respectful deep discussion.

There’s something special about drawing together a group of people who are already warm to Christian ideas through their exposure to Jordan Peterson, the Pageau brothers or a range of other “meaning crisis” thinkers. When we started our group, some people voiced scepticism about the value of our ministry. Many people expect that all our members are awkward males who come to drink our bad coffee and sit in a dusty hall watching Jordan Peterson give a psychological interpretation of the Bible.

Humans Seeking Community and Meaning

But I can tell you stories about people seeking community and a safe place to ask questions and explore ideas, often because of a fascination with the Bible. There are lonely people, brilliant people, successful people, sad people, chronically ill people and anxious people, drawn by desires they can’t quite fathom or understand. These are our people.

One week a strikingly pretty blonde woman attended our meeting. When we asked her why she had come, she told us she was attending churches all around the area and came to our discussion group as part of her search for home. She had seen Jordan Peterson’s wife Tammy discuss her conversion to faith as feeling like she had come home. The longing in her eyes and face was heartbreaking. We didn’t become her spiritual home, unfortunately, but we pray she finds one.

I could tell you about Parrot Mike, who brought his parrot with him every time he came. He let our children hold his parrot on their hand or shoulder and was so gentle and patient. We were meeting in a large gothic building with rafters rising many metres above our heads, where said parrot decided to explore right at the end of our discussion group and before church. Parrot Mike had to stay for the church service until the parrot returned to his shoulder, very fittingly during the benediction (insert Paraclete joke here).

I can tell you about Peter, who feels uncomfortable with a lot of the Bible, yet comes to estuary and church quite often and gives us gifts for letting him play the piano in the building whenever he likes. I could tell you about how genuinely members of our congregation love him and meet with him for coffee and how fervently we pray for him in our WhatsApp group.

We’ve had some challenging members with whom we have had to have hard conversations about their antisemitism or inappropriate texting of other members. With some members we enjoy friendly coffees or walks around the city and text to ask their take on a range of topics. Some members are Christians and have joined our church, where they bring a genuine curiosity and care for others. Other members aren’t Christians but attend church and regularly hear the Bible through preaching and participate in Christian worship through song, prayer and fellowship.

Christianity Explored

After two years of building this community, we decided to run a Christianity Explored group. Five people who were not yet Christians came to the first session. They were so diverse that we needed to split up into three different groups to meet their pastoral needs but we got through all the sessions. Many had not even come through our estuary but discovered our church was friendly and accepting of people who were not yet Christians. Our estuary has knock-on effects for church culture that we are so grateful for.
We don’t ask members when they are going to become Christians, because we know that God is in charge of this journey. We ask them how their week was, how we can pray for them and if there is anything they need help with. We understand their lives are hectic, chaotic and difficult, and we feel honoured that they take the time to cross the city to see us. We rejoice when they get a new job, we grieve when they’re suffering, we’re excited when they discover a new author or thinker and we commiserate when their jobs are boring.

I asked one of my estuary friends a while back what he thought about God. This might seem like a fairly standard question, but for him, it was still private. There are boundaries that we respect in this community, spiritual conversations come as part of a social contract that we honour. He was willing to tell me, but I feel that it’s between him and me—and God of course.

Towards Bible Reading

There are so many ways to help people meet Jesus, whether that’s through inviting a family member to church, inviting a work colleague out for a movie with another Christian friend, or participating in an estuary like ours.

The estuary approach is a long road, but a fruitful one. The kinds of spiritual conversations that open up are intimate and vulnerable; there’s a duty of care for us to listen and hear ideas, even if they go against our own. Unlike a Bible study or evangelistic course, you don’t correct ideas that you disagree with. You hear them, engage with them, wonder about them and then share your own ideas on an equal footing. You may not get to roll out a full gospel presentation every week. You have to listen to unusual ideas that may make you uncomfortable.

But when you finally run that evangelistic Bible study or ask that friend to read one of the Gospels with you, you will often find they are open to it, partly created by trust that you won’t judge them for asking questions.

Names have been changed throughout to respect privacy of group participants.

^{[1] The original group started as a free speech club at RMIT but evolved when Jordan Peterson’s work became more recognised.}

^{This article was first published on The Gospel Coalition Australia website and has been republished with permission. The original article can be accessed at https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/humans-of-the-estuary-a-different-path-to-sharing-the-gospel/}