Battle Log
Tuesday 5 May 2020
Posted 5 May 2020, 5:19 PM by Matthew Andersen. Permalink
The last few days of online witnessing has been of great encouragement in many ways but also confirming other worries about the state of the church in the west.
If there has been any learning experience from this it is that the church needs to be clearer in explaining the gospel and more explicit in what is a result of the gospel. Church attendee's who the team has spoken to in large part have never understood why the cross is good news. They often have heard of Jesus dying on the cross and even know the phrase, "Jesus died for your sins" but they have never heard why that is good news.
The predominant issue isn't that people think they can live however they want. Rather it has exposed itself to be that people have never grasped the gospel. Most of the people are "hearing" that it is asking for forgiveness, confessing sin, trying to obey the laws that is the reason that God will save them and then often in the next sentence mentioning that we are saved by grace.
This has been making evangelism easy in many senses because the people already think that God exists and are interested in what He says. (It also sometimes makes it harder because they are more resistant in their pride to acknowledge that they have been wrong). But usually this results in a really encouraging conversation where the person goes on to say, "No one has ever explained this to me before like this".
One stand out like this was with Amy a young Asian girl who attends a Christian school adn church her whole life and after a twenty five minute conversation she came to grasp the gospel and said that she was very thankful that it was explained to her this way. She said she wanted to start reading the gospel of John today.
Another was with Tye a Church attending American who said that it was his goodness that would be the basis for Heaven and after a good conversation, (all the while taking notes) he came to be really clear on the gospel and was so grateful for the chat! Once he understood it he mentioned that it would be wise to move to a different church (who prize the Bible) and he would start reading the Bible for himself.
Please be praying for Amy and Tye that they (and the many others who are like them) would upon grasping the gospel would come to believe it for themselves.
View previous Online Evangelism report (3 May 2020)
Online Evangelism
Here are the tentative weekly outreach times for online evangelism:
Sunday 1-3pm (Practical Training Outreach)
Monday 9am-5pm
Tuesday 1-5pm
Wednesday 1-5pm
Thursday 9am-5pm
Friday 1-4pm
Saturday 1-4pm
These times are all in AEST (GMT+10), so adjust them based on your own timezone.
How to take part
To watch any of our online outreaches, you can watch live on our YouTube channel or Facebook page.
Or to take part in any of these outreaches, email us for the virtual room meeting link.