Three People Respond to the Preaching of the Gospel in Plymouth
As the grey clouds rolled in, I wondered if it would be worth going to Plymouth today for an outreach. After checking a weather app, I determined that even though rain was expected, it would be worth the 80-minute drive to Plymouth even if I only got to speak to one person.
Due to traffic, I arrived in Plymouth at around 12:45pm. It was good to reconnect with Matt Rolfe, even if it was only briefly before he had to rush off. As I prepared to set up the open-air board (plans for the board can be found HERE), I noticed there was an empty shop front that would provide protection for when the rain arrived. While setting the board up, a man came up to Matt to talk. This man had seen Matt preaching in the open air previously. This man was going through a challenging time, and he needed to talk with someone. Amidst the hustle and bustle of a busy city street, Matt was able to minister to and pray for this man. This encounter reminded me of the value of open-air evangelism; even though we may not realise it, people are listening. These people will then seek you out when they require spiritual advice. Open-air evangelism tells the community that the church is present, not just on Sunday in a certain building, but through the week on the streets with the people.
Once Matt finished his conversation, I began to preach. Today, I decided to try out a new message on the board; this message is a modified version of the “3 Circles.” Soon after I started speaking, a man named Luke stopped to heckle. He took issue with me saying that God made a perfect world and that humanity is responsible for the brokenness we see today. It turns out that Luke was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness but had now embraced atheism. His questions centred around the reliability of the Bible and the question of God’s existence. I engaged him in some basic apologetics, and soon he agreed that the world is a dark place. This allowed me to explain to him that God in love, entered our darkness to rescue sinners. Luke was a good heckler in that he asked his questions and then allowed answers to be given. He also was keen to learn more, so he took a couple of gospel booklets that addressed his questions.
One of the good things about hecklers is that they draw other people in to listen to the preaching. As Luke heckled, others stopped to watch and listen. Throughout our engagement, I kept circling everything back to the gospel. Apologetics is great, but the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16), so we must keep the death and resurrection of Jesus central in all our engagements. At the end of my message, I held up a copy of John’s Gospel offering it to anyone who was listening and wanted to discover more about Jesus. Three young men stepped forward to ask if they could take a Gospel. It's always thrilling to see people responding to the gospel call to consider Christ!
One of those who came forward for a Gospel was a man named Rudy – he was keen to chat further. He told me that he is an agnostic, but he believes that God is out there, but he isn’t sure who He is. We had a wonderful discussion about what the Bible says about God, and he took tracts and a DVD. At the end of our conversation, he shook my hand and thanked us for being there. Once again, this speaks to the importance of open-air evangelism. So many people who have questions will never darken the door of a church, so we must take the light to them.
By this stage, the heavens had opened, and the rain tumbled down. People began to rush to get out of the wet, but as they did many took gospel tracts. Please pray for all those we encountered today.
SDG!
