Pokémon Go Craze

Ministry Update July 17, 2016

Pokémon Go Craze

The Pokémon Go craze is real. We were witnessing downtown on Friday night and we were blessed with hundreds of people at the square. There were more people at the Pokémon Go event than there were at the gay pride event last month. People are absolutely crazy about Pokémon Go. 

I was the first one of our group to get there so I started off just holding a sign that says Jesus came to save His people from their sins. A lot of people just looked at me and shook their head as they walked by. One our regular mockers disgustedly told me that he was going to egg my church.  But one guy walked by stopped, read the sign and said “Amen.” Then he walked a little ways and told his kids to hurry up.

After a little bit his wife followed behind. She stopped, read the sign and said “Amen.” Shortly after that a woman walked up to me and pressed $5 into my hand and said “this isn’t much, but I want it to go toward your ministry.” She thanked me for being there. I thanked her and told her that the money would go toward tracts. It was a great way to start the night.

Then Kelly, Diana, Elise, Erica, Serenity and three kids from their church showed up. We sang some hymns and then I brought a message Deceitful Lusts. I changed it a little bit to include the Pokémon Go craze. I asked the crowd if they are lusting or coveting after Pokémon. While I was preaching a young atheist named Carson asked me some questions. After a little back and forth I went back to preaching and Kelly went over and talked to him. They had a great conversation and after we finished preaching, Carson came back over and shook Kelly’s hand and thanked him for talking to him.

Preachers’ Son

Also while I was a preaching a young man who says he’s a preacher’s son (you’d be surprised how many preacher’s kids think they are saved just because their dad is a preacher) came over and started reading verses about judge not.

After I finished with my message and Kelly started preaching I asked the preacher’s kid if he was judging me for judging others and he proudly said “Yeah, I am.” So I called him out on it and pointed out that he’s a hypocrite for judging me while he’s accusing me of judging others. Secondly, I didn’t judge anyone. I was reading Scripture and pointing out various sins. I’m not Jesus. I don’t know your heart. I don’t know what sin you love, whether you are saved or not. So I list various sins from Scripture, hoping that God will convict you over your sins. If your conscience bothers you, that’s great. That’s what God’s Law is supposed to do.

Matthew 7 What It Really Says About Judging

Since the Pokémon Go crowd was downtown, Kelly changed his mind about the message that he was going to bring. So he preached from Matthew 7, the whole chapter. He pointed out to the preacher’s son that Jesus told us not to be hypocrites. That we are to take the beam out of our own eye before we point out the speck in our brother’s eye.

Kelly did a great job and after he finished up we all sang some hymns. While we were singing a man came up to Kelly and accused him of preaching hate. That he should talk about God’s love instead. Kelly called him out on it. He told the false Christian that he needs to repent and trust Jesus and stop hindering the Gospel from going forth. To that I say Amen! After that we handed out tracts while we walked back to our vehicles. Last week when we ended witnessing a guy saw our sign and yelled. Jesus is awesome! This week walking to our cars, Erica tried to hand a tract to a guy and he refused and yelled Jesus _____! It was quite a different ending to the previous week. But we were thankful for the Gospel going forth, for God providing us with a large crowd, for the conversations and the tracts that went out.

After Witnessing

After that Diana and Elise went to eat downtown and Diana overheard a guy complaining about Christian coworkers who are like youth pastors and such and don’t try to witness to him. He said that he believes in God but doesn’t go to church and “if my coworkers were such good Christians shouldn’t they be trying to convert me?”So Diana handed him a tract and got to briefly share the Gospel with him. May God be glorified and yes, his co-workers should be witnessing to him.

Do You Really Believe That?

Then on Wednesday Aaron, Brian and I were witnessing at Planned Parenthood. A guy driving down the street pulled into the parking lot while I was preaching, pointed to my sign and asked “do you really believe that?” My sign says All Abortions Are Murder on one side and the other side says Life Begins At Conception. He was pointing to the life begins at conception side and wanted to know if I believe that? I assured him that I do. He then started arguing about dead sperm and the egg. (Which kind of answers his own question; if the sperm is dead then that’s not life).

So I started preaching again and let Aaron and Brian talk to the guy. I’m not sure what they said to him and he got back into his car and drove off. Then Aaron brought a message about how eternity is a long time to be wrong and how the workers at Planned Parenthood are under God’s judgment and someday they will face the final judgment. He told them their judgment will be more severe because we come and share truth with them and they reject that truth. Out of love he warned them. To that I say Amen. We finished by singing a couple of hymns. There were several cars at Planned Parenthood when we got there. May God convict people over this most heinous crime of killing little babies in the womb.

These updates are given to encourage Christians to share their faith with this lost and dying world. Buy some Gospel tracts. There are several good resources for tracts. Way of the Master, One Million Tracts,Fellowship Tract League and Gospel Tract Planet to name a few.