With evangelism, everyday is different. By the way, do you remember the lady in Pak N Save who I wrote about in an earlier blog? She phoned and said she couldn’t make today. I am in there all the time so I will try again.

Last night I met a lovely lady called Adrian. She operated a shop in a mall. I went to her and asked if she wanted to watch an 11 minute video which summarised the Bible. She was SO eager! Turns out she is already a Christian, but wanted to know how she could get the video onto her phone and start evangelising! She goes to an Anglican Church. I am praying that her Vicar will listen to Adrian’s story and put his church through the EVANGELISM DISCIPLESHIP DVD series. Pray with me please.

Tonight was another special night.

There was a guy working by himself in the Money Exchange Shop so I approached him. He said he couldn’t watch the presentation on my iphone because it wouldn’t look too good if someone saw him. I agreed and backed off.  When I approached him I didn’t know whether he was self employed or not.  If he was self employed and owned the business, he could make the call to watch the presentation.   He asked if he could watch it online. I gave him my business card and told him how he could hear the gospel. Within a few seconds, he had my web site up on his computer and was ready to watch it! He also told me about some other Christians he knew – Ian and Annette Dixon at Generations Church in Glenfield, and encouaged me to contact them! Neat eh! Non – Christians are helping me to network with other Christians! So, this was my first encounter.

Then I approached two shop keepers in their mid twenties. ‘Hi ladies, how are we tonight?’ I said in a light and friendly way. ‘Great’ they replied. Then I said ‘Hey, you look a bit bored. I am a minister and I work with mainstream churches like Anglicans, Baptists, Presbyterians etc. So nothing weird.’ They laughed. I continued. ‘I have a video here on my iphone which summarise the whole Bible in 11 minutes. Would you like to see it?’ One of the girls said ‘Awesome – I’d love to…mmm..but we only have a few minutes because if customers come in, we have serve them.’ I agreed wholeheartedly and said ‘Let’s leave it for now. I’lll come back another time.’ The reason I said this is we are setting up a web site specifically for non-Christians where they can see THE GOSPEL MESSAGE on line, as well as having all the hard questions they ask (e.g. if God is all powerful, why doesn’t he get rid of all the evil in the world?). So I will save these girls for when that is up and running. I will just give them a business card with the address on it and then can see it in their own time. Watch this space. I will let you know when this web site is good to go.

After talking with these girls, I went about the mall, looking for someone else who looked like they had time. There was an Indian man in this fourties sitting by himself in the food court area, so I approached him in the usual way. He was very eager to watch it. I had the iphone all cued and ready to go. About half way through the video, his wife turned up, along with their young daughter (left to right: Yashri, Jihar, and Hejal).  The wife put the other ear phone in her ear and she too began to watch. The daughter looked on. For the eleven minutes I was praying in my head asking God to give them revelation, to open their hearts, to convict them of sin, righteousness and judgement etc. This is one of the great strengths of doing evangelism like this. While the person (s) are hearing and watching the gospel, the person delivering it can be praying! It’s a stunning concept. At the end, they were full of praise for the presentation. I said ‘Can I ask you a few simple questions about what you have seen?’ and they of course agreed.
1) If you died tonight, where would you go? They both agreed they would go to hell
2) What kind of a record must we have to get to heaven? The both gave the right answer – a perfect record.
3) We get this record when we are forgiven, right? Do you remember what the two things you must do to be forgiven and receive Jesus’ perfect record? The gave the correct answer – turn away, and surrender.

We got sidetracked at this point as they started asking questions. This is Ok, but I didn’t get around the asking the last two critical questions which are:
4) Is there any reason why you shouldn’t turn and surrender right now?
5) Would you like to do that right now? (about 50% of people say ‘yes’ to this question).

We talked for some time about church and their backgrounds. They told me their daughter loved Bible in Schools! What a great ministry Bible in Schools is. Anway, I gave them a follow up booklet which explains in print how to turn and surrender and gives lots of scriptures to back everything up.

What are the lesson to be learned here? 1. Answering questions and spending time listening is important and necessary, but get back to the essential 5 questions. Tonight I didn’t do this. 2. Don’t force the presentation on anyone. The two girls in the shop can hear the gospel later when the new web site is up and running. Leave the door open 3. I didn’t feel like going out evangelising tonight. It’s cold and wet outside. It takes mental effort and a ‘don’t give in to those negative thoughts’ mentality to break through. I am so glad I went. Psalm 126:5-6 says ‘those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy’. I believe the tears bit is about the battle which goes on inside our minds where we justify why we shouldn’t go to the lost with the gospel. This battle is relentless. The only way to overcome is to get into the habit of overcoming! If you give into those excuses, they grow and get stronger and harder to over come. Conversely, each time you over come, you get a little better at overcoming next time. It’s much like breaking in a horse. We have to be broken in by the Holy Spirit in order to become faithful and regular in evangelism. 4). The seed of the gospel was planted with love, grace and clarity and Jesus was glorified.  This is ultimately what it’s all about (Mark 16:15).  Jesus promises to follow up by the power of the Holy Spirit (Mark 4:26-29)

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