Post by Messenger Micah on Jan 10, 2006 21:25:01 GMT -5
South Beach: Joining me were Elizabeth, John and Onica, Doug, and Doug?s older brother Michael. Michael has been a Christian for many years, is a very godly man, and a real prayer warrior.
We arrived around 4:30 PM, parked in the parking garage on 6th Street, met up with Dean, and some other photographers, and set up in the Square across from the Majestic Hotel. Onica and I went to feed and witness to some of the homeless people hanging around in the grass. One of them said he saw me preaching the day before downtown at the Government Center (see 12/23-12/30 report).
Ocean Drive was shut down on this night for traffic due to the big block party expected later. There were hundreds of people walking around the street. Doug got on the step-up platform in the Square across from the Majestic hotel and began preaching. A decent crowd of probably 30-40 stopped to listen with many others on the outskirts listening. It was very quiet on this part of the street. Doug preached for maybe 10 minutes.
I preached after Doug wearing the sandwich board sign (see pictures at www.pbase.com/lautermilch/repent). I also had a crowd of about 30-40 gather with many more on the outskirts listening. I preached fast and furious for about 20 minutes, partly because of the Holy Spirit but also because John was timing me. As soon as I stepped down a young boy came up to me and asked me some very good questions. He said he knew everything I was saying was true, but His God was also a God of love. I answered his questions from the scripture for about 10 minutes and we moved down.
We set up in the square across from Wet Willie?s. It was louder here than at the other part of the street so it was more difficult to get people to stop. Onica preached here first and then Elizabeth. Elizabeth was able to gather a crowd of about 15 to 20. John then preached here for about 15 minutes (I was now timing John) and had a few stop and listen, besides the many walking around on the street (see pictures).
We tried to stop at the square of the Clevelander, and almost did but decided it was too loud. We moved down to the Square across from the Versace Mansion. It was much quieter here but the street was not nearly as crowded.
There were several officers across the street, but I was ready to be arrested if necessary. I preached here from about 6:35 PM until just before 7:00 PM. The officers were watching me, radioing in, but never said a word to me. Dean talked to one of them and said the officer told him he did not see what the big deal was about someone preaching when they were going to have people firing off guns and fireworks later that evening.
I had one guy with a guitar walk up to me (while I was preaching I warned the girls about him trying to seduce them with his music) and started playing some kind of music off a laptop computer. He told me afterward that he was a worship leader for youth at a well known church (Calvary Chapel), but admitted he regularly sins (although he did not think it was sin), said in Christ he does not sin, and said the doctrine of hell was a Catholic doctrine. He did not believe in a literal hell.
We were planning on heading to Bayfront Park later that evening because John thought there would be even more people out there. We began to walk back towards the car. We stopped in front of Wet Willie?s and Doug preached about a 5-minute sermon, and I followed him with a 15-minute sermon. On the way back to the car I had a pretty good conversation with a young, cigarette smoking, reggae shirt wearing, drinking, lustful, professing, sin-defending ?Christian.?
Bayfront Park: We dropped off Doug?s brother Michael and headed for Bayfront Park. We arrived there around 8:00 PM or 8:15 PM. We ran into a few homeless guys as soon as we got out of the car, so we walked out of our way, pulled the wagon, witnessed to them and bought them some food at a Cuban Cafeteria.
When we got to Bayfront Park they were having two different concerts simultaneously. One concert was in the amphitheater and the other in the park. We wondered if we had made a mistake coming there because we thought there would be more people. John and Onica walked back to the car to get the banners and I started witnessing to a ?Christian? ?couple? who were fornicating and drinking (the girl was so drunk she looked sick).
As we got further into the park there were plenty of people there, but it was very loud. We decided to try to set up near the large fountain by the bay. There were all kinds of vendors outside the circular area where the fountain was selling food, etc. There were a lot of families here as well as a lot of young people.
As we began to set up about 8 to 10 police officers followed us and told us this was city property and we could not set up there. Doug said, ?Oh city property, so it is public right? I pay for this with my tax dollars.? It turned out they did not want us to set up the banners because of the poles used to hold them up. We agreed to put them away, and Doug started preaching. The officers watched for a few minutes and left.
There was a loud concert going on about 100-125 yards behind us so we all preached using a small bullhorn.
As the members of the team were preaching, I was encouraged to meet an African American family who were inspired to see us out there and in agreement with our preaching. They also told us that they were out here last year and the area would become very crowded as it got near midnight.
All the team members were getting 5-10 people to stop and listen for periods of time, along with 4-8 standing behind us listening. Elizabeth was preaching and had a Muslim man listening very intently to everything she said. He even was agreeing with her until she mentioned Muhammad was in hell. That did not go over too well with him. I took him aside and had a very good discussion/debate with him on Jesus versus Muhammad and Christianity versus Islam. I had a few others listening to the debate and was able to blow several large holes in his reasoning, mainly that Muhammad was an adulterer (the man himself admitted he had 11 wives at one time), Muhammad was not without sin, and he could not say with assurance that Muhammad was actually with Allah. Elizabeth had stopped preaching and joined the discussion. She told me to confront him with his sin, and I told her I was, that his sin was idolatry because he worshipped a false god.
During this time as Doug was preaching a young African American man who seemed to be totally sincere, got on his knees, put his hands in the air, repented and called on God to save him. I did not witness this personally but was reported to me by other members of the group.
We had been here almost two hours; it was around 10:30 PM and I still had not preached in this location. I preached here from 10:35 PM to 11:15 PM. Most of the time I had about 15 people stopping and listening plus about ten others standing behind me. A group of Hispanic ?Christians? approached me when I was preaching, and a blonde woman stood next to me for a while praying tongues. She and members of the group were not dressed very modestly to be Christians and the woman asked one of the members if she could preach in Spanish, but I told her ?no?.
While I was preaching I noticed an African American man listening intently to all the preaching, smiling, and nodding. I talked to him after I finished preaching, and he was also there with his family, and inspired to see us there preaching.
We had agreed to leave around 11:00 PM before we left, so after I finished preaching, John preached for about 5-10 minutes and we packed up and headed home.