Battle Log

Friday, 12 June, 2020

Posted 13 June 2020, 7:39 AM by Glen Richards. Permalink

Thursday and Friday are my two busiest outreach days of the week.  Glory to God, by his strength, we have made it through. :)

Thursday started with some Online evangelism.  I had two fascinating conversations.

The first was with a guy who was happy to discuss the gospel (and related concepts) but who just struggled to understand what I was saying.  I had to step back and take different avenues to try to bring clarity.  And I just had to labour with this guy - which is understandable and fine.  We need to be patient with people.  Eventually, he was able to articulate some facts of the gospel to me, but I’m not sure if it was really taking hold.

The next guy I talked to was playing a computer game at the same time!  So he was distracted by that.  Yet he still engaged with me, and to my amazement, he seemed to grasp what I was saying pretty much instantly - answering my checking questions pretty much flawlessly!

It was an important reminder that the people we share with are complex and very different.  We need to be attuned to them as a person when we are talking to them, and be willing to patiently labour with them on the most important subject anyone will wrestle with: what happens after life.

In the afternoon Andy & I were at the bus stops: Eastgate and Northlands.

I had a hard moment, where I was talking with a young female high school student.  The traffic driving past was busy and backed up.  Suddenly, a lady in a car called out: “Excuse me, are you ok?”  She was talking to the girl, and the implication was obvious.  The girl was as surprised as me and said: “yes, I’m fine?”  I looked at the lady in the car, she glared at me, then drove off.  I was deeply hurt by this, but sadly it comes with the territory.  Thankfully I was able to finish my gospel conversation with the girl.  She smiled and thanked me as she walked off.

Also, I had a follow up conversation with a young male high school student.  He said he had seen a video of me on the Internet (trying to bring the gospel to the issue of abortion outside the hospital).  He seemed supportive (“you have every right to do what you are doing”).  But I also felt sad.  It’s not easy standing up for what is right.

On Friday we were outside the hospital for our usual gospel + abortion outreach.  A team of six which was encouraging.  We had the usual attacks, but nothing serious.  Someone called the Police and they came to have a chat with us.  They confirmed that we weren’t doing anything wrong - which is encouraging.  We will continue to be salt and light in our society in this regard - no matter the opposition.

Marty, Andy and I all open air preached in the Square.

Later some wonderful gospel conversations occurred in Cashel Mall.

I was having a wonderful conversation on the flip chart with two ladies, but then I had three high school kids stand right next to them - obviously wanting to talk to me.  The two ladies ignored them and continued to engage in the gospel conversation we were having.

Once the two ladies had moved on, I was able to talk to the high schoolers.  I’ve talked to at least one of them before.  Sadly, they were there to “take me on”.  They knew about my work standing against abortion (they went to the same high school as the girls who had attacked us outside the hospital two weeks ago), and wanted to argue.  But they weren’t being logical.  I gently tried to bring this up, but one of them just said, “what is logic?”  I refused to really engage them for this reason.  I’m not there to have shouting matches.  I was frustrated, but I just tried to show that I cared for them, and tried to explain why.  Oh God, please use our feeble efforts for your glory.  Change people’s hearts by your gospel, Lord.

Later, Mike and I headed out for the evening outreach.  There were a lot of people out and about - very encouraging.  We had many wonderful gospel opportunities.  We even encountered a Christian who had watched American Gospel on Netflix and was challenged and pondering - praise God.

The highlight from the evening outreach was an engagement with a guy and girl who were out distributing flyers for a strip club.  We had two encounters during the night.  The first was when they interrupted a potential gospel conversation.  Then at the end of the night we got into a direct conversation with them.  My initial reaction was to be snarky - but, praise God, I stopped myself.  Because we got into a wonderful conversation with both of them.  I could tell they were surprised by the way we were talking to them (gently, respectfully, yet faithfully).  We ended up talking for about fifteen minutes on various topics, including the gospel.  One of them said they would get in touch, and the other asked to take some of my tracts to distribute!

So, a wonderful two days of ministry - not without sadness, and many mistakes (Lord, forgive us!).  I can’t wait to be in heaven with our Lord, but till then be encouraged to reach out with the gospel, no matter the cost!