Two Friday Night Notes!

two-for-one...

First off, I apologize for the lack of blogging the last two weeks.  Friday May 24th, after coming back from a two hour night of evangelism, I sat at my desk and turned on my computer to write a summary of our activities, but found that we were without internet access.  Even our phones were out; we were completely cut off.  Turned out that Bell Canada had been "fixing" some of our neighbourhood's phone lines, and had inadvertently switched us off.

The following Saturday and Sunday were booked solid, so I never got around to writing the summary notes.

This past Friday, Pastor Tim and I were out 'till 11pm.  By the time I left his house, it was 11:30pm, and by the time I made it home, it was near 1:00am.  It had already been a long week at work, so when I got home, I had a small dinner, and went straight to bed; and like the week before, Saturday and Sunday zipped by with little by way of free time.

Which brings us to Sunday night, midnight to be precise, and I am determined to write a quick version of the "Friday Night Notes" for the last two weeks.

The traffic has been far heavier the last couple of weeks in the market.  With summer weather comes outdoor patios at every pub and restaurants in the marketplace, and people pack every chair.  It's sad to see the number of people, especially young people, heading to the pubs but the increase in traffic means more souls get to hear us preaching the Gospel of Life.

We've dealt with all manner of souls lately.  So-called "Jehovah's Witnesses", Muslims, Romanists, Atheists to name a few.  All of them coming with trick questions, trying to snare us in some contradiction or error, like the Pharisees and scribes did to the Lord Jesus Christ two millennia ago.  The more things change, the more they remain the same I suppose.  The outcome of these exchanges are usually quite in line with what one would read in Scripture as well: mockery, anger, sadness, and occasionally confusion.

For example, Pastor Tim dealt with a Romanist who did her best to defend the practice of praying to the "Virgin Mary".  Pastor asked the woman whether Mary was in Heaven, when the woman answered with an affirmative, Pastor Tim then asked: "Well, how can she hear your prayers?  God can hear your prayers because he's everywhere, filling all in all.  Is this true of Mary?  Is Mary a god, or is she a human woman?"  This really perplexed the poor woman who claimed that her priest would surely have a good answer to this problem.  Good luck to him!

One thing that has been missing in our nights of evangelism of late is serious opposition; something we are quite thankful for.  We are steadily mocked, and I had a young man threaten me last Friday night, but it was nothing serious really.  I'm either experienced enough now to not be alarmed by the occasional troublemaker, or perhaps the caliber of troublemaker has dropped the last couple of years.  Either way, I thank the Lord my God.

Another thing I am thankful for is the new parking garage attendant that works in the building right behind our preaching spot.  Collin, the last fellow who worked there, was quite favourable to us and even visited our church on a few occasions.  Well, the new guy is a Pentecostal fellow, and while I don't care much for the doctrinal errors of Pentecostalism, he is also quite favourable to our efforts.  He has even helped us get rid of those who would hinder our evangelism on a couple of occasions.  The Lord bless and help him.

With that, I will close these notes and God-willing, I'll be right back next Friday!

Have a blessed week, dear readers...

Rand