Battle Log

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It’s election time in NZ, and on Saturday I had one of the candidates for my electorate knock on my door.  I had a wonderful opportunity to share my thoughts on some important social issues that affect our society, like abortion - which needs to end.  The candidate and the person with them both received a “How we know God exists and why it matters” tract, and a “Life is precious” tract.  Do you have tracts at your door ready to give to whoever comes knocking?  Order some today: NZ, AU, UK.

I also spent four hours in online evangelism.  I was able to join the Aussie team’s online outreach.

Some of the conversations I remember include:

A chat with a young man who instantly started calling me grandpa!  But he sobered up quickly when he realised why I was on Omegle.  He was quiet and didn’t ask many questions, and yet he seemed to grasp the gospel very quickly.  He was very appreciative at the end.

I also had a good chat with a Muslim guy who seemed to be challenged.  Although resistant, there were moments where he was quiet as he contemplated the gospel.  I pleaded with this guy to respond to it.

Sunday was outreach Sunday for Redemption Church.  I had two families join me.  And we also had an old street evangelism friend from years back join us again.  Great to have you with us Daryl!

It was a difficult outreach.  In last Sunday’s report, I mentioned a guy who got arrested (and I didn’t know why).  Well, today he was out again, and I understood why he may have been arrested.  He was obnoxious, and threatening.

Sadly, he disrupted one of my flip chart conversations.  Because of this I lost an opportunity to share the gospel, and also an opportunity to demonstrate how the flip chart works to some team members.

The guy finally went away, but it wasn’t long till he was back.  For this reason, we decided to pack up and move locations.  God in his providence used it for good, as we had some wonderful gospel opportunities in Cathedral Square.

Andy was going to open air, but ended up having a great one to one (well, one to two actually) instead.  Pictured is that conversation - it shows Andy using the “Says Who?” tract.  It has a great “cross” illustration that you can see him using.

I ended up falling into a very long and intellectual conversation with a fellow software engineer.  I kept coming back to how we know that God exists, and it started to frustrate him.  Yet the logic is sound and I refused to budge.  He did get to hear the law and the gospel and he left with a “Says Who?” tract.

While I was in that conversation, some of the less experienced team members had some great opportunities to use the flip chart and share the gospel!  Well done team.  :)
 

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Covid-19  brought some radical changes to our evangelism in Toowoomba. We had one Saturday before the social-distancing restrictions kicked in and we used it to share the Gospel in the CBD. 

I had a really interesting encounter when I gave a gospel tract to a young man with long black hair. He was dressed like an academic at the beach.  After skim-reading the tract he came up to me and said with a thick European accent "If your Jesus was to come back today, do you think He would recognise the Christianity as taught by the institutional Church?

 I replied "That's a good question. I think it depends which Church you're talking about. There are a lot of "Churches" who weaponise religion for their own gain. There are also a number of solid Churches who continue in the faith handed down from the Apostles."

The young European bloke then came over to me and stood next to me. He draped his arm over my neck. It was now getting intimate. Real intimate. "What if I said to you...." continued the man "...that Christ would completely disagree with your Christianity?"

 "Really?" I responded "How do you know?"*

At this question, the bloke disengaged his arm and quickly walked away. I was so taken aback by his sudden reversal that I didn't know what to say as he made his speedy exit. I was somewhat disappointed by such an outcome, but my hope and prayer is that post-COVID we shall meet again someday and continue our discussion.

After this memorable outreach, the social distancing restrictions began and we needed to change the way we shared the Good News about Jesus with the wider community. Our team undertook OP513 on-line evangelism training which taught us how to use Omegle. Using Omegle is not for the faint of heart and requires appropriate safeguards. However some of the Gospel conversations that I saw on this platform were incredible.

After a significant amount of prayer and discussion, our team decided to instead focus on "tracting" suburbs i.e placing tracts that explain the Gospel in household's mailboxes across certain suburbs. 

So far this year we have tracted Rockville, Harlaxton and Drayton. This month we will be tracting Newtown on Saturday the 29th August from 10am-1130pm. There are unique benefits** of this particular approach of evangelism, and if you would like to join us you are more than welcome. You can contact us through the OP513 contact page***. The harvest is indeed plentiful but the laborers are few. Please be in prayer for us as we seek to bring the truth of who Christ is and what He is doing in our world to the people of our community.

 

* Special thanks to Greg Koukl for this insightful question. I highly recommend his book:

https://www.koorong.com/product/tactics-a-game-plan-for-discussing-your-christian-convictions_9780310574750?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.koorong.com%2Fsearch%2Fresults%3Fw%3Dtactics%2Bebook#product-tabs

 I've found the question "How do you know?" one of the most useful questions to ask anyone when they posit their opinion on a controversial topic. It respectfully allows a person to present the justification for their position and it very quickly reveals to all parties just how well-thought out (or not) a person's position actually is. 
 

**If you're skeptical about the effectiveness of Gospel Tracts, check out:

http://appalachiacry.com/2017/04/09/the-benefits-of-handing-out-gospel-tracts/#:~:text=A%20gospel%20tract%20can%20be%20used%20by%20God%20to%20convert,encourage%20believers%20in%20the%20faith.
 

*** https://www.operation513.com/contact-us

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This week I was at the OAC Conference at a camp just north of Wellington.  It was wonderful to be able to spend time in fellowship with fellow evangelists from across New Zealand.  It was encouraging to know I’m not alone in what I do.

On Thursday, we split into teams and drove down to Wellington for outreach.  Our team was based at the waterfront.  We divided into pairs and after some lunch made the most of our time to reach people with the gospel.  I was with Maria, and we focused on starting walk up conversations.  Maria and I agreed we would take turns so that we could learn from each other.  Central Wellington seems to have a lot more people than central Christchurch, so I felt like a kid in a candy shop trying to decide who to approach!

I started with a conversation with a guy on his lunch break, as usual, I was upfront with why I was interrupting his day - but it didn’t put him off, he was happy to talk about what happens after life - although he did mention that he had to head back in five minutes.  He heard the law and the gospel, but he wasn’t convinced that heaven or hell were real. I went back to explain how we all know there is a God and that there must be justice quite a few times.  By this stage we had been talking a lot longer than five minutes, so I wrapped up the conversation saying I didn’t want him to be guilty of stealing time from his employer! ;)  He left with a follow up tract.

Later I approached a guy and struck up a conversation in my usual, direct, way.  He had his bike with him, and was working on a laptop.  It turns out the guy works in behavioural change which led to an interesting conversation where I explained the gospel was the only thing that could make a behaviour change in someone. He agreed that postmodernism didn’t make sense, but there were things (like God) we just couldn’t know.  I agreed that there were many things we didn’t know, but that God wasn’t one of them, and I was able to explain why.  He heard the law and the gospel.  He seemed curious at what I was saying, if not challenged.  He also accepted a follow up tract.

Maria then had a long chat with a young man who had been through some difficult times in his recent past.  It looked like he was trying to discover himself.  He asked deep questions and heard the gospel.

To finish the outreach, we approached two young girls.  Maria took the lead on this conversation and used a little mini flip chart (different to the one I use) to take them through the law and the gospel.  Both these girls had had Catholic backgrounds, but both had heard the gospel before and were wrestling with it (in different ways).  We were able to work through an objection one of the girls had that was holding her back from placing her faith in Christ for the forgiveness of her sins.  They really seemed to appreciate the timely conversation and we left them with multiple gospel tracts.

It’s always wonderful to outreach in new locations - I love it.  And it was great to work alongside evangelists I don’t normally work with it.  It was a great time of idea exchanging.

But it’s great to be home, and looking forward to getting back to my usual outreach routine.  Thanks for your prayer support of the Operation 513 outreach team in Christchurch (NZ).
 

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On Saturday I met one of our team members Laurie in the City Centre again to preach and hand out tracts as was another glorious day. While walking up to our spot I passed 5 older teenagers sitting talking on a wall, and asked if they fancied doing a quick intelligence test in a few minutes if they thought they were smart enough?! They laughed and joked about who was the smartest, and thankfully after setting up the stuff they walked up to answer the questions.

It turns out they attended the same school I had over 23 years ago and knew some of the Teachers that had taught me that were still there! I said that the intelligence test dealt with their brain and intellect, but the good person test dealt with morality. I asked them if they had a conscience and if they ever listened to it? We had a very good discussion and they stayed and listened for around 20 minutes which was great, taking tracts and becoming quite somber when listening to what the gospel message entailed, especially seeing the picture of Jesus taking the wrath of God on the cross in the place of sinners, and how they could be forgiven too. 

 

I went to the toilet and when I came back, Laurie was in discussion with a Deliveroo driver from the McDonalds we are normally right outside. He was a Muslim and Laurie asked if he had any assurance that he was going to Heaven as a Muslim? He said he didn't but again hoped that Allah forgave due to confessing sins and doing good. Laurie spoke with him about why a good judge can't let someone off the hook for just saying sorry or trying to outweigh the bad with good, and explained why Jesus was the only person who could pay for his sins in full as he was 100% man and 100% God. The man just believed Jesus was a prophet etc, and said he would never believe anything different about Jesus, but took some tracts to read which was good before he zoomed off for another delivery. 

After handing out some more tracts, Ed from our team came along, and so patiently listened to me preach about the fear of the Corona virus, losing jobs, money etc that all of society had, and the masks that people were wearing to try and cover up their mouth to protect them. I tried to link this to man trying to cover up his sins with good works, and how all other religions fail to do this, as seen with Hindu's repeatedly washing themselves in the dirty river Ganges every year which they think makes them clean, is what our good works are like to God. I also tried to explain that stapling on apples to a dead apple true will not convince anyone that the tree is alive, and that a bad tree will always produce bad fruit, which is why although people try and do 'good things' it is always tainted with sin because we have a heart born in sin and so will always produce bad fruit. 

I showed that in Adam, we are all born in sin, and we needed to be transplanted into Christ, to have a new heart with new desires and start again, instead of covering up, and that Christ offered them that fresh start and cleansing from sin today!

A few people passed by and stopped to listen, one man that sells the Big Issue walked past and commented that if God existed why did his brother die. I said it was because of sin that all of us will die, and the man exclaimed that his brother had never sinned and was a good person, and didn't like my response that we have all sinned in various ways. He walked off cussing and swearing. Later 2 PARC officers that deal with City Centre incidents before the Police arrive, stopped to listen to me preach (with a small amp on) and radioed to their superiors of what I was doing. Although I presumed it was about a complaint/ too loud, they apparently said to Ed that if I mentioned Covid 19 and if a member of the public complained then I would have to stop preaching, but fortunately no one complained and I finished without any problems. 

A youngish couple had been sat on a bench listening for a while, and Laurie went across to speak with them and share. They were from Romania and listened intently as Laurie shared the gospel with them and gave some tracts. Also earlier on a man that looked like Robert Downie Junior/ Iron Man look alike sat down and listened to the preaching and had long chat with Laurie and I afterwards. He was convinced the masks were pointless and that this was all a hoax from the government and a way of controlling people. He had a Buddhist/ New Age background of sorts, and at times agreed with what we all shared, and other times didn't, but he took a Bible and some tracts that we offered him and he was very grateful and gave us a hug! He said he had seen us here before so hopefully we will bump into him again.

It was a good day, and after a bit of a slow start was very encouraging, and we prayed for the people we had spoken to that day before going for coffee and fellowship. We hope to go back to Exeter and down to Newquay soon to meet up with Josh and his team again, and were very thankful that God gave us people that were open to listen to the gospel message and we just pray they see Gods goodness in the gospel that would lead them to repentance.

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The weekend saw outreach in the central city.  And there were lots of people out and about on both days.  There were some free winter related events attracting people - which was wonderful, because it provided many gospel conversation opportunities!

And on Saturday, the longer the outreach went, the better those conversations were.  I’m going to mention the last four.

A construction worker was attracted by a local busking act, but ended up talking to me.  Once he realised I wanted to talk about spiritual things, he recognised me and said that I had already talked to him once down by the river.  From memory, I think that was during the last summer mission.  He remembered going through the law, but he didn’t remember the gospel.  So we spent some time focusing on that.  He ended up mentioning a relative who was involved with the WatchTower.  I used that as an opportunity to talk about the difference between a religion requiring works for salvation, and the grace of Jesus dying on the cross to pay our hell fine for us.  They penny really seemed to drop for him, which was really encouraging for me.

Next up I two intellectual types spot my flip chart and decide to take me on.  I was upfront with what the flip chat was about, and they appreciated that and we fell into an apologetical tussel, where I was about to keep touching on the law and the gospel.  They ended up disengaging, one refused a tract, but to my encouragement, the other took one.  It had been a draining conversation, but a very rewarding one.

A lady walked past from a distance but was staring at the flip chart.  I indicated that she should try it, and she decided to come over.  We had a long and frustrating conversation where she insisted that she needed to be good to go to heaven, and yet clearly understanding that she wasn’t good!  She ended up referring to an incident in her past where someone she respected had told her she can’t use God as a doormat.  I laboured to get her to see that we are saved by the grace of God, which would lead us to not want to use God as a doormat.  It was very encouraging watching her processing this vital information.

Finally I had an English couple stop, the guy was very interested in what “the good person test” was all about.  The conversation started talking about a mutual love: cricket, but they guy insisted I talk him through the good person test.  He was an atheist, but he believed in “family values''.  He and his wife came to hear why Jesus is good news and how God is the only basis for having family values.

So some very encouraging opportunities on Saturday!  And Sunday was just as busy.  A team of seven.

My first conversation was with a young couple who heard the law, but the guy became confused while I was explaining the gospel.  “A man has to die so I can go to heaven?”  I used the courtroom analogy to explain why justice is required, and yet how mercy can be given.  He was still confused, so I just flipped to the “Jesus fireball” page.  All of a sudden, understanding seemed to come - Jesus died on the cross for our sin.  They seemed open to what I was sharing, I challenged them to respond to the gospel, after counting the cost that would come.

Later, for the first time ever, I had someone arrested by the Police while next to my flip chart!  I was sharing the gospel with three guys, suddenly I had a strange man standing next to me and trying to interact.  It was difficult, but he ended up sitting behind me, and then he moved behind the guys I was sharing with.  All of a sudden, two Police officers were arresting him.  I have no idea what that was all about.  But I continued to share the gospel with the guys I was focused on.

Throughout the afternoon of outreach, there was a homeless girl sitting not far from me who was watching everything the team was doing (flip charting, handing out tracts, conversations).  Eventually she came over and wanted to try the flip chart herself.  We had a wonderful conversation where we were able to go through the flip chart in full.  It was also a great demonstration for the new team members watching.

It was a busy afternoon of outreach - a real team effort!  Well done team :)
 

 

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On Thursday I spent a couple of hours online before heading out to the bus stops.

I had one very sad encounter near the start.  I was connected to a girl who looked to be about 8 years old.  She wanted to show me something, and she showed me the private parts of a doll.  I was deeply saddened.  I said that this was not a good place for her to be, and asked if her Mum and Dad knew she was doing this.  I then heard a ladies voice say, “she is 13”.  Soon after they disconnected.  Very, very sad.  We live in a broken world that desperately needs the gospel.  I was sad that I didn’t have an opportunity to share the gospel with this girl and the lady.

I was connected to a guy from Mexico who didn’t have good English.  I gave him a link to needGod.net while I continued to try to communicate with him.  All of a sudden, I heard the voice of Ryan Hemelaar sharing the gospel!  It gave me a fright!  But then I realised this guy had gone to needGod.net and had started playing a video of Ryan sharing the gospel.  I chuckled to myself - the power of technology!

I connected with a kid who instantly started cussing me out.  I ignored it, and asked him what he thought happened afterlife.  Slowly he started engaging with me.  He was very sharp mentally and quickly came to grasp the gospel.  Part way through he apologised for swearing at me.  He said there was nothing stopping him from trusting that Jesus had died on the cross for his sins today.  So I challenged him to do that, after counting the cost.

One of the last conversations was with a very open hearted lady who came to an understanding of the gospel and was very thankful.

After this, Andy and I were at the Eastgate and Northlands bus stops for the afternoon.  There were two highlight conversations (of many).

Andy had a very special conversation with a high school student.  Comments from the guy, upon understanding the gospel, were “I’m totally blown away”, and “this has been life changing”.  How very, very encouraging!

The other one was a conversation I had with two high school students.  As they walked past I asked them, “Hey, can I ask you a question?”  They stopped and it turns out they were hardline atheists.  I suddenly had an intense discussion on my hands.  But I enjoyed it.  One of them did all the talking, while the other just listened.  Throughout the conversation I presented counter arguments to everything that was raised.  And over and over, I touched on the law and the good news of Jesus.  At one point, the guy who was listening piped up and said, “It’s really good hearing the argument from the other side”.  May God save them both for His glory!

Friday started with the gospel + abortion outreach, as usual.  The first half was relatively peaceful - I had a wonderful gospel conversation with a young man.  But in the second hour we attracted an emotional and illogical young lady who wouldn’t give up.  Sadly, we couldn’t reason with her, and she was completely closed to the gospel - I didn’t even try.  She ended up attracting two more ladies who wanted to give us a piece of their mind too.  I find the hatred difficult to deal with, yet in love we will persist.

I open air preached in Cathedral Square in the face of hecklers.  One of the hecklers did his best to drown me out.  It sounded terrible.  I tried to engage him, I tried to articulate my love in the face of hatred.  I did my best to moderate the sound of my voice so I could be heard, and yet not sound like I was yelling at people.  I’m not sure if I was very successful.  After presenting the gospel, I gave up and switched to one to one.

I approached a construction worker on the other side of the Square and it was a guy I had talked to the week prior!  We had a great follow up chat, and it was clear that he had been processing our last discussion.  He said he wanted a book where he could learn more about Christianity.  So I pulled out a New Testament and gave it to him with a gospel tract (different to the one he received the week before).  I also gave him a contact card for my local church.  I hope to see him again.

Later, Andy, Roger and I spend a couple of hours at the Bridge of Remembrance.

The highlight conversation was with an Indian guy with a Hindu background.  He heard the law and the gospel, and then I instantly moved into my first checking question.  His response was that he needed to be good to go to heaven.  Not surprised, I went back and re-explained the gospel.  The penny dropped, and a light came over his face.  I was encouraged, so I moved straight into another checking question.  To my amazement, his response was still that he needed to be good to go to heaven!  So I went back to explaining the gospel, in different ways.  I used a courtroom analogy where someone else pays our fine, and his response was, “but I would need to pay him back”.  I continued to labour, and then he said, “I’m really confused”.  The idea that salvation is a gift was so foreign to his thinking - I wasn’t surprised at his comment!  He finally said that he needed to get going, but he wanted to talk more about this.  We agreed email would be best and he sent himself an email from my phone so we could connect.

I finished the day of outreach with two hours online in the evening.  What sticks in my memory was the resistance and hatred I received in response to the hope of the gospel I was attempting to share.  With the help of God, I won’t give up.
 

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Newquay Evangelism: Atheism and the Gospel

It was an absolutely gorgeous summer’s day in Newquay; as a result the high street was jammed full of people who were out enjoying the sun. Upon arrival we found a nice spot for today’s outreach; as George and I set up the open-air board and literature table, Nigel and Ian began to hand out tracts. It was encouraging to see people take the printed page in order to read of salvation in Christ alone.

Once the open-air board was set up George began to preach. As he spoke a young woman walked past and yelled out, “I am gay. God hates me!” George replied by pointing her to the love of Christ, but the woman kept walking. What appeared to be a ‘drive-by’ comment would actually be a hook that drew this young lady back to the discussion later on.

George continued to preach for several minutes and then the young woman returned with her friend. She began to heckle, but she was one of those hecklers who would say her comment then let the preacher respond. George did an excellent job in reasoning with her and pointing her to Christ. By the end of the open-air she seemed to have softened considerably.

Of course heckling begets heckling; now that a young woman started the ball rolling the big burly men decided it was their time to jump in. My role was to engage these hecklers one to one as George continued to reason with the young lady. The first man I spoke to claimed to work in the science field, but it was clear he didn’t have an understanding of basic scientific principles. His main objections centred around the question of evolution and also the philosophical question of “Where did God come from?” I answered those questions then brought it around to the biblical message of salvation; whenever we got to the issue of sin and the gospel the man would engage in mockery.

His claim was that sin didn’t exist and that the world is good; keep in mind that he said this while wearing all the safety equipment to protect him from COVID-19. I used his face-covering as an illustration showing that the world is corrupted due to sin; but he he kept on rejecting the message. Finally, I encouraged him to simply go home and watch the news, then as he watches the reports about murder, violence, war and chaos sit back and say, “This world is good; there is no sin here.” The point was made, but his response was to scoff and walk away.

The next heckler I spoke to could have almost been reading from the same playbook, he too claimed to work in science and his main objections centred around evolution and where did God come from. I said to this man, “To ask, ‘where does God come from’ would be like me saying, ‘the Sun gives light, but who lights the sun?’” The man laughed at this and said, “The sun just is!” I smiled and replied, “And God just is. He is outside of time, space and matter; He is the uncaused cause of all things.”

The man then began to engage in the infinite regress fallacy, which I was able to answer; so finally he said, “Prove to me that God exists!” I pointed to one of the buildings which lined the high street and asked, “How do you know that building had a builder?” The man answered, “Because it is there. It is tangible.” I followed up by pointing to a painting in a shop window, “How do you know that painting had a painter?” The man replied again by saying, “Because it is there. It is tangible.”

I then asked him if it would be idiotic to say that tangible things, such as the building and painter, had no painter or builder?” He agreed it would be; so I asked, “You are tangible, as is the world and all created things. How do we know that you and all things have a Creator?” The man paused as he saw the trap that he was in - slowly he replied, “We just happened.”

My point had been made so he was quick to change topics; he began to argue that he knew for sure that the Bible was in error since it is full of contradictions; I asked for just one contradiction but he couldn’t produce it. Finally I said to him, “Jesus tells me why you are an atheist. You love your sin, and you hate the light. You won’t acknowledge God, even though you know He is real, because the moment you do you have to accept the fact that you are accountable to Him.” At this the man mocked and walked away saying, “This is getting too freaky.”

Truly the Psalmist spoke the truth when he said, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good.” (Psalm 14:1)

By this stage George had finished preaching so the hecklers disappeared back into the crowds of people. After letting the crowd move and change, I decided it was time for me to preach. Today I thought it would be good to use my flip-chart as a tool to assist in the open-air.

As I began to speak a few people began to gather to listen; I particularly enjoyed seeing a man leaning out of a pub window in order to hear the gospel. I used the flip-chart to explain that none of us are good people, and that we all need the Saviour. I had a few people make comments, but unlike George I didn’t have any good hecklers.

I am so thankful that the Lord allowed the gospel to go out clearly today in Newquay via tracts, one to one witnessing and open-air preaching. My prayer is that the Father would draw many to Jesus through these outreaches.

SDG!

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Tuesday and Wednesday ended up being days where I feel like I spoke to a lot more “Christians” than usual.  And yes, I used double quotes there.  Some of those I talked to were clearly not a Christian, yet with others it was unclear.

I’m glancing through my notes from my time online on Tuesday and the last three conversations were with people saying they were Christian.  I can’t remember it, but my notes say the first guy didn’t know the gospel.  I remember the last one, it was with a guy who said he was a Christian, but only from a cultural perspective - he pretty much denied that God existed.

The middle conversation was long and good.  The guy had a reasonable understanding of important concepts, yet some of the wording he used made me suspicious he was trusting in his works and not faith alone in Jesus dying on the cross to pay his hell fine.  We got to talk that through.  The guy was really appreciative of the conversation; I encouraged him to get out there and start sharing the good news with others.

After this, the outreach in Riccarton was busy.  In two hours I was able to have gospel interaction with 14 people!

One of the homeless guys Andy and I are getting to know was able to articulate the gospel, even frequents a local church.  Yet when I challenged him on the change that comes with faith in Christ, he quickly backed away.  He clearly doesn’t understand the wonder of the gospel… yet.

I spoke to two groups of boarders from Christchurch Boys High School.  They heard the gospel, but there was no interest - sadly.  One of those kids stands out the most in my memory.  He was the most resistant, but he was the quickest to grasp the gospel.

I had a timely conversation with a “Christian” who initially claimed good deeds would get him to heaven, but with some gentle prodding was able to explain the true way to heaven: Jesus.  It turned pastoral, and something triggered me to be straight with him, I asked what sin he was struggling with.  He looked dejected, and asked if he could marry an unbeliever, using 2 Corinthians 6:14 I was able to encourage him that it would be a disaster if he did.  Interestingly, his father had given him the same advice.  The cost of following Jesus is great.  Only with God’s help can we do it.

My final conversation of the outreach was with one of the Unicef street workers.  She is a “Christian”, even going to a local church and we have mutual friends, and yet, she couldn’t articulate the gospel, again defaulting to good deeds - “following the commandments”.

On Wednesday I started at the northern end of Cathedral Square.  Not many people around, yet I was able to have four conversations in short order.  My first was with a “Christian” who said his goodness would get him to heaven!  With some prompting he was able to give a better answer, yet he insisted that we had to “try”.  Sadly, he had to go before we were really able to unpack it.

Next up I talked to a very open hearted man who knew he wasn’t good and deserved hell, and came to understand the gospel, he said he would trust Jesus died for his sins today.  I then talked to a young lady who came to grasp the gospel.

Finally, I encountered a Christian couple with their son.  Their son wanted to answer my question… “you have to follow the ten commandments”. NOOOOO!  His Dad knew better and said “you have to be born again”.  So I asked, “how does that happen?”  We quickly got to the right answer, and I was able to point their son to it!

I decided to head down to Ara to finish the outreach there.  Straight away I was into yet another conversation with a “Christian”.  After going through the gospel with him, I asked when he last read his Bible, and what Church he was attending - he asked me if I had recommendations.  I told him to get in touch with me, yet I doubt I will hear from him.

I finished up with a bit of an apologetical tussle with a friendly young student - he heard the law and the gospel.

To finish the day, I spent two hours online, and had seven conversations - many of them wonderful.  The highlight was with some black lives that matter.  They warmed up to the conversation and heard the law and the gospel.  I challenged them to respond, but they said they already were.  So I asked them what they said they had to do to go to heaven at the start of the conversation - “be good”.  They could see that they weren’t trusting that Jesus had died for their sin.  They were very challenged.

Christians, we have to get back to basics.  Tell me, what do you have to do to go to heaven?  The answer is NOT, “be a good person”.  But what is the answer?  You need to understand this.  You need to understand the gospel and respond to it if you haven’t already.
 

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Operation 513 Battle Log for Toowong Village on Tuesday July 28, 2020 from 1330 - 1500

We were over joy to have Yan Chang from Toowong Baptist joining us through invitation of Johnny. Naturally she partnered with Johnny to observe and learn how to do street evangelism partly by our skill but mainly by the power of God through the work of the Holy Spirit in us to stop the right person at the right moment sowing the seed of Gospel. God repeated His trick like last week testing our faith and patience to wait before him. Despite we have opening prayer every time before we started as a team, this time , God let no one stop for a chat for the initial 15-20min. It was OK for Johnny and Yan as Johnny was taking the time to teach Yan. But for us, we knew we have to initiate a second tier of prayer. So Winnie took up to pray for divine appointments. And really soon after that, both Winnie and me as a team and Johnny and Yan as another team started having gospel sharing opportunities. Johnny had four long chats while Winnie had Eight chats reaching out to 10 people as shared below in Chinese with my English translation.

As for me, I still played an inactive role only getting overflow gospel targets if everyone else were engaged in gospel conversation. As a result I only had four short conversations as recap below.

1) Esther an UQ student from Venezuela. She took the tract from Winnie but walk on. So I asked if I can walk with her for a while to share about the tract which she agreed. After a while, She declared she is a Christian but failed the diagnosis test having no assurance of salvation. So even though she was in a hurry, I was able to get her understand our salvation was the work of Christ and Christ alone that we only need to accept it by grace through faith. She acknowledged it with thanks and went home with peace in her mind.

2) Daniel, a local Aussie from NSW, again took a tract from Winnie but did not stop. So I asked for his permission to share the gospel with him and he politely stopped for a while. So, basically he is a non-believer and heard the Gospel for the first time. He found it sensible and logical to admit he is a sinner despite also a good person and he needs Jesus to take his place for the punishment of sin. He promise to pursue God when he get back to NSW. He is a mechanic but caught locked up here in Queensland because of the Covic -19 .

3) I Followed up with a Singapore girl whom Winnie had approached. She is a Catholic background Christian who has noa assurance of salvation. SO I help her to know that she is saved by grace through faith in Christ alone so as to help her to establish 100% assurance of salvation in Christ.

4) A local Aussie men in black graciously took my tract and happy to listen to my gospel sharing. It was a pity I only had time enough for the nutshell of gospel before the bus came. Trust in God anyway for follow up work.

感謝讚美主 今天的帶领。我們到達傳福音的地點後，等了15 分鐘，都沒有人願意接受單章及留下聽福音。關牧師叫我禱告，求主带領。跟着很多人都願意留下聽，及回教會。

第一及第二位是中國來，UQ 學生。Fay 和Lisa。Lisa 是上海來的。他們都是未聞福音，聽完了我講的，接受免费禮物，願意到教會尋求更多真理。 The first and second are UQ students Fay and Lisa from Shanghai. They heard the gospel for the first time and were willing to go to church near by in St Lucia.

第三位是一天主教背景的澳洲農村婦女,自以為得救但未全明白救恩、The third is a Country woman of Catholic background. She did not want to chat but took the tract and read it right away while waiting for her friend's call. Afterwards Winnie was able to have a brief chat to found out she is already a Christian but obviously not have full understanding of Salvation.

第四位，中國少女，講了一半，巴士到來。The 4th was a Chinese lady, the bus came when I only shared half of the gospel.

第五位，George, 也是中國學生，基督徒。經過我們談論救恩後，他是完全明白，得救的基督徒。The 5th was George also an UQ student from China. After chatting, I found him a doctrinally sound Christian having correct understanding of salvation.

第六位是 Danny, 澳門來的。也是第一次聽福音。祂聽完後，願意回教會，尋求更多的真理，才能決定。The 6th was an UQ student from Macau. He listened to the gospel for the first time. Afterwards, he was willing to accept Christ and wanted to go to church.

第七位是 Singapore 來的 天主教徒，我説 基督教是信靠主耶穌基督，在十字架上的救赎，只要信靠，罪得赦免。不是靠Maria 及神父。後來 關牧師也同她談論救恩，相信祂一定明白了。The 7th was an UQ student from Singapore of Catholic background.

第八 & 九位是 印度夫妻, 男本婉拒但妻願聽。The 8th and 9the were an Indian Couples, the man initially declined but the wife wanted to hear the gospel. Praise the Lord.

第十位澳洲年老人，Morris, 他也是第一次聽聞福音，願意接受免費救恩，罪得赦免，願意回敎會。The 8th was a local Aussie elderly man. He was glad to be approached and heard the gospel for the first time but also showed willingness to accept Christ and want to go to church.

感謝主的帶领，祂是聽禱告的神。

Thanks God for His guidance and listening to our prayers for bringing above people to us to hear the gospel and to accept Christ or expressed desire to pursue knowing more about Christ.

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On Saturday Simon and I drove up in wet conditions to Exeter, praying the forecast was right that it would clear up after lunch. We were hopeful of another good day of outreach in Exeter which has a smaller population than Plymouth but the City Centre is moe condensed and so always has great numbers of people flowing through. Immediately as we were setting up a man and his wife stopped to look at the intelligence test, and after asking what the purpose of us being here was we explained we were Christians and what we were planning to do that day. This led into quite a heated discussion as he was an an 'agnostic'  and said that no one can know if God exists or not, and that Science proved how we got here. His wife had been brought up in a strict Jehovah's Witness family that she had come out of, and so both of them were trying to attack the Christian worldview from different angles. We tried to show how Protestant Christianity and the teachings the JW's believed were very different, and the husband claimed we were very arrogant in saying we knew God existed and that Christianity was the right religion as it was the only one where people could have their sins completely forgiven. 

They did not want to listen much and kept changing the topic and bringing up supposed new reasons why we were wrong, and didn't want to take any literature to read, and so was an interesting first start to the day! We prayed for the weather to clear up, for good conversations, for boldness to speak the truth and to be protected against the authorities and God was very gracious in answering our prayers. I also said to Simon it would be good if a big group of teenagers wanted to do the good person test to try the new board out, and again God kindly answered our prayers......

First of all Simon and I handed out tracts for about 30 minutes, and two young boys aged about 14yr old boys were up for doing the good person test. It worked really well as it was big, bold and bright, and they listened intently as I tried to show them the links between Christmas and Easter. They took some gospel tracts and said they would read them and think about what was said.

After a few more conversations with different passers byd people stopping to look at the signs, four older teenagers with masks on (as seen in Picture) came along to look at the intelligence test board and find out what we were doing. It turned out their names were Jake, Javier, Reece, Kieran. They lived near London, were staying in Cornwall with friends but had come up to Exeter for the day to shop.great questions and insights. They all listened very eagerly to everything that was said about the law, sin, judgment, hell, Gods grace, Jesus and the cross, repentance and faith, and started to ask many very deep and insightful questions. They were all aged around 17/ 18, and Javier (second on left) in particular as asking questions that a lot of Christians perhaps have never thought about, regarding homosexuality, creation, evolution, Gods attributes and heaven and hell. 

I managed top share my testimony and the reason we were out that day from Plymouth is because we cared for people and even though we knew we defiantly deserved Hell and were not good people, by Gods grace we had been saved and forgiven and so were not getting the justice we deserved but Gods mercy, and that God loved them and wanted them to be reconciled to Him that day! I got quite emotional at one point and I hope they saw we were not any better than them, but just better off, and they all took lots of tracts and took pictures of the signs and websites and said they would all definitely be thinking about all that was shared today in our 30 minute or so conversation.

At 2.30pm a lady called Sandra met with us who lived in Exeter. She and I have just joined a Christian ministry called Centre for Bioethical Reform as a pro life volunteer to hopefully do silent demonstrations with big signs in .Bristol and hopefully Exeter and Plymouth, as well as training we had undertaken to defend the Pro-Life viewpoint from a Biblical and Scientific point of view. I have really felt strongly about doing more and have seen this as a good opportunity to meet with other Christians to stand for the unborn and help teach and train other Christians and use their resources as well as Living Waters '180' movie and Christian Institute facts and data to change peoples mind and lead into sharing the gospel with them.

Sheila came to listen to what we were doing and prayed with some people that came to chat who were Christians. Another group of four teenagers came along to see what the good person test was about, and a really strange thing occurred while I was sharing the gospel and how short life was and we didn't know when our date of death would be. While speaking with them, completely out of the blue, one of the teenagers suddenly went rigid like a pole, fell down and bumped his head on the floor. We were all very shocked and after a few seconds he came to, stunned and not really knowing what had happened. We sat him down and asked if he had epilepsy, if he was on any medication, if he had taken drink or drugs that day, to which he answered no to everything. It had never happened before, and although he didn't want to contact his parents his three friends said they would make sure he got home safely. It was very surreal, especially in light of the topics we had just been talking about, and I hope it served as a sharp reminder to them about the fragility of life!

A Muslim couple came up and had a long chat with me and Simon about various topics, the man in particular about Jesus not being God as he didn't know when he would be retuning in judgment, and so therefore he could not be God. We both tried to reason with him about Jesus submitting to the Father and giving up his rights in servitude to the Fathers will, becoming a man whilst still being God, but the man kept trying to go round in circles. In the mean time two teenage girls from Plymouth came along wanting to take the good person test, and so I stood up on the bench to preach through the sheets with them and hope other people would also stop to listen. The Muslim woman came to listen to me and went through the questions with the two girls, and kept asking other questions as we were going through them, but we just about managed to stay on course and the Muslim woman was civil and respectful. They both took som tracts in th end after staying for about 20 minutes to speak, and she had stayed to hlp when the lad head the seizure and was civil and friendly.

Simon had also been speaking to four teenage girls that had stopped while I was standing to preach, and their main issue with Christianity was homosexuality again, which Simon tried to show them that homosexuality wa sone of many sins, and that people were sinners regardless of their sexual orientation, and we all needed forgiveness and any sin could be completely forgiven by God.

Sheila stayed with us to the end, and after 5 hours all together we went home very tired but overjoyed at all that had happened that day, and prayed for the lads we had spoken to in particular, and God met with us in so many more ways than we could have expected with the many events that had happened that day. We just pray Plymouth and Torpoint where we go to Church would be that open and responsive to the gospel when we go out again!

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