Friday - Saturday, December 5th - 6th, 2008
For the past couple of weeks the local news has been carrying stories about all that was happening on the sunny Gold Coast. It was that time of the year again when all the students who graduated from high school converge on the Gold Coast for a week of parties, sin and regrets. We had already run some smaller outreaches during the Schoolies celebrations, but tonight was going to be our big night, the night in which we arrived at 6pm and left in the early hours AM.
Ryan and I arrived at the Surfers Paradise to prepare for the outreach, and as we began to walk up Cavill Avenue, the heavens opened up and the rain began to fall. At first it wasn’t that heavy, but it gradually became heavier. We quickly took shelter, and we were a bit concerned to see that the streets were empty. “This is the famed Schoolies festival, where are all the Schoolies?” I thought, and inside of me I began to wonder if tonight was going to be a waste of time and energy.
Since it was so quiet we decided that now would be a great time to go and grab some dinner, and then hopefully, after we finished eating the mall would be a whole lot more busy. As we sat and munched on our chilli chicken burgers we noticed that a few more people started to come into the mall, and most of them were Schoolies. So quickly after finishing our dinner we grabbed some tracts and began to hand them out and talk to people.
Within seconds of handing out his first tract Ryan was engaged in a one to three conversation with some young guys. The guys he was talking to seem genuinely interested in all that Ryan was saying, and after listening for awhile they asked a few questions. Ryan answered the questions of these young men, and after some time they parted company. As the group left I couldn’t help but notice that none of them were offended, in fact it was the complete opposite, these guys were thankful that Ryan took the time to explain the gospel to them, and as they walked past me I could hear them still discussing amongst themselves about forgiveness of sin.
During this time I was just handing out tracts and having the occasional one to one conversation with people. It was still slow during this time so we were only able to hand out a few hundred tracts. But, during this time of tract work I was approached by two men, as I observed them coming towards me I knew they weren’t Schoolies, and by the way they were dressed I could tell they were Gold Coast City Council officers. One of them stopped me and asked what I was handing out, I replied that I was handing out gospel tracts that explain how we can be forgiven of all our sin. The man looked at me, and said “I have spoken to you before haven’t I?” When he said that I remembered that two years ago during Gold Coast Indy, he had stopped me for preaching, but when he checked the law he found that we had legal right to preach and witness. We spoke for a bit about what I was doing, and he told me that there had been another group of “preachers” in Cavill Avenue who had been causing trouble by abusing people and using a PA to scream “hate” at people. Then this local law officer said something quite interesting, he said: “The problem with Christians is that they don’t read their Book, and they certainly don’t live by it!” To which I sadly had to agree with him. It is such a major stain on Christianity, when those who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ fail to read God’s Word, and if they do read it many of them refuse to live by the standards laid out in the Bible.
After speaking for awhile both council officers took gospel tracts and then left. I continued to talk and witness to people. Not long after speaking to council I noticed this man standing in the middle of Cavill Avenue with no shirt on, but with a red bandana on his head. I recognized this as one of the gang colours from not far from where I live, so I approached him and said “G’day”. The man was friendly enough and it turned out that he was from New Zealand originally, I spoke to him a bit about life, death and life in a gang. He was fairly open and wanted to talk, and he was especially interested in the words of Jesus Christ. So I began to witness to him and explain the gospel, when I got to repentance he didn’t like the idea of him having to turn from his sin, so I stressed to him from the Bible, that Jesus said “Unless you repent you will perish” (Luke 13:3). As far as this man was concerned the conversation was over, he wanted forgiveness of sin, but he wanted that forgiveness to give him license to sin all he wants. It was then that another group of young men approached all wearing the same red bandana. This man’s gang had arrived, and it was then that I found out that I was speaking to the gang leader. As his gang assembled around me, I quickly handed out tracts to all of them, and greeted them all. These guys were quite shocked as I wasn’t scared of them, but rather I was being friendly to them.
The gang leader said to his gang “This guy is a preacher, he is talking about heaven, hell and all that Jesus stuff.” The gang looked at me, so I asked them, “Alright guys, if you were to do die tonight where do you think you would go? Heaven or Hell?” The gang leader turned to me and said, “These are my guys you don’t talk to them!” To which I replied, “Mate, be quiet, you think you tough, but one day you will face God and give an account for all your sins. And on that day if you die without Christ you will end up in hell.” The leader seemed stunned, the gang seemed stunned, so I continued, “Now, you have heard the gospel and rejected it, so I am now going to explain it to your boys, and you will not interrupt, understand?” The gang leader at this stage was in shock, I doubt if he had ever had someone speak to him like that before. As I spoke thoughts began running through my mind, “Josh, you idiot! You just angered a gang leader, RUN before they STAB you!”
The leader turned to his gang and said, “Preacher is right, listen to what he says!” So all the gang turned to me and asked, “What is heaven about, how do I get there?” This opened up a door for me to present the glorious gospel of Christ to those who may never have heard it. While they looked tough, they turned out to be just like everyone else, in that they had done wrong, and they needed a Saviour.
As I was explaining the gospel to them, members from the Queensland Police came and surrounded us, I presume they were getting a bit nervous with having a gang assembled in the middle of the mall. The police formed around the group I was speaking to, and then they all took the tracts off the gang members, the police wanted to know what was going on, so they all read the tracts. The gang didn’t seem to mind as they were all still listening to me present the gospel. The police officers read the tracts and then gave them back to the gang, and for the next few minutes a group of police stood with a group of gang members and listened to the gospel also. This was such an awesome opportunity to have law enforcers and law breakers standing together at the foot of the cross, and hearing about Jesus Christ who died in the place of sinners. The police moved on at the end of the gospel, but a few of the gang members stayed behind and thanked me for telling them about Christ. Please pray for the gang and also for the police. May God grant them repentance and bring them to the knowledge of the truth.
The rest of the outreach was spent in handing out tracts and having many great conversations, the Schoolies were very open to discussing the things of God, and also many of them seemed to want to debate Christianity. This was good because as we provided apologetic answers to their questions many more seemed open to hearing the gospel.
Tonight was a great night with many hearing the gospel, and many thousands getting gospel tracts. All Praise to the Author and Finisher of the Faith!
Saturday, 6 December, 2008
The word “tired” doesn’t do justice to how exhausted I felt today. All of last night was spent on the streets of the Gold Coast talking to many people about the gospel, and then my morning was spent at church doing my yearly CPR and First Aid training. Finally after all that I was able to fall into bed and get about three hours sleep in the stinking hot weather and high humidity.
While I would have loved to sleep on, I knew I had to get up and prepare for tonight outreach in Brisbane city. I can’t think of a great privilege that we as Christians have, than that of sharing the gospel with someone else. And, for that honour I would gladly go without sleep as long as I can make known the grace of my Master, the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was good to meet up with the team and spend some time in prayer and Bible reading. It was also good to spend time as a group having fellowship.
Normally when we set up we see Alex the Agnostic walking around, however tonight he was missing. This concerned us and we hoped everything was well with our favourite agnostic heckler. (Alex if you are reading this: Repent of your sins and trust in Jesus Christ alone to save you, He is the one who died in the place of sinners and was raised from the dead, so turn from your sins and trust in Christ)
Andrew Hsu was the first preacher up for the evening and he spoke about the good news of the gospel, and how God gave a gift to humanity, and that gift is Jesus Christ. He did a good job in making Christ known. A few people stopped to listen, but overall the mall was fairly empty.
After Andrew preached for some time then it was time for Ali to preach, I have said it before and I will say it again, I do not think I have heard a preacher fit so much theology into his preaching apart from Ali. He is awesome when he preaches, while he isn’t the loudest open air preacher, he does bring his message with a passion and once you have listened to him there is no room for confusion, he explains his points and builds his case to show that Jesus Christ is the Saviour, and is the only one who can forgive sin.
While Ali was preaching a guy that I witnessed to from the week before was standing behind the preaching talking to me. This week he was dressed up as Santa Clause, and he wanted to know what the preachers would like for Christmas, so in between him taking our orders and giving everyone he could see a hug, we were once again able to make known the gospel to him.
It then came my turn to preach the gospel, so I started off by talking about Christmas, and talking about how we celebrate the birth of Christ, but so many people fail to realize that the Christ of the cradle is also the Christ of the Cross. Within a short time of starting to preach a man began to heckle me saying that we should not say that Christmas is about the birth of Christ, as some people don’t believe in that. I challenged his thinking, and then tried to swing the gospel. But this man was not interested he wanted to argue politics, he wanted argue everything other than what I was talking about.
After awhile, I was able to move from him to another person, I did a call out on one man who was standing at the back of the crowd. It turns out he was an atheist from France, so I took him through the Good Person Test to see if where he would go when he died. This man went from “There is no God” to “I am going to hell!” I was able to explain to him the gospel of salvation and how he could receive forgiveness of sins. It was then that his new wife fired up and fired a few questions, and as soon as I answered them she ran off. It seems to me that those questions are the reason she refuses to believe, but the moment they were answered she had no defence and no excuse, that is why she ran.
The rest of the night was spent with preaching and handing out tracts. Many great conversation happened during this time. Overall it was a God glorifying night! May He receive all the praise!
Soli Deo Gloria!
Full report with pictures: http://www.operation513.com
For audio of the Josh Williamson preaching Brisbane go to: http://sovereigntybaptist.blogspot.com/2008/12/operation-513-witnessing-to-gangs.html
For other Operation 513 team reports visit: http://www.operation513.com/battlelog.php
For the past couple of weeks the local news has been carrying stories about all that was happening on the sunny Gold Coast. It was that time of the year again when all the students who graduated from high school converge on the Gold Coast for a week of parties, sin and regrets. We had already run some smaller outreaches during the Schoolies celebrations, but tonight was going to be our big night, the night in which we arrived at 6pm and left in the early hours AM.
Ryan and I arrived at the Surfers Paradise to prepare for the outreach, and as we began to walk up Cavill Avenue, the heavens opened up and the rain began to fall. At first it wasn’t that heavy, but it gradually became heavier. We quickly took shelter, and we were a bit concerned to see that the streets were empty. “This is the famed Schoolies festival, where are all the Schoolies?” I thought, and inside of me I began to wonder if tonight was going to be a waste of time and energy.
Since it was so quiet we decided that now would be a great time to go and grab some dinner, and then hopefully, after we finished eating the mall would be a whole lot more busy. As we sat and munched on our chilli chicken burgers we noticed that a few more people started to come into the mall, and most of them were Schoolies. So quickly after finishing our dinner we grabbed some tracts and began to hand them out and talk to people.
Within seconds of handing out his first tract Ryan was engaged in a one to three conversation with some young guys. The guys he was talking to seem genuinely interested in all that Ryan was saying, and after listening for awhile they asked a few questions. Ryan answered the questions of these young men, and after some time they parted company. As the group left I couldn’t help but notice that none of them were offended, in fact it was the complete opposite, these guys were thankful that Ryan took the time to explain the gospel to them, and as they walked past me I could hear them still discussing amongst themselves about forgiveness of sin.
During this time I was just handing out tracts and having the occasional one to one conversation with people. It was still slow during this time so we were only able to hand out a few hundred tracts. But, during this time of tract work I was approached by two men, as I observed them coming towards me I knew they weren’t Schoolies, and by the way they were dressed I could tell they were Gold Coast City Council officers. One of them stopped me and asked what I was handing out, I replied that I was handing out gospel tracts that explain how we can be forgiven of all our sin. The man looked at me, and said “I have spoken to you before haven’t I?” When he said that I remembered that two years ago during Gold Coast Indy, he had stopped me for preaching, but when he checked the law he found that we had legal right to preach and witness. We spoke for a bit about what I was doing, and he told me that there had been another group of “preachers” in Cavill Avenue who had been causing trouble by abusing people and using a PA to scream “hate” at people. Then this local law officer said something quite interesting, he said: “The problem with Christians is that they don’t read their Book, and they certainly don’t live by it!” To which I sadly had to agree with him. It is such a major stain on Christianity, when those who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ fail to read God’s Word, and if they do read it many of them refuse to live by the standards laid out in the Bible.
After speaking for awhile both council officers took gospel tracts and then left. I continued to talk and witness to people. Not long after speaking to council I noticed this man standing in the middle of Cavill Avenue with no shirt on, but with a red bandana on his head. I recognized this as one of the gang colours from not far from where I live, so I approached him and said “G’day”. The man was friendly enough and it turned out that he was from New Zealand originally, I spoke to him a bit about life, death and life in a gang. He was fairly open and wanted to talk, and he was especially interested in the words of Jesus Christ. So I began to witness to him and explain the gospel, when I got to repentance he didn’t like the idea of him having to turn from his sin, so I stressed to him from the Bible, that Jesus said “Unless you repent you will perish” (Luke 13:3). As far as this man was concerned the conversation was over, he wanted forgiveness of sin, but he wanted that forgiveness to give him license to sin all he wants. It was then that another group of young men approached all wearing the same red bandana. This man’s gang had arrived, and it was then that I found out that I was speaking to the gang leader. As his gang assembled around me, I quickly handed out tracts to all of them, and greeted them all. These guys were quite shocked as I wasn’t scared of them, but rather I was being friendly to them.
The gang leader said to his gang “This guy is a preacher, he is talking about heaven, hell and all that Jesus stuff.” The gang looked at me, so I asked them, “Alright guys, if you were to do die tonight where do you think you would go? Heaven or Hell?” The gang leader turned to me and said, “These are my guys you don’t talk to them!” To which I replied, “Mate, be quiet, you think you tough, but one day you will face God and give an account for all your sins. And on that day if you die without Christ you will end up in hell.” The leader seemed stunned, the gang seemed stunned, so I continued, “Now, you have heard the gospel and rejected it, so I am now going to explain it to your boys, and you will not interrupt, understand?” The gang leader at this stage was in shock, I doubt if he had ever had someone speak to him like that before. As I spoke thoughts began running through my mind, “Josh, you idiot! You just angered a gang leader, RUN before they STAB you!”
The leader turned to his gang and said, “Preacher is right, listen to what he says!” So all the gang turned to me and asked, “What is heaven about, how do I get there?” This opened up a door for me to present the glorious gospel of Christ to those who may never have heard it. While they looked tough, they turned out to be just like everyone else, in that they had done wrong, and they needed a Saviour.
As I was explaining the gospel to them, members from the Queensland Police came and surrounded us, I presume they were getting a bit nervous with having a gang assembled in the middle of the mall. The police formed around the group I was speaking to, and then they all took the tracts off the gang members, the police wanted to know what was going on, so they all read the tracts. The gang didn’t seem to mind as they were all still listening to me present the gospel. The police officers read the tracts and then gave them back to the gang, and for the next few minutes a group of police stood with a group of gang members and listened to the gospel also. This was such an awesome opportunity to have law enforcers and law breakers standing together at the foot of the cross, and hearing about Jesus Christ who died in the place of sinners. The police moved on at the end of the gospel, but a few of the gang members stayed behind and thanked me for telling them about Christ. Please pray for the gang and also for the police. May God grant them repentance and bring them to the knowledge of the truth.
The rest of the outreach was spent in handing out tracts and having many great conversations, the Schoolies were very open to discussing the things of God, and also many of them seemed to want to debate Christianity. This was good because as we provided apologetic answers to their questions many more seemed open to hearing the gospel.
Tonight was a great night with many hearing the gospel, and many thousands getting gospel tracts. All Praise to the Author and Finisher of the Faith!
Saturday, 6 December, 2008
The word “tired” doesn’t do justice to how exhausted I felt today. All of last night was spent on the streets of the Gold Coast talking to many people about the gospel, and then my morning was spent at church doing my yearly CPR and First Aid training. Finally after all that I was able to fall into bed and get about three hours sleep in the stinking hot weather and high humidity.
While I would have loved to sleep on, I knew I had to get up and prepare for tonight outreach in Brisbane city. I can’t think of a great privilege that we as Christians have, than that of sharing the gospel with someone else. And, for that honour I would gladly go without sleep as long as I can make known the grace of my Master, the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was good to meet up with the team and spend some time in prayer and Bible reading. It was also good to spend time as a group having fellowship.
Normally when we set up we see Alex the Agnostic walking around, however tonight he was missing. This concerned us and we hoped everything was well with our favourite agnostic heckler. (Alex if you are reading this: Repent of your sins and trust in Jesus Christ alone to save you, He is the one who died in the place of sinners and was raised from the dead, so turn from your sins and trust in Christ)
Andrew Hsu was the first preacher up for the evening and he spoke about the good news of the gospel, and how God gave a gift to humanity, and that gift is Jesus Christ. He did a good job in making Christ known. A few people stopped to listen, but overall the mall was fairly empty.
After Andrew preached for some time then it was time for Ali to preach, I have said it before and I will say it again, I do not think I have heard a preacher fit so much theology into his preaching apart from Ali. He is awesome when he preaches, while he isn’t the loudest open air preacher, he does bring his message with a passion and once you have listened to him there is no room for confusion, he explains his points and builds his case to show that Jesus Christ is the Saviour, and is the only one who can forgive sin.
While Ali was preaching a guy that I witnessed to from the week before was standing behind the preaching talking to me. This week he was dressed up as Santa Clause, and he wanted to know what the preachers would like for Christmas, so in between him taking our orders and giving everyone he could see a hug, we were once again able to make known the gospel to him.
It then came my turn to preach the gospel, so I started off by talking about Christmas, and talking about how we celebrate the birth of Christ, but so many people fail to realize that the Christ of the cradle is also the Christ of the Cross. Within a short time of starting to preach a man began to heckle me saying that we should not say that Christmas is about the birth of Christ, as some people don’t believe in that. I challenged his thinking, and then tried to swing the gospel. But this man was not interested he wanted to argue politics, he wanted argue everything other than what I was talking about.
After awhile, I was able to move from him to another person, I did a call out on one man who was standing at the back of the crowd. It turns out he was an atheist from France, so I took him through the Good Person Test to see if where he would go when he died. This man went from “There is no God” to “I am going to hell!” I was able to explain to him the gospel of salvation and how he could receive forgiveness of sins. It was then that his new wife fired up and fired a few questions, and as soon as I answered them she ran off. It seems to me that those questions are the reason she refuses to believe, but the moment they were answered she had no defence and no excuse, that is why she ran.
The rest of the night was spent with preaching and handing out tracts. Many great conversation happened during this time. Overall it was a God glorifying night! May He receive all the praise!
Soli Deo Gloria!
Full report with pictures: http://www.operation513.com
For audio of the Josh Williamson preaching Brisbane go to: http://sovereigntybaptist.blogspot.com/2008/12/operation-513-witnessing-to-gangs.html
For other Operation 513 team reports visit: http://www.operation513.com/battlelog.php
