For the past few years I’ve been heading over to FatBoys Cafe every second Saturday for some early morning grease-up with friends (and leaders in various areas at EN London) Alex, Dan, Dan, Charles, Chuck, Jon, and Steve… here’s how Steve experienced it last week:

Prayer and sausages (A look on the lighter side of faith by Steve Morris)

Was it the half-eaten sausage or the little island of scrambled egg that did it? Perhaps it was the lagoon of left-over tomato. Whatever it was it wasn’t going away.

It’s a Saturday morning and I’m with a group of Christian “fat boys” eating breakfast, chatting about our lives and praying for each other. I hate the term accountability group because it somehow strips the joy out of everything doesn’t it? It’s hard to imagine Jesus’ group of motley followers labelling themselves an accountability group. So we don’t call ourselves that. Were just a bunch of guys at a caf eating a breakfast and travelling together.

And at the end of each session we pray. Good manly prayers. Prayers about our temptations and hopes and fears and committing to travel together.

But today I’m having problems with the prayers. It isn’t that they’re not stirring and empowering and all that, but I’ve spotted the uncleared breakfast plates all around us. We’re talking to the God most high, most glorious. We’re bearing our souls and I’ve just put my elbow into the leftovers.

I shouldn’t have opened my eyes because now I can’t concentrate on the prayer and a laugh is building up from some unforgiveable place within. Dan’s praying for peace or something and I notice a half-eaten sausage on his plate pointing forlornly to the heavens. Chuck’s plate is even worse. The scrambled egg is sitting in a beautiful sea of tomato sauce and he’s left one mushroom like a small boat on a dangerous sea. Mel’s plate is a warzone. He’s over from the Philippines and has never experienced an full-English fry-up before. His plate looks like the Battle of the Somme. The tomato sauce the result of a bloody explosion somewhere in no-man’s land.

Oh no it’s out. I’ve tittered. The guys manfully carry on.

How easily am I distracted in prayer. How seriously do we take ourselves? I’m struck by the fact that the resurrected Jesus sat and made his disciples breakfast. Perhaps they too prayed  among the left-over fishbones and bread. Perhaps they chatted and laughed and shared a joke.

I once listened to a wise old vicar who told us about his conversion. He told us that it wasn’t a great road to Damascus experience, but that it happened around his breakfast table in Wimbledon. He met God amid the cornflakes and the toast and the nice cup of tea.

A bit like us really.

Wolfi: Thanks Steve… I wouldnt want to be on this journey without FatBoys.