How Good Do You Need to Be? – Portsmouth Evangelism
After being away on a team event in London, it was good to be back in Portsmouth for our usual outreach. One of the advantages of regular ministry in the same location is that you get to encounter the same people repeatedly. This allows a form of discipleship to take place and enables regular gospel conversations with people.
When we arrived, there was another preacher (who isn’t with us) in the area, so we let him preach while we set up. As we waited, we handed out tracts and spoke with people about the Lord Jesus. It was good to see quite a number of people taking material and stopping to chat.
For the first open-air, I spoke on “The Message of the Cross”. As I preached, a few people sat nearby and listened. At the end, when I offered copies of John’s Gospel to anyone who wanted to find out more, two people responded. One lady who took a Gospel also asked if we had material for children. Thankfully, we had our new Gospel Colouring Book on the literature table, so we were able to give her one.
The colouring book proved to be very popular throughout the day. We pray this resource will be used by the Lord to reach many children for Jesus.
Around this time, two young ladies stopped to talk. They shared how they had recently started attending church and hoped to be good enough to get to Heaven. I asked them, “How good do you need to be?” This caused them to pause and consider what standard they needed to measure up to. They quickly admitted they weren’t as good as God, which then allowed me to share the gospel with them. They both took New Testaments and an in-depth gospel booklet.
Next up to preach was Jim, who gave an excellent open-air message on Christ crucified and the centrality of the cross. It certainly was a good reminder to all those listening that Jesus is their only hope.
As the outreach came to a close, I preached once more. This time I spoke on John 3:16. While preaching, a couple of lesbians decided to engage in their sin in order to provoke a response. I simply ignored their actions and preached forgiveness in Christ. At the end of the message, three people took copies of John’s Gospel.
Please take a few moments to pray for all those who heard the good news today. May many be saved in Portsmouth.
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.SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAGAZINE AND PRAYER NOTES