Preaching on Beale Street

Okay, I know it has been a long time-too long-since I posted on here, but things have been extremely busy! Anyway, here is a slideshow I made from preaching at Beale Street this past weekend. As always, we had a ton of great conversations, as well as the usual hecklers. Beale St. is my favorite place to evangelize, as I get more discussion opportunities there than anywhere else we preach. I had the opportunity to debate evolution for a few minutes with a few college students, who had no answer for the question of where the information for life came from.  One man said that Jesus had never existed; of course he walked off as soon as I tried presenting historical documentation. 
So, here is a video/photo collage I put together from our weekend at Beale Street. Enjoy!

Kentucky Derby Video

Street Preaching at Kentucky Oaks/Derby

This past weekend we held our 2nd annual Kentucky Derby Street Preaching Blitz. Although we had some rain/thunderstorms on Saturday, the weekend went very well. Thursday evening we started off with singing and preaching at the camp. Friday we were out on the street from about 10:00 to 3:00. It was the normal atmosphere, with many "christians" telling us we were doing it wrong, drunks getting mad, etc. On our way to the area we usually preach at, a man in a golf cart drove by and started yelling at us. When a couple of the preachers responded, he came back, got out of the golf cart, and ran at us like he was going to hit someone. It is amazing how quickly the sinners get stirred up...we hadn't even started preaching, and they were already getting mad! Overall, though, Friday was a pretty mild day.
Saturday was a little more wild. Due to bad weather, we didn't get out there til about 2:00, and the second we stepped out of the vehicles, you could feel the spiritual tension. Within 5 minutes of getting to the corner, confrontations and debates started! I was literally moving from one end of the line and back again, keeping an eye on which conversation had the most potential for aggression! It was a real blessing to have several men out with us who pretty much made it their sole job to bodyguard. During the last hour and a half out, we ran some "caution" tape between a couple trees, and kept everyone but the bodyguards and camcorders behind it. The whole spirit, atmosphere and even the women's dress (or lack of dress) was worse than it had been the previous year. The police gave us a little trouble, and right as we were getting ready to leave, an officer approached and said he was asking us to leave-there was too much aggression, and they couldn't be there protecting us when people got mad. When Dad read them the law about protecting those exercising their 1st Amendment right of free speech (even when it is unpopular), another office got mad and responded with some very vulgar language. They finally walked off a little ways, and as we continued to pack up, a couple Marines got mad and basically started a mini riot. The police moved in right away, including 4 mounted officers, and sent them on their way. Honestly, if we had stayed out longer (after the race actually let out), we almost definitely would have had a riot, probably even worse than last years'.
Here is some video footage from preaching Friday. I'll try to get some up from Saturday by tomorrow.

Master Club Pictures

Here is a slideshow of some pictures from Master Club Regionals this year.

Master Club Videos

Here are a few video compilations from this years Master Club Regionals Competition. Enjoy!

Spring Break 2010

I know I'm late getting this posted, but we've been pretty busy lately. The past 2 weekends we were out preaching at Spring Break. As always, most of the people we dealt with claimed to be Christians. A couple young men that Dad talked to admitted they would be getting drunk, and would even be out looking for girls, but said they were saved! It is amazing how low so-called Christians' standards are! The manager of the Walgreens store on the corner we preach at came out and argued with us as well. She also said she was saved, but said we weren't doing it right...the normal "you're judging me-Jesus didn't judge-you're too hard" spiel. She ended up getting so mad (after Dad pulled the Hezekiah question on her) that she literally was bowing down to Dad (mocking, of course)! The next weekend we were out, Walgreens put up a sign that read "We Do Not Support This Group". The best part was the next day when we came out to preach...the sign was off...looked like it was broken!


Another man who came out said we were "building walls", and no one would listen....not even realizing he had come out, as well as 20-25 other people who were talking to various members of our street preaching group right then! Some people are so blind!

Don't you love her sign?!

Don't they look like trouble?

More of our group

The line-up!

Rob preaching

Dealing with some people who "jumped over the wall" to talk to us!

Josiah, M, and a friend from Church.

I am putting a few minutes of video up here, but there is more on this Youtube channel.

Gasparilla Street Preaching Video Part 2

Here is the second video from preaching at Gasparilla this past weekend. There are several parts on here I had to mute because of the language.

Gasparilla Street Preaching Video Part 1

Here is the first video of preaching at Gasparilla this weekend.

Street Preaching at Gasparilla 2010

Gasparilla is an annual event we have preached at for the last few years. This takes place in Tampa, FL and is a celebration of a pirate, Jose' Gaspar, who was a wicked man. The first year we went we were told it was a family event, but boy were we shocked when we got out there! Far from being a "family" event, Gasparilla was one of the most vile events we had been to. Many places we preach are more violent, (although last year people were trying to light the preachers on fire-including my then-15 year old brother), but few are more vile.
Anyways, this year was a blessing. We had 4 members of our Church come down to help us, and 2 men flew in from New York and 1 from Chicago, as well as others driving from various places in Florida. We were told the weather was supposed to be pretty bad, but, as we usually do, we headed out anyways. Praise the Lord, the rain held off for a good 2 hours or more! We stayed out for 5 1/2 hours (it didn't seem like it-time flew!), and because of the weather, less people were out. Usually 700,000 people attend this festival/parade, but the number was a little lower today. However, there was still a good crowd, and in a way it was a blessing. We had more conversations with people than normal, although less people took the Gospel tracts.
As always, we had a number of interesting discussions! One woman I talked to said that she didn't have to follow Christ today (I told her that drinking was a sin), because it wasn't Sunday! I have to admit, I think that's the first time I've heard that one! Another young girl (probably 13 or 14) approached my Dad and told him that God loved everyone, no matter what they did or how they lived. When confronted with Scripture verses teaching God does hate some people (Psalm. 5:5, 7:11, etc.) she started raising her voice and saying that it didn't matter if she had Scripture to back up her claims-God loves everyone! During the discussion she also took God's Name in vain, and admitted it was a sin. She ended up walking off soon after we opened a Bible, and said that she was comfortable in her beliefs and hoped we were in ours.
We had the usual number of hecklers, which always help to draw a crowd. One girl told us that she didn't care what the Bible said (after we showed her 1 Cor. 2:15 about a spiritual man judging all things), Christians weren't supposed to judge!
All in all it was a good day of ministry. I'll get some video up in the next couple days, but until then here are some pics.

Our street preaching group!


Bro. Greg


Bro. Glen and Rob

Clay and Bro. Jeff

Bro. Brian

Aaron and Elijah-when you see these 2 together...watch out!!

Dad

The Police Tank

Fun With A Chicago Friend!

Yesterday a good friend from Chicago drove down to visit us. We stayed up late playing a couple games and had a lot of fun! For the second game of Scrabble we had just 2 teams-boys against girls! The guys were a little outnumbered (6 girls and only 3 boys), so they are using that as their excuse for losing :) It was a late night (about 1:00 in the morning before everyone got to sleep!), so most of the family slept in this morning. Unfortunately our friend will have to leave later this afternoon, as she has to be back for the bus route at her Church tomorrow :( It was nice to have someone drive over to spend a day with us, since where we are right now there are no good Churches.

Here are a few pictures of the Scrabble game!

All the "girls" but Mom and me (I'm taking the picture)

Dad and Elijah

Is Elijah thinking hard for a high-point word?

No, he's playing with the tiles!

Dad's New Blog

Just wanted to let everyone know that my Dad has a new blog where he is posting some of his short stories. We used to have these stories available in book-form under the title "Soul-Stirring Stories", but no longer have them. Now, however, you can read them on his blog for free! He is also having a giveaway for the book "Saints Everlasting Rest" by Richard Baxter, so check it out! His blog is: http://www.soulstirringstories.blogspot.com
The giveaway ends Dec. 24th!

More Snow!

Well, we have a couple inches of snow now, and it is still coming down! According to the weather alert, people are supposed to stay off the roads today unless it's an emergency, as the storm is supposed to get worse. Thankfully we don't have it as bad as some areas, though. The kids are loving the chance to go out and sled, build forts, and have snowball fights. Today the snow is more of the powdery type, so they're have a harder time making snowballs!

First Snow Of The Season

Here are a few pictures of our first snow of the season! There's not much yet, but we are supposed to get a winter storm with lots of snow tomorrow and Wednesday!

A Week In Chicago

We have been in Chicago for a week now, and, as always, have had a great time. We pulled in last Wednesday in time for service at Garfield Ridge Baptist, and it was great to be back with our friends here! Pastor T. had asked Dad to preach, so Dad did a positive (one of only 3 that he has ever done!) message on Thankfulness. For Thanksgiving the next day we went to the T's house and enjoyed dinner and fellowship for several hours. Friday and Saturday we were on the street downtown for about 3-4 hours each day. Friday we dealt with 3 young people that were upset over the sign Dad had made regarding the new occultic movie New Moon. These professing "Christians" saw no problem in watching a movie that was so blatantly occultic, and also said that it was okay to drink alcohol, go to bars, and listen to rock music. They also said that long hair on men was okay, since John the Baptist was a Nazarene, and had long hair (John the Baptist aka John the Nazarene?!) Mom corrected him that Jesus was a Nazarene, and that it was a Nazarite who had long hair! While they were discussing this with Dad all I could think was "Is anything wrong or sinful to them?" Anything we brought up they took a very liberal stance on, and seriously, nothing was wrong according to their viewpoint! Towards the end of the conversation Dad brought up the King James Bible, and all of them started laughing. One of the young men said that it was a great scholarly work (I always thought it was God's Word, not just a "scholarly work") for it's time, but that the NIV was a much better translation. For example, he said that 1 John 5:7, the most powerful verse proving the Trinity (although not the only one), should not be in our Bibles, it was a mistake. When confronted with the facts that a lesbian was on the NIV board of translators, and that Westcott and Hort, the "fathers" of the modern translations were involved in occultism, his exact response was "So?" I actually started laughing, because it was so obvious, and yet he didn't realize how ignorant his stand was. "The KJV is imperfect, and has mistakes, but the NIV is perfect, even though it comes from a line of corrupted manuscripts, occultism and a lesbian". NOT! Anyways, we had to leave at that point, and told him that he was very backslidden, if he was even saved at all. Saturday started out a mild day, but after lunch the crowd was totally different. Many people got upset, including one woman who came up to Pastor T. and told him that Mormons were true Christians, and he shouldn't be picking on them. We also had a man come up that we had dealt with before, who is very messed up. He stood near us for several minutes spouting off things like "the were trees curved to the right; the leaves on top were red, and the leaves below were green. In James 5 and Isaiah 22 it prophesies of a foot cut off, but there is no blood. The foot was wearing a white sock and a black shoe." Like I said, he's very messed up! After turning both camcorders on him he took off, as he doesn't like being filmed. Overall it was a very good weekend of ministry, and, thankfully, the Lord gave us good weather. Although it was a little chilly, at least we didn't have the snow that was in the forecast for the weekend!

Video From GSU

Okay, sorry this took a week to get up. I haven't had internet access the past few days!
Anyways, here is a few minutes of footage from preaching at GSU. Quite a bit of it is muted, because of the vile language being used by the students. But, it still gives a good idea of what it was like out there!

Preaching At GSU

Today we preached on the Georgia State University campus in Atlanta, GA. (Some of the family were actually out yesterday too, but I had to stay back with the little girls, as it was pretty vile.) While the crowds weren't as big today as yesterday, there were still plenty of people out, and, as usual, many professing christians telling us we were doing it all wrong. One seventh-day adventist argued with us that he believed in salvation by grace, while in the next sentence he said you had to keep the commandments (especially the 4th commandment) to be saved! Josiah and I also dealt with him on the issue of the King James Bible. He claimed that although God promised to preserve His Word for ever (Psalm 12:6-7), the KJV was not perfect-only the originals are perfect. This SDA was so bothered by the preaching that he literally went around and argued with almost every preacher out on the campus, and then came back to us to debate again.
As always, the sodomites, pro-sodomites and the feminists came out to hold their own signs and mock the preaching. One of the women held a sign that read "Women are not just sandwich makers"! We had almost as many people upset at the "Women are to be keepers at home" sign (and the modesty issue) as we did sodomites upset at the "There is no such thing as a christian homosexual" sign.
I did have a good conversation with a student who said she was raised in a conservative christian home, and while she still claimed to be a christian, had left the "conservative" part behind. I talked to her for at least 20-25 minutes, and it sounded like she may have been saved. She asked several questions about our method of evangelism, and I ended up giving her my email to discuss some of these things with her. Standing on a campus surrounded by screaming students and trying to camcord any confrontations at the same time is not the best situation for having a long conversation!
I will try and get some video up of the preaching in the next day or so. We will be preaching for several hours again tomorrow, so I may not get it up right away.

Panama City

Okay, I know I am long overdue for a post, so here it is. We have been very busy the past couple weeks with traveling and packing, so not much worth writing about has been going on!

We have been back at our home church here in Panama City for almost a week now, and it is good to be back! All the little kids are growing so fast, and I finally got to see Joshua Channer in person, instead of just pictures. (He is adorable, and a very happy baby!) Dad has been helping out at the boys academy almost every day since we got here, which he always enjoys.

One of the nicest things about being here is going to our home church for Church services. There are a few Churches we go to that are like "northern home churches" as Dad says, but it is nice to be at Truth for church! Dad preached all 3 services today. For Sunday School he did a Bible quiz with 30 questions (quizzes are always such fun!).

Tuesday morning we will head out to Georgia, and then head towards Illinois. We will be starting a 6-7 week trek out west (in tents) to do some street preaching and hopefully get some churches out there started in the street ministry. Please pray for us as we will be doing more traveling than usual during that time, not to mention the possible snow and ice. We will try to update regularly, and should get some good pictures to put up!

Just A Quick Update

Well, it has been a long time since I have posted on here. We have been staying at a good friend's house for the past few weeks, and it has been nice. If you've never lived in a travel trailer, you don't realize what a blessing it is to have a regular kitchen to cook in (especially making meals for 9 people)! A full-sized stove/oven, and enough room for 2 or 3 people to work in the kitchen at the same time! I am not complaining at all; I love our ministry, but this is one of the things I miss about not having a house. However, the blessings we have received while in this ministry far outweigh any inconveniences we may have. I am truly grateful the Lord has placed us here...I love traveling, and it is a joy to see the Lord work in so many ways. We have seen so many lives changed. Christians getting a new vision for the lost, and start witnessing more fervently; families making choices to follow the Lord more closely; and people making a profession of faith, whether in the Church or on the streets. God is good!

We will be leaving here early next week, and head back on the road again. We have a 4 day revival meeting starting next Sunday, so please pray the Lord will work through that. The meeting is with some very dear friends of ours, and we always have a good time there.

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!