Evangelism Update November 23, 2009

Evangelism Memory Verse:

“Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”

–2 Peter 1:20, 21

Evangelism Quote:

“He that doth not believe that there is a God, is more vile then a devil.  To deny there is a God, is a sort of atheism that is not to be found in hell.”

–Thomas Brooks

Regular, Weekly Outreaches:

1. Truck Stop on I-35 W, north of Fort Worth: Thursdays, from 7-9PM. Truck to truck witnessing. Contact: Ron Martinez (ron@lostcauseministries.com).

2. Day Laborer Camp (Mckinney): Saturdays from 7-8AM. Witnessing to the Hispanic community. Spanish tracts and one-to-ones. Contact: Byron Porter (byron@lostcauseministries.com).

3. Skate Park (Allen): Saturdays from 10-11PM. One-to-ones with skaters. Contact: Byron Porter (byron@lostcauseministries.com).

Special Outreaches:

Friday, November 27th, 7-10PM:  TLC Ministries will be doing evangelism in Fort Worth, at Sundance Square.  The carpool will leave FBC Justin at 6:15PM.  If you want to carpool, you MUST contact Jon Speed at jon@lostcauseministries.com before Friday.

Evangelism Report:

University of Texas, Austin:

Last Wednesday, about 20 volunteers from DFW and Austin converged on the campus of UT Austin to distribute Ray Comfort’s edition of “Origin of the Species.”  We were armed with 2,000 copies of the book and a wide assortment of gospel tracts.  TLC thanks God for the following volunteers:  Alex Chen, Thomas Umstattd, Ted Winton, Tyler McNabb, Priscilla McNabb, Tommy Grider, Chad Welty, Byron Porter, Carl Kalbfleisch, Tom Sadowski, Andy Taylor, Betty Taylor, Chelsea Taylor, Juan Santos, Katie Townsend, Guillermo Miranda, Joel de la Garza, and several other student volunteers from UT.

We arrived at about 9AM on Guadalupe Street and quickly unloaded the van.  Once we gave out instructions and prayed, we began the distribution, which began around 9:40 or so.  We split the team up into three locations on Guadalupe and passed out all of the books in about two hours!  Of those books, only one had the introduction torn out by an angry atheist.  Richard Dawkins had recommended to students that they tear out the introduction.  In fact, they had intended on having more organized opposition, but they thought that we were planning the outreach for the 19th instead of the 18th and this simple change in strategy resulted only in minor opposition.

One biology professor and a few of his students had some anti-Comfort bookmarks and handouts that they scrambled around trying to give everyone who got a free book.  It seems that this professor did not have much confidence in the students at UT to discern truth from error.  Tyler McNabb and Priscilla ended up speaking with him for almost one hour over coffee after the distribution was over.  He could not account for the existence of ethics in his world view.  Tyler faithfully shared the gospel with him.

The first copy went to a prominent faculty member who claimed to be a Dean of one of the Science departments.  He just “happened” to be there while we unloaded and he knew what the outreach was about.  He did not want to take the book at first, but when we showed him respect for his title, he seemed to warm up to us.   When he began chatting about his rare collection of 19th century Darwin books, I was able to speak knowledgeably with him since I’ve sold used and rare books for about 15 years, including a first edition of Darwin’s Descent of Man.  This changed the conversation completely, and we ended up having a nice chat.  At the end, he still refused to take the book, until we suggested he add it to his collection, at which he brightened and said, “Yes, thank you, I will do that.”

After the books were gone, we began open-air preaching.  It wasn’t hard to draw a crowd since they knew why we were there and wanted to start arguing about evolution.  Many members of the team open-aired.  I was surprised at the number of hecklers who thanked me for preaching the way I did; we disagreed, but there was respect all around.  One young man who was Jewish (and asked some difficult but good questions) said that he could see that I respected him and loved him.  I was relieved because sometimes in the heat of the argument, it can be hard to communicate that.

Many of the team members had some very good one-to-ones.  In spite of the confrontational atmosphere, the gospel was communicated clearly.  God was glorified.

University of North Texas (Denton):

This report comes from Tim Crawford:

We had the privilege of participating in the Origin of Species project this last week and successfully distributed around 2,000 books in about 90 minutes on the University of North Texas campus. We had a team of about 15 people and they were sold out for Christ and all about bringing Him the glory He deserves. The UNT team was a wonderful bunch that truly had a heart to serve and a genuine love for the lost.

God showed us favor from the beginning and I knew that it was going to be an excellent day. I arrived on campus a little early  (about 8:30am) that morning to get the permits and make sure everything was set up prior to the teams arrival at 9:30am. I was a little nervous heading up to the Deans office to pick up the permits due to a change in the free speech policy. A week ago UNT had shut the doors on free speech to all outside groups and in order to get on campus now you must have a student group to sponsor you or you are not allowed on campus. We tried to contact them prior to the event to see if they were going to honor our permits because we had applied for them prior to the change in regulations.

By the day of the event we hadn’t heard back from any one. We did have a back up plan , if the permits fell through we had rented a vendor table that was set up right at the door of the Student Union where the foot traffic was very good. So I went up to the UPC office and picked up my vendor permit, got the tables set up and then headed up to the deans office and asked for the permit for free speech and she just pulled out the book and handed me the permit and said have a nice day!!! Praise the Lord!!! As I walked away I was thinking  WOW!  I now had both permits in my possession without any controversy or issues!

I headed to the parking garage to meet the team. It was approximately 9:30 and just like clockwork the phone began to ring and the teams were right around the corner.  We gathered around for prayer and I shared some brief instructions with the team and we were off and running. Everyone took a couple of cases and headed over to the free speech area and the vendor area.
After about the 3rd trip (I was out of breath and almost dead) I thought there has to be an easier way. Wouldn’t you know it, by the providential hand of God here comes two guys in a one of those gator on trash duty for UNT!   I said,  “Hey guys you got a few minutes to help me out?” I just have a few books here in my pickup truck that I need to get over to the free speech area. They said it was no problem and I thought thank you Jesus and I knew that either God was showing me mercy or I had just manipulated two guys to get out of the physical labor of carrying 2,000 books across campus!  Either way I am thankful they were willing to help me out and I was able to get everything over there and set up just before the first class change.

We had a blast and couldn’t get the books out of the boxes fast enough!!! I told everyone “make sure to read the introduction and see what the Crazy Christians are saying about Charles Darwin”. Many students were like thank you so much we really appreciate this. So many students are hardened to the things of God and anything to do with Christianity. We heard everything from thanks for the book and I am so happy it isn’t a Bible!!!
Some thought it was a horrible thing that we were doing and others thought it was great. Either way. the whole event was a success and God was glorified. The books were gone in about 90 minutes and we actually had people coming up to us asking us if we had more books but we were out.

After all the books were gone we all started passing out Gospel tracts and witnessing to everyone. It was great to see so many one to ones going on all over the place. Many atheists stayed around to talk and I had the privilege to speak with three very angry ones at length (30-45 min) and  the Lord really blessed the conversation. In the end they all shook my hand and left hearing a balanced presentation of the Gospel and being silenced by the law.After the conversation it  really seemed that there anger was gone and they understood better why we do what we do. Praise the Lord for a great day and thanks to everyone on my team for your labor of love and all of you back home who were praying for us! To God be the glory for the great things He has done!

Evangelism Resources:

1.  Here is a great gift for anyone.  Our friend, Abigail Miller, has released a NEW CD of her music.  The CD is called, “I Can Go In”.

2.  Way of the Master Ambassador’s Academies are coming up!

The Academy registration price includes all of the above, plus four nights stay in the beautiful Cypress Woodfin Hotel, 4-6 meals, training materials, and special gifts from Ray Comfort and Living Waters. In addition, all participants become full members in the Ambassadors’ Alliance Fellowship—the Alliance’s online community.This year we are opening the applications for all our 2010 dates. Now you can plan far in advance the date you would like to attend. Select the date below that works best for you.

Road Trip:

It’s officially time to start registering for this year’s Super Bowl Outreach in sunny Miami, FL! This year, the NFL is combining the big game with the Pro Bowl. Both will be held the same week in the same venue, making the Super Bowl an even bigger event for Biblical evangelism! So, at this year’s outreach you have an option. You can come for just the Super Bowl during the last half of the week (Feb. 4-7) or you can come for the whole week and hit both games (Jan. 29-Feb. 7). The “short camp” will be $199. The “long camp” will be $399. Accommodations will be at the Gold Coast Christian Camp. To pre-register, a 25% down payment is required to hold your spot.

The TLC team is planning on going for just the Super Bowl outreach itself. To sign up for the carpool, email jon@lostcauseministries.com.

Evangelism in the New Testament Review:

You can check out this fairly balanced, non-WoTM review of Jon’s book here.

Prayer Requests:

1.  TLC’s financial support has been cut 50% since July. Essentially, this means that we need to raise $40,000 to cover the loss to two salaries. This amount will bring us back to the post-July cuts. Please prayerfully consider whether you might be able to support this ministry.

Praise!

Last week we mentioned that our ministry might be ending at UNT since the university changed their free speech policy.  On Thursday we preached there again and mentioned the change in the message.  A guy who most of us have witnessed to several times, Stewart, asked some clarifying questions, made a phone call, and then offered to help us get a student group sponsorship.  The kicker?  Stewart is an atheist!  We thank God for Stewart and his willingness to help us get access to the university until we can find a Christian student organization to sponsor us.