How
the evangelism works: as you obey the Lord and tell the Good News to the lost
sinner, or give them a good Gospel tract, God fills you with an unspeakable joy.Evangelism boot camp with Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, Jan 05
How
the evangelism works: as you obey the Lord and tell the Good News to the lost
sinner, or give them a good Gospel tract, God fills you with an unspeakable joy.
In the few days of training, we evangelized on Hollywood Blvd, observed Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron during open air preaching, visited the Living Waters office, bought ton of tracts, observed Darrel Rundus and other leaders in open air preaching, passed out hundreds of Gospel tracts, talked one-to-one to dozens of people, and preached open air.
A few highlights from an action-packed evangelism in L.A:
Wednesday: As we arrived to the airport in the snow storm and boarded the remote parking shuttle, one of the passengers enquired why we were going to L.A. I quickly prayed to overcome my fears and then started to take the man through the “good person test,” to help him realize he stood before God sentenced to hell for breaking His Law. The man showed signs of conviction and became interested in the Gospel. I quickly explained his need for repentance and accepting Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for him by faith. The man said he would pray to God today and Matt quickly gave him an appropriate Gospel tract as he was getting off the buss. Few other passengers heard the Gospel as well.
I never forget our first meeting in the hotel that night. Seventy-eight soundly saved, on-fire Christians set aside their denominational differences and united in one purpose – to improve their evangelistic skills to reach the lost more effectively. As the love and power of God filled that conference room, I knew I got a glimpse of the first century church!
Thursday: Hollywood Blvd. There was one thing I dreaded
in particular – the open-air preaching. After walking up and down the
Hollywood Blvd, passing
out about 100 tracts and talking to several strangers about salvation, we
run into another team and there was our cameraman preaching open air. It
was sooo cool! But after he was done, he asked me: “You wanna be next?!”
Uhm.. hm… I … rather … wait till… tomorrow, I muttered in shock.
The Holy Spirit has gotten hold of me though, and I just could not stand that I chickened out from the opportunity to preach open-air. As my partner and I walked down the Hollywood blvd to pass out some more tracts, we soon came across another team, doing the open-air also. And this location was noisy! I was thinking I should walk back, but the Holy Spirit again whispered to me: “If you preach in such a difficult location, everything else will seem easy.” And just then Matt run into me: “I just did it, it is not so hard! I DID IT!” To seal the deal, our team leader gave me a jolt with his elbow – “you wanna be next? You escaped from communism under the gun, surely this is nothing compared to that!?” “Oh, Lord, help!”
I
stepped up on the concrete block on the sidewalk, prayed, swallowed hard, and
then the Holy Spirit took over the guidance. I got a tough heckler, and
preached for about 15 minutes, overcoming the loud background noise of the
street traffic. Please, pray for Jerry - as he realized that the Bible can be
trusted, he promised to talk to the Lord to save him. Pray also for the crowd
which was listening. I remember especially the middle-aged man whom I saw
in the corner of my eye, listening intently to every word I was preaching about
the sin, Law, Judgment, Love, Mercy and Grace.
Please, pray also for the three teenage girls – Summer, Amber and their friend, as they were having many questions after they heard Scott’s preaching. As I followed up with them, it was clear that especially in Summer’s mind “the bulb” went on powerfully.
Friday: Huntington Beach. A heckler with a German accent, Uve, who heckled with several preachers, eventually said in front of the whole crowd that he seriously wanted to accept the Lord Jesus as his Savior. He did pray the sinners’ prayer with Kim afterward, praise God.
Saturday:
Venice Beach. All day one-to-one witnessing, passing out tracts and
open air preaching. Just to paint the picture – these beaches are a door for
paganism and New Age to enter America! The promenades are lined up with
“shops” offering and selling New Age and pagan artifacts, music, incense, and
pagan beliefs.
It got REALLY interesting here! We’ve got periodically an angry heckler. I witnessed a scene where one of our preachers was repeatedly called names. He handled this distraction very well and finished the preaching.
I
had an encounter with an angry shop owner in our first preaching stop. He was
some “New Age guru” displaying large boards with his obscene writings. He
was shouting to the crowd that we were brain-washing the people, then proclaimed
that he was a god! I asked him if he knew how many grains of sand were
there on the beach, and he shouted: “I can be god when I want to be god!”
When it
was my turn to preach, he got a megaphone and tried to drown my preaching, while
my heckler was in the process of getting saved. I was so focused on helping this
guy (George) to enter the Kingdom, I barely noticed that someone from our team
turned up the volume on the portable amp, so that my
preaching could be heard over the obscene yelling through his megaphone.
As
Scott was preaching next, another exotic individual with really BIG HAIR,
started swinging his “amulet” in front of Scott sons’ eyes, apparently trying to
hypnotize him. I interrupted his unholy effort and pulled the boy aside, prayed
and explained the danger to him. (I do know - I was hypnotized against my
will by a fortune teller before I become a Christian years ago. It got ugly.)
The spiritual oppression at the Venice beach wore me out after a few hours - a simple reminder that I was just a fragile human, and new to this level of intensity in spiritual warfare. Matt and I took a 40 min break at the beach, and refreshed we prayed and returned back into the promenade. The people then took the gospel tracts much more often and soon we run across a booth titled “United Atheists.” We savored a 20 minutes debate with some old, spiritually blinded guys, but the younger one took our tracts – “The Atheist Test” and “Evolution,” right in front of his unbelieving buddies.
Sunday: We enjoyed a great fellowship in the lobby and I got an unexpected ride to CC Costa Mesa. I met with the CC legend Chuck Smith and a few friends. We have handed out some more tracts during lunch. The Lord did not give me even a break on the airplane, as I shared Scriptures with a man, who appeared to embrace the “oneness” Pentecostal beliefs.
Our team leaders gave me a surprise gift – the step stool which we used for open air preaching. Their gift gave me an extra motivation to carry on the open air preaching. In less than a month since the boot-camp, the Lord gave me an opportunity to preach open air 4x here in Colorado, evangelize and pass the skills on to other Christians.
Please, pray for the Lord to continue to use us and grow us in our efforts to bring the Gospel to the “fish,” (instead of waiting till the “fish” comes to us) and we’ll pray the same for you. J
Some Christians seem to think that “evangelism” is not their gift. They are right, evangelism is not just a gift, it is not my gift either. It is Christian’s act of love toward those who are quietly slipping away into eternity in hell.
It is my hope and prayer that my experience in the evangelism boot camp in L.A. would encourage many to act in obedience to Great Commission, study to show themselves approved, and to be ready in season and out of season to give the Good News to the blind and lost.