Post by Jesse Morrell on Nov 15, 2005 12:33:20 GMT -5
Wednesday November 9th, 2005
It wasn't long preaching on this campus of 55,000 students before a very large crowd gathered. Because I had read in the paper that Texas had just voted to ban gay marriage, I started the open-air by saying, "We won! We won! Praise the Lord! We have successfully banned gay marriage! We won! Glory to God! What a great day for morality!" Actually, the area that was mostly for homosexual marriage was Austin.
Once the crowd was up to maybe 200 students, the heckling came from all corners. The homosexuals were particularly angry and enraged! The crowd would erupt in applauds and cheers when a heckler would stand up and give his speech. The crowd was very hard hearted, and God hating, so I continued to hammer out the law.
The message from many Christians was, "your not preaching love! Preach love!" I explained how it is the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom, not the love of God. But I did a survey and asked the crowd, "How many of you fear God?" To which maybe 10 out of 200 raised their hand. So I explained how you need to plow before you plant, and that the crowd is not ready for the love of God.
Eventually the crowd was virtually a riot. The people started talking about beating me up, and dumping gasoline on me to light me on fire. One man even run up and grabbed our sound box. When one of our guys grabbed him, he through it up into the air and it smashed on the ground. John Legg, the guy who grabbed him, continued to hold on to him. But the crowd started chanting, "Let him go, let him go!" The kid eventually broke away and ran off.
Josh Maciel got up and started to preach, and I believe calmed the crowd down a bit. But eventually security showed up and asked us to leave. The campus group that sponsored us, Christian Athletes, was threaten by the administration with loosing their campus organization status if they allowed us back on and end up causing a scene again.
That evening we taught an evangelism seminar for the Christian Athletes group. When I walked into the room I recognized the worship leader as one of the hecklers that yelled at me out in the open-air. But we still were able to talk about evangelism, and the biblical principal of Law before grace to the group.
Thursday November 10th, 2005
Since we were no longer allowed on campus, we went in front of one of the main entrances to preach. I had preached for maybe 2 ½ hours without getting any real crowd. Once in a while I'd get a heckler who would walk off, maybe someone who would stand there for a minute before walking off, but no crowd. The spot we were preaching at is a usual spot for preachers, so the students who use that entrance have become calloused it seems.
But on the good side of things, about 80 boot campers arrived for evangelism training, as this day was the first day of an EBC event!
Friday November 11th, 2005
There was a Veterans parade going on only a few blocks away from our hotel. So all 80 of us went and passed out tracts at the parade. It was wonderful. Everywhere you looked you saw people with gospel tracts! We saturated the whole parade. Even the Major of Austin, Major Winn got a gospel tract!
We went to the Austin campus and preached outside of it. I took my team to a new entrance which I didn't think ever got any preachers. And sure enough, we were able to get great crowds. For about an hour I went toe to toe with a Russian mathematician. The crowd would stay for hours and ask questions. Some would sit in the grass, on the wall, on the sidewalk, and just listen to the preaching.
A cop did show up, but it was because of our fake corpse. She said, "That's not a real person is it?" I said, "No" and she started to laugh as she walked off. Even a reporter/photographer from the Daily Texan stopped and took some pictures and asked some questions, but I don't think we made the paper.
Saturday November 12th, 2005
There was a huge college football game going on, which brought thousands upon thousands of people to tail gate around the campus. At the intersections near campus, hundreds would wait to cross the street. We would stand at the intersections and preach a 60 second gospel for people while they waited to cross. Many from the boot camp preached open air for the first time at those intersections.
That evening we went and preached at 6th street Austin, which is the club district. It looked much like New Orleans; drunk men and women dressed as prostitutes. There were thousands upon thousands of people on this one street alone. Like sheep off to the slaughter, they were blindly marching straight to hell.
I've learned a great deal now about drawing a crowd out on the street. You must be very animated and very sharp. Everywhere I preached at in 6th street I was able to draw a crowd. Usually the crowd was made up of angry hecklers and blind mockers, but some genuine listeners.
On one corner I started to preach two mockers stopped to scoff. I rebuked them sharply to which they responded back in anger. One of them, an Irish man with a heavy accent, cussed me out and got right in my face. He kept tightening up his fists like he was going to punch me, but his friend got between us. I kept preaching, and his friend which originally got between turned to me and kicked me! They did help draw a big crowd and I was able to preach repentance for quite a while to a listening crowd.
The message was sharp, "if you have come out here tonight to get SSMMAASSSHHEEDD on alcohol, on judgment day you will be SSMMAASSSHHEEDD by God's Law. Turn from your sins and come to Jesus Christ."
Though the majority of the people out there yelled at us and cussed us out, there was one tall man who came over during one of the times that it looked like I was able to be beaten. He was actually a former youth pastor, still a Christian, who just went to a Christian club to hear his friend's band. He thought if I ended up being attached he would jump in and protect me. He listened to us preach for a long time and loved what we were doing. He encouraged us and was glad we were out there.
All over 6th street we were preaching open-air, giving out tracts, and talking one2one. Hundreds were reached with the gospel!
It wasn't long preaching on this campus of 55,000 students before a very large crowd gathered. Because I had read in the paper that Texas had just voted to ban gay marriage, I started the open-air by saying, "We won! We won! Praise the Lord! We have successfully banned gay marriage! We won! Glory to God! What a great day for morality!" Actually, the area that was mostly for homosexual marriage was Austin.
Once the crowd was up to maybe 200 students, the heckling came from all corners. The homosexuals were particularly angry and enraged! The crowd would erupt in applauds and cheers when a heckler would stand up and give his speech. The crowd was very hard hearted, and God hating, so I continued to hammer out the law.
The message from many Christians was, "your not preaching love! Preach love!" I explained how it is the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom, not the love of God. But I did a survey and asked the crowd, "How many of you fear God?" To which maybe 10 out of 200 raised their hand. So I explained how you need to plow before you plant, and that the crowd is not ready for the love of God.
Eventually the crowd was virtually a riot. The people started talking about beating me up, and dumping gasoline on me to light me on fire. One man even run up and grabbed our sound box. When one of our guys grabbed him, he through it up into the air and it smashed on the ground. John Legg, the guy who grabbed him, continued to hold on to him. But the crowd started chanting, "Let him go, let him go!" The kid eventually broke away and ran off.
Josh Maciel got up and started to preach, and I believe calmed the crowd down a bit. But eventually security showed up and asked us to leave. The campus group that sponsored us, Christian Athletes, was threaten by the administration with loosing their campus organization status if they allowed us back on and end up causing a scene again.
That evening we taught an evangelism seminar for the Christian Athletes group. When I walked into the room I recognized the worship leader as one of the hecklers that yelled at me out in the open-air. But we still were able to talk about evangelism, and the biblical principal of Law before grace to the group.
Thursday November 10th, 2005
Since we were no longer allowed on campus, we went in front of one of the main entrances to preach. I had preached for maybe 2 ½ hours without getting any real crowd. Once in a while I'd get a heckler who would walk off, maybe someone who would stand there for a minute before walking off, but no crowd. The spot we were preaching at is a usual spot for preachers, so the students who use that entrance have become calloused it seems.
But on the good side of things, about 80 boot campers arrived for evangelism training, as this day was the first day of an EBC event!
Friday November 11th, 2005
There was a Veterans parade going on only a few blocks away from our hotel. So all 80 of us went and passed out tracts at the parade. It was wonderful. Everywhere you looked you saw people with gospel tracts! We saturated the whole parade. Even the Major of Austin, Major Winn got a gospel tract!
We went to the Austin campus and preached outside of it. I took my team to a new entrance which I didn't think ever got any preachers. And sure enough, we were able to get great crowds. For about an hour I went toe to toe with a Russian mathematician. The crowd would stay for hours and ask questions. Some would sit in the grass, on the wall, on the sidewalk, and just listen to the preaching.
A cop did show up, but it was because of our fake corpse. She said, "That's not a real person is it?" I said, "No" and she started to laugh as she walked off. Even a reporter/photographer from the Daily Texan stopped and took some pictures and asked some questions, but I don't think we made the paper.
Saturday November 12th, 2005
There was a huge college football game going on, which brought thousands upon thousands of people to tail gate around the campus. At the intersections near campus, hundreds would wait to cross the street. We would stand at the intersections and preach a 60 second gospel for people while they waited to cross. Many from the boot camp preached open air for the first time at those intersections.
That evening we went and preached at 6th street Austin, which is the club district. It looked much like New Orleans; drunk men and women dressed as prostitutes. There were thousands upon thousands of people on this one street alone. Like sheep off to the slaughter, they were blindly marching straight to hell.
I've learned a great deal now about drawing a crowd out on the street. You must be very animated and very sharp. Everywhere I preached at in 6th street I was able to draw a crowd. Usually the crowd was made up of angry hecklers and blind mockers, but some genuine listeners.
On one corner I started to preach two mockers stopped to scoff. I rebuked them sharply to which they responded back in anger. One of them, an Irish man with a heavy accent, cussed me out and got right in my face. He kept tightening up his fists like he was going to punch me, but his friend got between us. I kept preaching, and his friend which originally got between turned to me and kicked me! They did help draw a big crowd and I was able to preach repentance for quite a while to a listening crowd.
The message was sharp, "if you have come out here tonight to get SSMMAASSSHHEEDD on alcohol, on judgment day you will be SSMMAASSSHHEEDD by God's Law. Turn from your sins and come to Jesus Christ."
Though the majority of the people out there yelled at us and cussed us out, there was one tall man who came over during one of the times that it looked like I was able to be beaten. He was actually a former youth pastor, still a Christian, who just went to a Christian club to hear his friend's band. He thought if I ended up being attached he would jump in and protect me. He listened to us preach for a long time and loved what we were doing. He encouraged us and was glad we were out there.
All over 6th street we were preaching open-air, giving out tracts, and talking one2one. Hundreds were reached with the gospel!