A Wet, Windy, and Slow Day in Portsmouth
Some outreaches are busy; others, like today, are slower. But even in quieter times, the Lord is still at work. Portsmouth today was quieter, probably due to the terrible weather, yet those who were in the city centre still had the opportunity to hear the good news of the Lord Jesus.
Normally, the literature table has a constant stream of people browsing the material, but today even it was slow. It took nearly thirty minutes before the first person stopped. The lady who came over to the table shared with me that her husband has lots of questions about Christianity. For his whole life he has rejected the Bible, but recently he has started to notice changes in different men that he knows. All of them spoke about how they have become Christians. This intrigued him, and he has begun to wonder whether the darkness of our lives can be expelled by the light of Jesus. The lady took a New Testament and several booklets for her husband. Her desire is that he will come to believe the Bible and trust in Christ.
Jim was the first to preach today. Using the accounts of the birth of Jesus from the Gospels, he spoke about the greatest gift. He also used his own testimony to illustrate that if God could save him, then God can save anyone!
As Jim heralded the good news, a young man called out, “You’re talking to the wrong person — I’m an atheist!” Jim quickly replied, “Then I am talking to the right person!” They both had a long and productive gospel conversation afterwards.
It was then my turn to preach. I decided to stick with the Christmas theme by speaking on the subject of “Name That Carol”. Using lyrics from three different carols, I showed that we sing about the gospel and our need of Jesus. It was a challenging open-air, as shortly after I started it began to rain. Then the breeze seemed to pick up. On top of that, a busker was playing ‘Jingle Bells’ loudly nearby. To make it even more challenging, a group of young schoolchildren on an outing walked by; they were all excited by the busker, so they too were singing ‘Jingle Bells’ loudly. At this point, I paused and waited for all the children to pass. When I did get back to preaching, a couple of people listened, including one man who took a Gospel of John.
For the rest of the outreach, we focused on handing out tracts and chatting with people. Conversations were not the easiest to come by, but lots of tracts were handed out. The gospel seed was being sown!
Please pray for all those who heard or read the gospel today.
SDG!
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Josh Williamson is a full-time evangelist with The Open-Air Mission. Since 1853, OAM has been sharing the good news on the streets of the United Kingdom. To stay updated about the work of the Mission, please sign up for the free quarterly magazine and monthly prayer notes.
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