Battle Log
Sunday, 20 January, 2019
Posted 21 January 2019, 9:21 AM by Glen Richards. Permalink
A nice Sunday afternoon to get out and chat with people about eternity and the gospel, after enjoying worship and fellowship with our local churches. A team of 3 today from 2 local churches.
We decided to go to our old fishing spot just outside Ballantynes - a spot we have only recently been able to start using again now that the construction next door is complete giving the foot path its good flow of foot traffic again. We also set up a flip chart on the opposite side of the mall.
The Christchurch (NZ) team are loving the use of the Eternity tract. It's a great conversation starter: "Hi, we are talking to people about eternity today. What do you think happens in Eternity?" (while handing them the tract), and if people aren't keen for a chat, they will often keep the tract which explains the good news.
Today, a young lady walked past my flip chart and took a tract, but didn't stop to chat. Soon after, an older Catholic gentlemen stopped for a chat. Then I noticed the young lady was back, and patiently waiting for the conversation to end - she obviously had something to say. My assumption was that she was going to give me a piece of her mind over offense at the gospel message on the tract. The gentlemen moved on and my attention was with the young lady again. But to my pleasant surprise, she didn't want to give me a piece of her mind, but she had many good and genuine questions about God, and Christianity - and the gospel was shared. She had read the tract and it had motivated her to follow up - praise God for tracts!
It just goes to show that we can often think the worst might happen, when in fact it's often the opposite. And this often stops us doing what we should. I know evangelism often invokes a great fear, which holds us back, e.g.: "I'll be asked a question I can't answer" or "they'll get angry at me". And yes, that might happen from time to time. But more often than not a wonderful conversation will occur with people walking away with an understanding of the good news of Jesus - which is "the power of God for salvation" (Romans 1:16). And with training and experience, we will get better at dealing with those few times where we get asked hard questions, or people are upset. There are many teams of Christians out sharing the love of God that you can join to get that training and experience. I want to encourage you to step past your fears and take the first step by getting in touch!
Another wonderful conversation started with the "Eternity" approach. But the man wasn't interested, and wouldn't take the tract. But I noticed he was wearing a cap advertising a technology I was familiar with (my background is in IT). I was genuinely interested in why he was wearing the cap, and a conversation occurred naturally. It turns out that a conference was starting the following day, at the university, and he had flown in from Australia to attend. We talked about IT for a while, when he asked: "So what do you do now?". This opened up an opportunity to come back to the Eternity tract. He clearly said he didn't want to talk about religion -- and I respected that. But he did say he would take the tract and read it. He popped it into his shirt pocket, and the conversation drifted back to IT. Soon after we parted ways with a hand shake. But a silent missionary was sitting in his shirt pocket. God willing, it will come out and witness the gospel to him at exactly the right time.
