Back in 2012, my friend Bob and I had the idea to go to a local fair on behalf of our church — not to sell apple pies, but to give out useful information about Christianity and our church. As so often happens, all we ever did was talk.
Tony and his family started attending our church, and Bob and I began talking again about our plan. I had already come up with a name: “Ask A Christian.” I had been listening to an atheist explain how he would go to public places and set up a booth called “Ask an Atheist.” Tony asked the hard question: “Why haven’t you done it?”
Well, I took the bait, made a few phone calls, and two weeks later we had our booth at the Bowmanville Ribfest. We didn’t exactly know what to expect, and for the first several hours no one even approached the booth. There were some Christians there who told us that it wouldn’t work, that the name was wrong, and that people would never be vulnerable enough to ask questions.
They were wrong!
Sure, sometimes we would sit there for hours with no one to talk to. I once had a young teenage girl come up and say, “You look so lonely, I thought I’d say hi.” What actually happened was very encouraging. People did come and ask questions about Christianity, worldview, and apologetics. We weren’t experts, but we knew enough to get by. We studied apologetics, but mostly we learned to ask questions to gather information, to listen carefully, and to answer questions as honestly as we could.
Over the last fourteen years, we have had at least 3,600 conversations (yes, I keep track), often with groups of three, four, five, or more people at a time. If I were to guess, maybe five thousand people have heard the Gospel. I can’t begin to estimate how many Bibles, New Testaments, and Gospels of John we have given away. We’ve even had some feedback that our ministry has been effective, with a few people actually becoming Christians.
Right now, we have a team of four people volunteering in the ministry. We have also started some new adventures, like a website, Facebook, and simply being available for whatever God may have in store for us. Please pray for us. We know that we cannot be successful unless He is at the centre of everything we do.
This weekend we’ll be at the Bowmanville Ribfest again. We pray that this will be the best event ever, that questions will be answered, that the Gospel will be shared, and that many people will hear that forgiveness is available to them. JW
