Battle Log

Sunday, 18 June, 2023

Posted 18 June 2023, 12:22 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink

Only one street outreach this week: Friday afternoon in the city.  I decided to let Riccarton lay fallow for another week.  Roger should be back next week and looking forward to joining him on Tuesday, God willing.  The weather wasn’t the best today, and so I decided it would be more fruitful to work online - we are really busy on Instagram.  I spent a whole hour this morning just processing new message requests!  Every single request (generated by the online content we produce mainly on YouTube and TikTok) is a gospel opportunity, which is amazing, but please pray that we would have wisdom, as always, in ministering to these people.  That they would be saved and knitted into a local church!

Anyway, this should be a short report, as I only have one street outreach to write about!  I was with Andy on Friday.  We go back a long way now, and have been working together in evangelism to God’s glory alone.  We are so different, but we compliment each other.  I am so blessed by his friendship!

We prayed together before getting into it.  As we were praying, I noticed two people who I thought would be open to a chat, but I know how important prayer is, so I let them pass.  God is sovereign.  Once we had finished praying, I looked up, and I noticed an interesting young man walking past, he looked like a busker - a juggler.  I instantly took the opportunity to engage him, he responded and came over and the 3 of us fell into an easy chat about his interest: juggling.  Andy can juggle too as it turns out!  So they took turns to demonstrate their tricks.  I asked about his day job, and then he asked what we were up to.  That was my opportunity to swing it.  I took the direct approach (it’s always best to be upfront and not beat around the bush), “we are Christians out to share about Jesus”.  He had suspected as much, he figured we were either Christians or JWs.  He said he was a Christian himself, and even mentioned the local church he was at.  I kept it light, because I didn’t want to come across as the ‘Christian Inspector’, so I was just honest in saying, “Hey, I talk to a lot of people who say they are Christian but who are subtly missing the main point, please allow me to check, why do you think you’ll go to heaven when you die?”.  He thought about it for a second and his natural response was to go to his good works - not the right response.  But just because they don’t give the right response initially isn’t an instant red cross!  I gently tried to probe, after about 30 seconds, he went to the right answer: Jesus.  We were then able to discuss it, between the 3 of us for the next 15 minutes or so.  After teasing out the details, he agreed that he was subtly trusting his works for salvation.  He seemed to have a couple of penny drop moments as Andy and I worked through some check questions with him.  He seemed to really appreciate the chat.  We parted ways with handshakes and pointed him to Romans 3, 4, and 5 (to go to the source of what we were talking about, not as a reason he is saved! ;) ).  He walked off, in the sovereign hands of God.  Our job is to share the gospel - it’s the power of God for salvation.  But it’s God’s job to actually save - he is the power!

What’s interesting is, if I had broken out of our prayer time, and engaged the first 2 people, then I wouldn’t have engaged this guy.  Who knows… God does.  Don’t worry about what you can’t control.  Just do what is in your control: step out and share the gospel!  Leave the rest to him!

But, the other thing that is interesting is this: we are so prone to forget the gospel!  We need to preach it, not only to others, but to ourselves: all day, and everyday.  Why do we forget it?  It’s so natural to think about performance: most things in life are oriented around it.  It’s so easy to slip back to “I” rather than “He” when it comes to salvation.  But, we don’t only slip into this individually, but also as families and churches.  We can become so focused on ministry that we lose focus on the main point.  So this is not a rebuke, but an encouragement.  Preach the gospel to yourself everyday.  Don’t lose sight of the wonder and grace of the forgiveness of our sin found in Jesus.  Don’t forget to preach this from your pulpit regularly.  Jesus is the foundation and the anchor!  Amazing grace!

To emphasise this point, I ended up having a similar conversation with a second person later in the outreach.  Going to a good local church, but just missing the basics.

Andy and I had other good conversations through the outreach.  I got to minister Christ to a young couple, and an older lady from Japan.  Andy is pictured in what was a long conversation.

Earlier in the day, while I was online, I was able to share the gospel with someone who claimed to be streaming our conversation to about 4,000 people (if I heard him right).  If that was true, who knows, maybe some of them will come to Christ as a result.  It’s the simple message of the gospel that God can use to save someone.  Be faithful in small things, and who knows what opportunity will come.

Thank you for your support, in prayer, for this street and online ministry.  We really appreciate it!  Glory to God alone.