A Blessed Day in Southampton
It was a beautiful Autumn Day in England. The sun was shining, the weather was pleasant, and the city centre of Southampton was full of people. We didn’t realise it at the time, but today was going to bring many wonderful gospel opportunities.
As usual, we set up the Free Bible table and the open-air board. Mike got everything ready for preaching, while I worked on setting out the literature. As soon as I finished putting everything in place, a group of young atheists and agnostics stopped to chat. They were all very warm and friendly – they also asked excellent questions. The Free Bible table often acts as a magnet to draw people into conversations – it worked exceptionally well today!
Before I knew it, this group had grown, and others were standing around listening to the discussion. We covered everything from evolution, atheism, agnosticism, the accuracy of the Bible, the gospel, suffering, paganism, homosexuality, and environmentalism. The questions kept coming! But these questions were genuine – the group would ask what the Bible said on a particular topic, then politely listen as the answer was given. Time and time again, I answered their questions and then tied it back to the gospel. I am very much aware that apologetics is not the power of God unto salvation, so I wanted to keep bringing the message back to the good news of Jesus.
As we chatted, I would refer people to the different literature that spoke more in-depth to their questions – they would then take the booklets with the promise to read them later. For around forty minutes these discussions took place. One group would leave, and then another would take their place. It was a tremendous blessing to be able to share the good news with so many.
While this was taking place, Mike and others were over at the open-air board preaching the gospel. I later heard that good contacts and conversations were taking place over there also. The Lord was at work in Southampton!
Finally, I was able to join the open-air preaching. I arrived just as Ben began to speak on the wonder of Christ being the Creator. He did a good job engaging people with thought-provoking questions. At the end of his message, two people who had been listening responded by receiving copies of John’s Gospel.
When it was my turn to preach, I spoke on the subject of “Hope for a Broken World.” As I preached, I noticed one lady paying attention to the whole message. At the end, when I offered copies of John’s Gospel to those who wanted to discover more about Jesus, she and two others responded.
One of the team members spoke to this lady afterwards. It turns out she is a student from China who has only been in England for a couple of days. We were able to refer her to a local church and gave her a few booklets. She was very much intrigued by the message of Jesus.
Mike then preached again; afterwards, he spoke to a young man who said he was looking for God and was reading the Bible (it isn’t every day a fish jumps into the boat!!). Mike was able to share with him and stressed that God is knowable. He left with a couple of booklets explaining how he could know Jesus.
I finished the outreach by preaching one last time; it was encouraging to see three people take copies of John's Gospel at the end.
We were blown away by all that the Lord did today. The seed of the gospel was sown widely in Southampton today. Please pray it would fall upon good soil and that the Father would draw many to the Son.
SDG!