Straight to the Heart

The whole world has descended on my part of South-West London. The Wimbledon Tennis Championships are nearing their final weekend, which means that people have gathered from many different nations to watch the oldest and greatest tennis Grand Slam. My wife and I have tickets to join the crowds tomorrow, but last night I paid a more important visit to the All England Tennis Club. I went to tell the international crowds about Jesus.

Absolutely tennis crazy. That’s the only way to describe the two thousand people who were camped out in queues last night in Wimbledon Park. It’s first-come-first-served for the remaining tickets on each morning of the competition, and the keenest tennis fans camp out all night to ensure they get tickets to see Andy Murray or Roger Federer. By the time I arrived there at 9:30pm, most people had staked their places and were ready to talk.

With a group of Christians from many different churches across Wimbledon, I went from tent to tent with free cans of Coke and cookies. Our goal was simple. We simply told people that we were Christians with free refreshments as a reminder that God loves them and provides for them freely each day of their lives. If the conversation went no further than Venus Williams’ shock exit in the quarter-finals that afternoon, then it was enough for them to know that a bunch of Christians believe that God loves them. If it moved on to deeper spiritual discussions, then even better.

I came home just before midnight, buzzing with excitement. I had gone out knowing that Jesus taught at the end of Matthew 9 that “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” In fact, I had preached on that verse only last Sunday. But the truth is I had forgotten just how true those words were until last night amongst the tennis fans camped out in Wimbledon Park.

No one refused our gifts or our message. Most people admitted to feeling a primal instict to pray whenever their favourite tennis star is losing. At the end of the evening, my friend Astrid and I had a brilliant conversation with two A Level students about Jesus, his death and resurrection. We went out armed with nothing more than fizzy drinks, cookies, some Christian literature and a passion for Jesus, and we came back discovering that the harvest is plentiful.

People are interested in God, in the Bible and in discussing the meaning of life. The truth is that many of them simply have such terrible perceptions of what Christians are like that they don’t think we can give them many answers to their questions. Yet take some time out today to perform a simple act of kindness, and you will see how quickly God can turn it into a gateway for the Gospel. Paul writes in Romans 2:4 that God’s kindness leads people to repentance. It has done so throughout the centuries of church history, and it still does so today.

I had driven to work that morning, struck by the faces of the crowds at every bus-stop, praying for strategies to reach them with the Gospel. By the end of the day, God had answered my question. The strategy is as simple as kindness and faith and willingness to make the most of every opportunity. Jesus meant it when he taught that “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”