Hi Everyone

Today marked the start of the Tell Me Conference & Wellington Evangelism Outreach Week!

Training was amazing! It was a great turnout, with a total of 27 people comin for the Tell Me Conference at Naenae Primary School Staffroom! Glen Richards took us though the Biblical importance of evangelism, the two specific difficulties – evil & suffering, and sexuality, followed by practical evangelism tips and techniques. After morning tea we learnt the practical steps of how to share the Gospel.

We broke for lunch, then it was time to put the training into action! Since it was a beautiful day, we met at the Eastern End of Petone Beach. There were plenty of people to talk to, with dozens of people walking, running, riding their bikes and walking their dogs – so there was no excuse not to engage! Not all could make it down there, but we had a a big group. 

When we were waiting for people to arrive, Glen engaged an older couple. They wanted to chat, but not necessarily about the afterlife! They took some tracts off him.

A guy on a bike was crawling past us, so I decided to engage him. He said his name was Andrew. It turned out to be a great chat – he was very open and honest, believing he would go to hell unless he placed his faith in Christ. I left him with a couple of tracts, showing him how to download the Bible on his phone, and a church contact card. He said he would visit this Sunday. It was a great start to the practical outreach, with Maara and Micah paired staying behind to observe. I had to remind them that not all Gospel chats turn out that way!

The three of us went down onto the beach to see who we could engage. Lots took tracts off us, but it felt a bit awkward walking up to people on the beach. Then we decided to do something I don’t ever do alone – walk up to a woman sunbathing. Maara offered her a tract. We engaged her in a Gospel chat. It turned out she was relying on her good works to get her to heaven. I started emphasizing the dangers in this, when she started accusing me of being angry. I don’t know if it was her being convicted and trying to fob me off, or I was really abrupt – it was probably a combination of both. I apologised to her, but explained the reasoning behind how I was talking. Maara asked me if she could talk to her alone, so I let her and watched from a distance. It turned out that she didn’t really want to talk anymore, so we left her in God’s hands.

We walked up to a group of young women, and Maara offered them a tract. They said they went to church, but they couldn’t really explain the Gospel to us. They were nice ladies, but not good (in terms of the law). They were keeping their eyes on children playing, and used that as an excuse to move away from us. They were nice about it, so we pray that God will do a work through them with the tracts.

It was really great to see the fellowship out and about engaging in the Great Commission, and it set us up nicely for what we pray would be a great week!

Blessings

Craig.