Battle Log

Sunday, 17 December, 2023

Posted 17 December 2023, 1:30 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink

It’s going to be another shorter report for this week.  I was fully intending to do a full week on the streets (4 outreaches), but I only ended up doing 1!  Tuesday’s outreach was cancelled due to rain.  And then on Saturday and Sunday I just didn’t have the energy.  I’m recovering from a cough.

And so, Friday afternoon’s outreach to the city was the only outreach for the week.  A good one!  We had a team of 4: Andy, Roger, Greg and myself.  Roger had his ‘patch’, which is his flip chart on the corner.  Andy did walk up (he basically spent the whole outreach talking to the guy pictured).

There were lots of people out and about.  I think a cruise ship was in port.  Greg and I paired up.  We had 2 great chats.

The first was with a lady who I didn’t think would stop, but to my surprise she did.  I sensed that I wouldn’t be able to follow my usual script, and so I ended up going a little softer than usual.  I started out by asking her what was important about Christmas for her, and I let a conversation develop from there, swinging it as I could.  Her husband joined the conversation, and I thought that would end it, but it didn’t, he even became involved.  To my joy I was able to backtrack on to the ‘script’ and take them through the law, and then touch on the true wonder of Christmas, that God would incarnate (I didn’t use that word) to save wretched souls like us.

It turns out they were from Brisbane, and so I was able to talk about the Schoolies outreach I had been involved with recently.  We parted on good terms, and they left with tracts.  Great chat!

The next chat was with a young man going past.  I used the same tactic of starting with Christmas (we were standing right beside a Christmas tree).  I could sense I wasn’t going to be able to have a long chat with this guy, he was eating a pie – he looked like he was on a break from work.  He thought there would be nothing after we die, and so going from there, I was able to present the logic of an afterlife, the law, and then the gospel.  Another great chat.

Greg decided to go to the Square to see what evangelism was happening there, and so I spent the rest of the outreach on my own.  One significant chat was with a young couple.  She was very resistant.  She said her parents were Scientists and Atheists, and she was an Atheist too.  I gently reasoned with her, but she dug her heels in.  For someone scientific and logical, she became very emotional in her arguments.  I didn’t push and in the end I decided to move on as she wasn’t open at this stage.  Her boyfriend had been pretty quiet through the chat, and he had received a tract at the start, and had been reading it.  We parted ways with a handshake.

The rest of my week has been spent in online evangelism.  It feels really good catching up on TikTok DM conversations from over a month ago.  Looking forward to eventually being able to start on the growing pile of new requests.

I’ve also been enjoying training a young man to join the online team.  He is smart, and passionate, and it’s so refreshing seeing him face his fears to proclaim Christ!

God is so good in allowing us to have so many opportunities to represent him!  Please continue to pray for the team in NZ, Australia, and Worldwide.