Who is Stephen Pallesen?

Hawkes Bay Christian Communicator.

A bit about me...

In 2008 I was involved in an internship with a local church in Lower Hutt city and during this time an Evangelist came and spoke at the church and I was really stirred up, I knew that God had called us as Christians to share the Gospel and I really wanted to be stepping out in faith to see God move in people's lives.

After hearing that Evangelist speak I knew I had to get out and start making opportunities to share my faith with others.  That same night I talked to my friend Ryan about going out and doing some evangelism on the street the following night in Wellington city and God had also really stirred him up about evangelism so it worked out perfectly.

We met up the following night and after prayer we headed into Wellington with no idea what to expect! After failing twice at trying to initiate a conversation about God, I started to feel a little bit discouraged and I thought "why are we even out here!" But then I thought "no I know that God wants me to be out here and I know that he's got a reason for us to be here tonight!"

We started to walk down Cuba mall and this random guy walked up to us and asked my friend Ryan if he was a cop then asked me the same question, we both replied "no we are not cops..." This fairly respectable looking 30 year old then asked us if we knew where to get a tinny and we said we don't know. We then proceeded to walk down Cuba mall and he walked with us. "So what are you guys doing in town tonight anyway?" He asked. I told him, we're out here talking to people about God, and he said "Oh yeah do you want to go grab a cup of coffee?"

I was totally blown away by this reply and I said "Sure!"

So we went and grabbed a cup of coffee and had an awesome conversation with this guy, the amazing thing was that all the people in the Café were listening in our conversation!

There would have been at least eight other people who heard what we were talking about! After that Monday night we decided that we would make it a weekly thing and we did evangelism like this for close to a year, through it we had many divine encounters with people that God had fully set up!

This really started the ball rolling for me in evangelism and it grew my confidence greatly.  My best friend Luke Collis had done the OAC school of Evangelism at the beginning of 2008 and then went on to do an internship with them later on that year.

In the beginning of December 2008 I had a mini holiday and travelled up to the Hawkes Bay to see him and do some evangelism too, when I arrived in Napier he was straight into preaching in the Open Air and I thought this was awesome, but I thought to myself "man I could never do that!"

Luke told me about the School of Evangelism coming up at the beginning of 2009 and said that I should do it, but I said "I can't I've got too many responsibilities with work and Church..."

I prayed about it anyway and I really felt God was saying to do the School and that it would lead into full time ministry, so I resigned from my job and started the school in February 2009, it was an awesome time of growth, during those 7 weeks I grew a lot in my skills in evangelism and communication and we also had an amazingly united group of people involved which was such an awesome experience to be a part of!

After the School I got offered an internship with OAC and after 5 weeks back in Wellington I returned to the Hawkes Bay to start my internship on the 14^th of May 2009.

The internship ran for 6 months and during that time God grew me and stretched me so much! God opened up doors to be able to minister to so many different people in different places and situations, my confidence and boldness grew so much more too and I'll never be the same again because of it!

Also I have done a fair share of Open Air preaching that I thought I could never do!

Now I'm staying in the Hawkes Bay with OAC ministries as a Trainee Evangelist and I'm looking forward to this year and everything God has in store.

I'm also doing the Diploma in Christian Ministry through Pathways Bible College via correspondence during this time to grow further in other important aspects of ministry and service.

What does Stephen Pallesen do?

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