Battle Log

Sunday, 29 November, 2020

Posted 29 November 2020, 2:02 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink

The team (of there) from up North were with Andy and I again on Saturday - in Cashel Mall.  There was some kind of Santa thing going on and there were lots of people out and about.  We had some Christmas tracts - and they were all distributed in the morning.

But it was actually a surprisingly slow outreach.  People were focused on what they were doing!  In spite of this, I was able to have two solid gospel conversations in the morning.

The first was very interesting.  A young guy in a hurry whizzed past, but stopped to take a Christmas tract.  I didn’t think he’d stop, but I asked what he thought happened after life.  To my surprise he did stop.  He had a Hindu background and ended up staying for a long chat.  What was interesting was that I had other people stop and take interest in the conversation (I was using the flip chat).  Suddenly, one of the bystanders - a Christian - got involved.  He was lovely, and very well meaning, but he had actually jumped in just as I was explaining the gospel and steered the conversation down a bit of a rabbit trial.  I was able to gently take back control of the conversation and get it back to the gospel.  I was then able to work some objections the guy had - I actually learnt some things about Hinduism in the process.  The guy grasped the gospel well, but wasn’t ready to respond - yet I challenged him to do so.

The other chat was also very interesting.  This time it was because the lady of the couple struggled to let go of the idea of her good deeds saving her.  She was very attentive and engaged.  But just didn’t grasp justification by grace alone through faith alone.  Checking questions came to the rescue, so I continued to re-explain.  She’d indicate that she understood, but another checking question and she would revert back to good works.  Sadly, I’m not confident she was grasping it by the end.  The guy with her was.  Gladly, salvation is not dependent on me.  May God use what I said, and may she have other opportunities to engage with the gospel.

After lunch, we spent another couple of hours in outreach.  Emma had a fantastic conversation with two kids (pictured).  I also had a long chat with two young Catholics who came to understand the gospel.

We finished up in Cathedral Square.  I managed to engage with a young couple.  The guy was giving pretty good answers to my initial questions: “believe in God” and then again later in the conversation after I’d been through the law and the gospel.  I sensed that this guy had maybe been to a Christian camp, or been involved with a church - so I asked him about it.  He looked at me and said, “Your name is Glen, right?”.  I was shocked.  It turns out I had talked to him before!  Oh Lord, save people, for your glory.  I can’t.  I leave them in your hands.  Lord, please help me to get better at explaining your gospel and representing you well.  I need your help Lord!

On Sunday Andy and I had a couple of new church members join us in Cashel Mall for a couple of hours of outreach.  One spent the time joining Andy to listen in on his gospel conversations.  The other did a fantastic job handing out Christmas Tracts.  Near the end of the outreach I fell into a great conversation with a young lady who had just received a pile of Hare Krishna books.  The two church members were able to listen into this long chat (a friend of the young lady joined in as well.)  After the conversation we were able to debrief and I got some fantastic feedback on how the young lady was misunderstanding something I was saying - and I didn’t even realise!  The church member giving me the feedback had said she had wanted to jump in quite a few times!  Now that I do so much evangelism on my own - I’m aware that I now find it hard to involve and encourage others.  We talked about this.  I gave the church member permission to jump in next time!  It was so encouraging seeing the insight that others have that I don’t necessarily have.  I want to encourage all Christians to get involved with the great commission - I can’t do this on my own, together we can do this. :)