In post-Christian Austria, an outreach team uses creative ways to reach people with the gospel.
During a week-long outreach in a least-reached area in Austria, 14 participants joined the small, local church to share Jesus’ love with people. “In the mornings, we learnt how to share the gospel in a vivid way and had music rehearsals for the concerts. In the afternoons, we worked in teams of two on the streets of Gmünd and the surrounding area and distributed lots of invitation flyers. In the evenings, there were various events to which we invited the people we met,” explains Johannes, who organised the outreach.
Previously unaware that there was an evangelical church in town, many people heard the message of freedom in Jesus through game evenings, church-goes-pub (an event in a pub with a quiz, cozy get-together atmosphere and evangelistic input), street outreaches, a concert in a retirement home and a musical for the whole family.
A black eye
“We saw two young people sitting on a windowsill in the main square. We approached them right away, but they weren't interested in talking to us, so we moved on. However, we couldn't get them out of our minds,” Johannes shares. “One of the team went back and gave them a tract entitled Did you know that Jesus has no use for good people? Very appropriate, especially as one of them had a black eye. Nevertheless, we still kept thinking about them and so we prayed that the Lord would send them our way again if we were to talk to them.
Later, we met as a team and talked about our experiences. Another team member told us that they had a long and good conversation with two young people, one of them who was sporting a black eye! The participant had a troubled past himself and was therefore able to connect well with the two. The Lord had led them to us again, and he also knew who in the team should talk to them. Again and again, God gives encounters that don't happen by chance.”