Post by Messenger Micah on Jan 25, 2006 22:03:07 GMT -5
Saturday January 14-Art Deco Festival/South Beach: It was another cold day by Miami standards (50?s) and colder on the beach with the wind. We (Doug, Dougey, John, Onica, Emmanuel and myself) arrived early but had to wait for Elizabeth to meet us. We waited at a local Burger King, a few of the guys had a coffee and we redeemed the time by preaching a mini-sermon inside and continuing to preach to those on the outside sidewalk as we waited for Elizabeth.
We got on the Beach around 5:30 PM and Ocean Drive was again closed to all traffic due to the Art Deco Festival. There was vendor?s set up all up and down the block. This also caused the street to be much quieter than normal but with a lot of people. It was too windy to fly our banners.
We set up at the square between 5th and 6th Street and I preached from about 5:40 PM until about 6:10 PM. This was right outside of where the vendors were set up. No crowd gathered but some stopped to listen, and many others walking around heard a good amount of preaching because the street was so quiet. A policeman came over while I was preaching and asked the group some questions but did not interfere.
We then moved down to the Square by Wet Willie?s and set up right on one side of the street. Doug started preaching and a woman came and asked us if we had a permit. Doug told her ?Yes, the U.S. Constitution.? She told us we needed a permit but we ignored her and kept preaching. Emmanuel preached after Doug.
We then moved down to the square across from the Mango?s bar. John set up on the side of the street and preached there. Throughout the night we always had a few stop to listen and a few stop to converse or correct us on our methods (really it is the message they don?t like).
After John finished preaching we moved down to the Square across from the Clevelander. I set up on the side of the street and preached here from 7:00 PM to 7:30 PM. It was very hard to preach here because it was not as quiet as some of the other places, but I had a group of about 12 firefighters and police officers that heard everything along with the usual few that would stop.
We then moved down to the Square by the Versace Mansion. Emmanuel preached here and we ran into a group of Hare Krishna?s. They are not as popular here as they are in other parts of the country. They came by dancing, singing, etc. and stood in front of us for a few minutes. This caused a few more to gather.
We then moved down to the Square next to the Palace homosexual bar. Some in the group were a little apprehensive about preaching there because they always call the police, but I believed we should go there. We again set up in the street in front of some vendor tents that were now closed. Doug began preaching and had a few good hecklers. They were African American guys excited about Jesus but not excited about repentance and holiness (Matthew 1:21, Hebrews 12:14, Matthew 7:21).
After Doug preached I began preaching around 8:30 PM and preached until 9:15 PM. I had a young girl come up and get very angry with me when I quoted 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and asked me why I would say something like that right in front of a homosexual bar. Well I was prepared to go in that direction if necessary, but I was not seeing many homosexuals around so I preached a pretty general message about sin, righteousness, judgment, hell, Jesus, faith, etc. I had a few stop and listen. One man I remember in particular was a black man who had just come from Columbia to this country. He listened to the whole message and seemed to be impacted. We gave him some literature and talked with him afterwards
(See pictures at www.pbase.com/lautermilch/repent).