Battle Log
Wednesday, 6 May, 2020
Posted 6 May 2020, 3:59 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink
Routine. That’s a big key for me. Sharing the gospel with people, as a full time job, can be tiring, and difficult, it can even be boring, sometimes, when you're repeating the same information over and over to people who often don’t seem interested.
And, other than dependence on the strength of God, a regular routine really helps me to keep going. In fact, my online evangelism routine is so solid now, that I find that I enjoy the work more now. I pray, and start a conversation, the conversation ends, I pray, and repeat.
And I feel my routine is in balance. I take regular breaks through the day, and take walks. And I take a whole day away from it all, to focus on rest and family (because we homeschool, my family makes Monday our day off).
I think back to the years when I was new to street evangelism, and the learning process. I remember being terrified when “evangelism day” would arrive. And relieved when it was over. But, my passion for God and telling others about Him overrode my fears. And the routine helped.
So this is an encouragement to you, to try using routine as an aid in evangelism. Pick a (regular) time and place and stick to it. At the moment, there are online outreaches happening daily, with a team of people to work with and learn from. So feel free to come and join us - you will be welcome, no matter your current experience or ability. :)
(With online evangelism, it’s so much easier to get a conversation started, and you can just get into the “flow” of conversation after conversation. It’s good, because you can just power through many gospel conversations (and if you are new, learn fast). But you have to be careful you don’t become too automatic. These are real people we are communicating with, and we need to take what we do seriously.)
And routine helps me to keep writing these reports three times a week. But they often feel like I’m just saying the same old thing each time. I’m at a point now where I feel the time would be better spent just sharing the gospel instead - and I’d probably find that more enjoyable. I dunno, I guess it’s good for me to do so much writing (and it’s a nice change of routine). Has my writing improved? I hope so. But is it worth it?
Well, I guess I should write about the last two days of outreach ;) Tuesday (6 hours on Omegle) and Wednesday (4 hours). So many conversations, I just can’t remember them all. I normally take notes, a routine I need to re-establish! ;)
But something that has encouraged me is seeing others growing in confidence in online evangelism, e.g.:
“It's really thrilling to read your accounts of the gospel going out. I have been praying for you guys. Keep up the great work. I've been doing some Omegle text chats. Can't quite get myself to plunge into a video chat yet!”
And then on Tuesday morning: “I had my first VIDEO chat yaay!” and then “Just spoke to two 11 year old girls can you believe. It was like talking to my Bible Club kids! God paired me up with the right demographic haha.”
And from another team member, this:
“
Stranger: Jesus is right
Stranger: U r right
Stranger: From now on
Stranger: Cause after this chat u have made me believe
”
I finished my outreach today with a very long conversation with a guy who was very intelligent, but so easily distracted, and just all over the place. I had to stop him multiple times and just give him wake up calls to try to get through. I would warn him that he was suppressing the truth out of love for his sin. It was a video conversation, but at one point he dropped the following comment via text chat: “these r the words i needed to hear”. He took a look at needGod.net, and was impacted by the opening line: “What happens after we die?”. In the end, I needed to end the conversation, as I don’t think I was making much progress. I was able to share the gospel. I hope something I said sticks. He is in God’s hands.
By the way, the picture shows the stats for needGod.net. Since we have started online evangelism, there has been a big increase in traffic. May people read the content on needGod.net and come to understand the gospel. May people be saved from our feeble efforts, to the glory of God alone.