“40 minutes ago I was walking along the street, going out for a drink, minding my own business, now look where I am,” Lee said into the microphone at a healing meeting where I was speaking last night in Southampton.
Lee was on his way to the pub yesterday evening, when a total stranger called out to him, commenting on the fact that the two of them were wearing the same T shirt. They got into a conversation and Lee was invited to “Park Life.”
Park Life is a 5 day event in a tent in a park in central Southampton, where Life Church host meetings 3 or 4 times a day praying for the sick and preaching the gospel to anyone interested enough to wander in.
Lee never got to the pub. He came to the front during the time I was praying for the sick to say that he had been healed of 3 different conditions, including a knee injury, which he’d had since the age of 17. He’s now in his mid 20s.
I then preached the gospel and invited a response. Lee said “yes” to Christ. He was one of four people who responded for salvation at the 7.30pm meeting. As I got into my car to drive home, someone told me: “Lee’s become a Christian!”
Pastor Chris Kilby said to me: “I think this is an insight into what Jesus meant when he talked about how he wanted to make his followers ‘fishers of men.’”
Life Church is led by an evangelist. Chris Kilby has modeled evangelism to the church. When we went out for dinner, he stopped a couple of people in the street who were on crutches and offered to pray for them to be healed.
They’ve already seen many healings and numerous responses to the gospel during the first part of the week.
There were four meetings yesterday, and I was asked to speak at all four. The first three lasted only 45 minutes from start to finish. I guess there were between 50 and 100 people inside the tent at each meeting. The best attended being the evening meeting.
I prayed for the sick at the 11.00am meeting, and 4 people came to the front to say that they had been immediately healed. I then preached for 10 minutes, and 6 people responded for salvation!
Then I preached at the 1.00pm service and didn’t pray for the sick and 1 person responded to the gospel. Then I prayed for the sick at the 3.00pm meeting, and as far as I could tell no-one was healed, but there were 4 people who responded for salvation.
The evening meeting was a 2 hour meeting, and we had several immediate healings, including Lee who I mentioned above, and then there were 4 responses for the gospel.
So what’s the fruit of all this? Well, this afternoon Life Church will be baptizing some of the people who responded over the past 5 days at a public baptism in the park.
I came away from the event feeling that I had got closer to the sort of evangelism that was happening in the early days of the Christian Church in the book of Acts. Healing was often the point of contact. A way that unchurched people connected with God. Once someone is healed, they pay attention to the content of the gospel as it’s explained. (I was thinking all day of Acts chapter 8 and the evangelist visits Samaria). Unchurched people then respond for salvation, having both had a personal experience of the healing power of Christ, and having had the basics of Christianity laid out. This phenomenon gathers a crowd, and the church gains momentum as a result. Healing and sharing the gospel become “normal.”
It was interesting to me to see about 20 trainees from other churches who had been sent to the event for a week to partner in the mission and to be exposed to this raw New Testament outreach.
It was instructive to me that the first people Chris Kilby introduced me to were all new Christians sitting on the front row. The first 3 people I met had all become Christians in the past 3 days! These 3 were all out and about inviting others to Park Life.
So clearly Life Church are reaching people who would not typically attend church. The spiritual temperature of those involved was extremely healthy and there was much joy before, during and after each meeting. “When was the last time you led someone to Christ?” Answer: “Ten minutes ago!” No wonder church leaders want their staff to be exposed to Park Life.