Evangelism Quote:

“Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

–Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 9:38

Evangelism Opportunities:1. Saturday May 3^rd: TLC Ministries has rented a booth at the Cinco De Mayo Festival in Denton at the Civic Center Park. We need volunteers to staff the booth throughout the day. We will provide FREE tracts, Bibles, and other Christian literature. We are looking for three volunteers for each three hour time slot. The available time slots are: 10AM-Noon, Noon-3PM, 3-6PM, so we need nine volunteers. If you can speak Spanish, we especially need you! This festival has great food and offers a chance to share the Gospel with the Hispanic community of Denton!Note: We still need one or two more volunteers for this booth. Our booth number is #7, which will be in the row of booths near the Civic Center.

2. Friday, May 9^th: Evangelism at Dallas’ West End Marketplace. We will meet at the parking lots of Countryside Bible Church and First Baptist Church of Justin and travel to the West End. Once we get there, we will pray, split up and do one-to-one and tracts throughout the area. We will do open-air in the area near the Spaghetti Warehouse.

3. Friday May 16-Sunday May 18^th: TLC Ministries has rented another evangelism booth at the Wildflower! Arts & Music Festival in Richardson, TX. This festival draws more than 60,000! We need volunteers to staff the booth over these three days!

The available time slots are:

Friday: 6-9PM, 9PM-Midnight

Saturday: 11AM-2PM, 2-5PM, 5-8PM, 8-Midnight

Sunday: 1-4PM, 4-6PM, 6-8PM

In other words, in total, we need either 27 separate volunteers or some volunteers who will do double shifts. Realistically, we need at least 20 volunteers so some people don’t get too burned out. Please contact me at jon@lostcauseministries.com if you can help!

Evangelism\Discipleship Report:University of North Texas:

On Thursday, we went to UNT for the last time this semester. It was with some sadness that we did so. The ministry here has been fruitful; pray for wisdom as we seek to expand the ministry there next semester (beginning late August).

We mainly did one-to-ones and just a little bit of open-air preaching, during the last class change. Once again, we were encouraged by several Christians who encouraged us to keep going. One guy named Charles made a point of coming over to shake our hands and thank us. We thank God for the many Christians on this campus and the Christian student ministries which are there. The influence of Denton Bible Church is evident, as well as The Village Church.

I had a decent one-to-one with a Mexican man named Philip. He’s only been in the States for just over one year and is still learning English, although he’s doing very well. Philip is skeptical about the existence of God and seemed to be more concerned about this temporal world than the condition of his soul. Pray that he would seriously consider the claims of the Bible.

Tim had many good one-to-ones as usual and was busy all day passing out tracts and challenging people with, “Where will you be 100 years from today?” It’s a sobering but very appropriate question. Just the day before, according to the student newspaper, UNT had a vigil for the people who had died over the past year from UNT: staff, students and alumni. In the previous year, some 37 staff members had died and 20 students! This was a good fact to share while we preached and spoke to people. Student newspapers can be excellent sources for springboard material when doing campus evangelism.

All in all, it was a productive day. Hundreds of tracts went out and there were many conversations. Hundreds heard the Gospel as they passed by between classes. We can’t wait until next semester to do it all again.

Denton Arts & Jazz Festival:

We had planned on attending the Fiesta in San Antonio this weekend, but I (Jon) got quite sick with flu-like symptoms on Thursday night through Saturday. Tim was concerned that he might develop the same illness because we had been together all day on Thursday, so we decided not to attend. I was disappointed because I have lived here since 2005 and have never been able to attend this event yet. For some reason the Lord doesn’t want me there, I guess.

So, on Friday night Tim Crawford took Chad Welty and Chris Diggs to the Denton Arts & Jazz Festival. At GNN, we usually would get a booth here, but because of our plans for Fiesta, we didn’t do it this year for TLC. They passed out hundreds of tracts and had many one-to-ones and discussions with small groups of teens. Tim broke out his new digital video camera and had a good opportunity to film a witnessing encounter with a group of teens. Once we figure out how to do it, we’ll get it uploaded to the website. Tim reports that the teens in Denton are turning to more and more darkness; there is a lot of “Goth” influence there, which is basically Satanism. We have seen this in years past at this festival, but Tim noted a dramatic increase of this. Denton is a true mission field; between the campuses at UNT and TWU and what’s happening in the teen culture, this is a field rich with opportunity to minister the truth of the Word of God.

Fiesta in San Antonio:

This report comes from Juli Morrison, a longtime recipient of our evangelism updates, who attended the Jesus Crew outreach in San Antonio this weekend:

For the third year, I was blessed to take part in Jesus Crew’s annual Fiesta outreach in downtown San Antonio for the weekend. Jose and his wife Amy brought down about 40 people from their church in Abilene, and were joined by myself and others from Ft. Worth, Houston, El Dorado, San Antonio and other cities across Texas. We all came together – people of all ages, backgrounds, denominations, and race for one purpose: to preach the Good News to those who are perishing.

Friday night we walked about 3 miles across downtown SA passing out tracts making our way to the Alamodome where the carnival was located. Once we got there, we “blitzed” the crowd – as one brother calls it – passing out thousands of tracts to everyone who would take one. Then as the Lord gave opportunity, we were able to do some one on one conversations with individuals. Then the storm came…in a matter of minutes, the dry sky opened up and torrents of rain poured down, drenching everyone. Thousands of people scattered – and we were forced to find shelter under the highway underpass to get out of the rain.

While waiting the storm out, a brother from Houston, Gabriel, took advantage of the divine opportunity for the gathered crowd to open air preach. He had brought a portable amplification/mic with him. The rain was being blown sideways under the bridge, so his equipment got wet and went out a few times. But then two more brothers, Stephen and Brad, stood in the gap and preached with loud voices the message of repentance and faith in Christ. There were three girls standing right in front of them, faces fixed, listening, the Holy Spirit moving in their hearts – you could SEE it on their faces! It was powerful, and the storm raged on in the background.

Saturday we went downtown again and went ahead of the parade down Broadway – another 3 miles – passing out thousands of tracts to those waiting for the parade. We got kicked off the route a few times by police but were able to get back on the street and continue. Then we walked back across town, another 3 miles, to the carnival again. Again we passed out tracts, the brothers open air preached, we had several good conversations. One man we talked to said that he had been talked to last year by a 16 year old boy with Jesus Crew. He said that he felt a “tugging” lately, like God was pulling him back – praise God! That young boy planted a seed one year ago, and then God brought us back to water it this year. Please pray for Gilbert – he grew up in the church and fell away, and knows his life is not in keeping with Biblical repentance.

By the grace of God three people were born again, to be followed up by the local church we partnered with (Alamo City Christian Fellowship). About 80,000 seeds were planted. Please pray for God to give the increase. As brother Jose said, if we have to load a bus and drive four hours, walk ten miles, and pass out thousands of tracts to see one person saved from hell – it is worth it. Jesus would have done the same – in fact, He did more than that to save us. And all we have to do is open our mouths and tell others what He has done for us. It’s that easy. I don’t know why we don’t do it more.

What a mystery God entrusts redeemed sinners with His glorious gospel! Everytime my walk has been boring, lacking passion, or seeming lukewarm, sharing my faith ALWAYS puts things back in perspective for me. I’m always challenged to stay in the Word of God, spend time with Him alone each day, and cultivate a personal passion for Christ so that I can effectively know and share Him with others. Jose shared with us that he found out a man was stabbed Friday night during the chaos of the storm – and later died. We were telling people all night to repent, trust in Christ, today may be your last day. And for that man, it was his last day. He may have gotten a tract, or heard the open air preaching under the bridge. We don’t know. But we know God is not willing that any should perish – and were glad we were there making the gospel available to any who would listen.Local Bookstore Encounter:

This story comes from Chris Diggs:

I just had a witness encounter in the bookstore with a girl named Courtney, she grew up in Oklahoma and went to church with her parents, she said that there was a lot of hypocrisy that she has seen in the church and with her parents and that she has not decided if she is going to follow Christianity or not. She is currently going to an Orthodox church in Denton. I walked her through the commandments and asked her if she would go to heaven or hell based on the commandments. She said hell and that it concerned her so I gave her the gospel and a tract. Please pray for her. Evangelism in the News:

Some friends of ours have been working to get a booth at the Dogwood Festival in Fayetteville, NC this year and were turned away. This link will take you to a video newsclip about their efforts and what they were able to do in spite of the efforts of the festival organizers to keep them out: .

Evangelism Resources:

1. If anyone has the time and inclination, you might check out this evangelism training conference in Utah for witnessing to Mormons. Check it out at www.compassionateboldness.com. I saw an ad for this in Utah Lighthouse Ministry’s newsletter this week and was surprised to discover that an old acquaintance of mine from Bible college is speaking at this event; Pastor Bryan Hurlbutt. I asked my good friend Andy Bird about Bryan and his church and was surprised when he emailed me back to tell me that Bryan is his pastor! Another of Andy’s friends is putting together the conference, so we’ll include it here in this update.

2. This got some airplay on Way of the Master Radio and I think it’s worth listing here. It’s Mark Driscoll’s “Tolerance Rant”. I don’t like a lot of what Driscoll does, but this is good stuff. Apparently John Piper and C.J. Mahaney have been discipling him and he’s coming out of the Emergent Church movement. Worth a look, anywho.

In Christ,

Jon Speed & Tim Crawford

Church Websites:

Countryside Bible Church

First Baptist Church of Justin, TX

Evangelism Quote:
“Fear of man is crediting the might of man with a disrepute of the arm of God, it takes away the glory of His might, and renders the creature stronger than God; and God more feeble than a mortal; as if the arm of man were a rod of iron, and the arm of God a brittle reed. How often do men tremble at the threatenings and hectorings of ruffians, yet will stand as still as stakes against the precepts and threatenings of God…” –Stephen Charnock in “The Existence & Attributes of God”, vol. 2, page 93, emphasis mine

How often are we hindered from evangelism because of our fear of man? Keep Charnock’s quote in mind: when we allow this, it doesn’t matter what our creed says. In effect, we are saying by our inaction that man is greater than God. And this is blasphemy.

Evangelism Opportunities:

1. Friday April 25-Sunday April 27: TLC Ministries travels to San Antonio, TX to team up with the Jesus Crew to do evangelism at the Fiesta San Antonio. If you would like to come, the cost is $85 for room and board. Bring a sleeping bag, small pad (you’ll be sleeping on a gym floor), pillow and all of the necessities. If you are interested in carpooling from the DFW area, contact Jon Speed at jon@lostcauseministries.com.

2. Saturday May 3^rd: TLC Ministries has rented a booth at the Cinco De Mayo Festival in Denton at the Civic Center Park. We need volunteers to staff the booth throughout the day. We will provide FREE tracts, Bibles, and other Christian literature. We are looking for three volunteers for each three hour time slot. The available time slots are: 10AM-Noon, Noon-3PM, 3-6PM, so we need nine volunteers. If you can speak Spanish, we especially need you! This festival has great food and offers a chance to share the Gospel with the Hispanic community of Denton!

3. Friday, May 9^th: Evangelism at Dallas’ West End Marketplace. We will meet at the parking lots of Countryside Bible Church and First Baptist Church of Justin and travel to the West End. Once we get there, we will pray, split up and do one-to-one and tracts throughout the area. We will do open-air in the area near the Spaghetti Warehouse.

4. Friday May 16-Sunday May 18^th: TLC Ministries has rented another evangelism booth at the Wildflower! Arts & Music Festival in Richardson, TX. This festival draws more than 60,000! We need volunteers to staff the booth over these three days!

The available time slots are:

Friday: 6-9PM, 9PM-Midnight

Saturday: 11AM-2PM, 2-5PM, 5-8PM, 8-Midnight

Sunday: 1-4PM, 4-6PM, 6-8PM

In other words, in total, we need either 27 separate volunteers or some volunteers who will do double shifts. Realistically, we need at least 20 volunteers so some people don’t get too burned out. Please contact me at jon@lostcauseministries.com if you can help!

Evangelism\Discipleship Report:University of North Texas:Since it worked so well last time, and it was too windy for a literature table, we brought out our mannequin, Lazarus. It was just me and Tim Crawford, although several Christian students dropped by to say hello and offer encouragement to keep going. During the noon class change, I preached on the one year anniversary of the VA Tech shootings, referencing the mannequin as a grim reminder that 10 out of 10 people die. A few students of the “I’m not sure this is relevant”-Christian variety stopped and critiqued it amongst themselves, but would not engage in any public discussion when I tried calling them out. Our most impressive heckler this semester, Samuel, passed by and was encouraged by other students to heckle, but he would not. I can’t be sure if it’s because of our last conversation when I engaged him in a one-to-one, but I like to think that he may have mellowed since then.

We had some great one-to-ones. I had one with a former Catholic who has tried Hinduism and is now a Buddhist. After taking her through the Law she still clung to her self-righteousness, so rather than keep at her, we left the conversation there. I’m coming to understand that if God is not drawing folks, it’s fruitless to debate with them in a one-to-one. Tim had many great one-to-ones, including one with a couple of guys who aren’t students, but who came to the school just to lust after the women. They claimed to be Christians, but when Tim took them through the teaching of false conversion, they were speechless.

We continue to praise God for the repeat customers. Those who keep coming back week after week who are not saved. The Catholic kid I spoke with about evolution last time came back, but did not renew the debate about radiometric dating. I’m assuming that he looked into it and discovered it was flawed. Since I was talking to another Catholic when he came up, I used the other guy’s view to prove that his view that the Catholics don’t teach salvation by works against him. This new Catholic guy holds to the teachings of the Vatican and pointed out that our repeat customer was wrong about the Catholic doctrine of salvation.

Another guy named Joe, an atheist who Trish Ramos witnessed to when she was there last month, came back for the first time and we had a good talk with him. We tried giving him a Mark Cahill book (One Heartbeat Away) and initially he took it, but then he gave it back. He didn’t seem to want to examine the evidence. We even offered to pay his way to go see “Expelled” this weekend.

As we talked I had the opportunity to tell him, “Joe, we look at the evidence from different viewpoints. Whether you come to Christ or not does not change the fact that I still like you as a person.” He seemed to need to hear that because he has a very gloomy personality. I was surprised by his reaction. He actually smiled and thanked me for that (the first time we’ve seen him smile). This just illustrates why it’s so important for us to show the love that we feel towards the lost as we share with them. I’m sure that you have that same emotion when sharing the Gospel with the lost. We may disagree, but we don’t have to be enemies. Maybe I’m just compromised, but it seems like Someone once said that our distinguishing mark as disciples would be our love, even our love for our “enemies.”

We only have a couple of weeks left and then we’re done for this semester at UNT. I’m saddened by that. It’s been such a sweet time of ministry and developing friendships with the lost and the found.

Main Street Arts Festival, Fort Worth:On Friday and Saturday, TLC focused on spreading the Gospel at Main Street Arts Festival in Fort Worth. This is our fourth year going to this festival; it is one of our personal favorites for preaching and witnessing.

Friday night:On Friday night, Kim Speed, Phyllis Esposito, Brad Snow, myself, Chad Welty and Sam Strader met in downtown Fort Worth to pass out tracts and witness. Betty Taylor and Juli Morrison had traveled quite a distance to witness here as well. We had a great night walking through the festival and engaging people in one-to-ones. I had a good conversation with a young seminary student from TCU who is into “Liberation Theology.” We dealt with his view of God, the moral Law of God, Christ’s sacrifice, but he was hard hearted and deeply affected by his liberal theology. I think his name was Chris. I had another one-to-four with some college aged kids who claimed to be Southern Baptist, but who were very flippant about spiritual things. When we talked about false conversion, they sobered up a bit. In the meantime, Brad had some good one-to-ones as he passed out tracts on Main Street and Sixth. Chad and Sam walked through the festival passing out tracts.

Kim and Phyllis had a great time passing out tracts. Kim is timid when it comes to witnessing and Phyllis is an extrovert. Kim spent a lot of time passing out tracts and watching Phyllis do one-to-one, but she did chip in on a couple of conversations. I include this to remind everyone who reads this but is too timid to come out that if you give it a try, we’re not going to force you into any situation that you don’t want to be in. We’re not going to manipulate you into open-air preaching or even doing one-to-ones. If you’d rather come, pray and watch, we love to have you!

The controversy of the night was when a fellow open-air preacher who was out with Ted Winton’s group was shut down by the police even though she was not using amplification. We have had great freedom to preach at this festival over the last four years, so this was surprising. Apparently there is an interim police chief in Fort Worth; the former police chief was a Christian and supported us being there. After we (me and Brad) reasoned with the police officers and an event official for about 20 minutes or so, the Lord intervened and the event official said that if we kept our volume lower than the bands, we could preach! It was a dramatic change from “If we tell you to leave the festival and you don’t, you’re going to jail” to “Go ahead and preach”! We give God the glory for this unexpected turn around and “green light” to preach for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday:On Saturday believers trickled in and out of the festival all day to do evangelism. We thank God for Ben Moore, Tim Crawford, Jimmy Reesman, Chris Diggs and his family, Brad Snow, Ted Winton, Angela, Samuel, Betty Taylor and her family, Juan and his cousin (forgot his name), Ron & Caleb Martinez and there’s probably others I’m forgetting.

Me and Ben started the day by passing out tracts at Main Street and Third. The Million Dollar Bill tracts went very well here. One line I adopted that people loved was “Ronald Reagan for president. I’m voting for him this fall.” This made people laugh and then they gladly took the tracts. Tim, Chris, and Jimmy showed up a little later and we set up near the Convention Center. Jimmy did his first open-air using the trivia question\money give-away method. He got a free grace couple who did not think they needed to repent to be saved. He did a great job handling their objections and preaching the Word. Tim Crawford was a preaching machine, using both the trivia questions and straight-up preaching. Betty Taylor had spent some time witnessing one-to-one with a tour group from China and asked Tim to go over and talk to them, so he went over and did an open-air! They listened through the presentation of the Law, and then their tour guides tried to hustle them away when he got to the Gospel. Some stayed and listened and Chris was able to speak to one of the guys (who was an atheist) afterwards. Many of them got Gospel tracts and Gospels of John!

I preached at the intersection and got a very self-righteous lesbian as a “good person.” She started arguing fine points about the commandments in a lame attempt to justify herself. I tried reasoning with her as long as I could and then had to shut her down so I could get to the Gospel. I challenged her on her hermeneutics and she got disgusted and left. I think it’s the first time I’ve used the word “hermeneutics” in the open-air. The rest of the crowd seemed to listen closely as I shared the Gospel. Again, we were able to speak to some of them and get them tracts and other info.

On the corner of Main and Third, Angela, Samuel and Ted were battling what I’ve come to call “The Pied Piper of Main Street”. He is a bag piper and this is his second appearance at the festival. He is paid by the festival to harass open-air preachers. MSAF went so far this year that they directed two other acts (one with amplification) to that corner to try to stop us when the Pied Piper got tired out. Brad and I joined this group during the afternoon because the preachers were tired and losing their voices. Because Brad and I had not preached much to that point, we rested these preachers and kept the Gospel going out. They also had to leave a little later.

Now, you might question the effectiveness of this kind of thing, but try to picture this in your mind. Thousands of people streaming by the busiest intersection in the festival and they stumble on one preacher holding a cross, another holding a sign with the Ten Commandments, and another preacher preaching. Meanwhile, a bag piper is piping, one cowboy singing, ten lords a leaping (no, just kidding) and a small country\western band jamming. If you don’t think this got people’s attention, you’re fooling yourself. It was obvious what was happening to all who passed by; the MSAF, with the sanction of the police, were harassing the preachers who were trying to exercise their first amendment rights. Even those who did not agree with us didn’t like what MSAF was doing.

As we did open-air it provided great one-to-ones and we passed out many “Who is Jesus?” tracts. The atmosphere provided a sort of sympathy amongst many in the crowd who don’t like to see Jesus mocked even if they don’t understand the true Gospel. I passed out the most tracts on this corner per attempts. One man approached me after I open-aired and he was trembling, both in his voice and physically. He warmly shook my hand, thanking me for coming out and lifting up Christ. Many other Christians did the same. We didn’t slam sinners for sinning; we reasoned with them from the Law and exalted Christ all afternoon. A reporter from the Fort Worth Star Telegram interviewed me, but I have not seen a report in that paper yet about the preaching.

This report has already gone too long, but we should make one thing crystal clear. We do what we do, not so we can write about it later, but to lift up Christ. These reports are intended to inform you as to what God can do through a bunch of simple men and women who are unprofitable slaves, doing only what their Lord has asked them to do. If you get the sense from reading this that we think we are “something”, then I have failed as a writer. I suspect that I have failed already.

We love street evangelism and make no apology for it. This blog is an attempt to convey the power, excitement, blessing, fruit and challenge of public evangelism. It is an attempt to provide ideas to other street evangelists and encouragement to the timid. Anyone who knows me (Jon) knows that I am an introvert. If the Lord can use me on the streets, He can use you to witness to friends, family, and even strangers. I have no special gifting in this area.

Much, much more happened that I would like to write about, but rather than risk sounding like a glory boy, we’ll leave it between us and the Lord. Suffice it to say that we pray that this update will encourage you to be a little bolder for Christ than you were yesterday.

Here are a few pics (thanks to Betty Taylor for one of these):

Evangelism Resources:1. The audios from the recent Together for the Gospel conference, featuring Ligon Duncan, John MacArthur, Mark Dever, R.C. Sproul, Al Mohler, John Piper and C.J. Mahaney are all available for FREE! Check it out here: http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org … s/T4G.aspx. 2. This comes from Jim Jones, of www.fool4given.com: Kirk Cameron’s Comments: “I saw EXPELLED and thought it was tremendous! The sheer intellect on the ID (Intelligent Design) side of the debate clears the notion of ‘fairy tales’ and the honesty of famous atheists like Richard Dawkins and his minions is shocking. Ben Stein does an excellent job using humor, tenacity, and personal passion to expose the anti-God, anti-American, Big Science agenda, linking Darwin‘s theory to the horrors of the Holocaust. A must see for every believer, agnostic, and atheist.”

Ray Comfort’s Comments: “If you have felt frustrated by all the lies about Intelligent Design, you will be thrilled with this movie–especially the concluding interview with Richard Dawkins. Please, go to EXPELLED! Take your church, your youth group, your neighbors, your mother. It will spark interesting conversations.”

Visit www.GetExpelled.com

3. Check out the recent essay at The Informed Evangelist for an essay I’ve written entitled “Evangelism & Discipleship”.

4. Here’s a great article on evangelism by John Piper.

In Christ,

Jon Speed & Tim Crawford

Church Websites:

Countryside Bible Church

First Baptist Church of Justin, TX

Evangelism Quote: “Darwin‘s theory of evolution, however, is based on the concept of macroevolution. This is the inference that successive small changes seen in microevolution (these variations within species) can accumulate and lead to large changes over long periods of time. In macroevolution, one kind of creature (such as a reptile) becomes another kind of creature (such as a bird), requiring the creation of entirely new features and body types. This would be a bit like observing a car going from 0 to 60 mph in 60 seconds, and inferring that it can then go 0 to 6,000 mph in 100 minutes—and become an airplane in the process.” –Ray ComfortEvangelism Opportunities:

1. Thursday, April 17^th, 11:00AM-3:00PM: TLC Ministries will be doing evangelism at the University of North Texas in Denton. We have reserved a free speech area on campus and will pass out tracts, do one-to-one and open-air preach. You can find directions to the campus at www.unt.edu. If you would like to join us, please let me know. We will be in front of the Student Union Building, Free Speech Area A, near the bus stop on Union Circle.

2. Friday, April 18^th, 7:00PM–??: Evangelism at Dallas’ West End Marketplace. We will meet at the parking lots of Countryside Bible Church and First Baptist Church of Justin and travel to the West End. Once we get there, we will pray, split up and do one-to-one and tracts throughout the area. We will do open-air in the area near the Spaghetti Warehouse. 3. Saturday April 19^th: We will be doing outreach at Main Street Arts Festival in downtown Fort Worth. This event is one of the best events to evangelize at in DFW over the course of the year! We will meet at 9:00AM in front of the Barnes & Noble in Sundance Square. Bring some spending money and plan on staying for the day. If you need directions, call me at 972-310-7806. 4. Friday April 25-Sunday April 27: TLC Ministries travels to San Antonio, TX to team up with the Jesus Crew to do evangelism at the Fiesta San Antonio. If you would like to come, the cost is $85 for room and board. Bring a sleeping bag, small pad (you’ll be sleeping on a gym floor), pillow and all of the necessities. If you are interested in carpooling from the DFW area, contact Jon Speed at jon@lostcauseministries.com. 5. Saturday May 3^rd: TLC Ministries has rented a booth at the Cinco De Mayo Festival in Denton at the Civic Center Park. We need volunteers to staff the booth throughout the day. We will provide FREE tracts, Bibles, and other Christian literature. We are looking for three volunteers for each three hour time slot. The available time slots are: 10AM-Noon, Noon-3PM, 3PM-6PM, so we need nine volunteers. If you can speak Spanish, we especially need you! This festival has great food and offers a chance to share the Gospel with the Hispanic community of Denton!

Evangelism\Discipleship Report:

West End Marketplace in Dallas

On Friday night, me, Samantha Speed, Ron Martinez, Brad Snow, Richie Floyd, Cody Walker and Pastor Phil Anderson met in the West End to do evangelism. On the train ride over to the West End I had a good one-to-one with a young lady named Deborah who was going home from work. I used the curved illusions to start the conversation and then take her through the Law and the Gospel. She listened carefully and gratefully received a longer Gospel tract. She claimed to know Christ, but thought that she could be “good enough” by her own merits to go to Heaven. Pray for a clear understanding of the Gospel.

When we met up in the West End, we prayed and everyone split up. It was a fairly quiet night, but with a large volleyball tournament in town, there were groups of college students from all across the USA wandering in packs down the street. We (me, Samantha and Richie) tried picking off the stragglers with tracts and engaging them in one-to-ones. I was greatly encouraged by Richie’s efforts with people in one-to-one work. He boldly yet carefully shared the Gospel with each person he spoke with.

One group came by and I engaged them using the old “questions for cash” method. The group stopped and I ended up with a “good person” who wanted to try for $5.00 by proving that she was good enough to go to Heaven using the Ten Commandments. Nicole admitted to be a lying, adulterous, blasphemer, as did all of her friends. This gave me the opportunity to preach Christ and Him crucified, but I felt like I had to hurry since more than half the group left after I got to that point, which reminded me why I don’t use the trivia question method in my OA much any more. I was able to speak with a couple of the students afterwards, as did Richie, and so we were able to have some productive conversations. Later, that same group came by and took the Giant Money tracts I was handing out. Pray that the seed will be planted into their hearts. Nicole seemed anxious to get the tract.

A little later, a large group from University of Connecticut came by and Richie quickly jumped up and did the questions for cash method. A large group stopped and Richie did an excellent job engaging them and preaching the Gospel. His “good person” was a Jewish student from UConn who was surprisingly receptive. He listened as Richie explained how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies. Afterwards, he approached Richie and shook his hand, saying, “I hope that you find redemption.” Richie responded with, “I have!” And he continued to share the Gospel with him. What an incredible opportunity to share Christ with a Jewish man!

Unbeknownst to me, this was only the second time Richie had ever open-air preached! The Lord used him powerfully and I would never have guessed that this was the case. As Cody mentioned when he emailed me later, “The Lord was glorified” out there in West End on Friday night. It was not as busy as downtown Fort Worth, but Christ was exalted amongst those who were there.

The following testimony about Friday night comes from Ron Martinez’s blog:

This is Jason, I met him just outside the West End proper. He was sitting at a bus stop bench with nowhere to go. Jason will perish without God’s mercy and grace on his soul. There are many like Jason in this area, just hanging out, doing nothing, waiting for tomorrow to bring another day. No job, and nothing to do is not what our Lord wants of anyone. 1Th 4:11 “…and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you.” See, this is just one verse of many concerning work. Jason though needs Christ first and His righteousness. Jason needs to have the miricle of sight and hearing to understand the Word of God. Without the Holy Spirits working in the heart of Jason, he will perish. I pray that like me, God will cause Jason to hear again, and see again and do mighty works in the Lord.A Man is Shot, Which Leads to a Witness to His Family:This testimony comes from Jose Muniz, of Jesus Crew in Abilene. This past Saturday morning at about 1:00 am as we were parked by a convenient store on the North side of town, when all of a sudden we heard several gun shots. We immediately drove in the direction of the gun shots, praying that we would be able to minister to someone(people tend to listen to the Gospel when they get shot sometimes). After a few minutes of driving, we saw several police cars with their lights on. One young man had been shot about 3 times from close range. We started praying and asking GOD to keep this man alive if he was lost. From a distance we saw that they were loading him up in the ambulance, so we drove towards the hospital and waited for family members to show up at the emergency room lobby. We waited for about 10 minutes when the first family member arrived; it was a sister-in-law. She was crying and she was even shaking with the thought of losing her brother-in-law. We walked over to her just let her know that we were praying for them already. We had met the sister-in-law about 15 years earlier and a seed had been planted there many years ago.A few minutes later the wife walked in crying and freaking out. As I looked at her I knew that I had witnessed to her already; the Holy Spirit reminded me that it had been several years ago that I had witnessed to her at a drive thru window at Taco Bell at 2:00 am. It had been about 9 years ago that we had planted a seed. She came to us and she gave us a hug and cried a lot. We were there till 5:00am. Last night the wife called and asked for me to come talk to them again. Please pray for this family’s salvation as we continue to share the Gospel with them. If you are someone that is faithful in your witness in your home town……you will see the fruit of it in due time. The problem is that people want to see a harvest without planting the seed. Speak the Word of God; that’s where the power of salvation is (Romans 1:16). Evangelism Resources: 1. One Million Tracts has come out with another great Gospel tract, just in time for Memorial Day! They come in packs of 100 for just $3.00! Why not buy a bunch of these and pass them out at your local Memorial Day Parade or event? 2. John Legg of Holy Epidemic, a street evangelism ministry in Melbourne, Australia has released a powerful video on the concept of false conversions. It is called “Impostors In Our Midst.” Check it out for FREE here. You can also purchase this as a DVD, with an excellent study guide. 3. Here is a FREE video from Living Hope Ministries called “Lifting the Veil of Polygamy”. With the current events involving the FLDS Church, this should be a helpful tool for anyone who wants to understand the connection between the teachings of Joseph Smith and present day Fundamentalist Mormonism, which practices polygamy. Here is the link. Evangelism Training Opportunity:June 11-15, 2008: TLC Ministries and OneMillionTracts.com will host an “Evangecamp” at beautiful Niagara Falls, NY. Come out for intensive “hands-on” training and practice of the principles of Way of the Master. We will do evangelism in downtown Buffalo, at a large art festival, and on the American and Canadian sides of the Falls. Learn more here. Application deadline: April 21st!!! In Christ,Jon Speed & Tim CrawfordChurch Websites:Countryside Bible ChurchFirst Baptist Church of Justin, TX

Evangelism Quote:“…let us observe that there is another class of Christians, quite distinct from the wise and prudent, in whose eyes such evangelistic labors as those of the twelve stand in no need of vindication. Their tendency, on the contrary, is to regard such labors as the whole work of the kingdom. Revival of religion among the neglected masses is for them the sum of all good-doing. Of the more still, less observable work of instruction going on in the church they take no account. Where there is no obvious excitement, the church in their view is dead, and her ministry inefficient. Such need to be reminded that there were two religious movements going on in the days of the Lord Jesus. One consisted in rousing the mass out of the stupor of indifference; the other consisted in the careful, exact training of men already in earnest, in the principles and truths of the divine kingdom. Of the one movement the disciples, that is, both the twelve and the seventy, were the agents; of the other movement, they were the subjects. And the latter movement, though less noticeable, and much more limited in extent, was by far more important than the former; for it was destined to bring forth fruit that should remain—to tell not merely on the present time, but on the whole history of the world…There would have been a poor outlook for the kingdom of heaven if Christ had neglected this work, and given Himself up entirely to vague evangelism among the masses”. –A.B. Bruce in “The Training of the Twelve”
This (lengthy) quote reminds us as Biblical evangelists that we need the instruction of the local church at least as much (if not more) as we need to be sharing the Gospel. Evangelism Opportunities:

1. Thursday, April 10^th, 11:00AM-3:00PM: TLC Ministries will be doing evangelism at the University of North Texas in Denton. We have reserved a free speech area on campus and will pass out tracts, do one-to-one and open-air preach. You can find directions to the campus at www.unt.edu. If you would like to join us, please let me know. We will be in front of the Student Union Building, Free Speech Area A, near the bus stop on Union Circle.

2. Friday, April 11^th, 7:00PM-?? We are scoping out a potential ministry site in the West End Marketplace of Dallas on Friday nights. On the 11^th, we will meet at the parking lots of Countryside Bible Church and First Baptist in Justin at 7:00PM and travel to the West End (via the 7:34 TRE Train from the Centreport\DFW Station) to witness, pass out tracts and open-air preach.

3. Friday April 19^th & Saturday April 20^th: We will be doing outreach at Main Street Arts Festival in downtown Fort Worth. Details TBA. Get more info here.4. Friday April 25-Sunday April 27: TLC Ministries travels to San Antonio, TX to team up with the Jesus Crew to do evangelism at the Fiesta San Antonio. If you would like to come, the cost is $85 for room and board. Bring a sleeping bag, small pad (you’ll be sleeping on a gym floor), pillow and all of the necessities. Evangelism & Discipleship Report: NASCAR at Texas Motor Speedway:This week, TLC partnered with TXARM to assist in their outreach at Texas Motor Speedway (TMS) during the O’Reilly 300 and Samsung 500 NASCAR races. We were able to assist them in a variety of tasks including passing out tracts at the gates, distributing storm warnings in the campgrounds, handicapped transportation from the campgrounds to the gates, witnessing one-to-one in the campground, and other tasks. TXARM has worked hard establishing a strong relationship with TMS since the track was built. The respect that TMS has for this organization is obvious. TXARM does a lot for TMS and in return, TMS has allowed them to pass out tracts, have a couple of large ministry sites in the campground, and the ability to minister directly to fans and racers. Dr. John Babbler, one of the professors at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, leads the evangelistic effort and has begun implementing Way of the Master in their evangelistic training. As a result, and with TXARM’s permission, we felt great freedom passing out the million dollar bill tracts, curved illusions, and pressed pennies, along with TXARM’s ministry schedule tracts. We had many great one-to-ones and were able to pass out thousands of tracts. At least 2500 million dollar bill tracts were distributed, not counting all of the other tracts that we were able to hand out. Ron and Caleb Martinez, Tim Crawford, myself, and Chad Welty were all able to attend. We had conversations with many people. I had a great conversation with a young man named Joshua who grew up in a professing Christian home, but who has admittedly strayed from the faith. I witnessed to him like I would anyone else and then shared with him from the Word about false conversion. He was very open in spite of the challenging things I had to share with him and actually shook my hand and thanked me for taking the time. Sundance Square, Fort Worth:On Friday night I got an email from one of the attendees from last week’s one day seminar in Justin asking about going out on the street Saturday night. Rather than try to meet at TMS, we decided to meet in Sundance Square. Ron & Caleb Martinez and I met Jason Coe and Ron White, split up and walked around the Square doing one-to-ones and passing out tracts. I teamed up with Ron White and we had a good night passing out tracts and attempting one-to-ones. I say “attempting” because they didn’t go far. I had a one-to-one with a 22 year member of the Fort Worth police department who was off duty at the time. We talked about his job and its difficulties and then about the reality of death. From there it was easy to swing it to the spiritual and discuss whether he was good enough to go to Heaven. He said he had been raised Baptist, had strayed from his roots and not practiced any religion and has recently married a Roman Catholic. He was very self righteous and would not admit that he was a sinner, even after sharing some of the Ten Commandments. Rather than force the issue, I quickly summed up the Gospel for him and then went back to passing out tracts. Ron started a one-to-one with a lesbian couple, but when they fumbled for a small can of MACE, he wisely turned around and asked me to come over and help him out for a minute. When I did, they left the MACE can alone, and the conversation was quickly defused. In four years of doing this, I have never seen this happen before. Street witnessing is rarely dangerous. This shows the importance of going out in pairs. It also shows why we need to pray and trust the Lord for protection. Praise God for His protection! Ron and Jason had many good one-to-ones and passed out a lot of tracts. We thank God for Jason and Ron and their boldness in coming out. To read more stories about this weekend, keep an eye on Ron Martinez’s blog, www.gospeltotheperishing.blogspot.com. Evangelism Testimony from Mark Dever’s church:Ron Martinez’s mom was recently at Mark Dever’s church in Washington, D.C. and heard the following story from someone who is active in evangelism there. He has since confirmed the story with Ron via email. Here it is:The story I told your mom was that about 6 years ago, I was with a group in Orlando Florida witnessing. We broke into pairs and split up and then met back each evening to share whatever happened. One man in our group was at a park when a man approached him and asked if he was there the day before witnessing. He said no and asked why. The man said, “Well yesterday someone came into the restroom here and began talking to another man in the room. I was in the stall in the back and was listening to the conversation. I heard the man share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I believed in Him. The man never knew I was in the room. So I came back today to see if I could find him because I just had to tell someone what happened.”

Pretty encouraging. You never know who will hear and who will believe. We may never even see the fruit until we gather together on that great day. Press on brother.

May this story serve to encourage you to be faithful in evangelism.

Former Fort Worth Heckler Saved!

Stephen Starnes passed this along last week about a former heckler in Fort Worth who has come to Christ! This is from the former heckler’s email to Stephen:

Hey Steven,I just wanted to thank you. I used to be one of the guys that would go out and argue with you in Ft. Worth about two years ago. Thank you for standing on the front lines for lost souls like me and for being one of the first people to minister to me. Since then God has placed me in a Church and God has put it in my heart to Evangelize. I was wondering if i could come out every other friday night and assist you guys. I’ve gone out a few times and did not see you all there. If you could please send me an email next time you plan on heading out there. If i don’t receive a reply I’ll still be down there to see if your ministry will be there, and maybe give you the thanks in person. God Bless You, man

Take heart, saints! Your labor is not in vain in the Lord!!!

Evangelism Resources: 1. The Pink Card tract: OneMillionTracts.com has developed a new tract called “The Pink Card”. It was designed as a result of a conversation that Kim Speed had with Marv about the need for tracts which appeal to women. We just received our shipment of them and they look GREAT! They are available for only $3 per pack of 100! Ladies, get a couple of packs and try them with your friends. 2. Purse Evangelism: In keeping with the theme of women doing evangelism, this is a great little video clip from Trish Ramos on how to outfit your purse for evangelism! Check it out here. 3. Worldview Resource: Check out the “Battle for Civilization” website for an interesting promo video. This one will be worth keeping an eye on.

4. Spanish Resource: Here is the “Need God” website in Spanish. A great resource!

Evangelism Training Opportunity:June 11-15, 2008: TLC Ministries and OneMillionTracts.com will host an “Evangecamp” at beautiful Niagara Falls, NY. Come out for intensive “hands-on” training and practice of the principles of Way of the Master. We will do evangelism in downtown Buffalo, at a large art festival, and on the American and Canadian sides of the Falls. Learn more here.

In Christ,

Jon Speed & Tim Crawford

Church Websites:

Countryside Bible Church

First Baptist Church of Justin, TX