Battle Log
Saturday, 15 October, 2022
Posted 16 October 2022, 1:40 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink
A&P show outreaches are back! :) Over the last few years, many have been cancelled due to Covid restrictions, but that is now a thing of the past. What is an A&P show? A&P stands for agricultural and pastoral. It’s an event where people from the local farming community come together. There are horse riding competitions, wood chopping competitions, people hire sites to sell tractors, and all kinds of farming related stuff. There are food stalls, machinery exhibits, side shows, bands playing. It’s a fun day out for the family. We hire trade or craft sites at these shows where we set up flip charts and spend the day sharing the gospel with those going past.
On Saturday we were at the first spring show of the season: Ellesmere, about 30 minutes south of Christchurch near a little place called Leeston.
Andy and I were there by 7:30 am to set up our site. It’s the smallest site we have ever had! Normally we have enough room to set up 3 flip charts, but there was only enough room for 2. We set up a gazebo, laid out a table of tracts and bibles, set up the flip charts, and slapped on some sunscreen. A nice sunny day, but there was a cold wind, so I still wore my puffer jacket for most of it! :) The site was ready by about 10 past 8. Ollie had arrived, and so the 3 of us started the outreach with some prayer. But, even as we were praying, our first 2 customers approached a flip chart! I peeled off to engage them, and the long, busy day of gospel outreach was underway.
And it was a very busy day, glory to God. There was a team of 9 (if I counted right), in the last picture, only Lani is missing as she had already left by that stage. We were ministering for a total of 7 hours - right through to 4pm.
It was interesting watching the crowds walking past our site and reading the front page of our flip charts. Often I would lip read them asking: “the good person test?” As the site got busy, some of us would come out into the flow and try to encourage people to give the flip chart a go. It was interesting having people say, “I’ve done it before at a previous show”, and so there would be an opportunity to follow up.
One of my early chats was a tough one. A couple went past - she wasn’t interested, he was, but he wasn’t interested in the gospel, only arguing. She said she would leave him with me and went off to enjoy the show. He (an atheist) wasn’t there to listen or discuss, but only make assertions and assumptions about me. I knew there was no real point in trying to engage, because he simply wasn’t interested. And so I just listened, and defended when I could (he would cut me off). After 5 or 10 minutes of this, his partner came back. She joined the conversation for a minute, before it became obvious to her and me that it was pointless to continue. They moved on to enjoy the show. We parted with a handshake and he refused a tract. Interestingly, his brother is a Pastor. I’d love to have an opportunity to talk to Sam again, God willing.
The rest of the outreach was a bit of a blurr. I talked to many people about the law and the gospel. And it was so awesome to see everyone else running the site busy having chats as well. Some were hard, some were easy, some were open, many were closed. Yet, as long as we were faithful to the message of the gospel, God was glorified in every chat.
Jordan arrived at lunch time, and in the four hours he was there, he had only 2 chats! The first one went for over 2 hours!! But, that time was well spent in labouring the law and the gospel, and answering the hard questions of life. Rebekah had a chat with a lady who heard the law and the gospel, and yet was struggling with some related issues and the time and the place wasn’t appropriate to get into it, and so contact details were exchanged, so a follow up coffee can be arranged - so encouraging!
For all the rest of the chats, I’m just going to let the pictures do the talking :)
But one other encouraging thing I’ll mention. I normally do outreach in Riccarton on Saturday’s, and over recent times I’ve had 2 great opportunities to minister to a young man and his friends. Well, he saw me at the show, and came over to say g'day. He looked so wrapped to see me, and he told me he had been reading his bible. May he continue to grow for God’s glory.
I was taking some R&R earlier in the week, so I wasn’t in Riccarton on Tuesday. And on the Sunday (the day after the A&P show) I was just too tired to go to the streets. But there was a team of 4 in the City on Friday. It was great to have Connor (pictured) out with us. Connor is back from living in Auckland! I paired up with him and we had some great opportunities to minister the gospel together (firstly with a group of 4 girls, and then later with a group of 4 guys, plus a great short and sweet chat with a tradie in between).
Well, that wraps the week! Praise God that we have another A&P show outreach opportunity next Saturday (22nd), in Rangiora. Please pray that that goes well. SDG!
