A Week Of Life With The Owens...

This past week Charity and I stayed with some good friends, the Owens, while the rest of the family went to Pennsylvania. It was unplanned, but it has been a lot of fun. Monday and Tuesday we just hung out with Sally and Hannah.


This is Hannah. Isn't she adorable?!


Wednesday we attended Antioch Bible Baptist for church. Pastor Pawley preached a very good sermon about the Ark and the Altar (from Genesis 8), and it was nice to be able to visit with some friends there.

Thursday evening we headed to Buffalo to preach at the Thursday in The Square concert. When we got there we found out the concert was canceled due to the weather, but we decided to stay and preach anyways. It turned out to be a very good night. Since the concert was canceled you could actually hear when having a conversation with someone! I talked to 2 young people, Paige and Joseph, and they actually had some serious questions. One of them had a catholic background, and asked about the differences between Christianity and Catholicism. After a few minutes of discussing the reality of death and hell, I left them each with a Gospel tract, which they promised to read that evening. During a lot of the evening we had 3 hecklers out on the other side of the street. One of them would come up to Bro. Greg (who was preaching), get in his face, and the other 2 would pull him back. They finally left, but not before hearing the Truth of God's Word! We also had a good discussion with about 10 kids that came up to talk. On of the girls professed to be christian but said that we should not be preaching in public. After about half an hour of discussing the issue with 4 of us out there, we discovered her real problem...she said the Bible was not completely trustworthy, and we couldn't know for sure that it was God's Word.



Friday evening we were planning on going to preach outside another concert in Buffalo, but found out that afternoon it had been postponed as one of the singers had the flu. We went down to where it was supposed to be held anyways, and preached outside for a little while. There were still a few hundred people out there, who hadn't heard that it was canceled.

Saturday we went to a Canal Fest nearby, and preached for a couple hours. Thankfully the Lord held off the rain for a while, and we got a lot of tracts out. Hundreds of people walking by us heard the Gospel preached, and we actually had quite a few people say "Amen" or give us a thumbs-up. Not normal, but a nice change! The event staff did come up and try to tell us we could not be preaching or passing out pamphlets, and they eventually went to the police. An officer came out to talk to Greg, but there was really nothing they could do. He tried telling us we needed a permit, and even said that preaching there was like yelling outside someone's home, and they had the right to tell us to leave. Of course, this is not true (public sidewalk is protected free speech area), and after a few minutes of discussion, the officer walked off.


Today we went back to Antioch for church. It was, again, a very good service. It is a blessing every time we are able to visit a like-minded church, and hear some good preaching. (Of course a lot of the time we don't have to worry about the preaching, since Dad preaches at most of the churches we visit!)

Tomorrow we will be back home with the rest of the family. We will miss the Owens, but it will be nice to see the family again!

Camp Meeting and Street Preaching

This past week we have been very busy between a camp meeting, and a lot of street preaching. The meeting started last Sunday with Bro. Ron Williams preaching all day. We had services every morning and evening through Friday night. There were some excellent sermons preached! Dad and Bro. Ron each preached every evening (except Thursday when we were out street preaching), and other preachers took turns in the morning services. The meeting closed out yesterday with Dad preaching all 3 services.

Thursday evening we went out to preach at the rock concert in Buffalo. There were more people there than we have ever seen! We were told the band that was playing had not played in concert since 1973, so that explained the crowd. Within 1 minute of being out there, we had over 30 people surround us. Throughout the whole evening we had a crowd of people around (although, of course, most of them were upset). A couple people had some serious questions, though.

Saturday was the big day with 3 different events going on. First it was the Jehovah's Witness Convention in downtown Rochester. As always, they were not allowed to talk to any of the preachers, and the gauntlet was out in full force! For those of you who haven't heard us talk about this, the JW's are prepped a couple weeks before the meeting, and warned not to even look at the street preachers. To enforce this, they line men up along the sidewalk in front of the preachers (usually about 30 or more) so that if someone does try to talk, they can stop them. It is amazing to see how scared they are that someone will talk to a preacher and find out the Truth! After the JW's we had a couple hours to eat and rest before heading to the gay pride parade. Every year this parade seems to get a little shorter, but it looked like there were more supporters following the parade this year. As soon as we were done there it was off to the Hill Cumorah Pageant. This is a pageant put on by the Mormons where they basically re-enact what occurs in the Book of Mormon. It is held in Palmyra, NY, which is where Joseph Smith supposedly found the golden plates he translated into the book of Mormon. Dad and Bro. Dan had a good conversation with 2 young people who were there. We did have some trouble with a police officer who has been harassing the street preachers for years, but eventually he left us alone. All in all it was a good day, although a long one!

Lilydale

Well, it has been a couple weeks since I was on here. Last weekend we street preached outside of Lily Dale, which is supposedly the biggest spiritualist community in the world. When we found out that it was right near where we were staying, of course we had to go out! It was a good time of preaching, and rebuking those involved with the occult. Many people came out to talk to us, and every single one of them were brought back to one point-they were making themselves their "god". Almost all of them said they believed in God, but all of them had their own ideas about what their "god" was like. One of the men who got upset at us said he knew the Bible well, and knew more about it than we did. Of course, he couldn't answer how many books were in the New Testament, and said that the book of Hezekiah was definitely in the Old Testament! Another man we spoke to out there said he teaches at a Lutheran college, but he doesn't believe in the Biblical God...he thinks his "god" is in everything, and everyone is a "god". It was amazing to see how far astray people are led when they don't trust in the ultimate authority, God's Word, and make themselves the authority.