What Are You Doing?
Ministry Update September 17, 2017
At MSU on Wednesday a young lady walked up to me and asked, “Are you tired?” “Not yet,” I replied. Then she said, “What are you doing?” “I’m open-air preaching. She then said ok. I don’t believe the young lady had ever witnessed open-air preaching before. She was too polite to ask, but I saw her look around as if to say no one is listening to you. Since she didn’t actually verbalize the question, I didn’t address her concern, but the thought crossed my mind, well you stopped to talk to me.
What Style Of Teaching Is This?
We had a very pleasant conversation. A mocker stopped right after the young lady started asking me questions, but he just looked at my notes in my Bible and walked away. The young lady wanted to know what style of teaching this is. I explained that in Isaiah it says to lift up your voice like a trumpet in the street (Isaiah 58:1). During the conversation with the her, she told me that she’s a Baptist. So I asked her which church she goes to. She replied that she’s from Kansas City and doesn’t have a local church yet. So I gave her an invite card to Crossway Baptist Church and told her a little about it. She liked the fact that it’s a Baptist church. I also told her that we have a college ministry there. I’m hoping that she joins us on Sunday.
Before she walked up and talked to me, I had a bicyclist rode between me and a student that was walking toward me. There was also another mocker that was recording me as he walked by. He mouthed off something and kept repeating a question, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Since he didn’t stop but walking on by me, I kept preaching. After the message, I handed out several tracts before heading back to work.
Short Night
Friday night Polly and I witnessed downtown. We had a long week with a family member in the hospital so it ended up being a short night. Even though it was a short night, there were a few strange things that happened. A homeless woman walked in front of me while I was bringing a message. After it was over, my wife told me that the homeless lady was listening while I was preaching, but she was changing her clothes right there in the park (at St. Louis and Jefferson). I’m very thankful that she changed behind me where I couldn’t see her. You can see from the picture I posted that I had to “cover her up” in order to post the picture.
Later on a guy rode by on his bicycle. He stopped a few feet past me and he was on his phone. He was acting strange, so my wife was really watching him and I could see the policemen at the stop sign in front of me were watching him too. But in the end, he just recorded part of the message and rode off. Polly said he waved before he peddled away.
There was a moving truck parked across the street and the movers heard bits and pieces of the message. A young girl standing in front of the building near the moving van listened for quite a while too. One mocker cursed me as he walked across the street, but really he was cursing God because I was just sharing truth. Afterwards I handed out a few tracts before we called it a night.
(These updates are given to encourage followers of Jesus to share the Gospel with others. Time is short. Redeem the time while you still can.)