Battle Log

Friday, 20 December, 2019

Posted 24 December 2019, 10:59 AM by Glen Richards. Permalink

This Thursday we were at Northlands before heading to Eastgate for bus stop outreach.

Again, I relied on tracts to get conversations started.  And, sure enough, God brought along some people who were willing to chat.

I had a great conversation with two young ladies - one of whom said very early on that she thought she would be going to hell, which was surprising.  We dialoged through the law and the gospel, and then I started working on confirming that they understood it.  A few times through checking questions and I think understanding was coming.  But at the same time, there was a hardening to the message.  The cost to accept the gift seemed too great.

There was an encouraging encounter with a Christian who recognised the Eternity tract I handed to her - knowing the story behind it.  As she left, she said warmly: “this is the first time I’ve ever received a gospel tract!”.  God willing, as the years go by, may many people continue to receive tracts for the first time in Christchurch (NZ).

I had three other conversations at Northlands before heading to Eastgate: 1) A follow up with two guys I had talked to outside the bus exchange a previous Friday night - they were not interested in the gospel.  2) With two guys who had just finished high school - the building; builder / universe; universe maker analogy really helped and they listened well.

But the last conversation was with an older man who walked past and asked something about going on holiday.  I offered him a tract, and he said he already had one - so I asked him what he thought about it.  It turns out that this man had been part of a church all his early life (at least), but when I probbed him on what Christianity was all about he was clueless.  He suddenly didn’t want to talk, and turned to go.  But I stopped him, and said that this was the most important thing to think about.  I gave him a detailed tract (After Life) and asked him to read it through.  He accepted it.

At Eastgate, I had many conversations, including with an atheist, and a young man who was wrestling with some life struggles but who heard the gospel.

Friday followed the usual schedule, starting with the gospel + abortion outreach in the morning (which I posted about on the Project 139 Facebook page)

The weather changed to sour near the end of that outreach, and by the time we made it into Cathedral Square, there weren’t too many people about.  Andy and I sang a Christmas Carol with Kelvin the busker, before we headed off in search of gospel conversations.

Andy had a long conversation with a very resistant tourist (German I think), And I had conversations with two sets of people from Holland: a Christian couple, and then a young man who heard, but was resistant to the gospel.

Later in the afternoon, I open air preached and immediately following that Andy & I had a great follow up conversation with three young people.

We finished the afternoon outreach with Andy open air preaching.

The weather had improved for the evening outreach, and there were lots of people out  - I guess many were celebrating the last day of work?  There was a team of three: Andy, Mike and myself.

Andy and Mike seemed to have some great (long) conversations (as pictured).

I had two noteworthy gospel conversations: the first was with a German tourist, but the stand out was with a man who was very drunk.  He couldn’t believe I was asking him about God, but he sat me down wanting to talk.  Verbally, he was very resistant to the gospel, but he wasn’t hiding how deeply he was being impacted - the muscles in his jaw were working over time, as he processed and understood what I was saying.  He kept reflecting back to his mother who was “very spiritual”.  He took a detailed tract, and I told him to put it in his pocket and read it in the morning - I hope he does.