Post by messengermicah on Apr 26, 2008 14:21:59 GMT -5
Thursday April 10, 2008-Southern Arkansas University-Magnolia, Arkansas: A campus preacher friend of mine told me this had been a wild campus years ago. He said the students threw objects at him, shoved him, and hit him and eventually he had to be escorted off campus for his own safety.
He also said they eventually moved him to a free speech area where there was no foot traffic. After that he was never able to get a crowd so he stopped trying to preach there.
All this was probably over ten years ago. I was fairly close to this campus and I believed the Lord gave me a witness in my spirit (Romans 8:14+16) He wanted me to preach here.
However, due to more rain it would not happen this day. I was rained out again.
Friday April 11, 2008-Southern Arkansas University-Magnolia, Arkansas: Great weather today, but a terrible day to begin on a smaller campus. There are few classes on Friday and not many students around.
I also did not want to try preaching in the good free speech spot and get told to move to the bad area on a day with not much going on. If I preach in the good spot on Monday, get a crowd, and then get moved to the bad area, the crowd will follow me and I will at least get one good day in.
Sunday April 13, 2008: I had the privilege to preach and exhort for about 10 minutes in the evening service of a church of about 250 on “The Power of God to Win Souls”.
Monday April 14, 2008-Southern Arkansas University-Magnolia, Arkansas: Sister Elizabeth and I arrived on campus around 11:15 AM. It was an hour long drive through the Arkansas delta to the campus.
I began preaching on top of a planter around 11:45 AM. After a few minutes a well dressed man asked me to step down. He asked me why I was screaming and then asked for my ID.
He never identified himself so I asked who he was. He told me he was the police chief. I asked him for some ID and he pulled back his jacket and showed me his badge.
He ran a check on me and told me I was disturbing classes because it was too loud. I knew someone had complained but I knew it was not too loud. I was purposely preaching at a level slightly above conversational level, because I had not preached in a week and did not want to lose my voice.
He told me if someone complained then it was too loud. At first he was trying to intimidate me, but once he saw I was cooperative, knowledgeable of the law, and reasonable he lightened up. He then told me he does not really care what I do as long as he does not get complaints.
I resumed preaching at around noon. I soon gathered a crowd of 20-25. They were calm and attentive at first but soon began to get rowdy and unreasonable. The crowd quickly built up to 50-60.
The police chief as well as a uniformed officer stood on hand watching all day. During the preaching the uniformed officer stood two feet away from me. I guess this was to prevent the students from becoming violent towards me. I guess they know the students around there pretty well.
The crowd never got all that big (at times it was close to 100) but was very rowdy in spite of the close police presence. This campus seemed to have a much larger percentage of black students than most other campuses. About 50-60% of the crowd was black.
One large, black male fraternity student kept ordering all the students to walk away and not listen to me. Out of fear or peer pressure many of them acted like they were leaving or left for a few minutes but soon the crowd was right back up to size again. They could not stay away because the Word of God had searched and pierced their hearts (Hebrews 4:12), they were guilty (Romans 3:19-20, Romans 7:7) and could not rest (Romans 5:1, Isaiah 57:21, Hebrews 4:9).
This fraternity boy also claimed he had to leave for class at a certain time but never left. The students raged (Psalm 2:1), cursed, screamed, and threatened, the entire time I preached. It was difficult to get past the repent or perish (Luke 13:3), cannot curse, drink, fornicate, smoke, dress immodestly, listen to gangster rap, and be a Christian (1 John 3) message.
At 2:30 PM I was getting ready to stop preaching, sit down and see if there were any serious seekers in the crowd. The police officers asked me to stop preaching for the day because they needed to go somewhere else. I told them my plans to sit down and talk to the more serious students and they told me that was fine.
I tried to sit down and answer questions of more serious truth seekers but the students continued to curse, threaten, and yell. After twenty minutes the police officer told me he needed me to leave for the day but I was welcome to return the next day.
Right at that time gangster rap music began to blast through speakers throughout the mall area where I was preaching. Even though this was 3-4 times louder than I was no one seemed to complain of the noise or be offended by the vulgar lyrics. The students who had been cursing, raging and threatening saying they were Christians, began to dance, grind, and gyrate to the music. This is the fruit of the “American gospel”.
On the way out I had some good conversations with several more sincere students.
That evening, Sister Elizabeth and I went with a few sisters and a brother from the local church where we were staying to the county jail.
Sister Elizabeth and the sisters went to the women’s jail and the brother and I went to the men’s side. The sisters sang songs, preached and taught the Bible inside the jail chapel, while the brother and I preached in three different jail pods.
He would sing a song, make a few comments and then introduce me. I think I preached about 10-15 minutes in each pod. It was tough to preach after preaching all day and I had to preach over the TV in each pod.
The sister who was to have preached to the women inmates did not show up, so my wife preached.
Tuesday April 15, 2008-Southern Arkansas University-Magnolia, Arkansas: When Sister Elizabeth and I arrived on campus today, there were two groups set up in the mall in front of where I had preached yesterday. One group was a fraternity that was there the day before. They were the one who began to blast the music.
The other group was a group for abused women. They hung out several close lines of white t-shirts with each one representing a woman who had been murdered by her husband or boyfriend.
Before I began preaching a muscular African American male student approached me and told me he heard the preaching the day before. He told me his father was a pastor in Stuttgart. He was very respectful and seemed to realize I was preaching the truth.
As soon as I stood up to preach around 11:45 AM the police officer came over and told me I could not. He told me this group had reserved the area months ago and wanted an atmosphere that was “quiet and reflective”. I could understand that if this was true.
He told me I could use the theater area and I could try to reserve the mall area for another day (this was the spot I was preaching in).
There were already students waiting for us when we arrived, so I stayed in the same spot and tried to decide which direction I needed to go.
Just then the same group from yesterday began to blast the loud gangster rap music again and the students began to dance, grind, and gyrate like the day before. I guess “quiet and reflective” means “no preaching” but loud vulgar music (that promotes violence) is acceptable.
I went to the office and finally found the people I was supposed to talk to. I told them my situation and hinted that I felt I was being discriminated against. They tried to give me the run around for a while but I pressed my case.
I think the lady in charge knew I was taping our conversation. This seemed to make her nervous and she made an excuse to leave the room. I filled out the paper work to reserve the mall area for the next day. It was supposed to be 10 days of advance notice, so I was not overly optimistic. They said they would call me the next morning.
I went back to the mall area and sat. One male student came to us and told us the administration told me to head over to the theater because students were going to be showing up over there to hear me.
We began to walk over to the theater and a handful of students followed us. We arrived in the theater area around 1:45 PM. I began to have a conversation with the handful of students by asking them if they were Christians and did they sin.
Gradually the handful grew to 15-20 and then to 30-40. It ended up being a very profitable day. I preached, answered questions and taught the Bible until 4:30 PM. Most of the students did not like my message, or agree with me but listened fairly well and asked good questions. A few times some of the students threatened me with violence but it was only a bluff. It is sort of like they say they love the Lord but never do what He commands them to.
The thing about preaching at the theater was there was no police around. By the end of the day the 40 students had surrounded me. They seemed fairly civil and reasonable. However when Sister Elizabeth and I began to leave they followed us. I do not think they were going to do anything but just trying to scare us. Either way I was not going to allow them to follow me back to my vehicle. We headed inside a building and lost them coming out.
Wednesday April 16, 2008-Southern Arkansas University-Magnolia, Arkansas: I received very good but surprising news this morning. The school called me and told me I could use the mall area from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM. This would allow me to get a crowd and then head over to the theater and they could follow.
The area they gave me was across from the planter where I had preached on Monday but it was a good spot nonetheless. I began preaching at 11:50 AM. Across the mall in front of the student union they were having some kind of activity going on with-that’s right you guessed it-more gangster rap music! The organization’s theme is “soberfest” yet the lyrics of the song promote alcohol and drug use?! It was not loud enough to interfere with the preaching but may have kept more from coming to listen.
I gathered a crowd of 50-60. More than 50% seemed to be black students. The student whose father was a pastor in Stuttgart was on hand and filming.
The preaching was similar to Monday. The police chief stayed about 10-15 yards away from me the whole time. He was careful to let me know before I started preaching that I was not allowed to single out any student. I am still trying to figure this out. I am not sure how you keep from “singling students out” when you are interacting with them and they are asking you questions.
I think what they mean and how this is to be interpreted is that we are not supposed to label students walking by or minding their own business. I have never done this, nor do I know any other preacher who does this but many students continue to lie and say we do these things.
Then when a student is bragging about all his sin, flaunting his sin, and asking us if he is going to hell the officer is expecting us not to answer him directly.
Anyhow, I tried to get through the hour and avoid anything that may have been a close judgment call by the officer. I preached against their sins of fornication, alcohol & drug use, gangster rap, rock-n-roll, ography, homosex, etc. and called them to repent.
They screamed, cursed, threatened, etc. At 1:00 PM the officer let me know my time was up. I announced we were heading to the theater and invited them all.
The students continued to filter into the theater until there was about as many there as the mall (40-50). Today most of them sat down on the theater steps where as the day before most never sat down.
The atmosphere here was much different from the mall. Most of the time the students asked good questions and listened well although they did not like my answers or agree with me.
Each day there was a white male student who would fiercely oppose me. He was supposedly a Christian leader. While the students were sitting calmly in the theater listening and asking questions, he and his friends stood behind me and tried to distract the listeners.
Later he moved over to one side of the theater and began to sing songs with his friends. My crowd continued to grow and eventually he gave up and joined my crowd.
I preached, answered questions and taught the Bible until 3:00 PM. Around 2:30 PM I noticed the students behaved exceptionally well. I turned around and noticed a police officer behind me listening and watching. He called me over and let me know they had received a complaint about me calling students out. I asked him if he saw me do anything like that. He said, no.
He then let me know if he received another complaint I would have to leave. I told him I had recorded everything I said and he was welcome to listen if he would like to. I also informed him people will lie about what I am saying if they do not like the message.
I continued preaching and several of the students went over and told the officer I had not done anything like what was reported I had done. At 3:00 PM, I stopped preaching and sat down with the students. Several in the crowd seemed to be sincere Baptists who did not condone living in sin. Others who were not Christians commented on how they appreciated me sitting down to talk with them.
We prepared to leave around 3:30 PM. Several of the students wanted to get together for an interview. I gave them contact information and we departed.