Post by Jesse Morrell on Oct 13, 2005 9:54:42 GMT -5
Banned For a Day from Sidewalk
Saturday October 8th, 2005
Today I went with the rest of the staff from The Great News Network to do some evangelism and filming outside of the Texas State Fair in Dallas. It was exactly a year ago when we were there during an Evangelism Boot Camp. Last year we were kicked out of the fair and also removed from the surrounding sidewalks, but they eventually allowed us back on the public sidewalks. I wondered what events would occur during this outreach attempt.
Thousands of college students were there for the big college football game of Texas vs. Oklahoma. At 10:00am we saw drunk college students walking the streets of Dallas publicly drinking alcohol. Thousands of people had their hands held high with two fingers signifying they wanted to buy sculpted tickets, and the cops did nothing.
Outside the main entrance I stood up on a crate and preached the Word. Verbally attacking their drunkenness and sculpting, I received heckling from all over. College students and average citizens started justifying themselves. For a short time I was able to dialog back and forth with a crowd that came over, but eventually the crowd dispersed as they became more and more uncomfortable listening to the preaching.
Security officials from the fair approached me and said, “I’ve come to ask you to get off city property.” They attempted to tell me that I could not preach on “city property” which is a different way of saying “public property”. I requested that they go and get a police officer to which they left.
The other guys from G.N.N. started preaching. Josh, John, Darrel all preached the Word trying to persuade people to turn from sin. After a while without any complaints, and still no police, I decided it would be alright to preach again.
Again no crowd gathered while preaching, but people who were standing in line were listening and watching. I noticed two officers with a fair official heading our way so I wrapped up the open-air and stepped down. Sure enough they came to tell us to leave.
When we asked which law we were breaking they didn’t have an answer. They went and made some phone calls, conversed with each other, and then came back saying that the Fair leased the public park as well as the surrounding sidewalks. When asked what would happen if we stood up and continued to preach they said we’d be charged with “trespassing” though the sidewalks were public.
So we left and I believe The Great News Network is looking into filing a lawsuit since this has happened two years in a row. And the maps of the park do not include the surrounding public sidewalks outside the walled and gated park.
Saturday October 8th, 2005
Today I went with the rest of the staff from The Great News Network to do some evangelism and filming outside of the Texas State Fair in Dallas. It was exactly a year ago when we were there during an Evangelism Boot Camp. Last year we were kicked out of the fair and also removed from the surrounding sidewalks, but they eventually allowed us back on the public sidewalks. I wondered what events would occur during this outreach attempt.
Thousands of college students were there for the big college football game of Texas vs. Oklahoma. At 10:00am we saw drunk college students walking the streets of Dallas publicly drinking alcohol. Thousands of people had their hands held high with two fingers signifying they wanted to buy sculpted tickets, and the cops did nothing.
Outside the main entrance I stood up on a crate and preached the Word. Verbally attacking their drunkenness and sculpting, I received heckling from all over. College students and average citizens started justifying themselves. For a short time I was able to dialog back and forth with a crowd that came over, but eventually the crowd dispersed as they became more and more uncomfortable listening to the preaching.
Security officials from the fair approached me and said, “I’ve come to ask you to get off city property.” They attempted to tell me that I could not preach on “city property” which is a different way of saying “public property”. I requested that they go and get a police officer to which they left.
The other guys from G.N.N. started preaching. Josh, John, Darrel all preached the Word trying to persuade people to turn from sin. After a while without any complaints, and still no police, I decided it would be alright to preach again.
Again no crowd gathered while preaching, but people who were standing in line were listening and watching. I noticed two officers with a fair official heading our way so I wrapped up the open-air and stepped down. Sure enough they came to tell us to leave.
When we asked which law we were breaking they didn’t have an answer. They went and made some phone calls, conversed with each other, and then came back saying that the Fair leased the public park as well as the surrounding sidewalks. When asked what would happen if we stood up and continued to preach they said we’d be charged with “trespassing” though the sidewalks were public.
So we left and I believe The Great News Network is looking into filing a lawsuit since this has happened two years in a row. And the maps of the park do not include the surrounding public sidewalks outside the walled and gated park.