A video of a pastor sharing how serving on a church coffee team changed his life is going viral on social media, with Christian leaders praising the testimonial.
The video was originally posted to TikTok by Stream Studios, an account that features interviews to explore “refreshing conversations about faith,” and featured Stephen Foster, who serves as rector of St Aldates Church, an Anglican congregation in Oxford, England.
“If I’m honest, I never really liked the church,” Foster said at the beginning of the video. “I didn’t even really like Christians that much.”
He continued, “I used to think of it like a packaged deal. Like, you get Jesus, and so you get the church and Christians thrown in. It’s just part of the package and there are some bits you like—Jesus—some bits you don’t like so much, which is like the church and Christians.”
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“I used to find that a bit annoying,” Foster added. He went on to say that while he attended church regularly, he “didn’t really enjoy going to church.”
But one Sunday, that began to change.
“I was at the back of our church in East London and someone said to me, ‘We need help to run the coffee team,’” Foster recounted. “And I was like working 70, 80 hours a week and I’m like, ‘What?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, Steve, we need your help running the coffee team on a Sunday.’”
Foster, who was a lawyer prior to becoming a pastor, remembered thinking, “I’ve got a job. I don’t need another job to run the coffee team.”
Nevertheless, he begrudgingly agreed to serve on the coffee team the next Sunday.
“As I handed these cups to people, something really changed in me. I found myself, as I handed coffee to these people, growing in love for them,” Foster said. “I thought, ‘These people are amazing. This is this extraordinarily diverse community that’s been gathered from across the area. There’s probably not another place that looks as diverse and integrated as this. This is a miracle.’”
“And even people I found a little bit more frustrating and complicated, as I handed them their coffee, I kind of grew in love for them,” Foster continued. “And I kind of basically fell in love with the church.”
Foster went on to say that after serving on the coffee team, he went back to the person in charge of the ministry and said, “We need new coffee machines. We need better beans. We need better mugs. Come on, these are amazing people! I want this to be the best coffee that they get.”
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“And as I made coffee for people, I suddenly realized, oh, the church is like the bride of Jesus Christ. It’s like the thing he gave himself for,” Foster continued. “The church is God’s plan for the salvation of the world. There’s no Plan B. And God is going to build his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. God is putting all his eggs in the church basket.”
