Evangelism Quote:
“True repentance has a distinct and constant reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you repent of sin without looking to Christ, away with your repentance. If you are so lamenting your sin as to forget the Savior, you have a need to begin all this work over again. Whenever we repent of sin, we must have one eye upon sin and another upon the cross; or, better still, let us have both eyes upon Christ, seeing our sin punished in him, and by no means let us look at sin except as we look at Jesus. A man may hate sin just as a murderer hates the gallows but this does not prove repentance. If I hate sin because of the punishment, I have not repented of sin; I merely regret that God is just.”
”But if I can see sin as an offense against Jesus Christ, and loathe myself because I have wounded him, then I have a true brokenness of heart. If I see the Savior and believe that those thorns upon his head were put there by my sinful words; if I believe that those wounds in his heart were made by my heart-sins; if I believe that those wounds in his feet were made by my wandering steps, and that the wounds in his hands were made by my sinful deeds, then I repent after a right fashion. Only under the cross can you repent. Repentance elsewhere is remorse, which clings to the sin and only dreads the punishment. Let us then seek, under God, to have a hatred of sin caused by a sight of Christ’s love.” –C.H. SpurgeonEvangelism Opportunities:
1. Friday June 20th, 9:00PM—1:00AM Evangelism at Dallas’ Lower Greenville Avenue. If you are planning on coming, please notify either Tim Crawford (tim@lostcauseministries.com) or Jon Speed (jon@lostcauseministries.com) and they will organize carpooling. Once we get there, we will pray, split up and do one-to-one and tracts throughout the area. The meeting location will be at the Whole Foods Market parking lot at 2218 Greenville Avenue in Dallas. We’ll enjoy some good pizza\wings and fellowship and then hit the streets by 10:00PM. Greenville just gets started at 10:00PM and really starts getting busy at 11:00PM. If you need to meet up with us when you get in the neighborhood, call Jon’s cell phone at 972-310-7806.
2. Friday June 27th, 9:00PM—1:00AM. Same details as #1 above.
3. Saturday June 28th, 5:00PM—10:00PM. Celebrate Freedom event at Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, TX. We’re not going in order to listen to the music (primarily); we’re going there to share the Gospel one-to-one with those we meet. There is much misunderstanding of the Gospel at these kinds of events and our goal is not to be a “protest presence”, but to get people who have poor understandings of the Gospel to examine themselves to see if they are in the faith (2 Cor. 13:5). We hope to use an interview format which can be used with ipods, video camera’s, mp3 recorders, etc. The event is FREE, but there will be a fee of $10-$15 for parking. If you would like to carpool, again, please contact Jon or Tim and let them know that you are coming.
4. Thursday, July 3rd, 5:00PM—10:00PM. Independence Day & Fireworks Show at Southlake Town Square. The Square will be packed with thousands of people just hanging out, enjoying family activities, concerts, and waiting for the fireworks. We will go and share the Gospel in many ways; including tracts, one-to-one and open-air preaching. We will meet at the fountain behind Brio’s Restaurant at 5:00PM.
Evangelism\Discipleship Report:Evangecamp #1: Niagara Falls, NY
What can we say about this camp other than the fact that the Lord did an amazing work from beginning to end? Clearly His Sovereign hand was all over this outreach.
On Tuesday, TLC Staff flew out to Buffalo, NY to prepare for our first Evangecamp. This gave us an extra day to meet with our caterer and finalize plans for our agenda. As we reported in our email update, one of the campers, Bernice Warren, suffered a TIA (mini-stroke) en route from Seattle, WA on Wednesday. By God’s good grace, He allowed her to suffer this near Buffalo, and the plane made an emergency landing in Buffalo! The flight was heading to Boston for a change of planes. She ended up in a hospital about four miles down the street from our hotel (more on Bernice in the report below). The Lord placed her where she needed to be while she recovered.
Here is a breakdown of the camp, day by day:
Wednesday:
Many of the campers flew in a day early to save on airfare, while others came in on Wednesday. After a dinner of Buffalo chicken wings (of course) and pizza, we met in the hotel meeting space and had a “meet and greet.” After reviewing the agenda and rules, Tim Crawford presented the TLC Ministries power point presentation. This was an encouragement to the campers as they heard new ideas of how to develop their evangelism and discipleship ministries in their areas, which was the point of the presentation.
After the presentation, I gave a devotional based on 2 Corinthians 5:20-21. We studied the doctrines of reconciliation and justification. The campers were encouraged to implement these truths into their Gospel presentations. They received the teaching well and as the camp went on, it became obvious that they did indeed implement these truths into their Gospel presentations. This is so important since so many of the world religions and cults will agree with the basic Way of the Master presentation when the moral law is reviewed, and even a version of repentance and faith. However, the issue of justification also needs to be addressed since groups like the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox (and others) find their right standing with God through works, religious practices, and religious rituals. The Apostle Paul lays out the Law in Romans in the first three chapters in order to get to the main point of justification by faith in Romans 4 & 5. We should likewise apply the Law to the consciences of the lost and then apply the salve of justification once the conscience has been prepared.
We divided into two teams. One was “Ambassadors” led by dArrel wArren and Tim Crawford. This team consisted of Ken Schleimer, Joshua Black, Amelia Smith, Mike Stinson, Catherine Fusco, and Bernice Warren. The other was “Ministers of Reconciliation” led by Jon Speed and included Ron Martinez, Thomas Fusco, Hans Brush, Mark Mews, Rachael Mews and Elaine Barsness.
Thursday:
On Thursday, we began the day with an hour of prayer. What a blessing to pray with radical believers in Christ! We spent much time praying the Scriptures and seeking the Lord’s blessing on the day, as well as confessing our weaknesses before the Lord.
Our first venue was downtown Buffalo, near Lafayette Square. The teams split up and spread out through the area. The day was an amazing day of sharing the Gospel. We found the people on their lunch breaks to be quite open to the Gospel, as well as the others that we witnessed to. “Ministers of Reconciliation” did a couple of open-airs using Hans’ easel and found those who stopped to be attentive to the Gospel. The first couple that stopped to do the “Good Person Test” stayed afterwards and asked for information on good churches in Buffalo, which we were able to give them because of our prepared list.
Ron Martinez had a one-to-one with a 92 year old gentleman who listened closely to the Gospel. After sharing carefully, the man told Ron that he believed what Ron told him and that one day Ron will see him in Heaven. Please pray that this will be the case, that the Gospel found good soil in his heart.
Thousands of tracts were given out at this time and there were many one-to-ones. Several who were interested were given contact information for strong local churches. The blessing of the day was Debbie, who is a member of First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda. She was a driver who helped us transport the team and who had never witnessed on the streets using Way of the Master. We gave her some tracts and she boldly went, passing them out. She even did her first one-to-one on her own! She was very encouraged and excited. Lord willing, she is part of the “first fruits” which will end up becoming a strong evangelism team in Buffalo. Bruce Sutherland, the coordinator of our transportation from Trinity Lutheran Church, drove us back out on Thursday night.
After sharing the Gospel through the afternoon, we went back to the hotel for dinner. We came back that evening, around 7:30PM, for the Thursday night concert series in Lafayette Square. This concert draws about 40,000 partiers into this small square to listen to all kinds of music. This night it was a blue-grass act. The “Ambassadors” team went directly into the secured area of the square while the “Ministers of Reconciliation” team wandered into the unsecured area where the “goth” teens and gang members hang out. The “Ambassadors” had many good one to ones and passed out hundreds of tracts. The “Ministers” had a rough start.
Basically, we unwittingly wandered into a pit of debauchery. The goth kids smoked drugs in public, drank, and were generally lewd. Despite the gross sin, we decided to try to set up and do some open-air. I did one OA where several kids and adults stopped and listened closely to the Gospel. I had a good one-to-one with an adult who said he had “backslidden”. I encouraged him to repent and get right with God, and also to examine himself to see if he had ever been saved. Thomas Fusco also did a very good open-air with a good group of goth kids. Meanwhile, the other team members were busy engaging the kids with tracts and one-to-ones. We had many great conversations.
At that point, a riot nearly broke out when a couple of rival gangs started fighting and hundreds of kids starting running. The police quickly squelched the fight and cleared the area. At that point we moved into the secured section of the Square and joined the other team. We “circled the wagons”, stayed close together and witnessed to the masses of people gathered there. In spite of the alcohol, we were able to witness to many of the partiers. I had a decent one-to-one with a Presbyterian college student who was basically post-modern in his thinking and could not accept the Bible as literally true. Amelia Smith from “Ambassadors” had a Roman Catholic get up in her face as she attempted to lovingly share the Gospel with her.
When the festival closed at 10:00PM, we gave out tracts to the partiers as they left and then we went back to the hotel. It was a long, but fruitful day.
Friday:
Friday began with another great hour of prayer. The highlight of this day was the fact that Bernice had been released from the hospital on Thursday night and was able to join us for the entire day! We met our drivers from First Trinity Lutheran and left for Niagara Falls, Ontario. When we got there, we parked and took a side trip to the American Falls so everyone could take pictures and buy some souvenirs. Then we walked across the Rainbow Bridge to the Canadian side. We got across the border with very little problem and walked part way up Clifton Hill to Ruby Tuesday’s for lunch. It was extremely humid, but in spit of the humidity, Bernice was able to keep up.
After lunch we met the camera crew from the Foundation for Spiritual Awareness Research which is doing a documentary on Christians who share their faith. It’s pretty sad that obedient Christians are so rare that they warrant a documentary, but there it is. We moved down Clifton Hill towards the Falls, and the crew set up and filmed Darrel Warren doing a one-to-one. The rest of the campers moved down the promenade towards Horseshoe Falls and everyone passed out the 5,000 tracts that One Million Tracts provided us. We reprinted a tract that was developed for Living Waters Canada; a Niagara Falls collectible tract. These were made available to the campers by donation only and we got rid of most of them on Friday! We probably could have given out 10,000 in the two days we were there.
It took us several hours to make the short trip down the promenade since we stopped to enjoy the view and speak to many tourists. As usual, many nationalities were represented. Ron Martinez had a great one-to-one with a Muslim man who is a concert pianist. He was receptive to the Gospel. I had a lengthy conversation with an elderly woman from London, England. My wife’s cousins live near her, so we were able to have a friendly conversation even though she is an agnostic. She is typical of many in England who have rejected the Gospel and are totally post-modern. She adores Charles Darwin and would not listen to the evidence, but she did promise to read the Niagara Falls tract. Please pray for her.
At the end of the outreach on the Canadian side that day, we preached at the main crosswalk for more than half an hour. Tim Crawford, Rachael Mews, Mike Stinson (first timer) and Amelia Smith (first timer) all shared the Gospel.
We got back to the American side of the Falls and went to Trinity Lutheran (Missouri Synod) for dinner. Bruce got us a great deal on dinner. After a sweet time of fellowship we went back to the American side of the falls. We got there in time to do some evangelism before the fireworks display. It was a great time of effective evangelism. We did some open-air preaching there and were well received. Good sized groups of people came over to our easel and we had great one-to-ones afterwards. A man from Philadelphia thanked me after I preached saying that he admired believers who do this kind of thing. The Roman Catholic kid who took the “Good Person” test turned out to have received a Million Dollar Bill tract at the Lilac Festival in Rochester from the team from the church I used to pastor in Oakfield, NY. We talked about the supremacy of the Scriptures over tradition and justification by faith. Pray for his salvation.
Afterwards we planned on walking along the rapids, but a thunderstorm rolled through and we got rained out. This didn’t happen until after we finished the outreach that night, so the Lord’s timing was perfect as always. We went back to the hotel rejoicing over the Lord’s goodness in all of the conversations, open-airs, and His empowerment of Bernice to be with us all day.
Saturday:
On Saturday, we started the day with another hour of prayer and then went to Delaware Avenue to the Allentown Arts Festival in Buffalo. The camera crew met us at the hotel. As we were looking for a parking spot, we noticed that there was a large group protesting the Scientologist church just across the street from their building. They were wearing pirate costumes in order to protect their identities. The Scientologist Church’s practice of suing those who expose them as well as their well documented intimidation tactics caused them to resort to disguising themselves. In fact, the Scientologists set up a video camera on a tripod and video taped the protestors while they were there (as well as us).
The camera crew saw this as a great opportunity for some footage and we saw it as a great opportunity to find out what they do believe if they don’t believe in Scientology. We had one-to-ones with all of the protestors. Tim Crawford did a one-to-one on camera with one of the protestors and it should be interesting footage. We probably spent an hour there sharing the Gospel. Ron Martinez had a great one-to-one with a young protestor who was very “freaked out” when Ron started talking with him, but as he reasoned with him, he calmed down and at the end, asked for a Bible which we were glad to give him.
We moved into the festival and had a lot of great one-to-ones. The festival was packed; there must have been close to 100,000 people there. At the festival we met several folks from Genesee Country Church (Mark & Marylou Szwezyck and Patty Shelhorse). I enjoyed teaming up with Darrel Warren to do one-to-ones. His creative style and obvious love for the people is contagious.
We passed out thousands of tracts. We were not able to open-air there because the police claimed that the organizers obtained a permit for the zone around the festival, one block in each direction. They asked us to stop passing out tracts at 4:00PM, which we were glad to do since it was time to leave anyway. Their request was contrary to the Buffalo City Code, but rather than argue a losing battle, we left.
We went back to the hotel where we had our graduation ceremony. Each camper received a beautiful certificate and had a chance to share what they had learned. This is always an emotional ceremony; the fellowship at a camp is so sweet. It’s hard to explain to anyone who has never been to a camp; it must be similar to the friendships forged between soldiers in battle. The Christian life is a spiritual battle (Eph.6:10-20) and it is rarely as evident as such as when we work together purposely to share the Gospel in a missionary effort. The testimonies were amazing.
Bernice was not able to come with us on Saturday because of her long day on Friday. She was disappointed because of that and felt discouraged. However, when the room service maid came to her room to clean it, she was able to share the Gospel with her. The maid had never heard of Jesus and had never heard the Gospel before! She was quite convicted, even to the point of weeping, but did not repent. Please pray for this maid and praise God with us for this divine appointment.
After dinner and graduation, we went out together for one last time to the Canadian side of the Falls. Because it was Saturday night, we went to the spot where our team at Genesee Country used to preach every week near the top of Clifton Hill. The clubbers come out on Saturday night, as well as the usual tourists. It’s extremely busy and open-air preaching extremely effective. We preached from the time we got there (9:00PM) until 12:30AM. There were numerous one-to-ones with people from a wide variety of religious and philosophical backgrounds.
I had a one-to-one which followed an open-air message with a Muslim man, Ali, from Lebanon. He is engaged to a Christian woman and has a sister who is Christian. He stated that he wanted his marriage to reflect a tolerance and co-existence which would be a model to others. I told him that this co-existence is admirable, but the issue is whether or not there is absolute truth. I shared with him Jesus’ words in John 14:6; He is the way, the truth and the life. It’s an absolute truth claim. If Jesus is right, then every other religion, including Islam, is wrong. If Ali believes in absolute truth, then he’s implying that Islam is right and Christianity is wrong. The truth claim should not lead to violence against other religions, but the question is, “Which ‘holy book’, the Quran or the Bible, is right?” He heard the message loud and clear and was the most receptive Muslim I have witnessed to in the last couple of years. Ali has a Bible; please pray that he will read it and the tracts he received. I also had a good conversation with an Arabic Orthodox believer, which seems similar in many ways to Russian Orthodox. The issue with the Orthodox believers is justification by faith, which we addressed. Pray for a receptive heart for this man as well.
The highlight for all of us this night was seeing the preaching. Ron Martinez and Mark Mews both open-air preached for the first time! I was blessed by the preaching of Ken Schleimer and Joshua Black; it was an encouragement to see their progress in open-air preaching. Josh was on my evangelism team in Miami during the Super Bowl in 2007, where he open-aired for the first time. Since then, he has grown radically as an open-air preacher and preaches passionately and most importantly, biblically.
Only the Lord knows how much fruit was born out of this camp. Not only did the lost hear the Gospel, but a couple of local churches were involved and encouraged to continue doing street evangelism after we left. Those who were looking for a church were referred to solid local churches. The campers were challenged to strengthen their Gospel presentations with the doctrine of justification by faith. Those campers will carry that lesson back to their respective teams in Arizona, Washington, Florida, Texas, and New York. The Gospel was preached to many nations. God was glorified. Soli Deo Gloria.
Special thanks to First Trinity Lutheran Church of Tonawanda, NY and Genesee Country Church of Oakfield, NY for their help with transportation and food on Friday night. Your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
Evangelism Resources:
1. Here are two FREE videos on Youtube from Dr. John MacArthur on the modern seeker sensitive church. This is “must see” for anyone interested in this vital subject.
Part 1
Part 2
2. Justin Peters will be speaking at Countryside Bible Church on July 20th. His seminar is called “A Call to Discernment”. Besides being an important day (it’s my anniversary), this is a great opportunity to hear an expert speak about the dangers of the Word of Faith movement. Justin will speak in both morning services and at 6:00PM and 7:00PM on Sunday night. TLC Ministries highly recommends that those who do evangelism with us on a regular basis attend on Sunday night. This is a vital issue for those of us who do evangelism in DFW since there are so many Word of Faith teachers in this area. For more information on Justin, please visit www.justinpeters.org.
Evangelism Training Opportunities:1. Come to the first Holy Epidemic Conference in the United States, to be held in Austin, TX on September 5-6! Holy Epidemic is a conference for Christians who are interested in learning more about street evangelism AND Christians who are already active doing street evangelism. The keynote speaker will be John Legg of Way of the Master, Australia\Holy Epidemic. Also speaking will be Jose Muniz, founder of The Jesus Crew and our own Jon Speed of TLC Ministries. One Million Tracts is also co-sponsoring this conference. To see the details of this year’s conference, click here. 2. Consider attending the Deeper Conference in Woodstock, GA on October 17-18. Deeper is sponsored by Way of the Master. The featured speakers include Kirk Cameron, Ray Comfort, Paul Washer, Ken Ham and Pastor Johnny Hunt, among others. After the conference is over on Saturday the 18th, a group of Christians from the conference will meet in Atlanta, GA to spread the Gospel. Transplant Ministries is spear-heading this effort called “The 500”. Lord willing, TLC Ministries will be assisting Transplant Ministries in organizing this outreach. You can find out more about the outreach and register at www.thefivehundred.org. TLC Speaking Engagements:1. August, TBA: Jon Speed will be speaking at the Agape Men’s Ministry Breakfast on the Scriptural teaching regarding false conversion. Afterwards, we will travel with the ministry to downtown Fort Worth, where we will help them with their homeless ministry. More details to be announced as the date approaches. TLC Ministries Prayer Requests:1. Continued recovery of Bernice Warren from her TIA stroke.2. That those who professed faith in Christ will get plugged in to a solid local church.3. For the strengthening of the evangelistic ministries of all of the boot campers who came out to Niagara Falls. 4. For the Word of God to find good soil in the hearts of those who received tracts, heard the Gospel in one-to-one or in open-air. 5. For the re-emergence of a strong evangelism team in Buffalo\Niagara. 6. Wisdom for planning of upcoming events. In Christ,
Jon Speed & Tim Crawford
Church Websites:
Countryside Bible Church
First Baptist Church of Justin, TX
“But preaching in the public square, not lobbying in the halls of Congress, is the biblical way—and the only truly effective way—Christ’s church has always made His truth known. Incidentally, when Scripture speaks of “preaching” in a context like this, the reference is not exclusively—or even primarily—to a message given from the pulpit to a church congregation. Paul is speaking of every kind of gospel proclamation—evangelistic ministry—calling people to repentance. It would include even your private proclamation of the gospel to your neighbors. Everything from open-air preaching to one-on-one personal evangelism. Whatever the venue, it’s speaking of the clear and emphatic proclamation of the gospel. That’s the idea.” –Dr. John MacArthur
