Preaching to the crowds at Panama City Beach

Attacked by Lambs

Last night a 21 year old died of alcohol poisoning.

He died in front of his condo. His friends, commenting in the paper noted he was highly intoxicated the last time they saw him. I saw 1000 or more of these students yesterday, encouraging them to put down their beer and bongs and open the Bible. Some responded, unfortunately, many did not.

Proverbs 27:5 Better is open rebuke
than hidden love.

I could imagine this poor young man, encouraged by his friends to take one more drink. I can imagine them giggling as he stumbles and falls one last time, because I have seen it. I can even imagine him on his ride home from the pancake people. He is feeling regret at getting so drunk. He only wants to get home to vomit up the wages of his sin. Over the day, he has received many veiled invitations to Christ only to turn them away. He appreciates the love shown him to get a ride home, but he cannot understand the gospel call at this point. He may even have prayed earnestly with the driver of the van, but it may have only been a prayer of regret at the feeling he is having. He is dropped off at his doorstep only to pass out and die in a pool of vomit.

My prayer is that he was on his way home after walking away from the beer and the bong in repentance and was following the call to get away and call out to Jesus for salvation. I say this because God takes no joy in the death of the wicked, and nor do I. You see, many young people here are the victims of hidden love, they get their bellies full of pancakes, they have spiritual conversations, they get free rides home. These are forms of love, motivated by Jesus (I believe) but they are hidden. They are not rebuked for their drunkeness, they are not encouraged to repent, only to ask for forgiveness while not having regret nor agreement about their sin before a holy God.

The Gospel was the theme of our preaching today, as it is every day. But I had a fire from God to preach today directly to the young people here on a mission of some sort to reprove them about the true nature and message of the Gospel. We began on a public street across from the pancake people. There we had a continual flow of pagans as well as the pancake people. We preached the Gospel hard from 10-1, reproving their understanding of the Gospel, teaching from Titus 2, John 3, and 1 Timothy 1. We had many one to one conversations with these students. We held signs in the midst of them. In my one to one conversations with them, 4/5 of these students are either new Christians, or else those who have been Christians for a while, but do not have a deep love or understanding of the scripture. They mocked the Gospel message. They mocked our desire to preach the Bible. They were very condescending. They threatened to call the police (in fact they did the other day against Shawn and Greg). It was discouraging; for it reminded me of 1 Timothy 3:

3:1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. 9 But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

Later on in the day, we connected with some more campus crusaders. One of our older men, Robert, was preaching the Gospel. You must understand that he is a very passionate man, but as gentle as a lamb in his approach. He preached a beautiful message, and got down from the bench. No sooner had he gotten down than a young man came charging in and began to rebuke him violently. I stepped in, and I asked the young man if he was a Christian. He said he was, and I instructed him to tone down his approach to this gentle older man, for he was rebuking an elder inappropriately for a Christian.

1 Timothy 5:1 Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers,

Soon, his friends joined him, and he continued to rant. His argument was not uncommon, but it was highly sarcastic and disrespectful. Despite this, I took the time to instruct him with Jake and Robert at my side. Their worldview is not biblical; for they see the beach’s residents as children of God.

Ephesians 2:3
among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

and not children of wrath. This basic misunderstanding of the scripture that many of these passionate young people have is one I had to repent of myself. So I patiently instructed them as to the lawful use of the law:

1 Timothy 1:5-11 5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

These young people are very passionate, but they have not not the skill nor the training to wander in and to teach and instruct and reprove elders who have studied. Even worse, they are taking their half Gospel of only the love of Jesus and the belief that forgiveness is for everyone, even the unrepentant. They want to teach people, but they have not been taught themselves of the deep things of God. They take the tone of conversation we are to have with brothers in Jesus Christ and make false application to the world at large. Lastly, they make confident assertions that Jesus is love and he will forgive everybody. It scares me to death. I reproved them with the following verses:

8 Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, 9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, 10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, 11 in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.

The law is not for the just, but it is exactly for those who are on the beach. I should not preach what I am preaching to brothers in Christ, for the law has already brought them to the cross. But for those who are living in sin, even those who are caught in false doctrine, it is exactly what should be used. The law of God, indeed the Word of God cuts straight through to the heart. The scripture is to be used in this way.

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

among believers, as well with non believers. We are to use the scripture to train believers, indeed ourselves. I need to be reproved and disciplined of God every day. I need His Word to be trained. There are so many young people that are passionate full of zeal, full of spit and vinegar, but they do damage to the Gospel.

I spent about an hour with this group, loving them, teaching them, praying with them. I pray that they will take the time to study and to prepare so that they can bring glory to God through their work. I pray that God would use them to reach their generation and change this culture for Christ.

The Damage of the Half Gospel

As mentioned before, there are several Christian groups down here sharing different versions of the good news.

While I was preaching from John 3 and Psalm 51 today demonstrating Biblical repentance and the action of being born again, we had many young people from Campus Crusade and Jesus loves Pancakes around us speaking to the crowd. While some were honestly interested in our ministry, and had questions, others were (in my opinion) distracting from the true work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people.

Allow me to back up; when we are preaching here, it is different than other open air sessions in several ways. First; we do not need to draw a crowd. It is already there surrounding us. Second, our messages are not quick hitting, they are more drawn out and purposefully hard hitting in terms of the unrighteousness clearly happening around us. We want to do what Jesus did; He did not back down or refuse to call Sin what it was. Third, I can actually exposit a passage of scripture like I did yesterday, because of the static crowd while also going back to salient points to the passing crowd. Last, we can give a repeated and clear presentation of the good news of the Gospel and what Jesus did for us. This format also allows for multiple conversations going on all around. Where normal open air struggles to keep a crowd, so your teammates are in the audience quietly helping you by paying attention, in this situation there are many one to one conversations going on all around where we are able to share with individuals who are interested in clarification of the message of the Gospel right in the crowd while the message is not stopped. These conversations can be very damaging or very effective, depending upon the skill of the one counseling.

Our team is trained to allow the person who is showing outward pain and sorrow at the message the time and the ability to come to terms with what God is doing. We are not called to comfort them and stop the work of the Holy Spirit, rather, we are to point them to repentance from sin and faith towards God in their pain and distress. We may give them literature, some Bible verses, we may even pray for them that they would be given the grace of repentance and the gift of faith. We will even give them our phone number if we must go! But we do not stop the work of God in their life by rushing them to a decision. We are not salesmen closing a deal, for salvation is a work of God. If God is working, this person will be born again.

Unfortunately, many people with great intentions will rush in to comfort someone in pain who is agonizing with the message. They will even grab someone who is really just a mocker and take the time with them to lead them in a prayer, distracting them from what God may want to do. Here is an example: Yesterday, during this clear message that we must be born again, a campus crusader took a young man who said he wanted to be born again, and, without further examination, led them in a prayer at the back of their pamphlet. This intoxicated young man, assured of his salvation, went immediately to go get another beer in our sight; yet another hard hearted false convert. This same fellow, along with thousands like Him, have called out to us in drunken stupor that they are proud of their fornication and have no worries because they are ’saved’. Why do we suppose christianity looks weak and hypocritical in our country?

Later in the day, we had other ‘christians’ approach the podium. These drunkards were objecting to the call for repentance and faith alone in Christ. One of the young ladies, while proclaiming her christianity, punched Jake the preacher in the groin. Another young couple, proclaiming their christianity, told shawn that he was a fu*&%#er at least seven times because he exorted the young lady to put some clothes on over her bikini and to stop drinking. When I asked if she was a Christian, she said yes, and I told her that Shawn was an elder and a minister of the Gospel and she should not speak to Him that way according to the Bible. She then cursed me out. I encouraged her to repent and to check the scripture. She cursed me all the way as she left.

Luke 6:46 says ‘why do you call me Lord Lord and do not the things I say?’ The Bible is clear that when we are in Christ, we are new creatures, the old has passed away. This is not to suggest sinless perfection; rather it is to say that it is a continual quest in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit to continue repenting of sin and turning to Christ. We are in the process of being saved, becoming more like Christ every day. Repentance is not a grace by which we can plan for sin, make an occasion for the flesh, commit the sin, then repent of it. That is not true repentance by any sense of the word. I have been guilty of this, but I am in process of learning and experiencing true repentance more and more. The danger of the half Gospel is that it does not tell people that they must change their mind and their actions. It does not explain that repentance is a forsaking of sin as well as a confession of sin. It does not explain that belief in Jesus is more than mental and emotional, it is volitional. I was a victim of this belief, God is saving me from it.

The very worst part of this half gospel is the very idea that somehow a prayer or a decision reflects a true change of heart and salvation. That salvation is somehow something that can be manipulated or proclaimed, that you can assure someone they are saved because they pray a prayer. Regeneration is a work of God, it is instant, and a process. It is a life that finds no comfort in sin and is unable to rest and sleep in that sin. It is the life of the narrow road; it enters in through the narrow door and it knows the pain and discomfort of being out of the will of God, as well as the joy that comes with repentance and the peace of God. The false convert never knows this, only the knawing fear that they may be judged because they didn’t follow the right formula or they can not do the ‘right’ thing. There is no fear in love, perfect love casts out all fear. Instead, it is some nebulous faith, and a feeling of guilt if you don’t have it quite right.

Friends, we need to proclaim the law so that people can know that they have a disease that only God can cure. We need to explain the wages or payment for dying in sin, we need to make it very real and very sober. And we need to scream from the rooftops that God loves and that Jesus saves- if we will get off the road we are on (repent) and get on the narrow by faith in Jesus alone. If we truly love people that are dying we will tell them the whole truth and not allow them to enter eternity without a chance.

Struck down, but not Destroyed

Matthew 10:14 And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. 15 Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.

Our ministry on Panama City Beach has gotten more dangerous…

Yesterday we had some great ministry down on the beach. It was 75 degrees, a beautiful day. You could not walk one step without being completely engulfed by drunken college students waiting for their favorite MTV band, and all this without a police officer in sight- unless you are planning to preach the Gospel.

Withing five minutes of our arrival at our first spot, we were surrounded by hotel security and the Sheriff’s department. Michael explained to the Sheriff’s department that we have gotten permission from the city attorney to preach within 25 feet of the water. This confirmed, they immediately left. There was no tickets issued to the multiple underage teenagers drinking alcohol, none issued to the ones flashing their bodies or gyrating sexually. This place is truly wicked, and the city council and those charged with enforcing the law are complicit in the wickedness.

One example was early in the day. An underaged female charged our speaker, knocked it over and in the process struck two people, one of whom was my son. We followed her and her friends until the single police officer arrived about 30 minutes later. Even though she and her friends were carrying liter bottles of booze, and were clearly intoxicated, none were issued a citation, or brethalyzed, despite a proponderance of witnesses to the incident. In his follow up, this young smallish officer witnessed a knockdown dragout brawl, and was surrounded immediately (with no backup, save me) by a bunch of angry, drunken, screaming breakers. He handled it well, no arrests made despite two young men who were brawling and bleeding. There were laws clearly broken, and kids who could have well been placed at least in a drunk tank, but nothing at all done. This city will reap what it sows as it supports this lawlessness with a total lack of police presence on this beach. I feel badly for these overwhelmed officers.

The ministry went on; we were on the northeast corner of the MTV stage with 7 preachers in rotation from all over the country. Thurstin, one of our CCN ministry students preached in the open air for the first time. He did well in conditions that even the most seasoned open air preachers can stumble and fall in. As usual, people who are drunk have a lack of boundaries and self control, so we had many situations where objects were thrown, people climbing up on our platform with the preacher, the usual obscene gestures and people flashing trying to get the attention of the preacher. None of it worked, and the Word of God was proclaimed with power and sparked many one to one conversations.

It was my last rotation that was interesting. There was a young woman that was intent on my exposition of Isaiah 53 and Psalm 51, as I was describing what Christ did and what we must to to respond. She was visibly impacted, weeping in the midst of drunken students who were intent on stoping the message. I continued preaching, and it was a good message with lots of interaction and response from the crowd.

The next thing I know I was being shaken by a young african american man, and slapped. I was surrounded by 50 kids all screaming orders at me. I was dizzy and had a headache and an eyeful of sand. Apparently, I was struck on the temple with a football thrown on purpose from the crowd. I fell backwards from our 2 ft tall podium and struck the ground. It was a scary place to be, surrounded by some angry people and some helpers. I was hoping my brothers were there (and they were). There was a girl crying (I think it was the same one listening to the message) telling the crowd that was surrounding me that the message was true, that they needed to repent and trust Jesus. I dont know if she was a Christian, but her demeanor makes me think Christ was working on her that moment in her weeping and pleading.

Eventually I was led away from the scene until the police could arrive (about 30 minutes later) and the EMT’s who were charged with checking me out. I was informed that the kid who threw the ball on purpose would only be charged with a misdemeanor, and would not be stopped even from continuing to enjoy his sin for a season. I praised God that there were some who were concerned, a brother from Bethel college prayed for me. Others who were listening to the message were there and I was able to share with them. The MTV guys were laughing and yelling at me saying I deserved it, and brother Jake and Shawn went over to preach to them. It was then the security showed up, and we were told that we were being trespassed from another hotels property. I didn’t get it; but we walked off. It was the same young officer, but while he was doing his paperwork, we began to preach at the kids gathered in the balconies. You see, while being trespassed, we had to stay on the property until he was able to gather all the information. So I preached, and it seemed to be effective, for eventually the officer and the security guards all agreed it was better that they give up on the tresspass order and stop our preaching than to pursue it. So the young officer escorted us off, and explained that it was no trespass order, and that we should stay off the property anyway. I thanked him for all his hard work through the day. I hope he gets saved.

I cannot wait to get on the box today, for I am ready to die for my king if need be. A bump on the head will not stop the message, by the grace of God.

Does Jesus love Pancakes?

This may seem like a completely ridiculous question; but I am completely serious.

There are a large number of students here (Panama City Beach Florida) who are wearing green wrist bands and t-shirts which state that Jesus loves pancakes. I was admittedly dying of curiosity, so yesterday while it was raining, I decided to check it out.

In a strip mall, near the beach, there is a large line outside. This line is a bunch of plants that are there to draw people in. (Note to Tony Miano: My first thought was to preach to this line, but I really wanted to see if they would try and share Jesus with me) They have rented a bowling alley, and some relief workers from the Southern Baptist Converntion are cooking pancakes. I go in, get some pancakes (they are GOOD) and get my belly full, while listening to secular music blasting from speakers above. After two full plates, no one has approached me. I get up and use the restroom to give them another chance. When I return, two young people are sitting on the bench I just left. The start a conversation; I ask if they are a part of this whole event, and they expain that they are, and what they do. Apparently, not only do they serve pancakes but they provide rides to those who are too intoxicated to drive, and then they share Jesus.

I am even more curious now. I ask them what they would do that for. This very passionate young person explains to me how incredible Jesus has been in his life without telling me anything more than some nebulous relationship with him (I am thinking critically here, trying to imagine I know nothing of Jesus). I ask him to be more clear, and he begins to go deeper into neverland for me. I don’t understand, I tell him I feel like I am a good person, I give to charity, I am nice to my family and my wife and my hot girlfriend**(**I do not have one; I am role playing here) and that life is very excellent for me and I have no worries. The kid continues to talk about his wonderful life and family and how good everything is for him also. It is nice conversation, but it is not evangelistic in the least. He has his worldview, and I have my role played worldview, and he has said nothing to break into mine. Everything is all good, even my role playing adulterous relationship.

The young lady now pipes in, talking about how she can see truth in my worldview that I am role playing, that she believes that there are truths outside the Bible, that the Bible was written by men, that there are mistakes in the Bible, that it is not wholly reliable. I ask them if the Bible is not reliable, can I believe in the Jesus of the Shack, because I really enjoyed the idea of a Jesus that was all loving and kind and would submit to my will, and love me no matter what. They said that was a legitimate view of Jesus (they both indicated they had read the Shack) but that I should still examine the Bible, though neither could give me a clear answer as to whether it was legitimate to rely on it alone.

The time for my role play had come to an end, for despite my best efforts to give them an open door to share the Gospel (I even provided an illustration of a road and a map for them) they still could not give me anything that would lead to an ability for a pagan hater of God like I was playing to come to a saving knowledge of Christ. There was no proclamation that I have sinned, that I was living in sin, no bursting of my bubble of a comfortable life, no fear of facing God. If I would have walked out of that place as a pagan and died, I would have gone to Hell knowing only that God loved me, and Jesus had made a change in someones life. So I explained to them my ruse; I told them I was a pastor and an evangelist and that I desired to share some thoughts with them.

I reproved their understanding of the Gospel. They believed the Gospel was doing nice things for people like filling their belly and giving them rides while drunk. These are nice works, and good things, but they are not the Gospel. Even sharing Jesus’ love with a drunkard is not enough, for I have met many drunkards on this beach that believe Jesus loves them and that they can get his forgiveness for their rebellion against the knowledge of God. A half Gospel is a false Gospel; I gave them the road illustration again, using an offramp to represent repentance, repentance from sin, from the direction that one is travelling away from God. This change of direction only comes if you know you are going the wrong way, and this is by looking at the roadmap (the Law of God) and allowing it to reprove and instruct you. If they would use the law of God to reprove sinners, and then show them the love of God in Christ Jesus who shed his blood and died to save us from our sins. I encouraged them to preach repentance from sins and towards God, trusting in Jesus alone for salvation.

Does Jesus love Pancakes? This is another example of how far we have fallen from the call of Christ to go into the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. I believe the intentions are good; but feeding people and giving them rides (often between parties) will not save them. A half Gospel, or a seeker sensitive relationship sensitive approach is not Biblical, and it can create a false convert. Later, on the beach, I was approaced by one of these pancake people and they said that 5 people had prayed to receive Jesus in their van, and they were now Christians. I asked how he knew; and he said that he had led them in a prayer. Where is that in the Bible? I wonder if he looked for them if they would still be drinking, having sex, hating God. I pray that they are converted, but with this pancake message, I truly wonder.

Spring Break-Panama City Beach 2009

It is Spring Break here in Sunny Florida. Hundreds of thousands have come to the beach for an annual dose of drunkeness, drugs, fornication, and flaunting of the lusts of the eyes and the lust of the flesh.

Our Campus group, (Change Collegian Network) travelled down here and joined forces with Shawn Holes, Michael Marcavage, and seven others to proclaim the Gospel to these young people focussed on fulfilling the lust of their flesh. After months of prayer and preparation, I thought I would be prepared. But I have never been in so wicked and vile a place as here.

Day one, we hit the beach at 11:00 AM and set up our station near LaVela, the worlds largest nightclub. If you have State Farm Insurance or Geico, you should find another company immediately because they are major sponsors of this wickedness. We have a half mile haler, and some microphones, and we simply preach the law and call men to repent and believe the Gospel. To those who are seasoned open air preachers, this is paradise and hell rolled up into one. Paradise in that there are 1000 sinners in direct hearing of the free preaching of the Gospel. The bad news is that many of them have no concept of decency in terms of dress or behavior. They do not understand personal space, or respect personal property. During our day there, young men and women openly exposed themselves, made sexual gyrations, and cursed God and us. We were privileged to be spat upon, have objects thrown at us, and have our micropone and speaker attacked. While they are doing this, they are proclaiming their goodness and their belief in God. I wonder quietly which emergent church they attend, and what jesus they worship.

There are so many who claim to be Christians here. I wonder if Jesus was speaking to them in the words of Jeremiah the prophet:
9Concerning the prophets:
My heart is broken within me;
all my bones shake;
I am like a drunken man,
like a man overcome by wine,
because of the LORD
and because of his holy words.
10 For the land is full of adulterers;
because of the curse the land mourns,
and the pastures of the wilderness are dried up.
Their course is evil,
and their might is not right.
11 “Both prophet and priest are ungodly;
even in my house I have found their evil,

declares the LORD. 12 Therefore their way shall be to them
like slippery paths in the darkness,
into which they shall be driven and fall,
for I will bring disaster upon them
in the year of their punishment,

declares the LORD. 13In the prophets of Samaria
I saw an unsavory thing:
they prophesied by Baal
and led my people Israel astray.
14But in the prophets of Jerusalem
I have seen a horrible thing:
they commit adultery and walk in lies;
they strengthen the hands of evildoers,
so that no one turns from his evil;
all of them have become like Sodom to me,
and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.”
15Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with bitter food
and give them poisoned water to drink,
for from the prophets of Jerusalem
ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”
I am so tired of these pastors giving bad advice and counsel to young people that Jesus loves them and will forgive them no matter what they do. A partial truth is still a lie. Young people who believe it will go to Hell just as sure as the most lost heathen. You cannot be a Christian and drink sin in like wine. The open flaunting of sin is beyond anything that I have seen; and the accompaning self righteousness and pride that states that they are still moral and good and christian is unbelievable. And they get this from their ‘christian’ parents and ‘christian’ pastors.

Pray for us, we are leaving this internet cafe and going out to do more preaching

New York City Repent and Witness 08

I finally got my camera and computer to communicate with each other, so we can upload this video from our Repent and Witness missions trip to New York City.

This is Kevin Nunez, Preaching at Times Square. 100,000 people cross that street every day. It is a great place to preach. 

I took my turn, observe the newscast behind me. I was able to weave current events into a Gospel presentation.

Then, we went for a ride on the Staten Island Ferry and interviewed some students who were there for a missions trip. I had to ask about evangelism. 

This was a character who interrupted our open air preaching on the subway. On the third video, I got kind of fired up and very demonstrative, and the police came. Our evolutionist friend ran away, and I was told to calm down, and I did. There was a crowd drawn, so I preached to the crowd. Don’t follow my example and get too emotionally fired up.  

After all that craziness, we had a great crowd. This was the message that God gave me to preach. I was able to tone down my voice to a level acceptable by the police, and the configuration of the room gave great amplification. Praise God!

Later on, at Union Square Park, we were able to draw a crowd of well over 200 people. This was a wonderful opportunity to preach the gospel for everyone who was there. Many spent time in one to ones, prayer booth ministry, open air preaching, and distributing tracts.

 

This was a great trip, and I have many more videos that I am uploading and I hope to share. If you are a college student, and you want to learn to evangelize and be equipped to train others, contact Tiffany at Change Collegian Network

Repent and Witness U of M

This week, Shawn Holes, our Evangelist brother who is traveling the country with his family winning the lost for Christ was here in Minneapolis. I decided to join him at the U of M and we also were joined by the E-Life ministry from Northwestern College. 

We started at Coffman Union, which heads a mall which had at the other end Northrup auditorium. It is a natural amphitheatre, and the sound bounces well and is amplified well for voices. We did open air at Coffman, and it was so well amplified two evangelists came from the other end to see what was going on! We joined them for a time and that was a real encouragement. We were also able to get in several one to one conversations with students who wanted to debate things like evolution, many roads leading to God, etc.

The best spot was on the bridge overlooking the bus stops. There was a new crowd every 15 minutes. We were able to open air there all day on Friday. It was great, and we even were able to engage some people in conversation. It is amazing…amazing how the midwest differs from the coasts. There is a lot more engagement with people walking by and arguing their point. The only engagement we had was with some horribly lost people who stood by us and read rules to the fight club and text from a textbook to try to over talk us! It was great to see security come and move them away. Before they left, we had a great conversation.

Later on in the night we had a booth on the mall, and handed out candy and tracts and had some great one to one conversations. Both Shawn and I were speaking with some young Christians who were not living their faith out. They had some objections to open air preaching and confrontational evangelism, but were not participating themselves. We encouraged them to examine themselves in the light of the scripture. 

All in all, Thursday and Friday at the U was a great time, the Gospel was preached, tracts were distributed, and God was glorified. Later on, we will talk about the experience at the bar district in Minneapolis. It was very cool and scary at the same time.

A sad? but true story…..

I was invited to go on a mystery golf tour bus trip by a group of gentlemen that I have spent some time golfing with. These guys are mostly retired and come from a variety of faith/non faith backgrounds. One fellow in particular was a staunch Catholic. He went to a major Catholic university, played football there, was in the Knights of Columbus and major leadership at his church. He was as much a Catholic evangelist as one can be.
Anyhow, I had the privilege of golfing with this gentleman, having him in a cart. The round contained mostly competitive banter, coaching and encouraging our team along. At the end of the round, I presented each of my teammates with a Gospel of John, adorned on the cover with a photo of a golf course. The other two politely thanked me, but my cart-mate wanted to talk.
This man, he explained, was very interested in the Bible. He didn’t really know how to study it, though he and some of his friends studied bi-monthly at the same time we hold our men’s Bible study. He was truly curious and wanted to find out what we do and how we do it. This led to a 45 minute demonstration with gospel in hand about how we study, which turned into a discussion of the differences in our belief about justification. I used John 1 to demonstrate Jesus as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, explaining to Him the sacrificial system which only covers sins temporarily. I compared these to the sacramental system of the Catholic church. I then explained that we are fully justified when we repent and place our faith in Christ, and that as a result, we are free to serve Him and do good works, not for salvation, but because we love Him.
My new friend left that cart, saying he never understood the significance of the Lamb of God and the sacrifice like that before. He promised to read the scripture and to come to our study and to bring his other Bible study mates to hear how we study.
This past tuesday morning, We waited for my new friend to show up. He did not, not did his other mates join us. We had our study, we prayed, and we parted ways. I was a little bothered, but chalked it up to busyness. Wednesday morning, as I often do, I parsed the obituary section. There was my friends obituary; he had died Tuesday of a heart attack. The paper said it was an ‘unexpected’ death.
We never know when people are going to die, that is one reason we must take every opportunity to share with them. If I had spent the entire day with this man, and not shared the Gospel with him, then read this obituary, this would be a sad story. As it was, he was able to hear that he was a sinner that needed justification, and that the justification he needed was found only in Christ. I pray that he made that decision; that he read John 3 like I encouraged him to do, that he understood what it meant to be Born Again. As it is, I will not know until I enter eternity. At least my friend has a chance. Do yours?

Repent and Witness NYC 2008

This was one of my favorite missions trips I have ever taken. I had never been to NYC, and I got to go with my wife and 30 young and energetic college age students who shared Jesus’ passion for reaching lost people. I finally got some videos downloaded from my camera, so I will let them tell the story.

This is a couple of my friends, Joel and James speaking to a member of a strange Jewish cult; they believe the Messiah is on earth today and lives in Manhatten!

This is a panoramic view of Union Square Park, where we were preaching. The fields were white!

This was my favorite moment of the whole trip; My wife Wendy, who is very meek, and like a typical Minnesota Nice girl does not wish to talk about religion or politics broke the sound barrier and shared the good news. She was just going to read the scripture, but then she started to preach. The crowd was loud and obnoxious before she started…they quieted down for her gentle tone. Praise God!

This is one of my many opportunities to open air preach at Union Square Park. You really must make a plan to go to New York and share the Gospel there. This crowd was in the hundreds, all hearing the Gospel.

I will post more videos as they are uploaded. All glory to God!