Battle Log

Saturday, 12 January, 2019

Posted 15 January 2019, 1:53 AM by Matthew Rolfe. Permalink

On Saturday 12th January, George, Harry and myself met at 11.30am in the top of the city Centre for outreach. This was the first one we had done collectively in the New Year, and I believe all of us have had different conversations individually with unbelievers in our day to day work before Christmas. I am quite prone to buying things on Facebook Marketplace and never like buying anything new if I can buy it cheaper on there first, and this has led to many chats with people, particularly when after exchanging 'real' money for the item, and then asking if people have any change for a million pound note tract. This has been a great way to share the gospel with people and give them a card for our church with some good solid Bible websites on, (of course one being the 'operation513.com' site) with the gospel message on the back.

Today George was preaching at the top of the main high street who, along with his twin brother, are full time evangelists with Faith Mission, and they had updated some new signs for their board to show people just how far the gap is between unbelievers with their sin against a Holy God. Their pictures are nice and big, bold and visual to get peoples attention, and a great way for people to focus on what he is saying. Three lads walked past, probably in their late teens/ early twenties, and having been offered a tract by Harry while George preached, they declined it and carried on walking. However I tried to catch them as they walked off by asking if they had any change for a million pound note, and having got one of their attention managed to have a good conversation with all three of them.

I tried to focus on why at present God was probably the last thing on their mind as they thought they had no need of him, as if there was a God they probably thought there were many more people worse than them. One was 'religious', and hoped his good works and saying sorry would help him out. However I managed to show him that none of our good works can help us bribe a judge, but we needed payment on our behalf. They said they had recently celebrated Christmas, so I tried to refresh their minds about what that and Easter was all about.

They all seemed quite young and healthy, so after asking if anything bad had ever happened to them like an accident or illness, one lad in particular said he had been in hospital before with a life threatening condition, and so I managed to show the scars on my leg and again show how short our life is, and that even healthy fit people like them can die young. I asked them if their was any sin that they presently enjoyed that they thought was worth holding onto for this short life, rather than giving up and repenting of to gain eternal life. They were quite silent and hopefully pondered the thought, and I managed to give them some tracts to read and to point them in the direction of 'www.fullyfreefilms.com' for some good short Christian films on the subjects we had discussed. I thanked them all for stopping to chat for a while and I hope the firm handshakes I received back were a sign they had something to think about.

I later preached for a while and started by sharing my love of Reptiles and exotic animals and feeding my tarantulas and Chameleons and how the cricket run away and try and hide when the lid is taken off, relating this to the scripture where Jesus said 'men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil..' I tried to convey to passers by that they were not ignorant of Gods existence as they couldn't be due to the creation around them and their conscience telling them right and wrong, like Jimeny Cricket from Pinocchio, but that people avoided thoughts of God due to their love of sin, which by nature we all had.

A group of students seemed to have stopped to listen, and a conversation occurred afterwards- one was a young white Muslim man that was very pleasant and congenial, who didn't believe in the Hadith's, but respected and honoured Jesus etc. We talked for a while about why Jesus would have to be God the Son to take away our sin, the trinity and how to have assurance of eternal life now, rather than living his whole life hoping his good deeds outweighed his bad, We left on friendly terms, again with all taking some tracts to think about.

I left at 1pm for a Wheelchair Basketball game, and Simon, Laura and Ed came to join George and Harry from 1.30- 3pm, with Della and Robbie both unfortunately unwell. The weather had started to deteriorate when I left and so was quite wet and cold, but George managed to preach again but unfortunately ws stopped by questions from a man called Rusty? Apparently he was speaking to the group for about an hour with many varied questions, but kept trying to change the subject when important matters were brought up.The group said they all spoke to him and others and continued to hand out tracts, but we all said was was speaking to Rusty beneficial- was he just trying to waste time to stop the preaching or were his questions genuine?

Maybe he was genuine and God was working in him and convicted him through the preaching and tracts, but to discern whether he was genuine maybe only God knows! God willing we are meeting again in the next coupe of weeks, but all of us will share on our Facebook evangelism group of any interesting or memorable encounters and conversations we have before then in the week.