Yes, yesterday I met a lady who had never heard of Christianity or the Bible. To make sure she was understanding my English I repeated the question 3 times in different ways. ‘You mean you have never heard of Christianity as a religion?’ ‘No’ she replied. ‘What about the Bible as a book. Have you ever heard of the Bible?’ ‘What’s that?’ she said.  I said ‘It’s the book Christians use in churches – you have never heard of it?’  ‘No I haven’t’ was the reply. 

This kind of encounter puts a whole new meaning on Jesus’ command to ‘go into all the world and proclaim the gospel (Mark 16:15). The world is coming to live in New Zealand.  Our challenge as a Church is now just to go to them with the gospel. It’s never been easier to reach the world, never having to leave one’s own city!

I couldn’t give the gospel to this lady because she was working, but the conversation was mind boggling. Then I went on and found another young man – Michael from Chile. His English was good.  He was sitting alone in a shopping centre and looked like he had time. This is the only qualification for choosing someone. I introduced myself in the usual way, and he was dead keen to watch the 11 minute video which summarises the Bible www.esisite.com/gospel.   He popped both ear phones in which were connected to my iphone and as he watched, I prayed.  This is a marvellous way to share the gospel because you really know the person listening is going to hear the gospel clearly, lovingly, and succincly. No corners are cut, there is no compromising, nothing is left out, and nothing added. It’s quite an art to articulate this ‘off the cuff’ so the video is just excellent. 

At the end of the video, his first words were ‘This is no accident you came to me today.’  It turns out Michael had been in NZ only 2 months. He had met a Seventh Day Adventist person in NZ who had talked to him about God and he’d been to church with them.  He wasn’t ready to ‘turn and surrender’ and wanted time to think about it and study some more. This is where the follow up booklets come in.  I gave him one of these, explained a little of the contents and we prayed together in the shopping centre. Here’s the thing – the gospel has been planted! It’s in the soil of his heart. Mark 4:26-29 teaches that is now God who promises to follow Michael up and to bring him to the point where he can and will turn and surrender to Jesus.  I didn’t just have a chat with Michael about God and spiritual things.  For years in my Christian life I tried to evangelise by going up to people,  asking good questions and building bridges to talk about spiritual things. Time and time again, we’d talk about all kinds of subjects to do with Christianity and God but we’d rarely get around to sharing the gospel, which is the point of the exercise.  I found I nearly always was side tracked down rabbit trails answering hard questions like ‘if God is all powerful, why doesn’t he just rid of evil’ or ‘why do bad things happen to good people’.  The approach I have now is a million times more effective because people are hearing the gospel. 

Let’s pray for Michael and believe his point will come quickly. We traded email addresses and he said he would like to come to church with me. When you think about it, the sovereignty of God is mind blowing. Michael was only in that shopping centre for short while yet I went it at the right time, and was led to him by the Holy Spirit. Michael was led by the Holy Spirit into the shopping centre at just the right time too. God must have fun organising all these ‘appointments’ without the people involved have any idea what’s really going on until it’s all over – and then the penny drops and we realise God has been sovereignly organising everthing! Awesome. I can’t wait to see what happens today!

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