Prophetic Evangelism

All this week our teaching has been from a lady called Patricia Bootsma and has been about prophetic evangelism. The whole idea of this is that we use prophecy (asking God what they want to say to someone and then telling them) as a tool in evangelism. If someone came up to you and knew something about you that no one else should know, you would probably want to know how wouldn't you? So sometimes God gives people what are called "words of knowledge" which are things that no stranger should ever know, this gets people attention and then gives you the opportunity to talk to them, tell them whatever it is that God wants to say to them and maybe pray with them and if they are ready even lead them to Jesus. It's all very cool, and when Patricia talks you get these images of these amazing bang, bang bang encounters where everyone one gets saved and everyone gets healed and it's all amazing. So on Thursday morning, we were given the opportunity to try it all out. Once again God taught me a lesson in my expectations- never expect God to do the same thing twice, to work the same way in two people or to say the same things to different people. Before we went out we prayed and asked God for words for the people he wanted us to speak to. I saw a lady with bright pink in her hair, others saw a yellow jacket, a certain type of hat etc. So then we went out to the border of the Chinese sector by Kensington market (yes Ontario has a London, Stratford, Kensington). We first started chatting to this homeless guy, got him some food and a couple from the group talked to him. I was with another student called Dan, and we started talking to another guy, funnily enough called Dhan (pronounced the same though), who was hanging around. This guy could have talked for Canada. He was on about Shakespeare, the English and the Irish not getting on (or leader was an Irish guy), loving Dan's accent, telling Dan he needed an English wife..... on and on. Occasionally we got to talk and he seemed to really like what we said, was well up for praying, but then got distracted again and again. It was really frustrating because from what he said, he knew stuff about Jesus and believed much of it, but didn't really know him as a friend. Eventually though Dan suggested that he pray with us. So we prayed and the guy repeated, and his attention was fixed rigidly on us and on God which was really cool. We prayed for a deeper relationship with God and for release from his alcohol addiction. Then he went off and we wandered on again. As we were walking along I suddenly saw her- the lady with the pink hair. She was sitting at a cafe on her phone. Not wanting to interrupt her phone conversation, we went and got a drink, sat down and waited. She was making call after call while we were getting our drinks, and so we ended up spending about 20/30 mins waiting for her to finish her call. After waiting that long, there was no way I wasn't going to talk to her, so as soon as she had finished on the phone I was there. "Hi, my name's Sarah. I'm from a school near here where we are learning to hear God's voice. I was praying before asking god who to talk to and he showed me a picture of you. I really feel that he want to tell you that you are not forgotten, that he really cares for you and has not forgotten you" Woman nods politely whole way through, "I was wondering if I could pray with you" So you ready for the amazing, life changing answer, with which I can rival Patricia in her amazing stories? "No, sorry I don't pray!" Well there's not much you can say to that is there? So I said that was cool, wished her a good day and turned back to Dan and my milk shake. l was a bit disappointed, but at the end of the day I did what God asked of me and, even though I didn't see it, I have no idea how much what I said might have actually affected her. Now I had approached one person (me doing the initial talk as appose to letting someone else start and me jump in) I was raring to go. So we went into the flower shop next door and chatted and prayed with the lady in there which was really cool. Then we wandered down the street and joined the others who were talking to two lads a bit older than me. One of them looked so down and quite ill really. Simon, the leader, was just chatting to them and as is his was he leads the conversation as the Holy Spirit leads. Patricia is very in your face direct about the fact she has words about you from God, Simon, however, is much more disarming. He strikes up conversation and then if God gives him a word of knowledge he just prompts them to talk about it, so for these guys he simply asked "What is your dream" and the guy just lit up totally and was talking about his dream of opening an eco-store selling solar panels and educating people about renewable energy sources. As he spoke I could see him doing it- it fitted so well with even the little I had seen of him. His friend was also interested in doing that, but much more in being an advocate for the cause. So we were able to pray with them that God would open doors for that dream and he would guide them through. Finally it was time to think about heading back to the van, but first I saw something that just made me laugh. When we had been praying for pictures of who to talk to, I saw a picture of someone on a bike. I remember telling God just how stupid that was because of course if they were on their bike I wasn't going to be able to talk to them- he was silly to even suggest it. So we are standing on the street corner and low and behold browsing the display outside the shop across the road was a lady and her bike! I didn't even question that I was supposed to talk to her, I dashed across and went and started explaining who I was, what I was doing and asked if I could pray with her. She looked rather shell shocked but agreed and suddenly I was stuck- I now had to say something, so I called Marta over and told her we were praying for this lady 'Sarah'. So we started praying and I got a picture of God holding her really close so I told her that God really wanted to draw her in close and tears started to fall down her cheeks. It turned out that she was a Christian and new God, but was just really blessed by the fact that we came and prayed with her. It was a lovely end to the morning :)
So although the morning didn't pan out the way I expected, it was amazing fun and I am just waiting for the next opportunity to go and do it again :)