A middle-aged church-going man asked me, “Why is your church marketing itself like a business?” I replied by informing him that rather than “marketing” ourselves, we were in fact, fulfilling the biblical command of Christ, who told us “go” not “come.” In other words, our commitment was to go and tell people about Jesus Christ and what He has …
Monthly Archives: October 2009
Prove it
The lady looked to be in her mid-thirties and was of southern European heritage. She told me that she, “used to go to church,” but had not done so for many years. She had guilt written all over her when telling me this. She went on to say that she had been divorced for fourteen years, she …
But they did not believe God
I suppose the number of church-affiliated people who told me that they believed in God, in comparison to the non-church-affiliated who said they did not, could have been as high as ninety-five percent. That figure is purely a guess on my part. In any case, I was quick to learn that it did not really matter. Of those ninety-five percent …
If words are powerful, how powerful are God’s?
I ministered to a lot of deeply hurting, angry and bitter people during my time as a street minister. So deep seated were these emotions in many, that not only were they affected mentally but also physically. Chronic sickness in the community was as common as a cold day in winter and if I was fortunate …
Continue reading “If words are powerful, how powerful are God’s?”
Just about everybody was an expert
In the three and a half years I ministered as a public messenger of the Christian gospel, it seemed that just about everybody was an expert when it came to the Bible. To the clever and the sophisticated, it was a book of out-dated ancient literature used by the religious, the political or otherwise, to control …
But they did not tell me that
For the first thirty-nine years of my life I knew nothing about the Bible or God. I was told something about Jesus Christ in my early religious upbringing, but what that personally meant for me I did not have a clue. Neither did anyone else. No priest, nun, pastor, ‘reverend’ or church-goer ever told me that …
But they still have a god
As a “hands on” public messenger of the Christian gospel in my local community I learned some powerful truths about human nature. I learned that everybody holds firmly to a belief system (god) regardless of whether they say they believe in God or not. It was a fascinating experience to listen to someone tell me something like, “I have no need of any God …
You’ve opened my eyes today
Leila was a Ukrainian lady in her early seventies who used to love coming to our church services on a Sunday morning after attending mass at her Ukrainian Catholic church, which was just a few hundred meters up the street. She was proud of the fact that she attended two services and participated in, “two holy communions today.” Doing such, gave her the …
No rules attached
Ben invited me in for a chat when I introduced myself to him at his door. He said he was in his late seventies, an ex-digger who fought in New Guinea during the Second World War, but now he was, “sick, divorced twice and happy with my lot.” He was a lovely old bloke but I …