“God spoke to me; I am returning to Him!” – Southampton Evangelism

Whenever the gospel is proclaimed we trust that the Lord will bring people to Himself. As we share the good news, we pray that God will give us fruit; but I must confess, I didn’t expect all the fruit we saw today. In fact, upon arriving in Southampton, I thought today would be challenging.

As Nigel and I carried all our equipment to our preaching location, we noticed a man with a camera running around interviewing people. All around him on the ground were banners and scrawling in chalk. He certainly caught our attention, and we wondered what he was about. Then we saw that he was promoting the conspiracy theory of flat earth, and trying to bring religion into it. I have encountered flat-earthers many times, and never has it been a profitable conversation. It concerned me that this man might interrupt the outreach, so we sent a message to different prayer contacts asking that they pray the man not interrupt. Those prayers were answered. Not once during the outreach did he interrupt, though he did film me preaching. (For those who want to understand more about ‘Flat Earth,’ see this helpful video from my friend, John Harris of Living Waters Europe – Flat Earth Debunked).

There were four of us on the team today, so we kept ourselves busy by handing out tracts and chatting to people. Many tracts were taken, and numerous gospel conversations took place. One of the first people I spoke to was a lady from Leeds who is down in Southampton on holiday. She shared a little of her story, and it was clear that things weren’t right between her and the Lord. She took a Bible and my contact details. Later, she would message me to say that God had spoken to her.

This lady decided to start reading the Bible. So, she opened it up randomly, and the verse she read jumped off the page at her. The text was Joel 2:13 – “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.” This verse was like an arrow to her heart. She heard God speak through the Scripture, calling her to come to Him. She messaged to say, “God spoke to me; I am returning to Him!”

As the outreach continued, we saw the Lord bring along more fruit. While I preached, God gathered in a small crowd to listen. I spoke on the topic of “Who Will Be King?” Then at the end of the message, I offered a copy of John’s Gospel to any who wanted to learn more about Christ. Four people came forward to receive a Gospel.

After this first open-air message, the team went back to handing out tracts and chatting to people. It was great to see everyone doing something for Jesus. I found myself near the Free Bible table speaking with a Romanian lady who now lives in the UK. She took a New Testament to help improve her English and tracts in Romanian. While I spoke with her, a young lady stopped to look at the table. She shared that she was brought up as a Baptist but had wandered far from God. Yet, she said something was drawing her back. She couldn’t explain it but felt she was meant to think about God again. She took a copy of ‘Why Christianity?’ and told me she’d start attending church again.

After this, a young Chinese man with a Communist background stopped to talk. He is a student here in the UK, and he is intrigued by the teaching of Jesus. I shared with him briefly, and he left with a copy of John’s Gospel, Why Christianity?, and a card linking him to Ultimate Questions in Chinese. The nations are coming to England! Today, we ministered to Romanians, Italians, Punjabis, and Chinese – all of whom received material in their own language.

It was now around 2:30pm, so I thought we’d finish the outreach with one last open-air message. I did a simple talk about God being the Creator, but how we had cut ourselves off from Him due to sin. As I preached, the Lord again gathered a few people to listen. At the end of the message, as the offer of John’s Gospel was extended, three people came forward to take copies.

We were also encouraged today by the number of Christians we met. All of them were excited by the gospel ministry and keen to learn more. We gave them cards linking to “Hell’s Best Kept Secret” and “True and False Conversion,” both sermons are brilliant in training people for evangelistic outreach.

God is good! Please pray for all we met today, especially for those who are seeking the Lord.

SDG!