Battle Log

Wednesday, 16 October, 2019

Posted 16 October 2019, 2:52 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink

Since my last log entry, there have been outreaches on: Saturday in Cathedral Square, Sunday in Cashel Mall, Tuesday in Riccarton, and today, Wednesday, at various spots in the city.

The Tuesday outreach was another busy affair.  So busy, in fact, that it was pretty much constant conversations for the team of two, and there was even a time where we were both in conversations and I was watching a couple of students flipping through my flip chart across the road and no one was available to share the gospel with them!  So please pray for labourers, and if you can, please consider being the answer to those prayers by joining the team! :)

So the students are now back at school, and we had many gospel conversations with high school students passing through in the late afternoon.

But the highlight conversation for me was the first one I had (soon after I had set up my flip chart).  Sadly, the young couple were struggling with suicide.  Right from the start, they didn’t deny the existence of God or the requirement for justice.  They admitted they had sinned, and that they deserve hell.  But it didn’t concern them at all.  I worked through a few analogies to get them to understand that it should concern them, and that’s when the conversation turned to suicide.  I spent my time listening, and explaining the basis for hope: for eternal life and for real change in this life too: Jesus.  I was able to draw from my own testimony in this regard.  The young couple lingered, and so I continued to challenge and encourage them with the gospel.  They left with various tracts, and the contact details of my local church.

On Wednesday morning, I was back in Cashel Mall, but the level of people was back to more normal levels with the school holidays being over and the initial interest in the Riverside Market tapering off.

The most interesting conversation was with a guy who was wearing headphones as he passed receiving a tract.  He came back, taking his headphones off and wanting to know what it was all about.  He had obviously been thinking about the important questions of life, as I was very encouraged by this guys earnest interest in understanding Christianity.  He said he had never heard it explained in this way before.  I challenged him that it’s not just intellectual information that I was giving him - but there was an urgency to respond with a repentant faith - the gift with a cost.

After lunch I ditched the flip chart and headed for Ara via High Street.  I had many walk up gospel opportunities as I went.  I spoke with three high school students, then with two stubborn professing atheists, before moving into a long conversation with an Ara student from Brazil.  By the time I made it to Ara, I decided to turn around and walk back continuing my walk up strategy.  Many more wonderful opportunities to talk to people about the gospel presented themselves - all the way back to my car.