Battle Log
Wednesday, 10 June, 2020
Posted 10 June 2020, 6:24 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink
Tuesday and Wednesday saw me in Riccarton, the central city, and online.
Riccarton is new to me now. With the road works complete, I have easy access to bus stops similar to Eastgate and Northlands. There is much opportunity for the gospel.
I was walking down Riccarton Road and I saw two high schoolers. As usual, I directly but confidently asked them what they thought happened after life and was quickly into a gospel conversation. They were engaged and open. They were from a Catholic high school, so I was very surprised when one of them got the question, “what do you have to do to get to heaven?” right! It turns out this young man actually has a protestant background. But they were both still keen to go through the law and the gospel with me. And they were very appreciative of the conversation.
Later I approached a group of young people and offered them tracts and got into a conversation. Sadly, it turns out they were all stoned. I could tell I was wasting my time trying to engage them. I hope to have an opportunity to talk to them in the future.
I asked a teen couple that were passing what they thought would happen after life. They smiled and said they had already had a long conversation with me a year ago. So I asked, “So what do you have to do to get to heaven?” The guy looked at me blankly for a second, then said, “you have to be a good person.” Wrong answer sadly. They didn’t want to stop and stepped into a shop and were gone.
I was able to share with three guys on skateboards. None of them had had a religious upbringing, and they were happy to engage in gospel conversation. They seemed to understand the logic, but sadly didn’t seem too interested.
I was able to chat with a Muslim guy who had tragically lost six friends in the mosque shootings last year! :( He seemed challenged by our brief conversation, but didn’t have the time to stay. He said he would read the tract I gave him.
I ended the outreach with a thoughtful young man who believed in reincarnation and denied a personal creator. I challenged him by explaining how he knew there was a personal creator. He seemed to enjoy the brief conversation, and said he would read the tract.
Wednesday afternoons outreaches started in Cathedral Square. The Christians I had met the previous week were there again: open air preaching, handing out tracts, and engaging people in conversations. I listened to some of the preaching and I was very impressed.
I managed to get into a lovely conversation with a rough looking guy. He had been deeply impacted by the JWs, and he liked to talk, so I had to patiently listen to him. It was fascinating getting a fresh insight into the implications of this deeply works based religion.
Whenever I got a chance to talk, I tried to move the conversation to the reality of hell, and the good news of Jesus and justification by faith. At one point, I was explaining how wicked I was - and he stopped me. “You aren’t wicked.”, he said. And so I had another opportunity to explain from Matthew 5 the serious nature of sin. Compared to a murderer - we look good, but compared to God, who sees anger like we look on murder - we look, well: wicked.
I then explained how a wicked person, like me, can go to heaven. I think it was having an impact. He took four different copies of gospel tracts from me.
Later, I joined the Aussie team for some online outreach.
Today I had a great run. My very first conversation (no skips first), was with a young Catholic guy who was hoping he would go to heaven. He heard the gospel, and proclaimed he would trust that Jesus had paid his hell fine from today - even after considering the cost. I pointed him to a local church.
I then got into a wonderful conversation with a physicist! Whoever it was (their camera was off) didn’t want to talk, just type, but they were a very fast typist. We had a very amicable conversation. They were a dream Omegle pairing. I had to be very patient, but I was able to swing the conversation to the law. But sadly, I became distracted, and that killed the conversation - I wasn’t able to share the gospel. But I did tell them about needGod.net.
I had a number of other great conversations. I give God all the glory for a fantastic outreach.