Our model

We like tea, we LOVE PEOPLE.  God created flavor, so our mastery of tea reflects general revelation, the goodness of God experienced in a cup. Further, we DO NOT have customers; we develop RELATIONSHIPS to share Jesus’s love, one cup at a time. We pray students will experience love in the cafe and join our volunteer team.

Our cafes exist for VOLUNTEERS! Most volunteers do not do ministry work BUT ARE THE MINISTRY. In Luke 5, Jesus sums up our passion, saying,  “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Our youth group IS our group of volunteers. We create a platform where students feel comfortable fighting God, struggling with pain and frustration with God, or don’t care about God. As volunteers study the menu of life, our missionaries strongly suggest they try Christ’s Living TEA because they will never thirst again if they do. (John 4) On average, a volunteer invests 4-6 hours weekly into the cafe. They earn community service hours, employability skills, and a loving community to belong to. Our missionaries capitalize on this time to mentor or disciple students through everyday struggles and spiritual battles. For students who love Jesus, our cafe is a Salt & Light classroom where our missionaries disciple them in practical theology and relational evangelism. 

Studying Jesus’ ministry, God’s Word records all the necessary events and life-giving content, enabling those who call on His Name to know and understand their relationship with Him. Although God’s Word records ordinary and everyday accounts, this isn’t the primary content of Scripture. Jesus often summarizes His discipleship model in THREE words, “Come and See.” Scripture doesn’t record Jesus’ favorite olive, tea, or wine, but Scripture does record that anytime Jesus got involved in hospitality, it was the BEST! (Jn 2:10) Look at John 2; the key characters in this factual event are Jesus, His mom, Jesus’ disciples, the catering staff, the sommelier or master of the banquet, and the guests as extras.  The experienced sommelier (he compares this banquet to others) unknowingly credits Jesus as a great authority in Beverage. Jesus deeply challenged the worldview of each catering staff member responsible for filling the jars with water. It is not beyond acceptable biblical interpretations to believe some of those staff members disagreed with this perceived stupid task. Ultimately, the guest would need something to drink, but each server was preparing for guest complaints. Imagine the catering staff mean mugging Jesus each time they walked past Him with a hefty water jar, yet they experienced Jesus’ calm, confident demeanor, which communicated, “Come and See!” Barnabas Student Ministries follows Jesus’ A to B or “Task As Discipleship” model by inviting students to come and see what authentic faith looks like in action. Students experience faith in action, a sermon in motion when things don’t go as planned. The wedding planner didn’t expect to run out of wine. Who was most impacted by this event? The guests or the “bad day at work” catering staff had to work harder than expected. In whose story was Jesus the greater hero? The drunk guests or the catering staff. Look at another example when Jesus fed the 5000 and there were leftovers. (Matt 14)  The disciples experienced the greatness of God as they unexpectedly had to transport 12 very heavy baskets of leftovers. I’m sure the disciples viewed God’s abundance as a mixed blessing! People experience more ordinary events in life than extraordinary ones. Why is so much effort invested into creating extraordinary faith experiences when Jesus commonly used ordinary, everyday life moments to build the faith of His followers? Our ministry cultivates lives by creating ordinary experiences and training our missionaries to clarify the God Stories that occur every shift.