Many Young People Listen to the Gospel – Southampton Evangelism

It was back to rainy weather today but, thankfully, the Lord had a perfect undercover location for us to set up the outreach. Upon arrival, a homeless man who has previously threatened me was standing where we wanted to preach. I was able to chat with him, and he was very friendly. He happily made sure we had space to preach and share the good news.

There were only four of us on the team today, and for the next few hours we were kept very busy. In fact, I lost track of how many gospel conversations we had. Most of those who wanted to speak and were open to hearing the good news were young people. They asked good questions and then listened to the biblical answers. The Lord seems to be doing something among those under thirty years old!

Mike was the first preacher of the day, as he preached on “Life: What’s the Point?” I noticed a busker setting up right near us, so I went over to speak with him. The busker was hostile from the beginning, as he was someone who claimed to have been a Christian but has now renounced it. Through very colourful language, he told me he would be playing his music and drowning us out. At that moment, the issue of the music was not the focus; rather, what was more important was the state of this man’s soul. I engaged him with the gospel, but his hatred for Christ began to flow out.

What he did not realise was that he had set up on private property, so local security moved him on and stopped him from playing music to drown us out. After listening to a little of the preaching, the busker left, scoffing.

For my first open-air, I preached on “The Three S’s.” There was a good listening crowd of young people, most of whom stayed for further gospel conversation after the preaching, with several taking copies of John’s Gospel.

Mike was back up preaching again at this time and, as he spoke on “Where Are They Now?”, another group of young people stopped to engage and listen. Today seemed like an afternoon of youth and young adult ministry! What was interesting was that none of them were interested in trivial or silly matters; they wanted to engage with the serious truths of God’s Word. I think if we are going to effectively reach today’s generation, we need to start treating them like the intelligent people they are — there is no need to water down the gospel to appeal to them.

Around this time, Nigel had a conversation with a lady from Bulgaria. He was able to give her a copy of Ultimate Questions in her language. She was so overjoyed at receiving the booklet that she kept saying, “Thank you,” and then said, “This is like a treasure to me!” There is always something special about being able to read the gospel in our own language.

As the outreach drew to a close, I preached on “Have You Heard the Good News?” Again, there was good listening, mostly from young people, with two men walking forward to receive copies of John’s Gospel when they were offered.

Throughout the day, we had lots of good conversations, and many tracts were handed out. Please pray that all the gospel seed would fall upon good soil.

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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