Battle Log
Battle Log > Plymouth Team > Monday, 14 June, 2010
Monday, 14 June, 2010
My apologies for such late post updates- find it hard with 2 other housemates to spend time by myself writing this up, but some good outreaches to report on. A couple of weekends ago, myself and Shirley went down to Cornwall for a few hours to a beautiful seaside town hoping to catch some holiday makers out enjoying the sunshine and for hopefully some good witnessing opportunities. The weather was not as good as first hoped and so we had to keep making quick darts to shelter with the basket of tracts and Bibles, but eventually the weather held off enough to witness to people and hand out tracts.
My first conversation was with a gentleman called Patrick who was by himself sitting on a wall. At first |I was very nervous about handing him a tract as at first glances he appeared to be someone who I would (wrongly) judge to be opposed to it. How wrong I was! I prayed about speaking with him, and offered him a MPN, and found out he was actually very open about talking about God and the afterlife. He was a sailor and was waiting for a haircut, and used to attend Church with his wife, but before they met, she got divorced because her now x-husband had abused their daughter, which is why she wanted a divorce.
Apparently the Church had not been very encouraging or understanding and said she should forgive the man and try to make a fresh start, which she could not do, and so this stopped them both attending Church. He did say he sometimes opened up the Bible and would read it, and still believed in God, but didnt like attending Church. So I chatted with him for a bit and gave him 3 different tracts to read and encouraged him to read the gospel of John all the way through again, and it turned out to be a great witnessing opportunity in the end, even though at first I put up my own barriers as to whom I think will respond- God put me straight!
Another 2 teenagers I bumped into were called Max and David. They were just moping around the streets as there is not much to do for teenagers there apart from drink, but these 2 seemed pretty coherent. They liked the MPN and the intelligence test questions, and ere again pretty open to talk about life after death and if there was a heaven, who would deserve to go there. Things were going well, when I was speaking about the cross etc, when one of them started saying he had a funny head and was feeling dizzy and was seeing flashing colours.
I immediately thought this may have been to do with drugs/ alcohol, but his mate seemed pretty concerned for him, and he said it was because as a small child, his father had accidently dropped him when his sister ran past, and he landed on his head and so had these funny spells sometimes. So Shirley asked to pray for him and he said yes, and so we prayed for him, and he appeared to recover pretty quickly. They were very thankful and were able to chat some more, and gladly took some tracts and a Bible each, and so we prayed they would actually think about what we had discussed. We have a basket with a sign saying 'free Bibles- please take generously' on, and we were surprised how many were being taken- they are the ESV new testaments, and we like to bookmark them in the gospel of John with a tract, and many of different ages wanted them which was great.
In Plymouth I went out to the University again to witness, and was not there for very long, but prayed for a divine appointment with someone, and yet again God allowed a young lad to miss his bus while I was eating some food before starting. I could see how annoyed he was the bus didnt stop, and so managed to be able to point him to the bus I was going to get home in 20 minutes time. He was greatful, and so this allowed me to chat with him and to give him a gospel tract and start speaking about spiritual things with him. He was 19 and worked in a bar, and said that he hadnt really thought much about what happens after death. I went through the law with them, then explained sin, judgment and hell, before going onto the cross and how someone is saved. Our conversation carried on the bus together and we both got off at the same stop, and he took some tracts, and acknowledged if he became a Christian how important it would be for him to tell his Mum and family etc, so prayed a seed was sown that would maybe grow at a later date.
On Friday 4th June I went to Belfast in Ireland with my friends family for a youth conference at Forestside Christian centre, which is a solid Bible believing Evangelical church. I was really looking forward to hearing the teaching and to helping with some of the youth ministry with the young people who would be coming from the local estates. On the Friday I went to Belfast city centre to visit the Evangelical Christian book shop where theyt have a treasure trove of books, particularly at the second hand section in the back and managed to get some Tozer, J.C.Ryle, A.W Pink and Spurgeon books, 17 in all.
I saw 2 Mormons out in the centre speaking with people, and so started to talk with them and got into conversation about how someone is saved, the book of Mormon being scripturally wrong, using John 1, Hebrews 1 and Colossians 1 in their Bible (after discussing what the difference between a version and a translation of the Bible were) to show the divinity of Christ, and how he had to be fully man and fully God to be the perfect sacrifice for sins. I also tried to show them that by their4 teaching, I would still have another chance to hear and respond to the gospel once I died and at least enter either the Terrestial, Telestial or Celestial heaven, where as by there Bibles teaching, if they died in their sins believing in another Jesus or gospel, according to Galatians 1 v 7, they were accursed and would end up in hell. They had some differing views than other Mormons I had met, as they believed in Hell more, and gave me a book of Mormon and said to pray to God to reveal the truth through it (Its now on my stinkers book shelf next to Rob Bell and The Shack), but they took some tracts to read.
Many people gladly took the MPN's, they were a lot more respondent than in Plymouth, and there were lots more Christians out on the streets witnessing to people and preaching. I overheard one conversation an American man was having with a man and woman, and listened in while they were talking, and could see the lady crying and being convicted about what was being said. The man prayed for them, and just as they were leaving |i was able to give them some tracts. When speaking to the man, he was called Donnoly and was from the states and had been here in Belfast for almost 2 years on mission and was returning home the following week. We had a great chat and I found out he used Answers in Genesis/ Living waters gospel material, and that he was also heading to the youth conference where I was staying, and offered to drive me back.
So we decided to do some more witnessing together before heading back, and there was a load of kids hanging outside the town hall every Saturday, even more so because of a pro-Palestinian march being held. We both started handing out tracts to the teenagers, and I got into another good discussion with the teenagers about the doctrine of hell and what would happen there and for how long it would be. They understood about Jesus, as a lot of the Irish do, but managed to go into why he had to die and who Jesus actually was, not just the Son of God, but God the Son.
I then moved back to where Donnoly was, and saw he was debating with an Irate Muslim gentleman who claimed he believed in the same Jesus as Christians do and that Muslims have a lot of respect for who Jesus is. So Donnoly tried to explain that we didnt believe in the same Jesus because he didnt think Jesus was God. This then led the man to start claiming for evidence in the Bible where Jesus directly said that he was God. Of course Jesus never directly came out and said that, but in so many instances like Matthew 9 when he healed the leper, the Jews saying he is blaspheming claiming equality with God, doubting Thomas- my Lord and my God, Jesus accepting worship from people as God, Jesus making the 7 I AM statements etc, all showed he was the Messiah. However this man was adamant that unless he had the proof by his own claims, he would not believe.
The debate got a bit heated at times with the Police looking after the protest event walking over a couple of times, but the man left in the end after another Christian took his email and said he would discuss it with him in more depth.
The weekend was great and the young people heard a clear gospel message and took lots of tracts over the weekend, and I was able to speak to them a couple of times as well which was great so will hear back from the Church how they are getting on. God really opened my eyes to how it must be him that does the saving and drawing people close to him, as again the same gospel was preached to all, but many responded in different ways to it.
I will be praying more for the Friday outreach to advertise at Churches and for more Christians to support whether financially with money for tracts, prayer, or learning the WOTM techniques in conversing with someone on the streets, but again know God can use just a small number of people like Gideon and his army if we acknowledge him and give him glory for the efforts, and not ourselves, great things can be achieved for Gods kingdom, him using our small efforts in the process.