Battle Log

Sunday, 24 February, 2019

Posted 25 February 2019, 6:27 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink

2 outreaches over the weekend in Christchurch (NZ).

I had to come out early to the city on Saturday morning as I had a wedding to attend in the afternoon.  I suspected this would mean the beginning of the outreach would be a bit slow, so I started with some street walking, politely greeting people and offering them tracts as a conversation starter.

After a few rejections a guy took a tract and he was open to talk.  But once he realised I was a Christian he quickly gave the tract back!  But he wanted to talk about some of the struggles in his life and share what he believed, so I allowed him to, doing my best to listen and understand what he was saying.  After some time, I gently moved the conversation to the reality of death, God, conscience and judgment - and by this stage he was more open to me and this adjustment in the conversation, but he had an appointment to go to and had to move on.  I offered him a more in depth gospel tract than the one he gave back earlier - and to my pleasant surprise, he took it!  May this conversation be a step the Lord uses to eventually lead him to repentance & faith in Christ.  Are you ready to continue that conversation?

I then proceed to Cathedral Square, set up my flip chart, and started handing out tracts while enjoying some time in prayer.

The morning was fruitful with conversations, including a discussion with a young couple - one of whom was a homosexual - both of whom heard of the hope of forgiveness of sin and eternal life - in Christ.  I also had a wonderful opportunity to briefly follow up with one of the hecklers of Andy's preaching from the previous day.

On Sunday, the rain came.  But it was a surprisingly fruitful time of witnessing.  None of the market stalls were out (I guess due to the weather) so Cathedral Square was open for people, and I had many opportunities for preaching, conversations, and tract distribution.

My preaching drew out a heckler early on, who aggressively challenged me on many points rapid fire.  He would challenge me with a question, and as I tried to answer it, he would move on to another question.  I spent a lot of time listening, trying to understand, trying to respond, and then straight back to listening.  I had to keep my patience in check!  I did manage to get some points across: how we know God exists, and that there was hope for eternal life.  At a point in the exchange it started raining again, and we had to go under a tree for cover.  Eventually the heckler decided he had had enough and turned to go.  To my surprise, when I offered a tract he gladly received it - this encouraged me that the time spent was not in vain.  Are you ready to continue this conversation?

I went back to preaching in the rain.  And I knew there were people listening.  In particular, one couple who had found some shelter in the distance.  After finishing, I walked over to them and one of them gladly took some tracts - I was encouraged.

I finished the outreach with a conversation with 4 German tourists, who became engaged when I offered them the "Intelligence Test" tract.  I went through 3 of the questions with them, and showed them how they got all 3 wrong.  It amused them and paved the way to swing to the more serious question of getting "what happens after death" wrong.  I was able to clearly explain the law and the gospel with them, and finished up with a checking question to confirm they had understood.  They wanted to know why I was doing this in the rain.  If you knew of the holiness of God, the reality of righteous judgment, and hell, and the amazing God news of mercy, grace, forgiveness, and the hope of eternal life found in Jesus - wouldn't you want to get out and share?

Come and join me, where the harvest is ripe.  Laborers required, apply with in!