Battle Log

Thursday and Friday.  Six outreaches: Northlands (bus stops; team of two), Eastgate (bus stops; team of two), Hospital (abortion outreach; team of five), Cathedral Square (open air preaching + conversations; team of four), Cashel Mall (flip charting + tracts; team of five), City (evening outreach; team of four).  Another very busy two days with many gospel conversations - praise God.

I have to admit to not feeling 100% for the bus stop outreaches on Thursday afternoon - I think I was still recovering from the busy Wednesday.  The highlight conversation was at Northlands where I had a young Christian stop to talk.  He is a fine arts student at the university.  Early in the conversation he articulated a reasonable grasp of the gospel, but when I asked him what his friends would say was the most important thing in his life, Jesus came in as # 3, after his art (#1) and family (#2).  So the conversation continued in a pastoral but evangelistic fashion - me not knowing his standing before God.  It was quite a long chat, where I was doing most of the talking.  But I checked in often to see what he was thinking.  He was very engaged, but was content listening, and asking questions.  I feel privileged to have the opportunity to speak into the lives of people like this and I pray God would continue to give me wisdom for the right words to use.

After the abortion outreach, Friday morning, I was walking with Marty (OAC) to Cathedral Square.  I haven’t open air preached for a while, probably feeling a bit discouraged about whether it is effective.  But Marty encouraged me to preach, so I did.  Thankfully, the musician was set up away from speakers corner, and I was able to preach without that distraction.  There were quite a few people around enjoying the market and food stalls - hopefully some listened.  Afterwards, the team became engaged in one-on-one conversations.  It was wonderful to watch.

We then moved to Cashel Mall for the afternoon.  Like Wednesday, there were many people walking through.  Before I had even finished setting up my flip chart, a guy noticed it and wanted to give it a go!

After he had moved on, I noticed a guy rolling a cigarette - so I walked over to say g'day and ended up having a wonderful gospel conversation with him.  He wasn’t sure if God existed, so I explained, simply, how we know God must exist - and it seemed like a zen moment for him and he was extremely open to going through the law and the gospel.  I used various courtroom analogies in the conversation, and they were very applicable, as this guy was actually taking a break from being in court (nearby)!  At the end, he flicked through the tract I’d given him, and he said he wanted to share the information I had given with others.  He also wanted to go look at a web site with more details (I pointed him to the web site on the tract).  But I cautioned him that today was the day of salvation - before he did any of those things, he needed to trust that Christ had paid the fine for his sin.

My next conversation took up pretty much the rest of my time of the outreach.  It was a follow up with a guy that I’ve been talking with, on and off, since last summer.  It was an animated conversation, with some good heat from time to time.  Sadly, he seems blind to the gospel - but something keeps causing him to want to talk to me about the things of God.  I was very encouraged to hear that I am the only one in his sphere of life who causes him to think about the things of God; according to him, if I wasn’t out on the streets, he wouldn’t be thinking about it.  We are almost at the point where we could call each other friends - we even connected on Facebook - even though we are polls apart when it comes to religion.  He is adamant that I’m wasting my time praying for him - but I will continue. ;)

I was pretty exhausted by the time the evening outreach started.  We prayed together, and I asked that we would be clicking our heels heading home in two hours time.  God certainly answered that prayer!  I had some wonderful gospel conversations.  Firstly, with 2 couples from India at an intersection - they were flying home that night.  Then with a guy at the bridge of remembrance.

But the highlight conversation was when I stopped a young couple on Hereford street.  They became very engaged in the conversation, and seemed to clearly see the logic of the gospel and seemed very open to it, even after considering the cost.  I felt like I was on cloud nine after that conversation, any tiredness I was feeling was gone!

To finish off the evening, I had an opportunity to interact with some under nineteen cricket players from Bangladesh and briefly share the gospel with them.  They left with tracts.

You must remember that I can only share the conversations I’m having - I’m not the only one on these outreaches, and the other Christians are all having other opportunities to share the love of Christ.  I’m grateful for the opportunities God is providing.  Consider joining an outreach team near you and experience the joy of working in the harvest.  All glory to God.

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