Battle Log

Saturday, 28 July, 2018

Posted 31 July 2018, 3:40 PM by Doug Espie. Permalink

Well it all started when a bloke started bashing his partner in the carpark across the road. Our team was meeting at the Margaret street McDonalds last Saturday when Elisa came over and said she’d just seen (and confronted) a man who was beating his partner. The man had launched into a tirade against Elisa and so while she rang the police six of our male team members crossed the street to maintain an obvious presence and ensure no further violence would occur.
 

After waiting around 15 minutes the police still hadn’t arrived. It was decided that four of us would return to McDonalds while Rick and I would continue to keep an eye on the situation. Rick is the Operation 513 Team Leader in Warwick and along with his wife Glenda had decided to join us today. I was especially grateful of Rick’s presence in this moment, because it didn’t take long for the abuser to notice our reduced numbers and to come storming over to Rick and I. He demanded to know what we were doing there, and when I told him we were there because we’d been told he’d been bashing his missus, he exploded in a furious rant about it “being none of our business” and how “we should f---- off” etc.
 

He then called his partner over, who then proceeded to scream and rant at us as well. Sadly, this is not an unusual situation with domestic violence, however what was unusual was that she was clearly under the influence of something. Her sentences were mostly incoherent though the general meaning was certainly clear. She asked us what we were doing and when Rick mentioned we were praying for their situation (among other things) they both heartily enjoyed mocking us as they walked back to their car.

Things took a strange turn a few minutes later, however, when the bloke asked if we could buy him and his partner coffee (Yes, you read that right). Now in a calmer frame of mind, he introduced himself as J- and his girlfriend as K-. He told us that their car was having mechanical trouble and that they’d both endured a very stressful 24 hours after being busted for drugs.

Whilst we realised that background story to his abuse could never excuse the violence (and the fact that this was clearly a “exploit-the-religious-guys” coffee request), Rick and I chose to buy J- and K- coffee and something extra to show our love for them.

Upon our return J- went back to being rather prickly, however Rick still boldly offered J- a Gospel tract (which was declined) and we hung around a little while to continue chatting with J-. It was a difficult discussion though as J- would swing quite wildly between being rather friendly and then suddenly quite antagonistic towards us in the space of a few sentences. Eventually we chose to wrap up the conversation and we headed out for the main part of our outreach with the others.

The afternoon had much more in store for us as a team. Below are three significant encounters:

1. Merv and Adrian handed a tract to a Sudanese man named D- who instantly wanted to discuss Christianity. D- came to Australia in 2011 and had a Christian background, yet only sporadically went to Church. He possessed quite a bit of Bible knowledge yet had some unorthodox beliefs.

D- believed that Jesus died physically but was only raised spiritually (e.g. Jesus’ bones are still in Israel somewhere). He also believed in an old heresy called Modalism, which claims that God manifests Himself in three ways: Father, Son and Spirit but only is one person. In this view, God could be seen as an actor who puts on three different masks throughout history. One person-three masks. This heresy essentially denies the Trinity, which is the Biblical teaching that God is one being yet eternally exists in three distinct persons: The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit.

This all may sound rather abstract, but like all heresies Modalism has numerous knock-on effects that undermine the Christian faith. The denial that Jesus rose physically from the dead also causes tremendous problems. Thankfully, Merv is well-versed in these things and he and D- had a robust yet respectful and loving discussion that went for over an hour. Please pray for D-, that he may get connected to a local Church family and may be nurtured, challenged and loved.

2. Rick and I went down Margaret street and handed out a good number of tracts together. People were quite receptive, though it wasn’t long before a young man told us to “make sure we’re sharing the grace and love of Jesus in all this”. It turned out this young man was a Youth Pastor at a large and well-known Church in Toowoomba. I asked him what he meant, and he said that evangelism should be done in the context of relationship, focussing on the grace and love of Christ. He was adamant on this point and the way he was saying it seemed (to me) to indicate that Christians should *only* share the Gospel with those we have a relationship with and that we should focus primarily upon God’s grace and love.

This sort of thinking tends to be found mostly in Pentecostal circles and at best sees street evangelism as naïve and at worst sinful. It also tends to place a high emphasis on Christ’s love and has a zero-tolerance policy towards those who share about God’s wrath and condemnation. Yet this view is flawed when you realise that the Good News only becomes Good News in light of the Bad News. Amazing Grace is only amazing (and gracious) when one considers God’s righteous anger against sinful humanity. In fact, the Bible makes the case clear that it's not only the kindness of God but also grief over sin that leads to repentance  “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death." 2 Corinthians 7:10 (ESV).  Finally, God’s love is magnified (not diminished) when a person sees the level of their separation from a just God and His passionate pursuit of them despite what they’ve done.

 The idea that Christian must have a personal relationship with someone before they share their faith with them also has a number of issues. Below are just three such problems which refute this errant idea:

2a) The Ministry of Jesus

Jesus’s ministry was marked by the public proclamation of the Gospel. He often spoke to crowds (Matt 4: 17, 7:28, 9:35, 11:1, John 5:16-43, 6:25-59, 7:14, 37, 8:12-59 to names just a few verses) and to individuals (such as the Samaritan Woman) whom He’d never met before.

2b) The Ministry of the Apostles

Public evangelism that addressed both large crowds and individual people has numerous examples in Acts and is the predominate form of evangelism in the first few decades of the Church (2:14-41, 3:12-26, 4:8-21, 5:21, 42,  6:9-10, 7:2-59, 8:4-8, 26-37, 40 and many, many others).

2c) The Magnitude of Our Task

Born-again Christians are a minority in Australia. Therefore, it is a mathematical reality that there simply isn’t enough born-again Christians to befriend every non-Christian in Toowoomba, let alone Australia. We shouldn’t pursue relationships with non-Christians and then evangelistically ignore those who we are not friends with. Love demands a greater, more public method of evangelism that avoids being unnecessarily offensive yet risks rejection and mockery as it announces Christ’s life, death, resurrection and enthronement even to those we may never see again.

As we follow in the footsteps of Christ and of His Apostles, who are we to say that God won’t change stranger’s life, just as He changed our lives? This is the hope of public evangelism, that as we sow seeds of the Gospel in people’s minds, God may cause it to grow and to transform individuals and communities in a beautiful way.

3. Glenda and Elisa met a young woman named G-. She was from the Philippines and was currently caught up in a cult that teaches that you need to keep the 10 Commandments to be saved. Glenda and Elisa lovingly shared from the Scriptures that salvation is by grace and not of works (Eph 2:8-9) and by the end of their conversation G- was visibly excited about the truth of the Gospel. The ladies left some tracts with G- and it is our prayer and hope that God will continue His powerful work in this young woman.

As our evangelism came to an end, we returned to McDonalds and saw J- walking down the street, holding a car part. As he disappeared from our sight the Police arrived and interviewed Elisa regarding the incident. It certainly had been a memorable day…and we look forward in faith to what God has planned for our next outreach in Toowoomba.