Auckland (NZ) Team
Meets for outreach every fortnight at the Otara flea market in South Auckland and once every 2 months we go to Queen Street on Friday nights. We also have a weekly open air outreach every Wednesday's at lunch time located at Albert Park, Speakers corner in Auckland City.
Contact Abraham Oseterika for more information.
Speakers Corner
We were blessed by today's outreach. Tim, Brendan and myself got to preach. Brother Trevor was also with us. There were a few that stopped by to listen. One young lady in particular stayed to listen to each one of us. She later thanked one of our other brothers Joseph for the messages she heard and I got to give her one of our Op513 tracts.
By God's grace I got into a conversation with a young man named Anton. I reached over to hand him a tract, he took it and I said, "Do you have any spiritual beliefs?" "Yes!" he said. I then asked him, "What do you think happens when you die?" He responded, "I don't know".
I gave him a summary of Romans 1:18-25, making the point that everyone knows that God exist that they suppress the truth in their wickedness.
I tried to explain that God is all powerful, all knowing and the creator of all things good. And God had allowed for him to wake up this morning.
Then using the text, from Hebrews 4:13 and Hebrews 9:27, I made the point that one day he will stand before this all powerful, all knowing Holy God to give an account for his life.
I also stressed, because he has sinned against this great and eternal God the punishment is also great and eternal because it is He who has been offended.
I will never forget the look on his face when I told him that the good news that Jesus Christ came to take that punishment on the cross so that we would have peace with God.
From then on by I just kept telling him more about who Christ is what He has done. Explaining further, the promise of eternal life for those who believe in Him. He asked whether Jesus was ever born as a man. This gave me an opportunity to explain the doctrine of the incarnation. Jesus is truly God and truly man, which began when He walked the earth.
As we finished I continued to encourage Anton that the only way he would be right with God is if he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. God alone can forgive the sins of man but God should not forgive the wicked because He is just. God forgave the wicked when His justice was poured out on Christ on the cross and those who would truly turn away from their sin and believe Him, though they die yet shall they live.
Please pray for Anton, and those who heard the gospel preached in the open air.
SDG
The Lord encouraged our hearts on this day as we altogether had 4 preachers preach at Speakers Corner.
When we started there was absolutely no body in sight, and as we preached at one point a small crowd of students stopped to listen to the preaching of the gospel. There were small number of crowds that stopped throughout our preaching course.
I also got to hand out many of our Op513 tracts to students passing by. We look to our great God to bring the increase.
Please pray for our next outreach on Friday (6th July) as we will be having that on South Mall in Manurewa South Auckland, closer to our church where there are many homeless folk that loiter there and sleep along that footpath, we will be handing out food, gospel tracts and preaching open air.
The Lord had again blessed our hearts on this outreach - we were able to have 3 speakers preach in the open air, there were many who stopped to listen to the gospel with also a number of John's gospels handed out. I had met up with another Pastor who is based at a Takanini Baptist church that is also wanting to team up alongside us for evangelism. It is always an encouragement when you meet other believers who are keen to partner together for the sake of the gospel.
SDG - To God alone be all the Glory forever and ever.
Queen Street Outreach
Our gracious God had granted to us the joy of heralding the everlasting gospel on Queens street, our opening line in the open air was “Hear ye, Hear ye, we are here on Queen street, on Queen's birthday weekend but we come by decree of the King of Kings....”
We had a team of 5, many of our Op513 tracts were handed out along with a few gospel conversations, one of the brothers had bumped into an old friend whom he had not seen in over 15 years, it was a great opportunity for him to share how God had saved him from his life of sin. We were blessed to have good steady foot traffic during the open air preaching of the gospel.
Please pray for those whom we came into contact with either through one on one conversations or walking past while we preached, we pray that God would enable them to hear the call of the Kingdom.
Our team was: Pastor Alfie, 2 of our Deacons' Charles & Joe, our sister Eliza and myself.
May the Lord Jesus the King of Kings be glorified, rule and reign forever and ever.
Speakers Corner (Auckland City, Albert Park)
We give thanks to the Lord in allowing us to have this place to open air preach - Every Wednesdays' myself and a mix of brothers from different Churches gather here at Speakers Corner for open air preaching - this particular outreach it was, Brothers' Trevor, Tim, Alistair and myself -
We usually meet here at around lunch time and often get some foot traffic moving through, as it is located in Auckland City people come to this park for their lunch break, also, this park is right next to the University of Auckland - So we get a steady amount of University students passing through.
One student in particular who's name was Logan I had noticed as I stood up on the podium to preach came and sat down to listen to the message, he had stayed there until I had finished and as I came to sit down he walked over and asked me the question "Why would a loving God send anyone to hell?"
With the Lord's help I was able to take him briefly through some of God's attributes, explaining to him what the bible means when it speaks of God's Righteousness, Holiness & Justice and His hatred for sin, explaining what the Bible means when it speaks of man's total depravity, but then making the point of the mystery of God's mercy and grace to sinners as He sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins. and then asking the question, "Why does God send anyone to heaven?"
By God's grace Logan was able to come to the understanding that "there are none good, no not one" and that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" that "the soul that sins it shall die".
One other thing was that during our conversation as I was explaining to him the meaning of repentance - He was able to come to the understanding that turning away from your sin and trusting in Christ is a work from God and not of the flesh, I assured him that his only hope in being made right with God is through Jesus Christ the Lord.
As we parted, he expressed his appreciation for our conversation in answering his questions and I gave him one of the "Jesus shows us God" Op513 tracts. Please pray for Logan and others who would have heard the preaching of the gospel this day. Our next outreach will be on the 1st of June in Auckland City on Queen Street if it be the Lord's will.
Open air meeting at Otara Shopping Centre
With the Lord's help we were able to do something we have never done before and have an open air meeting in the Otara Shopping Centre with some of the members of our Church - This was a great opportunity as we had hired the main stage in the square and were granted permission to use amplification for open air preaching.
By God's grace, myself and my Pastor were able to bring 2 messages and the Lord's grace was shown as it allowed for many people to stop and listen to the preaching of the gospel. In between the preaching we sung hymns such as "How great thou Art" - "The Old rugged Cross".
There are some brothers from other churches who want to join in on the next open air meeting if the Lord wills we plan to have on the 16th of June.
Anzac dawn service & Parade
Members of our Church, and our Pastor by God's grace were able to attend both dawn service and the ANZAC parade in Manurewa, South Auckland to hand out a replica copy of John's gospel that the soldiers would have received during the first world war - Easily over 200 gospel's were handed out altogether - We were greatly encouraged by the willingness of the people wanting to take God's word with them and hearing how it was standard issue gear for the soldiers. One particular lady whom I got to share with said that she had an original copy that belonged to her great grandfather. We give praise and glory to the Lord of hosts for allowing us to serve & worship Him in this way.
We handed out a conservative tract estimate of at least 1000 tracts. The weather forecast was not good, with lots of rain predicted. When I mentioned this in a prayer request, a friend replied that even soggy people need the Gospel.
The Halloween Evangelism Outreach was held in downtown Auckland CBD on the corners of Queen & Victoria streets, from 15:00 to 20:30. One of the team members (Howick Baptist Church) and her two young daughters arrived just before 15:00 and were very helpful in handing out tracts to start with. She unfortunately had to leave at 17:00.
Two more people from Papakura Baptist Church arrived around 16:00 and helped cover two more of the intersection’s corners. By the time they had to leave the rest of the team arrived around 17:00 to 18:00 (one more from Howick Baptist; and four from South City Reformed Baptist Church, including their Pastor).
Four of the team open aired (videos to follow). I used 1 Corinthians 15 and Psalm 51 as the basis for my message, while another friend on the Love of Jesus; we had a couple of 1-on-1 conversations; personally had two: please pray for Shane & Duncan. Shane basically had a catholic/ pharisaic upbringing and very angry about God allowing suffering etc- admits to just wanting to argue, but thanked me for listening; Duncan views God as a dictator, leans towards buddhism and not open to talk really- presented the Gospel as best as I could. Duncan earlier tried to tell me that preaching from the bench was illegal according to Auckland council, to which I politely responded that until they tell me so themselves, that I would continue. I have since been informed that is perfectly legal; and in fact, council and police have passed us in the past without even commenting.
Thank you again to all who participated ( Patrick Gailer, Abraham A Oseterika, Rowena Charles Siale, Carlene Pryor, Joel, Alfie, Jonathan Scanlan ... hope I did not miss anyone :) and everyone who prayed.
The following is feedback from Joel Jacobs who handed out tracts for the first time in Auckland:
It was really encouraging to be part of the outreach.
One of the things I found really helpful was to see that people are quite surprised and curious especially to listen to the preacher.
And they seemed quite compelled to take a tract especially when there was preaching. Because they really want to know more about the powerful verses that were proclaimed.
Another friend, who also open aired, remarked that they found the outreach a real eye opener; recounted a heckler (Andrew) who basically only seem interested in arguing; and that they were concerned about the number of other churches also out evangelizing, but who don’t have a Biblical grasp on the Gospel.
Everyone seemed eager to have another outreach. Psalm 67.