Wow, it's been about a year since I wrote a blog. As I look back through I can see my posts get further and further apart. I still do evangelism, but just haven't been blogging about it. Maybe it has something to do with life... : )
Seriously though, I wanted to share how the Jubilee Outreach went this year and address a topic that I think desperately needs to be addressed. I've never been more blessed by a single outreach. The help from my church, Chisholm Baptist, tripled from last year, we had a pastor who is a friend from a Hispanic church come setup a Way of the Master booth, and then my good friend who got me started at the Jubilee had their Star Wars Way of the Master booth setup. If you have read any of my very early on blogs you can tell that I was frequently irritated with the lack of biblical evangelism and pastors involved in evangelism, and me not being a part of a good biblical church. I spent thousands of dollars on "solo outreaches" and evangelism by myself until we were blessed with a church home, which we have been attending for 3 years, such a blessing! And now I have pastor friends who do outreaches too!
Friday I went to help out with an outreach at the Jubilee and while I was wrapping up a conversation with 2 teenagers a man walked up to me and asked if he could have one of the Gideon's Bible's I had handed out. Thankfully I got to witness to someone who was Jewish who showed genuine interest and took a New Testament right before, which has been difficult in the past. The man who came up to me told me his testimony and how he was homeless. He said he was saved a week ago so I asked him about his testimony and conversion. I was very blessed by listening to him and intrigued by his journey and current walk with Christ. Being a false-convert for many years my first reaction to anyone around the Bible-Belt who claims to be Christian is a little skeptical. We talked about spiritual things for over an hour and I had the pleasure of ministering to him. He shared his goals and what he believed to be his calling with me. I've talked with homeless people before and there was something different about this man. He wanted to hang out with me and was glad he had made a new friend. He watched and listened as I witnessed to some other people and he even chimed in from time to time.
The booth I was at was about to have a Star Wars fight scene which lead into a short open-air sermon. They needed a volunteer to be Obi-Wan (a Jedi) ((yes, I'm a Star Wars nerd)). They asked if he wanted to do it, a little reluctant he said he would. He put on the costume, took the light saber, and fought Darth Vader. Drawing a big crowd, it was the perfect setup for a good gospel presentation. He then handed out gospel tracts to the onlookers and posed for pictures with them. He told me this was one of the best days of his life and he felt like he was doing something important and meaningful. He was. He served with us the rest of the night and then we parted ways. He has a second job interview next Friday, please keep him in prayer.
Saturday, today, I got there early to setup the booth for my church. One of the good things about running church outreaches is that I am now funded to do so! It is absolutely amazing to have a church passionate about the Great Commission. The morning started out a little slow, but then when my friends showed up with their booths it started picking up. Some people from my church and I ran the Spanish booth for a little while (my Spanish is not too good, but I knew enough to point them to take a tract or DVD). The rest of our church helped run our booth until the guys from the other church got there. I was running, literally, back and fourth to the Star Wars booth to swap out tracts and DVDs and also checking on some new brothers in Christ that joined me for their first outreach along with going between the two other booths! It was really cool to meet some new Christians who are also passionate about serving and sharing their faith!
Overall, I believe everyone had a good time. It was neat to see brothers and sisters in Christ from my church hand out tracts and engage in conversations with what appeared to be such ease. Nearly everyone in the College & Career Sunday school class I teach came out and helped too! I remember how deathly afraid I was to even hand a tract to anyone. Their help was truly priceless and I'm sure that God was glorified from it. I did talk to a couple people who said they went to church, but never heard the Gospel or understood what it was. Despite my allergies being horrendous about half way through, my sneezing would always cut out just long enough for me to engage someone in a conversation, coincidence or God? I don't believe in coincidences. : )
I had two really good conversations that stuck out to me besides my friend from Thursday: one with an agnostic (someone who claims to not know or believes you cannot know if God exists) who just starting to consider Christianity and another with someone who had a little church background, but had never heard the gospel. His most spiritual experience he had ever had involved a "ghost". I'll save that for the blog another day!
The conversation with the agnostic really blessed me. We discussed agnosticism/atheism for a bit. She was actually a preacher's daughter. I explained how we can see the evidences of God through His word, creation, and conscience, but I told her that ultimately I could not convince her with any evidence that His existence is true because salvation is a work of God. I did ask her if she believes in moral absolutes, to which she replied, "no". I then asked if rape is always wrong, to which she said yes. That is a moral absolute. By using what we consider extreme examples, people soon see that they also hold to certain moral absolutes. She accepted this. Moral absolutes are written on our hearts.Where do those come from? God, which leads us to His law that shows us our true condition and why we need Christ.We discussed the Christian worldview and how we all suppress the knowledge of God through our unrighteousness before salvation. She had never heard this before and seemed intrigued by it. I asked if she heard the gospel before and she said, "no not really". Again, a preacher's daughter. Everything we talked about she said actually made sense and would seriously think about our conversation. She took a Bible, tracts, and DVD. Please be praying for her!
Unfortunately, there were many churches, but not much evangelism going on. The closest I got to a spiritual talk with someone at a church booth is they told me they were a cafe-style church and I could come and eat donuts and have coffee with them at round tables or I could spin their big wheel and win a $25 Wal-Mart gift card. No mention of God, no mention of the gospel, I could have been a lost soul who lost my life that very day and gone to hell. Blunt, but true. I honestly couldn't tell by the names of some of these places if they were a club or a church. Strange. I did have some conversations with these booths and gave them some resources on evangelism and the importance of it during outreaches as they believed they were doing evangelism. I have no problem with church advertisement and using games/toys/etc., but without the gospel it is not evangelism. Many churches are trying harder and harder to be so relevant and entertaining that they are losing sight of what is truly important...for more info. I recommend researching the Seeker Sensitive Movement. I'm going to leave my soap box at that for now because I could go on for pages!
Anyways, it has been a good day. The Lord kept my family safe, I made new friends, shared the gospel with others, had good fellowship, and got to see many in my church in action! I didn't think anyone read my blog anymore, but I have some made some good friends and contacts on here in the past couple of months. If you have any questions at all about God, religions, or evangelism, PLEASE shoot me a message on here. I would love to talk to you.
Thank you so much for reading and I hope you have a great day.
In Christ,
Joey
*If you are not familiar with the Way of the Master you can find more info. here @ www.wayofthemaster.com
This is a great and solid ministry. I have met Ray and Kirk and received training from them. They are genuine, humble, and the real deal!
