Life lately has been busy, but blessedly so! I had the pleasure and privilege of going to an event this morning to do some long over due evangelism. My first role is of course being a husband to my wife and father to my children, but it was good to hit the streets and spread the Gospel. I can't wait until my wife and children can come with me frequently. It's a little harder to tag along a three year old and nine month old. : )
I first want to say thank you so much for those who prayed for the outing. I believe the Lord was truly glorified! My church, Chisholm Baptist, had a booth setup with crafts, cookies, suckers, a presentation with the meaning of the cross, and information about our church, along with members and my pastor talking to those who stopped by. It was encouraging to see a church, especially mine, to take the time and effort to go meet and greet people.
The fair is called the Aspasians Fair...I'm assuming the name was coined from Aspasia the famous Greek/Athenian woman. Either way I know some of the Aspasian were doing their job well in monitoring, but for some reason they seemed to keep nitpicking at the church booth because the table stuck out too far, which it didn't compared to the others. I think it's just because it was a "church" booth while others were trying to sell things. Many still stopped by and received information though, which was great!
I mainly walked around and handed out Gospel tracts, engaging in one-2-one and group conversations with people. I decided to go with Big Money Tracts from Living Waters. These are really neat to use in parades and big events because they catch the eye of people, including curious Aspasians, and they either say something about it or ask for one. Some things you can say to others when using these are, "did you get one of these, did you get your big money today, and here's some big money for you, I wish it was real, but the message on the back is." The responses are often humorous. : ) It is always fun to be creative with tracts and it loosens people up to a conversation about their eternity. If someone says they are already a Christian, knows what it is and tries to hand it back, you can always say, "well could you please give it to someone that I can't reach, thank you!"
As I often see in Rockwall, I talked to three members of a large local church who told me they did not believe in the existence of hell and said they had to leave when we started discussing the 10 Commandments. This is an unfortunate trend I have noticed in the community over the past two years I have been witnessing, which just reminds me that the god of the Bible belt is not the God of the Bible. Much of preaching nowadays in many churches has been watered down to a seeker-friendly/sensitive Gospel, when in reality the only one a church should be seeking for is God. Anyways, I'll save that for another blog and another day! I would appreciate prayers for these boys and that the law would be a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ through the Gospel tracts they received. See Galatians 3:24
The biggest blessing for me was when I was walking down the street outside of the fair and saw a guy who was sitting alone. He looked kind of familiar when I approached him. I handed him a big money tract and he said that he got a million dollar bill from a guy at the Harbor who was talking to him and some others a while back. I asked him if it was me because I go out there pretty often and he said he thinks it was and I believe it was him as well. Either way I was very thankful. He told me that he feels as if God has changed his heart and he prays and reads his Bible because he wants to and not because he has to. We discussed the law a little bit more and talked about the evidence of salvation. We even prayed afterward that the Lord would open his heart more and continue to give him further repentance and trust in Christ alone. It was a real blessing! It was nice to have a church home to invite him out to!
I was also honored to meet and thank an older veteran for his service who was walking by himself. He received a tract and thanked me with a hug.
The last conversation I had was with an agnostic fellow who said that he thinks we probably just turn into dust after death and he doesn't really know what happens with things concerning the afterlife. He said he just lives his life one day at a time and is into truth. I explained that I am into truth as well and was able to provide him with the greatest truth! The conversation went really well and he seemed to really be interested and appreciated the encounter. Please pray for him and the rest of the people who received tracts and heard the Gospel. Pray that their hearts would be unhardened, the Lord would draw them to Himself, and that they would repent and trust in Christ alone for their eternal salvation.
Thank you so much for reading and I greatly appreciate your prayers as always!
In Christ,
Joey
Are you 100% percent sure you know where you are going? If not, please check out this link at www.needGod.com for an answer to the most important question or send me a message and I would love to talk to you about it. There is nothing more important than your eternal salvation my friend!
