Campus evangelism testimony 23 May 2012

I would like to share my testimony for our weekly Wednesday evangelism outreach at Monash University Clayton Campus.

Date and time: 23/5/12 (Wed), 12-2pm

Place: outside STA travel, campus centre

It is encouraging to see Rachel Chiang coming along to the evax session. We went around and initiated conversations with people by using surveys and the curved illusion gospel tract.  A few people declined our offer to do a survey but they had no problem receiving the ‘Are you a good person’ gospel tract. Don’t be discouraged when someone rejected you, we can always let the gospel tract to do the talking for us. Eventually we managed to talk to Ariel and her friends in the main dining hall. We used the curved illusion tract to start the conversation. They were amazed by the gospel tract and I proceeded to say, ‘you know one of the biggest illusions in life is that people think that they are good people, would you consider yourself to be a good person?’ We managed to go through a few of the Ten Commandments before her friends came. After that, Ariel showed her friends the curved illusion tract and did the eye test on them. Thank God we managed to give out two other curved illusion tracts to her friends as well.

Apart from that, Angela and I both had a heart for Chinese students so we decided to talk to Chinese students about the Good News every week. This week we used Mandarin to talk to Tony and his friends who were from China. We found out that they were Buddhists so we went through the five precepts from Buddhism with them using the ‘are you a good Buddhist?’ tract. 

The five precepts are:

1. Do not kill (similar as the sixth commandment - you shall not murder)

2. Do not steal (similar to the eighth commandment – you shall not steal)

3. Do not indulge in sexual misconduct (similar to the seventh commandment – you shall not commit adultery)

4. Do not make false speech (similar to the ninth commandment - You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour /lying)

5. Do not take intoxicants 

I found it surprising that Tony and their friends have never heard about the five precepts before. The five precepts are different from the Ten Commandments in that they are more like guidelines rather than commandments for Buddhists. However, the five precepts are excellent tools for building bridges for using the Law to convict the heart of Buddhists. Tony thought he probably had broken a few. Remarkably he had heard about Jesus before because some missionaries have talked to him on that topic. Although they made jokes about the commandment while we talked to them, they were open to listen to the gospel.

After that, we did a questionnaire with a local student called Alex. After we went through a few of the Ten Commandments, he appeared to get offended by the questions. This is better than an apathetic response because his conscience was convicting him of his own sins. Apathy means that the person might have a seared conscience (1 Tim 4:2).  Paul in Romans 7:7 said ‘I would not have known what sin was except through the law’. Don’t be afraid when people are offended, because it is necessary for the Law to expose the true condition of people’s heart. If the person’s self-righteousness is not humbled by the law, he won’t be ready to accept the grace of God. How will they realize the need of a saviour when they don’t even understand the trouble they are in when they face God on the Day of Judgment? Anyway, we thanked Alex for his time and left him The Regal Standard newspaper. The Regal Standard is a newspaper originally designed to counter the atheist convention in Melbourne in April 2012, with contents such as science and faith, a prominent atheist renouncing atheism and the problem of suffering. I find this newspaper a useful tool for spiritual conversation starters with friends. I have tried that on my housemates. It worked. Every week we handed out dozens of Regal Standard and I believe the newspaper can change people’s life. You can read the newspaper on this website and share it with your friends: http://regalstandard.com.au/

Charlie Lam

Clayton Science/Arts life group, Hope Melbourne Waverley Centre

Campus outreach testimony 17 May 2012

Here is a brief report of what happened on our Monash Clayton weekly outreach on 16/5 (Wednesday).

It’s great to see Jean Marc coming along for an hour for our outreach session, and he did some surveys with Angela. Andrew and I did some treasure hunting and we talked to Esther, River and Joseph. We found out that Esther and River were Korean Christians. Esther was shy but she told me that she was deciding whether to go for further study. So I told her not to worry because God holds her future. Sometimes in treasure hunting we offer words of encouragement when we are prompted by God. We also offered to pray for Yali and Jessica for their studies but they kindly refused us. That’s OK. We all learned from trial and error.

After that, I managed to talk to Alice and James from Mannix College while they were promoting their ball. Alice was a nominal Christian. However, when I asked her whether she has kept the Ten Commandments, she was not sure. So I went through the Ten Commandments with her. She realized she was guilty and probably will go to hell because she broke God’s law. I explained the work of Jesus on the cross using the legal transaction concept in the court. I sensed that she understood what I said, but somehow something was blocking her from coming to accept Christ. Please pray for the halls people, for many of them do not know Jesus.

Other than that, God has put on my heart to talk to Gordon, a local senior who sells ‘the big issue’ on campus every week. Therefore, I buy ‘the big issue’ from Gordon every week and start a spiritual conversation with him. In my conversation with him in the past few weeks, I discovered that he used to go to Sunday school, and he was disillusioned with Christianity because of the conflicts between his Christian and Catholics relatives. This week I tried to open up the Ten Commandment with him but half way through he told me he was busy. Never mind, I will try again next week.

On Thursday I met with up Mike for lunch. Mike used to visit my life group last year. We talked about his future, especially about his major in his degree. Then I switched to the topic of where he will spend eternity with the ‘are you a good person’ gospel tract. I shared the gospel with Mike last year but I felt that he didn’t quite get it, especially the part about the reality of judgment day and heaven and hell. So I went through the gospel with him again and mentioned the Ten Commandments and the judgment of God. What is his response? I think he understood what I said, there was no offense and we moved on to talk about playing table tennis in the near future.

Charlie Lam

Clayton Science/Arts life group, Hope Melbourne Waverley Centre

Bible in 11 minutes

Watch this amazing email as it explains what bible is in 11 minutes. It has some good gospel illustrations.

http://www.biblein11.com/default.asp?iId=GEFIKJ

Campus evangelism outreach testimony 2 May 2012

I am excitied to share with you what happened in our campus outreach at Monash Clayton campus today.
 Participants: Andrew, Angela, Brad, Adhit and me

Time: 12-2pm
Venue: campus centre, Monash Clayton

 A few of us prayed in the main chapel before the outreach to prepare our hearts. Besides giving out free drinks and gospel tracts, we also did surveys and had spiritual conversation with many people. Particularly, I would like to share my conversation with Grace, a 4th year Arts student from China. Being an agnostic, she was open to the things of God. Overall, we had a good chat for at least 20 minutes. In the beginning, I went through the Ten Commandments and the Day of Judgment. She believed that she would be guilty of breaking the Ten Commandment and probably would go to hell if she faced God on the Day of Judgment. However, it did not concern her because she did not believe in God. So I used the following illustration as an example: if you stand in the middle of the road and a truck is coming to you, even if you don’t believe a truck is coming, that won’t prevent you from being a road-kill. I also explained to her that we exercise our faith every day, and put our trust to people we don’t know. For instance, when we take an aeroplane, we trust the engineers of the plane whom we don’t know; our lives are depended on the pilots that we have never met. Until we put our faith on the pilots, we will never know the aeroplane can take us to our destination safely. Similarly, we cannot experience the forgiveness of sin unless we put our faith in God.


After that, I mentioned about the work of Jesus on cross. It is like a legal transaction. In a civil court, we break the law and incur a fine. Jesus comes to the court to pay the fine for us. In the heavenly court, we break God’s law and the punishment is death, Jesus came to pay the penalty for us, dying for us on the cross for our sins. That is what the gospel is all about. I mentioned that by repenting from our sins (turn away from our old way to turn to God), we received God’s forgiveness. Grace was a bit hesitant to put her faith in Jesus, but the seed of the gospel was sown. At the end of our conversation, she thanked me for explaining the gospel to her and left her contact details with me. The bible says, ‘those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy’ (Ps 126:5). I believe in all my heart that someday I will meet those I have sown the gospel seed in heaven, rejoicing with God. Please keep Grace in prayer for God is drawing her near to him.


Be encouraged, and please come to the harvest field, for we make disciples from the harvest.

 Charlie Lam
Science/Arts life group, Hope Melbourne Waverley

Campus outreach report 21/4/12

Date and time: 21/4/12 (Sat), 12-2pm

First, we watched the video ‘Hell’s best kept secret’.
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEUPcK6hi4s

We learned the importance of using the law before presenting grace when we share the gospel. After that Jean Marc Ng and me went to campus and used this curved illusion tract to do outreach about 15-20 minutes.
Link to the gospel tract:http://www.livingwaters.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=82&category_id=8&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=199
It was rather simple and non-threatening. Basically we approached people and said, ‘Hello! My name is Charlie and this is my friend Jean Marc. We are doing a simple survey about how people see things. Do you have a minute or two to spare?’ People usually responded positively, because we approached people who were sitting and seemed to be relaxed. There is a message behind each of the card and people gladly accept the gospel tract because it was so fun. I told them to show it to their friends. In this way, their friends can read the gospel message as well.
In summary, we went up to people, asked them to the optical illusion test and gave them gospel tracts. This method does not require you to speak much. You don’t need to be bible scholars or expects in apologetics to do that. Even if you are too timid to speak, giving out gospel tracts is already part of sharing the gospel. Never underestimate the power of these paper preachers. Giving out gospel tracts has never been so easy and fun!

The following is a short video (about 2 minutes) that demonstrates how to use this curved illusion tracts on university campuses to break the ice, and begin a conversation with someone about Christ.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO4EGyXzSPU

Charlie Lam
Clayton Science/Arts life group, Hope Melbourne Waverley Centre

What is success in evangelism?

A quote from lesson 36: open air preaching part 3 in Ray Comfort, school of biblical evangelism


Many don’t understand that the salvation of a soul is not a resolution to change a way of life, but “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). Billy Graham said, “If you have not repented, you will not see the inside of the kingdom of God.” The modern concept of success in evangelism is to relate how many people were “saved” (that is, how many prayed the “sinner’s prayer”). This produces a “no decisions, no success” mentality. This shouldn’t be, because Christians who seek decisions in evangelism become discouraged after a time of witnessing if “no one came to the Lord.” The Bible tells us that as we sow the good seed of the gospel, one sows and another reaps. If you faithfully sow the seed, someone will reap. If you reap, it is because someone has sown in the past, but it is God who causes the seed to grow. If His hand is not on the person you are leading in a prayer of committal, if there is not God-given repentance, then you will end up with a stillbirth on your hands, and that is nothing to rejoice about. We should measure our success by how faithfully we sowed the seed. In that way, we will avoid becoming discouraged.

Charlie Lam
Clayton Science/Arts life group, Hope Melbourne Waverley

Campus evangelism testimony

My friends and I share why we do evangelism and our experience in overcoming the fear in sharing our faith with others.

Charlie Lam
Clayton Science/Arts life group, Hope Melbourne Waverley