Post by messengermicah on Mar 7, 2006 19:06:58 GMT -5
South Beach: The usual faithful group of Elizabeth, Doug, John and Onica, Emmanuel and myself arrived a little earlier than normal on South Beach for the annual Food and Wine Festival. We set up our banners in the square across from Mango?s and headed towards 5th Street.
Emmanuel preached on the coral wall across from Wet Willie?s and had several hecklers along with a small group of listeners. One of his hecklers was a former student of mine who claims consuming liquor and checking out girls won?t send you to hell. John then preached in the same spot and had a good group of listeners of about 30-35.
It was so windy we decided to put away our banners.
We then moved down towards 5th Street and Doug preached on the coral wall across from the Majestic Hotel. I was away walking to the bathroom during this preaching time so I missed most of what happened, but I do know we picked up a heckler who wore a Food and Wine shirt, as he was one of the cooks or servers, and followed us to our next spot.
We then moved to the street in the square across from the Majestic Hotel. I stepped up on the platform and began preaching. As has been the pattern for the past 3-4 weeks in this spot, many people stopped to listen again to the sides of me, behind me, and in front of me on both corners of the street (maybe 25 to 30 in all). Doug?s heckler followed us and began heckling me. He was smoking, cursing, drinking, etc., but was convinced he was a Christian and God loves everybody. After a while he moved away from me and John began contending with him and his buddy to the side of me.
Another heckler then came up to me with the same story as the last one. He had beer on his breath, admits he sins all the time, but was convinced he was a Christian. He also was trying to tell me my message was good but my method was wrong.
The waiter or restaurant manager who works across the street that regularly heckles me came out again and began heckling me. All these hecklers helped build the crowd up to maybe around 40 people. I was debating with the heckler who had beer on his breath, sins all the time, and thinks he is a Christian, and I was noticing all the people gathering across the street to watch and listen. I then ran across the street and began preaching to the 30 or so people who had gathered to watch.
It got pretty rowdy across the street a few times with one of the girls on the street flashing us, and then two others flashing the crowd from about the 4th floor of the Majestic Hotel window. The waiter/restaurant manager came and got in my face, along with the beer breath Christian and his wife. Our photographer friend Dean was there and got many pictures. You can see the two professing Christian hecklers, the very angry wife of one of the professing Christians, the waiter/restaurant manager who always heckles me at this spot, and finally one of the 3 women who flashed us (http://www.pbase.com/lautermilch/repent). Dean puts up the pictures he likes. He did cover the woman?s breasts. It is pitiful how they expose their breasts for the applause of men.
After about 10 minutes of preaching to that rowdy rabble, John and I decided to leave the scene before the police showed up (they did show up too right after we left). As we were leaving we met some on fire Pentecostal Christians from either Trinidad or Barbados who watched the whole scene and were very encouraged and prayed for us. There was also a couple from Guatemala on business that wanted to encourage us and the woman was so heartbroken over the sinfulness of the people and the way they treated us that she was in tears.
Our group then moved down the beach in the other direction.
We set up on the very wide sidewalk across the street from the Lummus Park sign. There are now expensive residential buildings on this side of the street. We were not going to preach here long because we were going to head downtown later in the evening to preach at a Bob Marley 13th annual reggae festival.
Onica began preaching on the platform and a security officer approached us and told us we had to leave. We told him it was a public sidewalk and we were not leaving. He then called the police.
As Onica continued preaching, followed by John I asked the security officer what it was exactly that we were doing wrong. He could not tell me, but told me the police would explain it.
A few minutes later a police officer that I had met last week when the hostess or manager lady at the Lincoln Road restaurant before called him came on the scene. I shook his hand and told him we were going to preach here a little while longer and then head downtown. He said what we were doing was fine. The security officer lied and told the police officer he was getting complaints about us. This could not be true because Onica had only preached for about 1 minute when he came up to us and told us to leave.
A few minutes later another officer who I have met before comes on the scene and tells me the sidewalk belongs to the residential buildings and is private property so we have to move. I told the officer that the sidewalk was public property and not private property. He then told us that it did not matter, he was the law, and we had to move anyway. I told him if he could tell me what law we were breaking we would move, but we would not move just because he told us to.
He then gets upset, tells me he did not come out here to be challenged and starts making phone calls. The other officer then interrupts and starts telling me to please just move to across the street and there would be no problem. I told this other officer that we would be willing to move if we were breaking a law, but it was not right for the other officer to tell us to move just because he said so. My wife was filming all of this.
The ?good? officer continued to respectfully and politely ask us to move to the other side of the street. I told him that because he was so polite and we were leaving soon that we would move across the street.
I told John as he continued preaching that we were moving across the street. We then moved across the street and I asked John if he wanted to continue preaching. He told me I could go ahead. I got on the platform and was only going to preach a few minutes until Doug arrived with the van, but probably ended up preaching 25 to 30 minutes. Doug did not show up with the van like I thought, but walked up to where we were preaching. I had several people standing around listening along with the police officers across the street, along with a heckler who seemed to by drunk and was a veteran
After a while another officer came on the scene. The one officer who told us to leave was on the phone saying we were causing trouble and was holding out his phone so they can hear me preaching.
After I finished preaching we left and thanked the officers but the one officer would not shake our hands.
Bayfront Arena-Bob Marley 13th Annual Reggae Festival: We left South Beach around 8:15 and headed downtown to the Bayfront Arena to preach at a Bob Marley Reggae Festival. We brought our banners here because it was not windy.
The large sidewalk was packed with people standing around and walking by, checking out the opposite sex and smoking marijuana. We set up and Elizabeth began preaching with the bullhorn. Elizabeth preached for about 10 to 15 minutes and gave the bullhorn to John.
John preached for a few minutes and had some fierce hecklers right away, but then a police car pulled up on the sidewalk and told everyone not to block the sidewalk since the concert was sold out. One officer then came up to John and told him to step down. She told him he could not use the bullhorn. John put the bullhorn away and continued preaching with just his voice. I asked the officer what law it was that said we could not use a bullhorn. She replied ?City Ordinance?. I persisted in her being specific with me. To her credit she did spend a lot of time on the radio and trying to find it in her book.
While the officer was looking, John finished preaching, followed by Doug and Emmanuel. We had one good heckler, Matthew who used to attend our churches youth group. His father, Will is away from God still attends and his mother became a lesbian.
Everyone in the group was having people stop, listen, heckle, and ask questions.
Throughout the evening we continually received racial insults from the predominantly African American crowd there. Of course they did not like being told their idol Bob Marley was in hell, and smoking marijuana would also send you to hell.
I took a turn preaching around 10:10 PM. I decided I was going to preach with the bullhorn anyway. After a few minutes one of the officers came and told me I could not preach with the bullhorn. I asked her why not and she responded ?City Ordinance.? I asked her which one and she did not know and asked me to please not use it. I told her as respectfully as possible that I could not comply with that and continued preaching.
After about 15 minutes the Miami Heat (from the American Airlines Stadium down the street a few blocks) began to let out. I started getting a few hecklers and had a good crowd of about 25-30 listeners. They heckled, mocked, and asked questions. I preached and answered their questions until 11:00 PM and we decided to leave.