Josh Williamson June 9th, 2009

Saturday - 6th June, 2009 - Gold Coast

150 years ago the State of Queensland was officially established, before that time it had been under the administration from the colony of New South Wales. Throughout the state today there were many celebrations and the weather for these celebrations was ideal. It was a beautiful sunny day with clear skies and mild temperature. While people in the state celebrated we made our way down to Surfers Paradise for our weekly outreach.

We arrived at lunch time, so we quickly ate a meal, spent some time in prayer and Bible reading then we began to witness for Christ. Many tracts were going out and many people were interested in talking to us. Ryan as usual was locked in a one to one conversation with an elderly gentleman, while Blake and Joel handed out tracts to the many people walking along the beach front.

I was to be the first preacher up for the day. Personally I don’t like being the first preacher, but sometimes it has to be done. So as I began to prepare I realized that I couldn’t think of what to preach on. Now, I knew that it would be a gospel message, but how was I to start? As I thought about the message I was about to give I remember a conversation I had a few days earlier with a friend about slavery, this was to be my starting point. Physical slavery in the world today and also spiritual slavery in the world.

I used John 8 as my text and pointed out that Jesus said we are all enslaved to sin when we commit sin. A few people gathered around to listen, but for the Gold Coast it was a really small crowd. But, God is glorified when His word goes forth, so I took heart and continued to preach about Christ and how He came in love to save a people unto Himself. The message went for about twenty minutes and afterwards there were many great conversations with people in regards to the gospel. One Christian gentleman came up to me and offered words of encouragement, then also stressed that we need to do an appeal for physical healing. I thanked him for his words, but would not issue a call for healing.

Blake was the next preacher up and shortly after beginning a man walked past screaming abuse. The man wasn’t like every other pedestrians, they all walked on the footpath, this man walked on the road with the traffic. We ignored him and Blake kept on preaching. None of us really thought much about this man, but in a few minutes he had our full attention.

For a second my attention was away from the preacher and when I looked back at Blake preaching I saw the same yelling man standing next to him. This time the man did more than just yell, he began to punch and attack Blake. Immediately I yelled for the man to back off and I advanced towards him. The man did as I expected and he ran away. This however was not the end.

I turned and put my backpack on the ground and as I turned again the man was once again approaching. This time he was yelling, “I am going to break your neck!” He was anger, his eyes full of hatred. He came charging in, so I told Blake to keep preaching. I lined up the man as he came running in, my job was to make sure he brought no harm to the preacher. The man began to dance around me yelling he was going to take me out, I called for Ryan to run and get police. Jaime was now also involved, he was apart of the blocking team. The violent man was now entangled with Jaime, so I began to preach to the crowd about how as Christians we are to love our enemies as Christ loved those who He came to save. People listened and they saw the difference between light and darkness.

As I preached the man screamed more and made more threats. He then came running up beside me and started to throw punches at my head. I was able to block all his punches and continue to preach. All up he threw around 10 - 15 punches, and by God’s grace I was able to stop them all. It would have been easy to get angry and fight back, but all I felt for the man was sorrow. Then we heard a sound approaching that made the heckler turn and flee. That sound was the wail of sirens as a patrol car sped to the incident. The police pulled up with lights flashing and then took off after the man who had attacked us. We later found out that the police actually lost him and couldn’t find the man. However, they kept an eye on us for the rest of the day. As they drove by or walked past they would give a friendly wave and keep on going. This is a marked difference from just a few months ago when they were trying to arrest us for preaching.

After this Ryan preached and so did Joel. Many people were interested in talking and we were able to have many great conversations. People seemed grateful to hear the good news, and many wanted more information. I have found that whenever the enemy advances God moves in a mightier way.

To God be the Glory!

[i] Below is the audio of my first open air sermon of the day [/i]

Saturday, 6th June, 2009 - Brisbane

The sound of a car whizzing by brought me back to my senses. I was in Brisbane city and during the prayer meeting I found myself starting to fall asleep. My body was overcome with tiredness. It had been a big day. Preaching twice on the Gold Coast, engaging in blocking punches being thrown by a heckler had all taken its toll. But, the night was young, one battle finished another just about to begin.

After we prayed for awhile and then read the Bible together, we made our way to the Queen Street Mall. Part of me was looking forward to preaching, another part would have loved the night off. We set up and Ryan began the night by preaching. He had been preaching for a few minutes when the heavens opened up and it began to rain. We quickly scrambled to pack down the Bible table and also we placed a tarp over the team bags so that there would be no damage.

Ryan kept preaching, even though it was raining. One of our regular hecklers (Wayne) brought in his family tonight. It must have been a good family night out as they seemed to enjoy heckling Ryan as he preached.

While this was all going on I noticed one young man walk past who we have dealt with in the past. This man is a professing Christian, however, he is now back on drugs and is making many threats to females, including females in the Brisbane team. I approached him to speak to him and straight away I saw that he was off his face. He began to ramble about how he had just beaten up his father, mother and little brother. Since I have dealt with him in the past I tried to help him. But he wasn’t interested. A bit later on he returned and the team was able to buy him a meal and minister to him.

In the past I have spoken to his pastor about him, and I gave his pastor my word that if he comes to the team I will tell him to leave before calling the police. Tonight we let him stay with us as long as he behaved. However, his good behaviour didn’t last long. While I was witnessing to young lady who had been listening to Ryan preach, this guy walked in and abused her. He also threatened rape and physical violence. This young lady ran away and I was not happy. I order him to leave or I would call the police. The man left, only to return later on.

Later in the evening I noticed that he had returned so I approached him and once again told him to leave or I would be forced to call police. He refused to leave, so I asked him again. This time he got up to leave and as he did he put his cigarette out on my chest. This resulted in Queensland Police being called. The man ran when police arrived and after a short chase involving about twenty police they caught him and placed him in lock up.

It is so sad to see this guy back on the drugs and it was hard for me to call the police on him. But hopefully he will learn that there must be a punishment for his crime and also that Christ can forgive whatever crime has been committed against God.

During this time there was quite a large crowd listening to Ryan preach and for the whole night the preacher had a crowd listening to the gospel. Ryan started to preach at 9:15pm and at 11:45pm he finally stood down. After that there were plenty of one to one conversations.

The night was hard, but many people heard the gospel. May God save sinners in this city!

Soli Deo Gloria!

To hear an audio of the Open Air preaching visit: http://evangelismmatters.blogspot.com/2009/06/operation-513-im-going-to-break-your.html

Full report with pictures: http://www.operation513.com

For other Operation 513 team reports visit: http://www.operation513.com/battlelog.php

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Jeff Fuller June 3rd, 2009

It has been a little over two months since my last post. In the blogging world that is a millennium! Thankfully our friend Josh Williamson from Brisbane has kept the blogging alive with his updates from down-under. I’m not certain when I will make my next post, but I am certain (Lord willing) that this post will not be my last.

I took a new position with the company I work for, switching from driving an ice cream route to driving a milk route. The switch has slightly increased my pay yet has greatly increased the amount of physical work I do and the number of hours a week I work. Time for blogging has taken a backseat to being faithful to provide for my family and being wise to crosstrain to add job security. I’m a lot stronger these days and I’ve lost enough weight to bring my total to an over 40 pound decrease since October of last year. There have been many benefits to blogging less and working more!

Theologically speaking, after all this has always been quite a theological blog… I wouldn’t say I’m less of a Calvinist than I was several months ago, but there have been some changes to the way I act as a Calvinist. Calvinism has taken a backseat to The Gospel. I used to think they were the same thing and confused the “how does salvation work” with what Christ is doing in the lives of sinners to save them. I now see we (meaning Calvinists and other Christians) can disagree with much of the underlying stuff and still preach the same Gospel. Simply, Christ did what He did and He did it to save sinners like you and me. Being a non-Calvinist doesn’t change anything about Jesus raising from the dead, for example.

I realize that being this type of Calvinist isn’t very popular these days. The blogosphere tends to exalt the witch-hunt Calvinist. The one who is looking at every petty detail to see whether or not what the Church believes is “sound.” I used to be that jerk! My relationship with God suffered under that regime.

So since I’m a lot more missional than I’ve been in previous posts, I’ve decided that being quiet on this blog has also been a benefit to our readers. This blog has reflected a lot of different periods of time in our lives. We’ve gone from mildly interested in Calvinism to hyper-Calvinists (just kidding, Paul) to wherever we are right now. in the spectrum of theological positions. But I certainly don’t want to speak loudly against some of the posts I spoke so loudly for in the past.

Evangelistically, if that is even a real word… I do less street ministry than I was doing when I co-founded this blog. I regularly preach at a State Prison which is located nearby. And every so often I preach at our local County Jail. My primary focus has been on a young adult ministry called NORML I’ve started at my church. The name stands for NO Rejects, Misfits, or Losers and is an outreach to young people in their teens and twenties. Right now, NORML is one of my only activities outside of work and attending weekly fellowship at church.

So that’s where I’ve been and what I’ve been making time to do! I appreciate those who still read this blog even if much of the content is to be found in the archives. Soli Deo Gloria!

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Josh Williamson June 2nd, 2009

Tuesday - June 2nd, 2009

It begins! Last week I finally completed all my classes for my Bachelor of Ministry, but upon completing college I had to face the question of “now what?” After, spending some time in prayer and seeking advice I decided that I would commit myself to full time evangelistic ministry, both here in Australia and internationally as God provides. This decision was made easier by the fact that I am now working two days a week with Evangelist Bill Newman at his ministry Bill Newman Ministries (http://www.billnewman.org.au). Being able to work with Bill has been great, as I get to learn more about evangelistic ministry and I also get paid for it. But, most of all this line of employment allows me to focus on reaching out to the lost on a full time basis.

Since, I now have more time to devout to outreach, I thought it to be a good idea to spend more time on Queensland’s largest university, just handing out tracts and having one to one conversations with the students. So, today Ryan and I both made our way to the campus with a certainly level of excitement, but also with an amount of concern as it had been raining all morning and it looked like it was about to rain again. Ryan assured me that there still would be plenty of people to witness to even if it was pouring with rain.

Upon arrival we immediately began to hand out to all the students we walked past, this resulted in many people sitting around reading the gospel of Jesus Christ. It didn’t take long for Ryan to engage in a one to one conversation with a young Jewish man who was trying to disprove Jesus, by stating that He couldn’t have been crucified with nails in His hands, and that Jesus was black. Ryan, stayed on course and presented the Christ who is able to save that man from his sin.

By now the heavens had opened up and the rain was pouring down (although Ryan kept saying “look blue sky!”) So we made our way to an undercover area near where all the students buy their lunch. As we walked into the undercover area we were approached by a student from the socialist alliance, he handed us a flyer which was advertising an upcoming rally on global warming. As he gave me the flyer, I thought, this guy would be interesting to talk to.

At this stage Ryan was sitting down engaging a Muslim man in discussion so I walked up to the socialist student and asked him for an interview. He quickly agreed so I proceeded to talk to him for some time. His name is Ewan and he was very pro-environment and very anti-Christianity. For some twenty minutes we discussed different things and I found it very hard to swing to the gospel with him, as every time I did he would try to rabbit-trail. However by the end of our discussion I was able to present Christ to him.

I noticed that Ryan was still engaged in discussion with the Muslim, so I looked for someone else to talk to. A few people I approached were in a rush to get to class, so I gave them a tract and they continued on their way. Eventually I ran into Ali, who is a business student from Pakistan, his religion is Islam, however, he said he is not a radical. I spoke to him for about twelve minutes and I stressed to him how as a Christian I have assurance of salvation. At the end of the conversation I pleaded with him to trust in Christ alone to save him, as his good works will never been good enough to get him to heaven.

It was now lunch time, so Ryan went to grab some lunch while I spoke to a young adult from my church (http://www.beenleighbaptist.org). After Ryan finished eating he jumped into a conversation with two young students. From all accounts it went very well with them both acknowledging that they needed the Saviour and saying they were prepared to lay it all down for Jesus.

After this we began to make our way out of the campus, however, Ryan managed to get himself into a conversation with a group of students. The group loved the discussion and they were pulling phones out and calling friends encouraging them to come listen to Ryan. By the end Ryan was talking to a large group of students about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. During this time I was handing out tracts, and I managed to get a one to one with Richard, who believed himself to be good enough for Heaven. So I quizzed him on this point and the moment he realized his sin he turned and ran away. I was disappointed I couldn’t present Christ to him, but I rest in the fact that God is Sovereign and He will allow Richard to hear the good news of sins being forgiven.

The day overall was brilliant. There is a great need to evangelise the university so I am keen to put one day a week in on UQ campus, and it is my prayer that God will save His people. I would ask that you keep me in prayer as I evangelise in a full time capacity and also pray for Operation 513 as we expand and reach more people for Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria!

To hear the witnessing encounters with Ewan the Socialist and Ali the Muslim visit: http://www.evangelismmatters.blogspot.com

Also, visit our website: http://www.Operation513.com

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Josh Williamson May 23rd, 2009

Saturday, May 9th 2009

There was a light westerly breeze blowing through the city tonight, which meant it would be cold. So I prepared by putting on some warmer clothes and made sure I had a jacket just in case.

I wasn’t feeling overly well tonight, I think it is from all the work I have been doing of late, and also from lack of sleep. But, these are the “joys” of the ministry.

The city wasn’t that busy tonight, maybe the cold was having an effect on those people from Brisbane, since after all this is the sunshine state, and we don’t do cold very well. However, we still made the most of the night and we preached the gospel to all those who would stop and listen.

Hsusy was the first preacher up for the night, he as usual gave a solid gospel message that dripped with theology and sound biblical exegesis. While, Andrew is most definitely not an evangelist, he is very gifted as a preacher. It is always a joy to listen to him expound the Word of God. While he preached he had a few hecklers, there wasn’t much action just the occasional shout of abuse or someone would throw a question as they ran by.

After Hsusy stood down, Joel got up and began to preach. For a newbie in preaching he is doing incredibly well, however, he doesn’t give him self the credit he deserves. Joel has all the marks of a great open air preacher, it will only be a matter of time before he will be one of our main open air men.

Towards the end of the night, both Ryan and I got up and preach. Ryan is always great when it comes to the atheist hecklers (which seem to swarm to Ryan). His apologetics are one of the best I have heard when it comes to dealing with those who deny their Creator.

Overall the night went well (even though it was cold)

Saturday, May 16th 2009

The night was cool, but not as cold as it was last week. As I walked the Queen Street mall, the text of Matthew 7 kept coming to mind “The Broad Road and the Narrow Road” so I decided to preach on that later in the evening.

First up for the night was Jeremy, he was asking before to have a chance to preach, so I though “no better time than first up!” He started off by preaching from John 3:16, and he spoke about the God who loves. He did well considering he hadn’t preached for awhile.

Ryan preached next, however, he only lasted about twenty minutes due to the fact his voice was almost gone. This was due to the fact he had already preached down the Gold Coast today. However, those twenty minutes were strong, while he preached a few people stopped to listen, and it was a joy to see many one to one conversations.

After Ryan finished preaching Paul got up and preached for his second time in Brisbane, he did a great job. He preaches with passion and is powerful when he speaks. It is great having so many different preachers and different styles of preachers in Brisbane, as together we can reach different people.

Joel then followed by preaching again. I am proud of Joel and all he is doing, he has grown so much over the past few years that I have known him. To see him going from standing around doing very little to standing up with Bible in his hand preaching has been of great encouragement to me.

At the end of the night I stood up and preached. My text was Matthew 7 and my topic was “Which Road Are You One?” While preaching a young man named Mitch stopped and he heckled a bit, so I engaged him. He started off very arrogant about the fact that he was a bad boy going to hell. But, by the end he was humbled and he saw his need for the Saviour. He took an in-depth gospel tract and also a CD presenting the gospel.

Please pray for Mitch and all those who heard the gospel tonight.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Full report with pictures: http://www.operation513.com

For other Operation 513 team reports visit: http://www.operation513.com/battlelog.php

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Josh Williamson May 6th, 2009

Saturday, 25th April 2009

Today the nation stopped out of respect for all those men and women who have laid down their lives for the freedom we enjoy in this greatest nation in the World. Since it was ANZAC day, I thought it would be good to preach on an ANZAC related text.

However, we tried something new tonight, for the first time we decided to have Andre sing and Joel to play guitar. They sung the song “The End of the Beginning” which is basically a gospel message in song. I must admit I was very sceptical about it. I didn’t believe that singing would work in Brisbane city. But I was glad to be proven wrong. As Andre sung and Joel played a crowd began to gather. The crowd grew and grew during the song. Once the song finished it was immediately handed over to me for the preaching. To my surprise no one left the crowd, but rather as I preached the crowd grew even more.

My text for the night was John 15:13, I started off by talking abut how amazing it is that someone would die for their friends, but then swung it to show that it is even more incredible to die for your enemies. That was the launch pad to show that Christ died for sinners even though we were His enemies.

For twenty minutes the crowd built and no one heckled. It was silent as people just stood and listened to the gospel. As Andre later described it, all you could see was wave upon wave of conviction on the faces of those listening. Towards the end of my message a couple of hecklers arose, however, their arguments were very weak and only lasted a few seconds. Nothing could stop the message of the cross. While I am not one for feelings, there was a different atmosphere, you could feel the Spirit of God moving on the hearts of those around about. Afterwards I was told that there was many professions of faith that night on the street. To God Alone be the Glory!

After this Andrew Hsu got up to preach, and he did a great job of making the gospel known. A small crowd gathered to listen and a few people heckled. During this time there were many one to one conversations occurring and many gospel tracts going out. The night was shaping up to be a very blessed evening.

By the end of the night we were all on a high after seeing God move, it was such a humbling thing to realize that God used us as mere created being to share the gospel with people who then responded to the call of repentance.

May God be forever praised!

Soli Deo Gloria!

Full report with pictures: http://www.operation513.com

For other Operation 513 team reports visit: http://www.operation513.com/battlelog.php

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Josh Williamson April 21st, 2009

Saturday, 11th April 2009 - Brisbane

The Easter weekend was here, it is that time of the year when the churches all fill up on the Friday and Sunday, but then remain empty until Christmas. It is that special season when people all serve God with their lips, but in reality their hearts are far from Him. Yet, into this religious season we find ourselves being the busiest in comparison to any other season.

It has been drizzling rain all day so I expected a slower night in the city. For a city that is still officially in drought it is amazing how much rain we have been getting over the past few days and weeks. While some ministries refuse to work during the rain we have found that we get some of our best conversations happen when people are all taking shelter from the water.

The mall was near on deserted when we arrived at 9pm, and I must admit it was a bit discouraging, but as I looked up and down the mall I noticed a man dressed in a black leather jacket walking towards us. This man is familiar to us, he was no other than the “famed” Brisbane Atheist Alex. Once he was on the scene we knew it would be a night of ridiculous arguments from the atheist camp, but it would also serve to bring in the crowds to hear the gospel.

It was good to have my evangelist mentor from the “Young Evangelist Mentoring Group” to come out on the streets tonight. As I was setting up I noticed Graham Sercombe standing undercover talking to a young man about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Andre was the first preacher up for the night, his preaching has improved dramatically. His messages drip with theology and he presents it in a way that the common man can grasp and understand. He is also getting louder as a preacher which is really good. While Andre was preaching a group of Samoans surrounded him and began to speak really loud, to top it off Alex was walking back and forth screaming obscenities. Since Andre was being drowned out I moved in next to the Samoans and engaged them in a one to one conversation. Slowly I moved them out of the face of the preacher and began to reason with them. Like most Samoans they were religious but they hadn’t any idea when it came to knowing Christ personally. So I began to explain to them the gospel. One of the boys became distracted and walked off, but the other remained and listened. He was really open to the Good News about Jesus. It was then that I noticed that Graham had come alongside the other guy and was now engaging him in conversation. The group all took in-depth gospel tracts and a Gospel of John each. It was really encouraging to see these young men grasp the truth of the Scripture. Graham even got to pray for one of them.

By now Ryan was up preaching and Alex was still in there heckling. He stood before Ryan with his iPod on yelling abuse. This continued for some time. Alex would put an argument up but before Ryan could answer he would put his ear piece back in. The back and forth continued for some time. Finally two members from the Queensland Police Service who were walking past tapped Alex on the shoulder and told him to be quiet or move on. This stopped Alex in his tracks, he didn’t yell anything more for the rest of the night. Ryan continued to preach a good size crowd gathered around to hear the Gospel.

By now the night was getting on, and since I had been sick all week with a head cold I thought it would be wise to only preach a short 10 - 20 minute message. God however had other plans. As I began to preach a few people stopped including one man who was a Roman Catholic. He engaged me about how God is all forgiving, I showed him from the Bible that God is not all forgiving, but He will forgive on the basis of what Christ has done.

For forty five minutes I reasoned with this man and preached the Gospel of Christ. Afterwards there were many conversations about the gospel. May people get saved for His Glory!

Week of E - Report by Josh Williamson and Ryan Hemelaar

Monday, 13th April 2009 - Gold Coast

Easter Monday holiday, and once again the cloud cover came in and rain was threatening. Today we started our first ever “Week of E” which will run each school holidays, what we do is go to the one spot and for each day in the holidays we will preach and witness on that one spot for a week.

Today the team was made up of Ryan, Andre, Joel, Amy and myself. My voice was sore from preaching on Saturday night and also preaching at Rosalie Baptist Church on Sunday morning, so I planned not to preach.

Andre stood up the preach first, and all I can say is WOW! It was the best sermon I have ever heard him preach. For about twenty minutes he expounded on what the Gospel is. And he had a crowd for the whole time, the crowd was made up of mostly middle age to older people all who stood and just listened.

Afterwards both Ryan and I ended up preaching, and during our short three hours on the Gold Coast we were able to distribute thousands of tracts and have many one to ones. The week is shaping up to be exciting.

Tuesday 14th April 2009 - Gold Coast

Josh had a Church meeting today, but I still made my way to the coast. I was able to have many great conversations with people and hand out stacks of gospel tracts. A guy called Dave, who is part of Open Air Campaigners, joined me later in the afternoon and he set up a flip chart to share the gospel with people. Quite a few people stopped to hear and see the gospel message being presented by him.

During this time, I had a rather in-depth conversation with a Sikh fellow. He wanted to go to Heaven, but after bringing him through the commandments, he realised he didn’t deserve to go there. So I explained that he must repent of his sin and trust that they only reason he’ll go to Heaven is because of Jesus’ death. After asking him when will he do that, he said he believes in Jesus, but also every other religion as being correct as well. That is one of the fundamental beliefs of the Sikh religion, they must believe that all other religions are true as well. But I explained to him that it is impossible for someone to truely believe that every religion is correct. He asked why. So I explained that since Jesus said He is the only way to get to Heaven, Jesus was saying that every other religion is false. So therefore, if someone wants to believe that Christianity is true, they must also believe that every other religion is not the way to Heaven. The fellow understood that, but said, “My scriptures say that I’m not allowed to convert to other religions” - which is rather ironic, because if all religions are true, there shouldn’t be a problem in converting to another “true” religion. So I explained to the man that since the Sikh Scriptures are logically inconsistent (in saying that all religions are true), there is no point holding to something that is plain wrong. Please pray that God will convert this man from his work-righteous religious system.

Wednesday, 15th April 2009 - Gold Coast

I was running a bit late, so I arranged to meet Ryan down the Coast today. As I arrived and began to walk to Cavil Avenue I heard a yell from a passing car, it turned out the Joel, Glenda and Amy Barnard had all come down the Coast as well. So we met up and made our way to the beach front for some witnessing.

One the walk in we were able to hand out many tracts and engage in some great conversations.

Upon arriving on the beach front we had a quick lunch then Ryan began to preach. He did a great job in expounding the gospel and telling people how they can come to know Christ. Afterwards we were able to hand out many tracts again and also talk to people one to one.

At the end of the day when leaving something awesome happened. On Saturday, I was handing out gospel tracts and one of the Metre Maids came over to say that I was doing a very good job and asked what Church I go to. She then asked, “Do you think it is inappropriate for me to be wearing what I’m wearing.” I said that the Bible does say that you should not cause another person to stumble into sin. She then asked a couple of other Bible related questions, like “What do you think will happen in the end times?”, etc.

On the Tuesday, I ran into them again on the street and was able to present the law and the full gospel to both of the girls that were on duty. One of them was really interested in the message, but the other not as much. However the following day, I returned and asked them if they thought about the message I told them the previous day. They said they had and they both wanted me to pray with them to receive Christ as Lord and Saviour. So I did. Then they informed me that it was one of the girls’ last day on the job and she’d be moving back to the Whit Sundays. Praise God she was able to hear the gospel before she left the Gold Coast! The other girl said that she would now also be having a change of career as well. To God be the glory!

Thursday, 16th April 2009 - Gold Coast

Ryan and I were the only ones who could make it to the Coast today, but we were both fairly excited about the ministry opportunities that would present themselves. We followed the usual practice of tracting everyone up on our walk in, this in turn then produced one to one conversations. That is something I really love about the Gold Coast, it is extremely easy to get a conversation with someone.

After a quick lunch I decided it would be a good time to preach. So I stood up and spoke about how Australians like a week off, then I swung it around to why we have Easter off and what its significance is.

A crowd gathered and I had three really rowdy young people all of whom attend “Christian” school start to heckle me. There heckles were basic at best. “There is no god” was their cry, but they weren’t open to being shown otherwise. Although towards the end one of them had changed, he was listening. Please pray that God would convert him.

The crowds stayed around for about an hour, God was kind enough to allow His word to go out, and many people heard the good news of salvation.

Friday, 17th April 2009 - Gold Coast

The final day of the Week of E. Again it was just Ryan and I that went out, but once again God blessed the ministry. We both preached today and both of us had fairly good size crowds stop and listen to the gospel. It was also very good to actually see some people who had come to the last 2 -3 days of preaching. While Ryan was preaching there were a few of the normal heckles like “Prove God exists” etc. Ryan dealt with them and then proceeded to preach Jesus Christ.

After Ryan finished it was my turn to preach. I started by using Amos 4:12 and asking people are they prepared to meet God. A few young ladies stopped to listen so I engaged the most vocal one of them. She was very hostile to the things of God, but she brought a crowd in. She kept asking questions like “What about homosexuals, does God love them?” I kept bringing back her questions to the fact that Jesus was a friend of sinners and He loves sinners. But that doesn’t mean they can stay in sin.

At the end the majority of the crowd took tracts. Please pray for all those who heard the gospel this week. May God save them for His Glory!

Soli Deo Gloria!

Full report with pictures: http://www.operation513.com

For other Operation 513 team reports visit: http://www.operation513.com/battlelog.php

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Josh Williamson April 13th, 2009

Saturday, 4th April 2009

The first outreach of the month, I am constantly amazed at how quick the year has gone. And, as I look back over the past few months I cannot help but stop and stand in amazement at how good God is, and how much He has blessed us as a ministry.

Tonight was no different, God once again showed us how awesome He is and how He is the Sovereign One when it comes to the salvation of souls.

From the start of the night things went really well. While Rodney and I were setting up the Bible table these two Islanders stopped and asked if they could have a Bible. So I struck up a conversation with them. Both of them professed to be Christian, so I asked, “Really, how do you become a Christian?” They looked a bit puzzled by the question, and it was clear that they had never thought about it. Then one of them replied, “We are Christians because my parents are Christian, and so are my grandparents.” This was interesting, they were viewing Christianity as nothing more than something that gets passed down the line. So, I asked these two blokes a question, “Are you parents married?” “Yes” they both replied, “Ah.. So you two must also be married right?” They replied they weren’t married, so I pressed it. “Surely since your parents are married, that must mean that you are also married? Isn’t one considered married because their parents are married?” One of them then said, “No, you have to make a choice to be married, you can inherit it.” From there I was able to point out that just like you don’t inherit marriage, you cannot inherit Christianity. Since they wanted a Bible, we gave them both a Gospel of John, then I got them to open it to John 3:3, this was the jumping off point to show them that while they may have been born in a religious home, they needed to be born again. The two young men listened intently to the gospel, and at the end they both shook my hand and thanked me for taking the time to witness to them. Please pray that God would cause them to be born again.

During this time Ryan was preaching and during his message this young man walked up to him and said, “Do you remember me?” Ryan looked at the man, and couldn’t remember him. But then the man said this, “Last year you witnessed to me at Gold Coast Schoolies, as a result of that conversation I have since been converted!” That statement put the whole team on a high, God was so kind to show just a little bit of fruit from the ministry.

Later in the evening when it came time to preach I was still encouraged by the conversion of that young man. While I was preaching God was kind once again, He brought a young Irish man in to heckle. Sean was a friendly guy and was quite open to the gospel. Once the gospel had been presented to him, Alex entered in for his weekly argument. His statements are now reaching the absurd. He is a classic fulfilment of Psalm 14:1. Please pray for both Sean and Alex.

The night in general was AWESOME! God is so great. To Him be all Praise!

Soli Deo Gloria!

Full report with pictures: http://www.operation513.com

For other Operation 513 team reports visit: http://www.operation513.com/battlelog.php

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