Battle Log
Sunday 6 October 2024
Posted 6 October 2024, 3:20 PM by Glen Richards. Permalink
A good week this week. It felt more normal than the previous weeks. I think this is the first week of the school holidays. As a result, Tuesday’s outreach was busier than normal - very busy actually. I went for about an hour and a half just rolling from 1 conversation to another. There was engagement, and even openness from those I was talking to.
As I was talking, I noticed a young man walk past with a really dirty look on his face. He obviously knew what I was doing and didn’t like it. Soon after, I became aware of a raised voice across the road. He was engaged in a conversation with Roger.
Well, I had just finished a chat and next thing I know he was with me. He’d finished with Roger, been and bought something to eat, and then had come back to have a chat with me.
I knew I was up for a battle, but I felt like taking it on. Apparently I’d talked to him before. He was very intellectual, but he was using his God given intellect to suppress God. Even though his arguments were unreasonable, he was at least polite enough to allow it to be a 2 way discussion - which was great. But, the reason I say his arguments were unreasonable, is because he would deny absolute truth - which is a contradiction (to deny absolute truth is an absolute). He would make absurd statements, but I held him to account, I didn’t let him hold on to that absurdity. Not only that, I explained why he was doing it: He wants to deny the absolute God who brings moral accountability for sin.
It was a long chat, but I ran out of patience. Without losing my cool, I told him there was no point in continuing the conversation - he accepted that. I think he was a bit disappointed; I think he enjoyed the conversation for the sake of it. But, I was tired, and I wanted to share the gospel with others, maybe others who would be open to it. I had been able to touch on the law and the gospel with him.
Roger was busy on the other side of the street too. He finished up with a conversation with a young man whose mother went to Rogers church and had been praying for her son! I got to hear the very end of the chat, and the young man seemed so appreciative of the gospel conversation.
On Friday I was with Roger and Andy in the city: Bridge of Remembrance. One of the streeties I see regularly came over to talk with me (his eyes seemed clear for a change, which is good). As we were talking, a guy came over and gave him a pie - which was really generous. I brought him into the conversation, and then, eventually, the streetie moved on and I was left talking with the pie giver. He is from the US, and works down in Antarctica. Eventually I was able to swing the conversation to deep things. He said he normally wouldn’t have cared about the subject, but he had been doing a philosophy / ethics paper in his undergraduate degree which had made him interested.
Sadly, he became very resistant early in the chat. I used the analogy of a builder requiring a builder to show how we know God is real. But he came back with the “where did God come from” question. Sadly, he wasn’t interested in answers and he would cut me off before I could finish. He shifted the conversation to the source of morals. He said there are no morals, ultimately. And when I explained that God’s nature is the source of morals, he tried to say “but what’s the basis for God’s morals”. Interestingly, the answer for both questions is very similar: God must be unmade, and God himself is the ultimate standard for morals. In both cases, the alternative is an infinite regress, which is a logical fallacy and so can’t be true.
I decided to disengage. Otherwise the conversation could potentially have turned nasty. I let him talk from then on, just listening to him talk. It was interesting that he opened up about his sister, who he said had been in a similar position as the streetie I had been talking to. What was even more interesting is that his sister had managed to turn her life around, through a faith based program. She was even now running this program, and helping others. He left with a tract.
I had a great time in Riccarton on Saturday. Lot’s of opportunities to talk with people. I talked with 2 young ladies, one of whom was drunk. I was a bit surprised that someone would be drunk at lunch time on a Saturday! But the highlight would have been a chat with 2 young high school students with Christian backgrounds. They were stoked that I was out preaching about Jesus. I was able to work with them to bring some precision in their understanding of the gospel.
I also had a chat with a lady who had seen me on a bus, and had hopped off to come talk to me. She had just been over to the World Mission Society Church of God - a cult. They are currently aggressively ‘evangelising’ in my city. She was very confused, and so I spent my time with her to try to bring some clarity on the simplicity of the law and the gospel.
On Sunday, Mike joined me in the city in the afternoon. I decided to bring my flip chart, and I had a busy outreach. The WMSCoG were out in force, but I was too busy to engage them.
There is a guy that works in the city, and we see him often and so are having a long term gospel chat with him. I was able to continue that today, but sadly, I’m so very aware of how blind he is to basic truths. I’m totally failing to get through to him. I decided to leave him with Mike. But I’ve decided to add him to my prayer list, and ask God to open his eyes to see the truth. Apart from the grace of God, I’m him.
View previous Christchurch (NZ) report (29 September 2024)
Christchurch (NZ) Team
Weekly outreaches:
Tue 3:30pm - 5:30pm - Riccarton (corner of Riccarton Rd and Rotherham St)
Fri 1:30pm - 3:30pm - City (Bridge of Remembrance)
Sat 12:30pm - 2:30pm - Riccarton (corner of Riccarton Rd and Rotherham St)
Sun 1:30pm - 3:30pm - City (corner of Colombo St and Cashel St) - only 2nd, 4th and 5th Sundays of the month.
Contact Glen Richards or Andy Barlow for more information.