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Volume. XXII, No. 24 YAF Street Evangelism On the 18th August this year, 12 YAFers went out to the streets of Adelaide city to hand out gospel tracts and evangelise. These young people were paired up and allocated to the busier roads within the city and North Adelaide area. For many of them, it was their first experience of Street Evangelism. At the same time, a separate group of 10 gathered in church to pray for the outreach. That afternoon, within a space of 2 hours, the 12 YAFers were able to give out about 100 tracts and share the gospel with about 50 people. Throughout the year, several evangelism workshops had been organised to train and prepare the YAFers to be ready to witness for our Lord. This outreach is the culmination of lots of prayer and hard work. Here are three testimonies of some young people who took part in the outreach. Vanessa and Daniel were part of the Tracting team and Corinne was in the Prayer team. Hopefully their testimonies will be an encouragement and challenge to all of us to actively obey the Great Commission!
Vanessa Tan It was my first time doing street evangelism. It began with nervousness and uncertainty. 'What if I get rejected?' 'What if I fumble my words?' I was tossed about by doubt and anxiety. But thankfully these feelings quickly subsided as I got down to tracting and sharing the gospel with various strangers. My partner was Jason, so I started out by observing him. After a few encounters, I decided to give it a go. As it turned out, the first few times were rejections, but by God's grace, I pressed on till at last I came across someone who was willing to listen to the gospel! And to top it all off, he came to church the very next day! The rest of the morning went by quickly. More tracts were handed out. My command of the Chinese language was put to the test as I had to share the gospel a couple of times in Mandarin. Street Evangelism was indeed a humbling experience, but also one that was spiritually satisfying. There is an indescribable heartfelt joy when you share your faith with someone. Even though we are but simple vessels, God is able to turn our feeblest offerings into wonderful workings for His glory. Truly, in our weakness He is strong! Daniel Ki To be honest, I was really nervous about doing Street E. Although I’m not actually bothered about being rejected when giving out a tract, a tiny piece of me still dies quietly inside when it does happen. Nevertheless, I was quite confident as I had a most experienced partner to go with, one whom I felt could essentially do all of the talking. A brilliant plan I believed. Fortunately, that devious plan would not come to fruition, which was most certainly a blessing. The day turned out to be a beautiful one, the rain clearing almost right before we started. We were placed at the beautiful Torrens, which is incidentally not really as dirty as everyone claims. Unfortunately, despite the beautiful weather, there were hardly any people to give tracts to and a quick frantic miss call was made to the prayer group for us to find someone. During this time, my fellow tracter shared a story of similar experience where they weren’t able to find anyone at all until the very end. But this one opportunity that they had was one of the amazing almost life-changing etc significant experiences that one would always remember. I certainly hoped that would be the case for us, and obviously, the direction of this story is such that yes indeed, this did happen to us. We eventually managed to find someone to whom we could give a tract at the end of the Adelaide foot bridge. However, it was not the perfect scenario that I had been hoping for. Instead of a meek, innocent student sitting down with all the time in the world to spend, there was a haggard man with cuts, bruises, a bloody nose, and a large bottle of wine clutched in his left hand. Could you blame us for our trepidation? Had we walked away, we could have come up with a hundred of excuses not to have spoken to him. And so we did, we walked away to find someone else. However, God put shame in our hearts, for as Jesus said, he came down for the sinners, not the righteous. We neared the other end of the footbridge and stood awkwardly, obvious pangs of guilt dripping off our consciences. We then decided to turn back and offer him a tract at the very least. We approached him not knowing what to expect and offered him a tract. As we began to leave, he faced us teary-eyed and thanked us. We could see the sorrow in his eyes that languished and grasped upon our hearts. We hesitated for a long moment and then went up to him and asked if we could explain the tract. We stayed and talked to him for about a half hour, during which he told us a lot about himself including that he was the son of a Catholic priest. He knew a bit about God, but told he never heard of the gospel in the way that we presented it, ie that we are saved by grace instead of works. In the end, he tearfully drank to our good health and we went on our way. However, it’s truly moments like this that people become lost souls instead of a chore borne out of duty. And as a summary? Tracting is something that becomes easier to do the more you do it. Getting started is always the hardest and having someone else to do it with you is always helpful. You might not think that you have enough passion, enough knowledge, enough courage etc. However, all that becomes secondary once you’re actually doing it. The experience of evangelising is so satisfying, so rewarding, that it is a marvel that I had ever thought of it as a chore instead of an opportunity or blessing. Still have qualms? Well, if God is with you, who can stand against you? Corinne Teng At 10:30am, as the Evangelism Team met on North Terrace for Street Evangelism, a Prayer Team made up of 8 YAF members plus Elder Michael and Uncle George gathered at Hope Church to pray for them while they shared the gospel in the streets of Adelaide city. For those who didn’t feel quite ready to take to the streets to spread the gospel with the Evangelism Team, the Prayer Team was an equally effective way to serve God. Everyone who came to Church was ready and happy to be there to support our fellow YAF members in the city through prayer. Admittedly we had a bit of a disorganised start, after an initial list of prayer items and a Bible verse (“Pray without ceasing” – 1 Thessalonians 5:17) were written on the whiteboard we commenced praying. The Prayer Team began with about half an hour in corporate prayer. After this, we split into smaller groups of two or three people to pray together. Once in a while, a group would get up for a stretch, a snack or a drink, and then continue in prayer. We finished the prayer session with another half an hour or so in corporate prayer. During this time of prayer, we were able to pray specifically for the people in the city who wanted us to pray for them at any particular time. The people in the Evangelism Team had been paired up and the names of those in each pair were given to the Prayer Team. If a pair was currently speaking to someone they met in the city, then one person in the pair would give one missed call to someone in the Prayer Team; however if they were having trouble finding someone to speak to for a while, then they would give two missed calls from their phone. This way, the Prayer Team knew exactly what each pair was up to and we were therefore able to pray specifically either for the conversation they were currently having, or for God to lead them to another person to speak to. We also kept a record on the whiteboard of each of the pairs’ current situation and at what time they contacted us, so we could keep track of what everyone was doing and it would be easier for us to pray for them. The two and a half hours that the Prayer Team spent in prayer at Church were quite challenging for many to get through. For some people, the idea of corporate prayer to begin and conclude the prayer session was nothing scary and for others it would have been quite daunting, but everyone did manage to participate. There were also many in the Prayer Team who were not used to praying for extended periods of time, and we knew we would all require concentration and strength to get through. These were all things that we prayed for, knowing that God would hear our prayers. Despite these possible difficulties, the people in the Prayer Team trusted God to look after us, and were still willing to come to church to pray anyway. It was a real blessing to know that our prayers were not only heard by God, but answered too. Several times we prayed for a pair of people in the Evangelism Team who hadn’t spoken to anyone for a while, and shortly after we would receive one missed call to indicate that they had now found somebody to talk to. Quite a few times we also prayed for a pair who we had not heard from for some time and therefore we didn’t know how they were going. Then a little while later we would hear back from those people to let us know they want us to pray for. God really does answer our prayers! We would have also been blessed by those who for other reasons were not able to join the Prayer or Evangelism Teams on that day, but who were able to pray from home or wherever else they were at that time. It was encouraging to know that people were praying with us, even though they couldn’t be present there with us. After we concluded our prayer session, the Prayer Team was joined by the Evangelism Team who returned to church for a de-briefing and discussion time. We were able to hear each pair in the Evangelism Team speak about their experiences in the city, the people they met, what techniques did or didn’t work for them, and their suggestions for people who would like to do this in the future. The Prayer Team was also able to share about what we found easy or difficult, and the way God answers our prayers. It was of course very encouraging to hear what different people had to say. What a wonderful thing it is to carry out God’s Great Commission. Humbly, Bro Jason Tan |
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