Went back to the Logan County Fair (Lincoln, IL) today to distribute some more tracts. Once again 4:30 was about the right time to show up. I drove by at 1:00, 2:15 and 3:20 and there was almost no one there. At 4:00 I went back and set up to pass out tracts. Around 4:30 people started showing up!
Today I had more help! Around 4:45 another member of my Church showed out to help.
Then, at about 6:00, my wife dropped off some more help!! Who can refuse a tract from them??
We stayed until Church was about to start and then left for the service. In the couple of hours we were there, a little over 180 people received tracts. Please pray for those people.
I’m going to try something new as time permits. I just got a new phone and a blogging client for it, so I thought I would try to “live blog” from the Logan County Fair I Lincoln, IL.
Keep this post open and refresh it periodically to see new updates. The newest updates will be at the bottom, so you will need to scroll down after refreshing the page.
Please excuse any typos or spelling errors. I will fix them when I get to a real computer.
—————————————-
3:00
Arrived at the fair. As a note for next year, 3 is way to early 
3:30
Handed out my first Trillion Dollar Bills!
4:00
Still not busy so I thought I would go in and check out the Soul Winning Booth…
Not busy there yet either
4:15
Next year maybe I won’t take off work so early
4:30
Praise God! My first witnessing encounter of the night. It was with two professing Christians all “cowboyed up” and on their way to the concert. I went ahead and shared the Law and Gospel with them. I will post the audio in a day or two…
4:50
It’s finally starting to pick up, and with more people, I also got my first tract rejection! I felt so bad, rejected and dejected (what ever that means) that I may have just earned myself a persecution crown… NOT!!
5:07
Is there a such thing as an “having to listen to a country band warm up crown?”
5:25
There’s a lot of people coming in across the entrance and I am really wishing I could be in two places at once! Oh yeah, there are other people going in the other entrances as well and I can’t be there either! Hmmm, what could help with this situation classmates??
5:40
OK, so is it wrong to pass out tracts that apparently may make people blaspheme? ”oh my — a trillion dollars”. The worst part is she wouldn’t stop and talk. I really wanted to ask her if she had ever used God’s name in vain!
5:50
Had my first tract handed back for the night.
6:10
Now it’s really starting to pick up!
6:15
Help has arrived!!
6:45
I think I have gotten to used to the college. I am amazed at how many people have turned down tracts!
7:00
I guess the concert is starting. There is the flyover by the Blue… Ah… Something or anothers…
7:05
My first ever run in with the law!
Apparently some people had taken some tracts to the front gate and said they were told they could get in free with them. I told the officer that I had not said that and told him what I was saying.
After running my I’d (apparently I’m clean) the officer told me that the city had an ordinace against solicitaion and asked me if I had a pemit. I said that since I was simply handing out free liturature and not selling anything that I thought it was considered hand billing and therefore legal. He agreed and asked me just to make sure people knew they couldn’t use them to get into the fair free. I told him I would an he let me contiue. He even told the county police at the fair that what I was doing was ok!
7:45
Went in for some food and stopped by the Soul Winning Booth. It had really picked up!
8:45
Time to call it a night. It is getting dark and I don’t want to freak people out by sneaking up on them in the dark! That, and I don’t really feel like being it by a car either
In all, we were able to hand out a little over 170 tracts. I thought it would be busier, but I’m happy with 170. Pray for those who received a tract. My hope with passing them out outside of the fair is that they get to the people who may never make it by the Soul Winning Booth.
Jun
If there is anyone left who reads this blog after me not posting for about two months, I just thought I owed you a quick update
I haven’t disappeared or quit witnessing, I have just had another one of those times when I was busy to the point where I had to give some things up and unfortunately this blog was one of them. God willing in the next week or two I will have some time to post some updates.
Some of the those updates will include my new humorous yet evangelistic website and the Evangelism class I have been working on and am currently teaching at my Church. God has really provided some awesome opportunities and I can’t wait to share those!
When I started this blog I wanted to share both successes and failures / struggles. I thought I would share what at this point is probably my biggest struggle and that is day to day witnessing. Planned out events where I can think about them and spend time in prayer before them are much easier for me. It is those unplanned day to day events that I struggle with.
I have the hardest time working up the courage to just strike up a conversation with a gas station attendant when no one else is in the station, a person next to me in line or another parent sitting at a park that I have taken my kids to. Simple everyday situation where I could witness. For the most part, I can give them a tract, but actually striking up a conversation is hard for me to do. In my head, I usually justify it by thinking that I wouldn’t be able to hear them or that my kids would interrupt us, etc…, but at the same time I know that those are not good reasons to stop from sharing the Gospel with people who could be lost and on their way to Hell!
Please pray for me, as I do the same, that God gives me the courage to witness in these day to day situations. I feel that it is probably a shortcoming in my prayer life that is to blame. When I spend time in prayer before planned witnessing events, God gives me the grace to do them. I think I need to spend more time praying throughout the day and that would help when an impromptu witnessing opportunity presented itself.
As I have successes and struggles in this area, I will post updates to the blog. My hope and prayer is that this will be encouraging to others who have the same difficulty and that through prayer and an increased burden for lost souls God will help me to overcome this fear.
On Friday 04/02/2010 “Good Friday” we were blessed with the opportunity to read the Word of God at Illinois State University. I had my Pastor and another Evangelist join me from my Church to pass out tracts as I read Matthew 26 – 28. In the 19 minutes it took to read the scripture, they were able to pass out around 200 tracts! Praise God for the open door and the willingness of the students to take the tracts.
Please pray for all the people who got tracts this Friday!
Here is a video slide show of some pictures and the audio of the reading…
If you have problems with the video or if you want to just download the audio as an MP3, right click on this link and then select “Save Link As” or “Save Target As” and then save it to your computer.
This is a recording of a witnessing encounter at ISU. Both people claimed to have a relationship with Jesus, but were not sure if they would go to Heaven or how they would do when they were judged.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
If you have problems with the audio playback or would like to download the MP3, right click on this link and then select “Save Link As” or “Save Target As” and then save it to your computer.
This was an open air session at ISU on April 1st. It was a short reading from the Gospel of Matthew with a brief message at the end.
After the open air a Christian questioned us on whether doing open air was the best thing to do or not. He thought it was confrontational and turned people off from Christianity. I explained to him that we tried to share the Gospel in every way possible; tracts, one to one, open air, trivia, etc… I admitted it could turn people off, but so could the mere mention of the Bible, God or Christianity because people hate the truth! He agreed with that.
He mentioned that he didn’t like tracts because people could read them and just pray a prayer and not mean it. I pointed out that our tracts did not have a canned prayer on them, but simply shared the Law and the Gospel. He then brought up “Brother Jeb”* and said that he thought that kind of preaching turned people off. I explained that that is not what we do. I told him I simply read a passage from the Bible and gave a brief message based of that chapter. I explained how I witnessed by using the Law and then the Gospel and he said it was quite different then what Brother Jeb did.
We had a rather pleasant conversation for about 10 minutes. We shared some witnessing stories and talked about one to one witnessing (a favorite method of both of us it seemed). I don’t know if I changed his mind on tracts or open air, but in the end we shook hands and he thanked us for talking to him and being out there. I was glad to meet another soul conscious Christian on the college campus even if we did have some disagreements on witnessing methods.
Click the play button below for audio of the open air:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
If you have problems with the audio playback or would like to download the MP3, right click on this link and then select “Save Link As” or “Save Target As” and then save it to your computer.
* – If you are not familiar with “Brother Jeb”, he is a college campus “preacher” who goes from campus to campus giving Christ a bad name by offensive and blasphemous “preaching”. For an idea of what “Brother Jeb” is like, click on this You Tube search link. WARNING: some of the material in the link will be offensive to Christians, many of the videos include profanity and blasphemy.
lk
Mar
After a successful first trivia session, we went to another park in town and did it again. Between my evangelism partner Luke, the ashtray in my car and my wallet, we were able to come up with enough cash to do it. We drove about 3 blocks to another downtown park and found it full of teens as well.
When we offered them some money, they all came running! It amazes me how after I stop giving out cash, they still stand there and let themselves get preached to. God’s word is awesome!!
Below is the video of the second trivia session. The audio on this one is much better. I wore my portable recording setup and overlaid that audio with the video…
Mar
I did my first trivia session today. This is something God has been convicting me to do for a while. I always thought it would draw more of a steady crowd then open air preaching and God really showed me that was true on the first try. I was really nervous starting, but God calmed my nerves and gave me the words to say. 8+ teenagers in a park were able to hear the law and Gospel.
The best part about it was the teens sitting on and standing around the bench. Last year we had approached them to just do one to one witnessing and they would not even talk to us. As we were walking away, one of them yelled “I worship Satan”. With the trivia, they sat and listened to the whole thing with no interruptions or problems! Praise God for a good first experience with doing trivia.
Below is a video of the trivia session. The audio is not to good because the camera was a ways away, but most of it is audible…
This is a conversation with a pagan named Erica.
After going through the law and being found guilty, Erica said she doesn’t agree with God’s Laws then. Unfortunately for her, she will be judged by God’s standards not hers.
During the conversation, Erica asked why God required blood for payment of sins. At the time I didn’t come up with the best answers, but I will be ready for the question next time. I probably should have told her that the blood was required because according to the Bible, the life is in the blood and therefore blood is required for remission of sin. To be honest though, I don’t think any answer would have satisfied her.
Here are some of the more “choice” quotes from the conversation…
“My higher power I call it Minos* and the theory generally is that if God and Satan were playing football, then Minos would be the stadium they played in. So my god is both good and evil, my god is everything.”
“I don’t consider God to be the judger, I think that when you die you are faced with your life and you yourself judge yourself”
“S%*@w that man! I’ll create my own heaven! Where everybody can come in and everybody’s religion can come and live in love and peace and happiness.”
“It’s like reality is the sky and we are all looking at the sky through our little pipes so you can’t see the rest of it, all of reality, and my goal as a person, as trying to be a good person, is to expand that pipe and see more reality.”
Click the button below to play the audio:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
If you have problems with the audio playback or would like to download the MP3, right click on this link and then select “Save Link As” or “Save Target As” and then save it to your computer.
*- I may have misspelled that