Very Encouraging Night

Very Encouraging Night

Ministry Update August 11, 2019

Friday night was a very encouraging night of witnessing. It started with the Route 66 Parade where I handed out tracts a little after 5:30 pm. I handed out a few tracts and a woman and her son stood near me waiting to cross the street. I gave them both tracts. The woman then asked if I was married to Polly and I said that I am. Then she told me she recognized me from my wife’s Facebook page. I also ran into several people from Crossway Baptist Church as well as several others from my previous church. Then a couple of customers recognized me. A few people said Hi to me and I also recognized them, but just couldn’t place where I knew them from.

Even though I brought 800 Gospel tracts, I didn’t bring nearly enough. Yes, I ran out two blocks from the end of the parade route. I checked my phone after I handed out my last tract and I had a message from my friend Jeff who lives in Arkansas. I called him and he told me that he had just gotten there. So we met up and walked back to our usual witnessing spot. He started preaching and immediately got reactions, some good some bad. Interestingly several people stopped to listen to the message. He had several mockers that mocked him as the passed by. But there were also three different women that said Amen as they passed by.

Give Me A Ticket

A volunteer came up to Jeff and told him he had to get down from the concrete block he was standing on because of safety concerns. He told her that he had cat like reflexes and not to worry about him. Next she said the band behind us had a permit so we couldn’t be there. Jeff kept preaching and interacting with people. By the time a police sergeant got to us, we had already decided to move. But since he showed up, Jeff talked to him anyway. The sergeant was very kind and explained that we couldn’t be there because the other group had a permit. I personally understand this and agree with what the sergeant said.

But Jeff is originally from Oregon and he knows that this thinking was challenged all the way to the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals and the court ruled that we don’t give up our free speech rights even in a permitted area, especially when it isn’t gated and you’re not paying to be there. The interaction between Jeff and Sergeant S was almost comical. Jeff told Sergeant S that he wanted him to ticket him. Sergeant S said I don’t want to give you a ticket. Jeff wanted a ticket so we can fight the unconstitutional city ordinance against amplification. I had a good discussion with Sergeant S. He explained that they don’t have to automatically write a ticket just because someone complains (sometimes people do complain because they don’t want to hear the Gospel).

Conversations Really Took Off

We moved around the corner and that’s when the conversations really took off. Jeff continued preaching and challenging people if they are born again. He talked to a homeless guy named Eric who said he just gotten saved a couple of weeks ago on the square. He struggled a bit telling us the Gospel, but said he had quit drinking. Jeff explained that good works or doing good doesn’t save us. Eric nodded in agreement and Jeff clearly shared the Gospel with him and gave him a tract before Eric walked away.

Next a couple of Mormon missionaries stopped to talk. One was from Texas and the other one was from Idaho. While Jeff shared truth with them, they both nodded and said Amen. Jeff continued sharing Scriptures with them and both of them looked up the verses on their phones. It was a good interaction and they drew a crowd. One group was a youth group from St. Louis that wanted to listen in. Others stopped for a while to see what was going on. Another woman said Amen to the verses Jeff was sharing as she walked by us.

Jeff Kept On Preaching

After they left, I told Jeff that I had been out there for three hours after long day of work and tracting the parade route and that I was worn out. It was all I had. I thanked him for driving up from Arkansas and he said that he thought he’d preach for another 30 minutes. Well, the great interactions kept coming one after another so he didn’t want to quit. He actually stayed for another hour after I left.

He had so many interactions that he couldn’t remember them all. But the best one was a dad and daughter that stopped to talk. Jeff could tell they were both true believers and they were encouraged by his open-air preaching and they way he confronted people about what they believe. The really encouraging part was when the man told Jeff that he became a Christian at 21 years of age when he was confronted by an open-air preacher on a college campus. We hear these stories every now and then and they are so encouraging.

When doing street ministry, we get more people telling us that we are witnessing the wrong way than encouragement. So to hear a man say that he was convicted and converted through the open proclamation of the Gospel is very encouraging. Jeff also pointed out that open-air preaching leads to Gospel conversations which it did Friday night. That made it a very encouraging night indeed.

Wednesday Rain Out

The forecast was for rain on Wednesday, so Tuesday night I prayed at our meal time that God would keep the rain away if He wanted us to witness at Planned Parenthood the next day or that He would send the rain if He wanted to give my wife a break. That morning around 9:30 am I checked the forecast and it had dropped to only a 15% chance, so I was ready to go at lunch time. As soon as I walked out the door there were great big drops of rain and the wind really picked up. So it turned out that we didn’t witness after all and my wife got the break that she wanted/needed.

(These updates are given to encourage Christians to share the Gospel with others. If you don’t know what to say, hand out a Gospel tract. You can find some at livingwaters.com and chapellibrary.org.)