Battle Log
Friday 25 June 2010
Posted 3 July 2010, 3:20 PM by Ryan Hemelaar. Permalink
Tonight was the first time we have had the Gold Coast team on a Friday night. We made the change because more people seem to be available on Friday nights than on Saturday afternoons.
The car was packed as we made our way to Surfers Paradise for a 7pm outreach start. When we were trying to find a park, we noticed that there were a lot more cars, so once we finally found a spot, we had to walk quite a bit further to get to Cavill Ave.
Once Josh, Jeremy, Bekk and I arrived, we met up with Rick, Joel, Kyosti, Oliver and Blake. We firstly sought out the best place to preach. For our usual spot is not good at night, as it is not lit up, so not many people hang around that part. We chose a spot in the middle of Cavill, but then a busker decided to start setting up right next to us before we started preaching.
So we decided to go down to the bottom of the mall outside Hard Rock Cafe, and this seemed like a perfect location. For there was enough room for a crowd to gather, and there was lots of people flowing through.
After a time in prayer, Jeremy was the first man up to preach. He did a great job proclaiming loudly the message of the gospel. During this time, the same busker who had started setting up while we were at the other area came over and started setting up next to us here! So Josh went over to him to let him know that we got to this spot first and it wouldn't really work with both of us being here. He agreed, and then went to another spot.
I then got up to preach and a bunch of young girls began to heckle. I asked them whether they thought they'd go to Heaven and they thought they would because they are good people. After going through the commandments with them, they realised that they didn't deserve Heaven and that wasn't good news to their ears. So some of them wanted to leave, but I was able to quickly get the gospel in before they left. Some of the girls returned later however.
After I finished preaching, another busker came and was starting to set up his amps. I went over to him and said that it wouldn't really work having both of us here at the same time. We told him that we'd be here till 10pm. He was only allowed to busk till 10pm, so we made an agreement that we'd stop preaching at 9:30pm, and he'd get a good solid half hour after that to play without us preaching nearby.
By this time, Josh had already started preaching. After not too long, Josh had a vocal heckler that was asking questions like, "If God is loving, why did He make Hell?" and saying things like "Since we've all sinned, we all deserve Hell, so why are you preaching?" Josh was able to repond to his questions and then start going through the commandments with him. But as he was getting to the gospel, two police officers came over and had a chat to Josh. They were wondering whether the hecklers were giving him grief. Josh said no. They said they had received a few complaints, but then said that there was nothing wrong with us preaching here. They mentioned that they could hear Josh preaching all the way down the street. Josh took that as a great complement. They then suggested to Josh to maybe lower his voice level down just a touch.
Thank you to the Gold Coast Police for giving us permission to preach.
Here is a video of the events that took place:
As the police were leaving, Josh started preaching again. However, the busker then just started playing his music, way before our agreed time. So Josh had to preach at his loud voice level again to try and compete with the amp that the busker had. It was very hard to compete with him. And once Jeremy preached after Josh, it was very difficult to hear the preacher. So we decided to just hand out tracts and have one2one conversations until the busker left.
After the busker left, Blake then got up a preached the message of the gospel faithfully, even while having a few hecklers asking him questions.
It was a great night overall! Praise God for His faithfulness. Friday nights 7pm-10pm is the perfect time to have this team.
View previous Gold Coast (QLD) report (12 June 2010)
Gold Coast Team (QLD)
Meets 7:15-10pm Friday nights at Surfers Paradise on Cavill Avenue.
Contact Ryan Hemelaar for more information.