Battle Log
Battle Log > Plymouth Team > Monday, 26 July, 2010
Monday, 26 July, 2010
I have been away for a week on 3 seperate trips and had some amazing opportunities to witness and share the gospel with people, again knowing I will probably never set eyes on the people I spoke with again until possibly one day we may see each other in Heaven- but what an amazing thought that would be!
On Friday 16th July I travelled up by train to London to attend a one day Evangelism conference held by Avanti Ministries in Winchester. So on the Friday evening I went up to stay with a family who were putting me up for the weekend.
While on the train I managed to leave a few tracts places and speak to a few people, including an elderly semi retired Doctor who was sitting opposite me. I questioned whether offering him a mpn would lead to a conversation, but it opened up a great time of listening to his life and what he did and engaging him with spiritual questions. He had more knowledge than most about the Bible, but seemed to think the 10 commandments were a good moral standard to live by and try and keep, and so I tried to reason with him their use- not to kep as a way of earning our place in heaven, but to show us we are not good enough and fall so far short of the perfect standard, and so need a Saviour who is good enough to save us.
He took a couple of tracts and said he would read them, he was in his late 60's/ early 70's and so I prayed they would make sense.
The Avanti evangelism equipping day was a great chance to meet others and listen about the importance of sharing our faith, common misconceptions about evangelism and how these can sometimes hinder us, and a great way to fellowship with other believers from England and Europe.
At a break I went out and managed to start a conversation with 2 quite open Muslims who liked the MPN's. They seemed to acknowlegde they were depending their hope of Heaven on Allah being merciful to them on judgmen t day and had no assurance of where they would go, and were intrigued when I said I had a definate assurance where I was going, not based on my own good works or merit but because of what Jesus had done for me on the cross. They seemed to understand and took some tracts to read each and ended amicably.
When travelling from London to Bristol because I had 3 bags and was not up to scratch with the tube systems, I missed my connecting train only by a few minutes. I then spoke with a guard and he said it should be no problem having the ticket stamped at the desk. So I rushed to the desk with only a few minutes to catch another train, and pleaded with the ticket office my case and to have my ticket stamped. He was having none of it and was being very unreasonable, and so I was not expressing the fruits of the spirit under my breath as I then missed that train.
In my head I threw up some pretty angry and frustrated prayers as to why I had missed these trains and had to pay for another ticket, but knew there must be a reason and asked God to show me the reason why. On the next train I caught I managed to find a seat next to a lady and after collecting my thoughts for half an hour, and not really being in the best of moods, again I prayed for opportunities to speak with people. After some general chit chat with the lady, I offered her a tract and started talking and found out she had been brought up a Roman Catholic but after the age of 18 had said she was an atheist. I had put my current predicament on my facebook status and mentioned if maybe the lady next to me was the reaosn I had missed the train?
I managed to reason with her about death, shared my testimony and how God had changed my life and what a relationship with God was and why this was different to being religious and just keeping rules. I shared with her what had just happened to me missing my trains, and my facebook status, and that I had prayed for an opportunity to witness to someone and that I believed God had answered my prayer in speaking with her. After about 20 minutes she got off at the station and turned to thank me and shake my hand and took some more tracts. I was overjoyed and jumped for joy in the toilet afterwards, as knew it was worth missing 2 trains and buying a new ticket for that.
Again in Bristol I was waiting to get a later train to another station, but decided to wait and not get the earlier one but try and speak to some people at the station. I started talking to a guy in his mid 20's with a big rucksack called Alex who was an American travelling. He had some belief in God and liked the million pound note tract. After going through the law and the gospel and him understanding at the moment he was under Gods wrath because of his sin, but God had offered mercy to him in sending Jesus to pay his debt of sin on the cross, he was really thankful and took some tracts with him to read and shook my hand. Just as he was leaving, a guy on the bench next to him, who I found out was called Chris, wanted to ask me where I thought evil had come from?
He said his parents were Christians but he didnt believe yet as he always had this mental block in his mind about it. I managed to share some things I had listend to on Todd Friels 'Drive By Theology' about the origin of evil and The fall of Satan, the sovereignty of God and Mans free will. We chatted for about 20 minutes and he took some tracts and he said it made sense and would talk about it more with his parents.
In Birmingham I stayed with a friend who I had gone to University with a few years agao, who again was brought up a Roman Catholic and was 'religious' but was now a self confessed Atheist and Evolutionist.
I had brought up my open air preaching kit with me and so thought it would be good to set up in Birmingham city centre. I had spoke with a council worker on the streets and he said Open air Capmaigners go out regularly and as long as I didnt cause an obstruction it would be fine. So I set up the Ray Comfort Intelligence and Good person test on an easil, prayed, and then fortunatly a 17yr old student enquired about what it was about and volunteered to do it.
I had a tiny fold up stool, and things went well, with about 10 people stopping and others walking past curious, a few were Christians who were encouraged and had stopped to listen, one an Atheist, a confused Roman Catholic not knowing what was the true interpretation of the Bible to read, a Muslim, a Hindu who works with inter faith programmes and a few others. Afterwards a couple of the Christians wanted some of the tracts to take for others, and it also led to them talking with some of the other members in the crowd more. It then led me on to talking with a couple of teenagers who said they were Christians but didnt attend a Church as such but met for Bible study house groups with other Christians regularly, and so I pointed them to the back of the comic good person tract with 'save your self some pain' as thought this may help them.
A girl out trying to get people to sign up to donate to the red cross called vicky listening to me speak to 2 guys, and so afterwards I shared with her and gave her some tracts, and she said her Dad was a Christian. A man named Carl was listening to music at a fountain by the library and I had offered him a tract and left, but he called me back after to talk about it,which led to a 15 minute conversation. He was really nice and listened to the whole gospel and it definatly gave him something to think about. He said he had the DVD of the Passion of the Christ at home but had not watched it yet, and so I said maybe to watch it and understand it in light of what the tracts said.
Just before I left Birmingham and was in town waiting for my friend to get his hair cut, I saw 5 kids almost get hit by bus across the street as it whizzed past, and they were walking up the street laughing about it. I thought this was a prime opportunity to speak with them about death, statistics about how many people die a day/ second around the world, and how that could have almost died then. I showed them the scars on my legs and eplained about my accident when I was their age and how I never thought it would have happened to me. I laid the point pretty thick in regards to sin, death and hell and could see they were thinking about things, before I then shared the gospel with them. It turned out they were all from Christian homes and one guy from a Muslim home- they only believed cos their parents did.
I explained thats what I was like but explained what it meant to be born again and shared my testimony and asked if they then thought they were born again, and they said no. They took a few different tracts each and shook my hand before leaving.
God really opened up so many opportunities for me while away, but again I could not have done it without the tracts to engage with people and they were an invaluable resource, which is why I am always encoraging other Christians to get them and learn how to engage with someone.
The woman on the train was the highlight of the week, but again know I will never see them again this side of eternity, but prayed God would grant them a humble and contrite spirit to turn to him and for God to get the glory in it all.
I am travelling to Glastonbury again next weekend with Shirley and another friend as there is a big spiritualist and pagan festival going on which should lead to lots of witnessing and preaching opportunites.