Battle Log

• Battle Log
• Page 114

For the Ekka Holiday a team of twelve headed into Brisbane City on Wednesday afternoon to share the simple but powerful message of the gospel. The afternoon was filled with conversations and many people willing to chat!

An early conversation came out of nowhere as two young guys on scooters raced into the square. The pulled up and asked, "Have you seen any police around, we were being chased by some back in Southbank?" This was unexpected but the were told that none had been spotted but then they were asked a more important question, about the authority they cannot outrun, "Where will you spend eternity, Heaven or Hell?"

These two young men, Harry and Daniel came to see that they were in far more trouble than being told off for scooting in the wrong place, rather they had committed cosmic treason against the God of this universe and they won't be escaping His wrath on their own terms. They came to see that they were headed for Hell and were asked what the solution was. As usual they suggested some good deeds and maybe some asking for forgiveness but were shown that just as that wouldn't pay for a speeding fine, it won't fix their Hell punishment.

They were then shown the good news about what Christ has done and when they were able to explain back the way to Heaven they headed off with tracts in their hand and were encouraged to strongly consider it! A little later they headed on past and one of the guys stopped to thank the team for the conversation!

A following conversation was with a man who struggled with assurance of salvation but not because he wasn't trying hard enough, rather because he was trusting in how hard he tried to get him into Heaven. He was shown that Jesus pays for our sin, past, present and future if we trust in Him alone to pay for our sin! After a brief conversation he saw the beauty of this and was able to explain at the end of the chat the way to Heaven and was sure that he would be going there because Jesus paid for all of his sin (not just what he had done in the past).

The day ended with a surprising conversation with Abdulla. He was an Afghani who had a Muslim background but was basically living however he saw fit. He believed in God but basically lived his own way. He saw through the flip chart that he is in very serious trouble and if he dies as he is currently he is heading for eternity in Hell. He then was shown the simple message of the cross and how he can receive it by faith and was able to explain it back in his own words when asked. It was exciting to see that he came to understand it so quickly (which is very unusual for those with Muslim heritage).

At the end he was shown why Christianity alone is to be trusted, in that all other religions leave you guilty without anyone else to pay the penalty sin deserves. He was given a gospel of John, took a tract and was encouraged this day to trust in Christ alone for his salvation!

Please be praying for all those who heard today of what God has done and that they would come to trust in Christ alone for their forgiveness! Why not consider coming out next time there is a public holiday, to join with us in declaring the glories of our God and King!

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On Friday evening on the Gold Coast a team of 7 headed into Surfers Paradise to declare the glorious gospel to those who so desperately need it.

A few conversations tonight with young men were had and as they came to see that their rejection of God had very little to do with their intellect and more to do with their desire to live their own way. In fact one young man who saw his guilt and that he deserved Hell got up and left the conversation with the declaration, "I just want to live however I feel and I don't want God to tell me what to do".

There was also a really sad conversation with a lady who was coming to see her current eternity and who seemed very interested in hearing the way to Heaven but her sister came over and interrupted. Her sister declared that she has struggled with depression and because of that she shouldn't hear about the way to Heaven.

The sister than dragged away her adult sister away and stopped her from hearing the solution to sin. The strong condemnation was shared with the sister that worse than depression is ending up in Hell and that she could be held responsible for stopping her sister from learning how she could go to Heaven.

In more exciting news the evening finished with a conversation with Bob and Ashley. This young couple had a Church background and yet for the first time they came to understand the way to Heaven. It took Bob a little longer than Ashley but at the end of it all they were left with the very serious challenge, "When will you start trusting only in what Christ has done to save you from Hell?"

Ellie, Cameron, Billie and Carlos also came to hear and be able to articulate the simple message of the gospel and each were left with the serious decision about when they would start trusting in Christ alone.

Please be praying for those who heard the good news that God would us this to draw them to Himself.

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Toowong (QLD) Team

This was the fourth Street Evangelism at Toowong Village since we started. So far it is still a ministry involving exclusively Chinese Christians.

Today we had Kiateck and Johnny both absent because of sickness of self and family member. Kenneth gave apology as it clashed with his time for Bible study. So only Pastor Lily Tam, Chi Ming and Hung turned out. Lily and Chi Ming teamed up at the main entrance of Toowong Village, they were able to reach out to a number of UQ students. As for me I had 5 complete conversations of 10 to 20 minutes during as recap below: -

1) Alexis a local Aussie and govt worker. He is not sure about the way to heaven and was gracious to be shown the one and ONLY way through Christ.

2) Conrad a retiree also a fair dinkum Christian. He is a lay persons but his knowledge about the bible teaching is superb. We have very mutually edifying dialogue because of many commonality speaking the same kind of language (English, Mandarin and Japanese) God used Him to encourage and bless my street evangelism ministry.

3) Avi, a Fijian Catholic Christian, who attends mass regularly but still have no assurance of salvation. He was glad to hear the good news pf salvation by grace through faith.

4) Orson, an Irish UQ Student, who was willing to stop and listen to my full gospel sharing chat and promised to ponder about his own need of salvation after reading the tract.

5) Two Muslim UQ students Musah and Muskie from Dubai who were both friendly and receptive to the Gospel and responded well to the claim that Jesus alone is the way , the truth and the life for giving us the assurance of salvation.

6) Had causal contact with many Korean, Aussie and Chinese students giving out tract but cannot have long enough chat because they were late for school.

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Toowong (QLD) Team

This was the second Street Evangelism Outreach at Toowong under the banner of Opn 513 by all Chinese Christians/Ministers for the present moment in time. We have five participants today including first timer Anna Clarke, the WEC missionary and four old members namely, Kiatech from St Lucia CCCB, Lily Tam from Indooroopilly Chinese Congregation at St Peter College, Johnny from Sherwood Methodist and Hung from Christ's Family Church.

Anna despite a first timer but got use to evangelism on the street pretty well. Johnny also had many conversations. The stand out one was with an Indigenous girl with Christian background. She actually has a tattoo of Psalm 23 on her arm. It took Johnny a fair bit of time to realize she is not an Indian but an Indigenous people with cross blood. As for me, again God granted me 6 divine appointments which I recap as follows: -

1) Annerley from NZ, a fair dinkum Christian who have 100% assurance of salvation faith. We encouraged each other with the blessing of God.

2) Will, a Vietnamese who claimed to believe in no God, But the Spirit still moved him to hear the full gospel and the way of salvation by Jesus Christ. He is an UQ 3rd year student. God softened his initial hard heart and end up willing to give it a go to repent accepting Jesus as his savior and Lord of life.

3) Charlotte again a New Zealander and a nonbeliever who works here in Toowong. God also softened her heart to become very receptive to the Gospel.

4) Sylvia, a local Aussie Office lady who showed initial reluctance to stop but still heard the full gospel and is willing to read and ponder on the message of the Tract.

5) Tyra the third NZ Kiwi for the day that I could have the longest conversation over 20 minutes. She claimed herself and her family spiritual even though they have professed no religion. She has Christian friends and has heard gosepl before. But this time she appeared to be deeply drawn by the message and admitted that she need Jesus as her savior and Lord of her life. She even asked if I can introduce her to go to church in Springfield, Ipswich. Pray that The Spirit will really drawn her to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

6) The drama of the day. Rodeos from Venezuela, sat down by the road side 20 meter from me. I watched him for a while and God moved me to approach him. Then I found out he was pale in face and appeared in a great distressed condition. In stead of sharing the gospel first, I asked if I could help and he let me escort him to the medical centre on the 3rd level of the Toowong Shopping Centre.

Another reason he appeared so weak and short of breath was that he has a bad leg needing a stick. So i carried his backpack and held him across the pedestrian foot bridge to go to the clinic. On the way, I of course took the opportunity to share the Gospel to him. Later on I just found out that he is of Catholic background but unsure about salvation by faith. Just pray that God will continue on with His work for Rodeos till he could profess the true faith in Christ alone.

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Toowong (QLD) Team

Praise and thanks God to have moved 5 of us from different Chinese Churches to form a new team of OPN 513 Street Evangelism at Toowong Tower effective today 6/8 and thereafter every Tuesday from 1:30pm to 3pm.

We started with a prayer to ask the Holy Spirit to pave the way for us and then formed two teams with me and Kiateck across the pedestrian bridge to the other side of the Benson Road. I stayed at the foot of the bridge and Kiateck went 30m further to take position at the traffic light. Johnny and Lily teamed up to do street evangelism at the front entrance of Toowong Tower. They were joined later by Chi Ming who is also a member of the Sherwood Methodist Church.

As the first timers Kiateck and Lily had been fairing very well kept handing out tract and stay put at their assigned location.

Johnny as usual had many amazing opportunities to stop people to share. He told me one of them was two UQ girls who actually met Johnny before at the King George Square before and have believed in Christ. At that time, they are planning to rent a house in Toowong area as St Lucia are more expensive and with little opening. But by grace of God today, they met Johnny again and told him they now have rented a place in St Lucia much closer to UQ. Johnny then referred them to go to CCCB St Lucia at Ryan Street which should be very near to the two girls' house. Thanks God that they may start to have stable church and worship life.

There were also six conversation with people of different origins including UK, China, Philippine, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia as well as local Australia from Brisbane and Mackay. Since I forgot to bring my iphone, I can only recall vaguely their name, background and responses as follows: -

1) Ellie from UK, a young work lady with no religious back ground. I gained the conversation by helping her to park the Council bicycle. She appeared very friendly to the gospel message and promise with politeness to read the tract and seriously consider the need to trust in Jesus.

2) A UQ student Majoring in Commerce and International trade from Jiangsu, China. He again has never heard of the gospel and thought initially it is too vague a thought for him whose focus is secular success. After hearing the full gospel, he admitted that every one including him is imperfect as well as a sinner in God's eyes rather than his previous thought of no absolute right and wrong depending on your angle of vision. So he will give more serious thought on this big life issue of live or die with sin not having been properly dealt with.

3) Wahwang and her friend from Philippines. She claimed herself Christian but seemingly of Catholic background, so despite her trust in Jesus, she still doesn't think she is a good enough Christian to be certain about admittance to Heaven. Hopefully my clarification have helped her to secure assurance of faith by Jesus alone while our life is yet to be transformed by the grace of God through the life changing work of the Holy Spirit.

4) Katie a local Brisbane Aussie girl. She delightfully stop to let me share with her the Gospel. It was also her first chance hearing about sin and salvation by grace through faith in Jesus. She appeared receptive and promise also to dwell on this issue after reading the tract at home. She is a QUT student but happened to come to Toowong for shopping.

5) A cheerful Lady stop to answer my diagnosis questions with the perfect right answer. She is from Mackay as a visitor. She was not surprised when I told her 90% of Christians are not clear about salvation and have no assurance of faith alone in Christ.

6) At the end, I met up with two UQ students Cherry from Hong Kong and Bing Fai from Indonesia. They also have clear understanding of faith answering my two diagnosis questions correctly. They are both Christian back in their home country but now is a member of the Power to Change. Cherry actually knows Florence and I told her they are more than welcome to join this street evangelism ministry one day.

Apart from these six medium short but complete conversations, there were some more fragmented short exchange of words. In general, older Aussies and very young Uni students are mostly atheists that rejected even the tracts not to mention stopping for a chat. Middle age and mature young persons are more receptive but cannot stop due to busy reasons.

In general, it was as usual a great day to experience the presence of God and be trained during the process of working with the Spirit for each divine chatting appointment. Pray that Kiateck and Lily will get adapted to this mode of street cross cultural evangelism and be a role models for their own church members to step out willing from their comfort zone .

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A worker who was pushing trolleys stopped, took a tract and was saying he believed in Jesus. Rick asked him if he were to die today why would God let you into heaven. He sounded like he was trusting in Jesus alone. He asked for a bible for his children, we gave him some of the Gideon bibles and two full bibles, some tracts and a booklet of John for his 13 year old.

He said his kids will love them. Pray for J, he is from another country where bibles would be hard to get and a lot of persecution for Christians in the country he has come from.

A man walked by and as he was offered a tract he said he wasn’t interested but he did take one, it was the “What is more important than water” tract. He continued walking away, but after he did his banking he walked past us again saying "It’s not true because if we don’t have water we will die." We said "yes, true but what happens after you die." He said "nothing, you just go in the ground and that’s it." This man was challenged of there being a creator and Eternity after we die and if he died in his sins he would find out that it is true and will have to give an account of his life when he stands before the judgement seat of God.

He went on to say that he still goes to church and I said "why do you go if you don’t believe it is true?" and he said maybe he would stop going. He elaborated as to why he said this - His wife had just passed away from cancer, as well as a sister and one of his children all in the last year. We said that we were very sorry for his loss and that was a lot to deal with in a short period of time. God took her he said and now he was left with no one.

He could see we had compassion for him as we tried to talk to him about God. We gave him a booklet “Why is there death and suffering in the world” he took it and we said that we are here each Friday if he has any questions or would like to talk further with us. Pray that he reads the tract again and the booklet and for God to stir his heart to respond to the Gospel.

It is very sad for we don’t know what teaching he was receiving and whether he was reading the bible to prepare himself and family for Eternity and life’s journey, all the up’s and downs we must face on a daily basis. God’s word is our refuge and strength for all time.

Bless His Holy name for giving us and revealing to us His precious word to lead, guide, encourage, challenge, correct, comfort and restore us when we fall and mostly thank you our Lord Jesus for laying down your life for the ones you chose to save, even before the foundation of the world.

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Wow today we were amazed at seeing God’s Spirit working in a man walking past the table. He was at first looking away as if not interested, he even said no to us offering a tract as he got closer.  Just about passed the table, suddenly he stopped and said “can I have a bible?” gob smacked we said "of course you can."

Then he was asked if he had read the bible before. He said a little, but a long time ago but didn’t understand it. We talked about the main point of the bible is so we can come know our creator God. His plan through Jesus, who is God, is to save us from our sins. There is bad news and good news. He was taken through the law and the Gospel was explained to him. We gave him a booklet of John also, as we were using the bridge analogy that is in the front of the booklet.

He was challenged to see his greatest need is Jesus. We got his name and hope to see him again soon. Please pray for J. Rick said the Lord must have said "wake up J!" We pray so.

We also had a couple who were on their way to spread the Gospel to a town 4 hours away. They said they were born again and believing in Jesus. They went past us twice but were in a rush. They were given a booklet and a few different tracts and they were encouraged to check out the ministry website and read some of the outreach blogs that endeavour to bless and equip other believers.

Always plenty of tracts given out, so much hope in the seed of the Gospel in written form. We are so thankful to our Lord for the work He is doing here in Warwick. It's been very dry here, we are in pretty severe drought and would appreciate prayer for rain but add that God’s will be done in it all as He is Sovereign over everything.

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Bribie Island (QLD) Team

On Saturday afternoon, the team met on Bribie for a time of outreach. We were blessed to have four extra helpers, which was encouraging. It was a great privilege to have a pastor drive all the way down from Hervey Bay to share the Gospel, as well as another Christian who drove through 2 and 1/4 hours of heavy traffic to join us. The weather was on its best behaviour, there was a constant flow of people coming and going, and the general atmosphere seemed friendly and receptive. A large number of tracts went out, along with several Bibles and other literature. Many people stopped to talk and heard the Gospel. There were a large number of Christians who also passed us in the course of the afternoon and encouraged us in what we were doing, promised to pray for the outreach, or took tracts to distribute.

  Mike engaged with two young atheists. In the course of the short discussion, they became very uncomfortable, but they left with Gospel tracts which speak of evolution vs. creation. Pray for their salvation. 

  One elderly lady said, "I followed Jesus once, but I don't don't anymore. I will pray to Him just before I die." Mike asked her if she knew when that would be, or if it could be tonight. She said she liked to be positive about such matters, but she did take a tract. 

  Pray too for a Christian lady we met who has been struggling with suffering in her life. She was looking for someone to reach out and care for her, someone to be there for her in her loneliness. She was encouraged to look to Jesus, to regularly study the words of Scripture, and to be faithful in her prayer life. She took some Christian literature and was put in contact with a local Christian who could mentor and pray for her.

  One of the team members spoke to some teenagers about the Gospel, and they seemed fairly attentive. After the main group moved off however, Keeshi stayed behind and asked some more questions. Her two sisters had once been "bad girls," but since getting saved, they had completely changed. She said they had been praying for her, and she seemed to genuinely seeking the truth. She came to our literature table and took a Bible and a DVD, as well as other Gospel literature. Please be in prayer for this young girl's conversion.

  Another team member was able to strike up a conversation with a gentleman who had previously refused a tract. He was able to plant some seeds in this man's heart, and we pray that God would bring them to fruition.

  Overall, it was a great afternoon. The Word of God has gone out, and we now pray for fruit to come. Please be active in prayer for these souls, fervent in supplication, and if you can make it, we would love to have join us next month at the Bribie Island outreach. 

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Timaru (NZ) Team

It was good to get out again... there's still a lot I need to learn. I need to spend more time in prayer, reading the Bible and other helpful resources such as 'The Christian in Complete Armour - William Gurnall.

Took the flip chart out to Caroline Bay (Timaru) to meet up with a few other like minded Christians. The others already had a few conversations with a few different people by the time I arrived. After the flip chart was setup I had a conversation with a 'Christian' who said it was a lousy method (flip chart); who did not agree with the direct approach of the good person test (Law and Gospel) and who seemed to deny original sin. I pointed to Psalm 51 'In sin did my mother conceive me'; he also tried to say that its not really breaking the law if no one sees you. He did seem to change his mind slightly when I gave a very basic illustration that if I stole my mother's purse and no one saw me, that it is still theft, whether anyone saw me or not. He was unable to tell me how or why to get saved if I were an unbeliever and favoured a more 'friendship-God-is-love' approach.

 

I had a few minutes with a group of German tourists, who although pressed for time, did stay a while to chat, but when the conversation started to become serious (Law and Gospel and the consequences of breaking the one and neglecting the other) they excused themselves. Attached is a photo of a member from my church who had a good conversation with two girls, who also left with tracts.

It was a brief, but thought provoking outreach. Please pray for all who were spoken to. Psalm 67

 

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Christchurch (NZ) Team

As opposed to the last two Saturdays, today was a nice sunny day.  Spring is definitely on the way!  So I headed into Cathedral Square to set up my flip chart.  I had about eight Gospel interactions.  Some long, some short.

I had a good follow up conversation with a guy Daniel had talked to during last night's outreach.  He is from the USA, and is heading down to Antarctica.  He said he liked the tract he had received, and asked if I had any different ones - so I gave him one of each I had.  Some good reading material for him while down on the ice!

Soon after that, I had two guys stop and instantly start talking about God’s love (in a very attacking kind of way - which put me on the back foot and made me very defensive).  They had pigeon holed me as a “fundamentalist” that only talked about God’s wrath.  It turns out they were Catholic.  We spared for a while, before they disengaged.  I got to talk about the love and wrath of God in balance with them.  The tract I gave them was perfect for the discussion: Jesus shows us God.  We parted on good terms.

Near the end of the outreach, I had a boy see “the good person test” and want to give it a try, he had his aunty with him.  It can sometimes be awkward sharing with a child and parent.  The parent often doesn’t like it when I hold up the law like a mirror to their child, who is always “good”.  So I was very upfront with the aunty about what I was going to do.  And I made it all the way through the law and Gospel presentation with them both with no problems.  The aunty accepted a follow up tract too.

With the completion of this Battle Log, I’m officially on leave for a few days!  Taking some much needed R&R with my family.  I’m very grateful for rest, and looking forward to recharging the batteries before launching into another busy summer of outreach!  Soli Deo Gloria! :)
 

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