Post by messengermicah on Feb 20, 2006 21:14:11 GMT -5
Joining me to South Beach this week were Elizabeth, Doug, John and Onica. We arrived a little before 5:00 PM, set up our banners and started preaching in the square across from the Majestic Hotel. I got on the step-up platform and started preaching right about 5:00 PM. As soon as I started, people started stopping to listen, and then a few minutes later one of the waiters from across the street who heckled me the week before elevates himself on a cups and dishes crate, puts it in the middle of the street directly across from me and starts mocking me, calling me names, and making fun of me. Of course everyone thought this was really entertaining, and many people started stopping and watching, so I ran across the street to the sidewalk where everyone was stopping (about 30 people) between the heckler and the people and started preaching to them. He kept on mocking for a while but soon stopped. I then went back across the street and kept on preaching. There were people standing around at all the sections of the street listening.
After a while, this guy tries the same thing again, so I ran across the street again (positioning myself between himself and the people), and kept on preaching to the people. There was a steady audience of about 40 people during the duration of the preaching. I preached until about 5:35 PM and we moved down to Wet Willie?s.
John and Doug both preached in front of Wet Willie?s and we continued moving down Ocean Drive. I had a great conversation with a young guy named Robert from Peru, and he was deeply convicted to the point of becoming teary eyed. He accepted a Bible and was eager to read it. Elizabeth also had a great conversation with his girlfriend and her sister.
We moved down Ocean Drive past Mango?s and the Clevelander, and I decided to preach on the sidewalk in front of the Lummus Park sign where we used to preach all the time. I began preaching here at about 7:30 PM and preached until about 8:15 PM. I had several groups of people stopping to listen for long periods of time. A security officer came up immediately and tried to stop us but we told him it was public property and we had a right to do what we were doing. All he asked us to do was not to sit on or lean on the buildings he was guarding.
I had a handful of people who stood listening on my left for most of the time I was preaching, several young girls across the street who listened and heckled me the whole time, and a few young African American guys who listened and heckled me much of the time. The girls cheered when I mentioned sexual sins, and the black guys told me Jesus was black. The guys left before I finished preaching telling me they were going to get high, so I went to offer the girls a Bible. They were very angry with me, denying they started cheering when I mentioned sexual sins, were wearing immodest clothing, saying they were Christians, cursing me out, and listening and dancing to loud, lewd rap music. One was so angry; I thought she was going to attack me.
We then moved over to Lincoln Road and set up next to the Lincoln Road Theater. The vacant store where we have been preaching is about to open up with a combination of Starbucks and a music store. I actually was not really looking forward to preaching at Lincoln Road because the last few times I had preached here it seemed no one would stop. In the past I had been able to get groups of up to 20 to stop and listen, but the last few weeks I was striking out.
The team members each took turns preaching and I remember few if any people were stopping to listen. There was an older black man who was a Christian who sat down and listened to all of us. He said this was the best thing going on in the whole mall.
After everyone finished preaching, it was already 9:25 PM, and we usually do not stay much later than this, so I was going to preach a short while and then we would head out. I preached for about 5 minutes and it seemed like it was going to be another strike out. However, after about 10 minutes I had a group of young people stop, heckle me, and start asking me all kinds of questions, and the crowd built up to about 20 to 25. The crowd stayed for most of the rest of the time. The young people heckling and asking questions, an old lady holding a cup for money with a grocery cart who kept ramming her cart into my preaching platform and yelling at me to ?SHUT UP!? and another woman who was raised in a Christian home kept asking very good questions kept the interest of the crowd. By around 10:05 most of the crowd had left, and so we got information from the woman asking the questions and headed home.