Post by messengermicah on Mar 20, 2008 16:44:13 GMT -5
Saturday March 8, 2008-Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Fellow campus preacher, Brother Rick B. drove down from Kentucky and arrived the night before. He came to avoid the big snowstorm up north.
He did not avoid all of it though because weather dropped below freezing this night and there was snow on the ground, vehicles and trailer when we woke up. I could hear it coming down on the camper during the night.
My picture ended up being on the front page of the Tuscaloosa News. It showed me preaching to a crowd from the day before. The article was not about me even though it did mention me.
It seems the week before we arrived several students were arrested for doing a mock raid to bring soldiers back from Iraq. The article dealt with the legal ramifications of this.
Sunday March 9, 2008-Tuscaloosa, Alabama: After morning church service, Sister Elizabeth, Brother Rick and I headed to the University of Alabama Capstone radio station. I was scheduled to do an interview at 12:30 PM.
When we arrived we learned the show had been bumped due to a sports broadcast. Instead of the show now being live, it would have to be prerecorded.
It seemed they were also scheduled to interview some band that was performing in the area. They brought the band in the broadcast room with me and began to interview me. They then allowed the band members to ask me questions and then allowed me to answer. They asked good questions that reflected the general unbiblical mindset in our society today. I was able to give detailed, thorough, scriptural answers. I thought the hour long interview went extremely well.
That evening I had been invited to preach in the same Baptist church I preached in last year on Sunday morning. I preached for about 50 minutes from Matthew 6:21-24 on “A Single Eye”.
The pastor and others who had been on hand during the week of preaching seemed to have been greatly stirred and there was a special time of prayer at the altar at the end of the service.
After the service we all met at the pastor’s house for a time of fellowship. We cannot express enough how much we appreciate these brethren and all their help. To God be the Glory for them!
Monday March 10, 2008-University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The previous week had gone so well, I decided to stay around for the first part of this week to continue preaching at the University of Alabama campus. I believed after the previous week of preaching the campus would be “broken”.
The term “broken” basically means after an amount of hard preaching against sin, righteousness, and judgment on rowdy campuses where they do not get much preaching they begin to settle down. The crowd sizes are not as large, the hecklers, hypocrites, and perverts settle down, the students sober up, listen better, ask better questions and begin to take the preaching more seriously.
I was looking forward to a few calmer days of preaching to more sober minded, calmer crowds with better question and answer sessions. I was anticipating a group of seven preachers from “Soul Winners” (Michael Venyah) were going to show up on campus this week. I had posted on my schedule that I would be continuing a few days at UA and I tried to call them and let them know.
On Sunday night as I was driving back from preaching at the Baptist church with Sister Elizabeth and Brother Rick, I received a message from them that they would be preaching also at the UA the next day.
Brother Rick arrived early on campus and began preaching. The “Soul Winners” team showed up after he began preaching and set up their two banners. I arrived around 11:45 AM and Michael Venyah’s wife Sister Tamika was preaching to a small crowd. The radio station was out again like last Monday blasting loud music and a live band.
Michael Venyah told me since I had been here they would just support the work we had begun and would help however they could. I told them they could preach this day and I was going to remain on the sidelines and make myself available to talk to students who wanted to ask me questions. I had a great day of talking to small groups of 2-10 students on the sidelines from 12 to about 4:30 PM. The students were very receptive, polite, and asked sincere questions. I taught the Bible all day and many students had all their questions answered and had a better understanding of the message I was preaching and why I was preaching it.
Brother Rick, Michael Venyah, Brother Chris, Brother JK, Sister Evangelista, and Sister Tamika spent the day preaching to smaller, less hostile, calmer crowds throughout the day of 25-100.
After the day on campus the Soul Winners team, Rick Bradley, Sister Elizabeth and I all went to dinner and had several hours of fellowship.
Tuesday March 11, 2008-University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, Alabama: I arrived on campus with Brother Rick and Sister Elizabeth. The Soul Winners team was already there and had their banners set up but did not start preaching. They were waiting for me to begin preaching. I appreciated this but did not expect it.
I began preaching at 11:30 AM to a few students who were already waiting for us to begin preaching. The crowd stayed small for quite some time (around 30-40). After a while it built up some to about 50-60.
Some anti war protestors stood on the side of me and were chanting something about getting the troops out of Iraq. I continued preaching until 1:15 PM. By this time the crowd was around 120-125. I turned the crowd over to Brother Rick.
Brother Rick continued preaching until around 2:45 PM. The Soul Winners team left the campus around 2:30 PM. I sat on the sidelines and continued to have great question and answer discussions with small groups of 2-10 students for the remainder of the day. I had many students express sincere appreciation for my being there, preaching to them and answering questions.
Somewhere around 3:00 PM a female African American with the local news station introduced herself and asked if she could do an interview with me where we were staying. I agreed and we sent up the interview for 5:30 PM.
Sister Elizabeth did an excellent job of preaching from about 2:45 PM to 3:40 PM while the news crew did some filming.
I let the local pastor of the church where we were staying at know the news station was coming over. When they arrived he offered to let them do the interview inside the sanctuary. It is a large, beautiful, sanctuary and the news crew agreed. They interviewed me and then Sister Elizabeth, took some film of the church and then left.
After the interview I received a phone call from one of the Baptist brethren. We were supposed to go out to dinner with the Baptist brethren. He wanted to know if we wanted to go to a church service with him at a local church before we went to dinner.
They had been so supportive of us preaching on campus that I thought it would be a good idea to go. I thoroughly enjoyed the service. These were “shouting” Baptists and many of them knew who I was, had heard of the preaching and were very supportive and encouraging.
The preacher that night was an older gentleman in a wheel chair who seemed to have memorized the entire New Testament. I was impressed as he quoted verbatim long obscure passages from the gospels leading up to the crucifixion.
After the service at dinner another brother who hosts a local radio show told me he had gotten me a radio interview on the large talk show station the next morning from 7:05 AM to 7:20 AM. It was another time of good food and fellowship and I am very appreciative for these brothers.
Wednesday March 12, 2008-University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The interview from 7:05 AM to 7:20 AM was short but went well. They treated me kindly and I had the opportunity to quote several passages of scriptures.
Brother Rick, Sister Elizabeth and I arrived around 11:30 AM. Brother Michael was preaching when we arrived.
I had another great day of sitting on the sidelines and teaching the Bible to small groups of 2-10 students. All the conversations were civil with sincere seekers, sincere questions, and receptive listeners. Throughout the week many students told me they had began reading their Bibles, had gone back to church, thinking about God, etc. I am not satisfied with these results but it is a start in the right direction for many of these students.
Brother Michael turned the preaching over to Sister Evangelista and she seemed to do a good job building up the crowd to about 100-120. It seemed a group of protestors began to stand behind the preaching holding hateful signs that condemned us and our message. They were condemning hate speech and promoting tolerance.
Brother JK then took over for a while and really seemed to “stir the pot”. It seemed at one point the crowd was around 200. Brother Chris preached a while after Brother JK and then turned it over to Brother Rick.
I was planning on leaving the next morning but a student on campus invited me to be on his campus radio show the next day from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM for an interview.
The Soul Winners group left the campus around 4:00 PM. Brother Rick turned the preaching over to me around 3:50 PM. I began preaching to a group of around 30 and the crowd seemed to build up to around 50-60. I preached until 5:00 PM and continued to answer questions until around 5:45 PM.
Thursday March 13, 2008-University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The hour long interview on the campus radio went very well. There was no call in listeners. He would ask me questions about how I got started preaching, why I preach the way I do, why I preach the message I do, etc. I had an excellent opportunity to expound the Word of God for an hour over the radio quoting many passages of scripture.
Leaving Tuscaloosa later that afternoon I received a phone call from a guy from the “Jerry Springer Show”. Apparently the interview I had with the Associated Press reporter had come out in The New York Times as well as many other newspapers all over the country. They read the article and invited me on their show to confront a regular guest they have on the show who calls himself a “minister” and will marry anyone for $100.
It turned out his producer did not want to do it because the show was to be about people who knew each other confronting each other.
We drove to Mississippi for our next open air-meeting at Ole’Miss.
Sister Elizabeth and I spent the night in a Wal- Mart parking lot in Mississippi.
He did not avoid all of it though because weather dropped below freezing this night and there was snow on the ground, vehicles and trailer when we woke up. I could hear it coming down on the camper during the night.
My picture ended up being on the front page of the Tuscaloosa News. It showed me preaching to a crowd from the day before. The article was not about me even though it did mention me.
It seems the week before we arrived several students were arrested for doing a mock raid to bring soldiers back from Iraq. The article dealt with the legal ramifications of this.
Sunday March 9, 2008-Tuscaloosa, Alabama: After morning church service, Sister Elizabeth, Brother Rick and I headed to the University of Alabama Capstone radio station. I was scheduled to do an interview at 12:30 PM.
When we arrived we learned the show had been bumped due to a sports broadcast. Instead of the show now being live, it would have to be prerecorded.
It seemed they were also scheduled to interview some band that was performing in the area. They brought the band in the broadcast room with me and began to interview me. They then allowed the band members to ask me questions and then allowed me to answer. They asked good questions that reflected the general unbiblical mindset in our society today. I was able to give detailed, thorough, scriptural answers. I thought the hour long interview went extremely well.
That evening I had been invited to preach in the same Baptist church I preached in last year on Sunday morning. I preached for about 50 minutes from Matthew 6:21-24 on “A Single Eye”.
The pastor and others who had been on hand during the week of preaching seemed to have been greatly stirred and there was a special time of prayer at the altar at the end of the service.
After the service we all met at the pastor’s house for a time of fellowship. We cannot express enough how much we appreciate these brethren and all their help. To God be the Glory for them!
Monday March 10, 2008-University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The previous week had gone so well, I decided to stay around for the first part of this week to continue preaching at the University of Alabama campus. I believed after the previous week of preaching the campus would be “broken”.
The term “broken” basically means after an amount of hard preaching against sin, righteousness, and judgment on rowdy campuses where they do not get much preaching they begin to settle down. The crowd sizes are not as large, the hecklers, hypocrites, and perverts settle down, the students sober up, listen better, ask better questions and begin to take the preaching more seriously.
I was looking forward to a few calmer days of preaching to more sober minded, calmer crowds with better question and answer sessions. I was anticipating a group of seven preachers from “Soul Winners” (Michael Venyah) were going to show up on campus this week. I had posted on my schedule that I would be continuing a few days at UA and I tried to call them and let them know.
On Sunday night as I was driving back from preaching at the Baptist church with Sister Elizabeth and Brother Rick, I received a message from them that they would be preaching also at the UA the next day.
Brother Rick arrived early on campus and began preaching. The “Soul Winners” team showed up after he began preaching and set up their two banners. I arrived around 11:45 AM and Michael Venyah’s wife Sister Tamika was preaching to a small crowd. The radio station was out again like last Monday blasting loud music and a live band.
Michael Venyah told me since I had been here they would just support the work we had begun and would help however they could. I told them they could preach this day and I was going to remain on the sidelines and make myself available to talk to students who wanted to ask me questions. I had a great day of talking to small groups of 2-10 students on the sidelines from 12 to about 4:30 PM. The students were very receptive, polite, and asked sincere questions. I taught the Bible all day and many students had all their questions answered and had a better understanding of the message I was preaching and why I was preaching it.
Brother Rick, Michael Venyah, Brother Chris, Brother JK, Sister Evangelista, and Sister Tamika spent the day preaching to smaller, less hostile, calmer crowds throughout the day of 25-100.
After the day on campus the Soul Winners team, Rick Bradley, Sister Elizabeth and I all went to dinner and had several hours of fellowship.
Tuesday March 11, 2008-University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, Alabama: I arrived on campus with Brother Rick and Sister Elizabeth. The Soul Winners team was already there and had their banners set up but did not start preaching. They were waiting for me to begin preaching. I appreciated this but did not expect it.
I began preaching at 11:30 AM to a few students who were already waiting for us to begin preaching. The crowd stayed small for quite some time (around 30-40). After a while it built up some to about 50-60.
Some anti war protestors stood on the side of me and were chanting something about getting the troops out of Iraq. I continued preaching until 1:15 PM. By this time the crowd was around 120-125. I turned the crowd over to Brother Rick.
Brother Rick continued preaching until around 2:45 PM. The Soul Winners team left the campus around 2:30 PM. I sat on the sidelines and continued to have great question and answer discussions with small groups of 2-10 students for the remainder of the day. I had many students express sincere appreciation for my being there, preaching to them and answering questions.
Somewhere around 3:00 PM a female African American with the local news station introduced herself and asked if she could do an interview with me where we were staying. I agreed and we sent up the interview for 5:30 PM.
Sister Elizabeth did an excellent job of preaching from about 2:45 PM to 3:40 PM while the news crew did some filming.
I let the local pastor of the church where we were staying at know the news station was coming over. When they arrived he offered to let them do the interview inside the sanctuary. It is a large, beautiful, sanctuary and the news crew agreed. They interviewed me and then Sister Elizabeth, took some film of the church and then left.
After the interview I received a phone call from one of the Baptist brethren. We were supposed to go out to dinner with the Baptist brethren. He wanted to know if we wanted to go to a church service with him at a local church before we went to dinner.
They had been so supportive of us preaching on campus that I thought it would be a good idea to go. I thoroughly enjoyed the service. These were “shouting” Baptists and many of them knew who I was, had heard of the preaching and were very supportive and encouraging.
The preacher that night was an older gentleman in a wheel chair who seemed to have memorized the entire New Testament. I was impressed as he quoted verbatim long obscure passages from the gospels leading up to the crucifixion.
After the service at dinner another brother who hosts a local radio show told me he had gotten me a radio interview on the large talk show station the next morning from 7:05 AM to 7:20 AM. It was another time of good food and fellowship and I am very appreciative for these brothers.
Wednesday March 12, 2008-University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The interview from 7:05 AM to 7:20 AM was short but went well. They treated me kindly and I had the opportunity to quote several passages of scriptures.
Brother Rick, Sister Elizabeth and I arrived around 11:30 AM. Brother Michael was preaching when we arrived.
I had another great day of sitting on the sidelines and teaching the Bible to small groups of 2-10 students. All the conversations were civil with sincere seekers, sincere questions, and receptive listeners. Throughout the week many students told me they had began reading their Bibles, had gone back to church, thinking about God, etc. I am not satisfied with these results but it is a start in the right direction for many of these students.
Brother Michael turned the preaching over to Sister Evangelista and she seemed to do a good job building up the crowd to about 100-120. It seemed a group of protestors began to stand behind the preaching holding hateful signs that condemned us and our message. They were condemning hate speech and promoting tolerance.
Brother JK then took over for a while and really seemed to “stir the pot”. It seemed at one point the crowd was around 200. Brother Chris preached a while after Brother JK and then turned it over to Brother Rick.
I was planning on leaving the next morning but a student on campus invited me to be on his campus radio show the next day from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM for an interview.
The Soul Winners group left the campus around 4:00 PM. Brother Rick turned the preaching over to me around 3:50 PM. I began preaching to a group of around 30 and the crowd seemed to build up to around 50-60. I preached until 5:00 PM and continued to answer questions until around 5:45 PM.
Thursday March 13, 2008-University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The hour long interview on the campus radio went very well. There was no call in listeners. He would ask me questions about how I got started preaching, why I preach the way I do, why I preach the message I do, etc. I had an excellent opportunity to expound the Word of God for an hour over the radio quoting many passages of scripture.
Leaving Tuscaloosa later that afternoon I received a phone call from a guy from the “Jerry Springer Show”. Apparently the interview I had with the Associated Press reporter had come out in The New York Times as well as many other newspapers all over the country. They read the article and invited me on their show to confront a regular guest they have on the show who calls himself a “minister” and will marry anyone for $100.
It turned out his producer did not want to do it because the show was to be about people who knew each other confronting each other.
We drove to Mississippi for our next open air-meeting at Ole’Miss.
Sister Elizabeth and I spent the night in a Wal- Mart parking lot in Mississippi.