No Notes

it's that time of the year...

There are no street preaching report for tonight, dear readers. We have my daughter's birthday tomorrow, Christmas on the Lord's Day, and my son's birthday early next week. I needed to stay home tonight to help my wife with all the preparations.

There will be a lot of traveling for my family and I for the next two weeks. It's doubtful that I will be able to do any evangelism work during this time. I leave you, dear friends, with a heartfelt: "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year".

Lord willing, I will be back at my post on the first week of January, 2012.

God bless you all!

Rand

Friday Night Notes

let it snow!!!

It took awhile, but we have snow on the ground! Just a dusting... but it's a start. For the first time in a long time, I was actually prepared for the cold and snow: a pair of gloves with heat packs in them, my winter boots, a few sweaters, winter jacket and a hat. Unfortunately, not everyone in the market was prepared. You have no idea how many drunk women in high heels I watched slip and fall on their behinds tonight.

The response to our evangelistic effort was quite varied. There was some good, and some not so good. That said, the Lord helped us much. We kept warm, we preached the Gospel for a good 3 hours, and spoke face-to-face with a few lost sinners who had questions. I trust my God was glorified by our work.

After my first half-hour of Gospel preaching, a young man named Dominic came with some questions. He professed to be an agnostic, and wanted to know how I dealt with "God's apparent cruelty". I wasn't sure what he meant at first but after a bit of questioning I realized he meant "eternal condemnation". I explained that God's nature itself necessitates judgment and condemnation. His attributes like righteousness, holiness and justice required the wicked be judged and condemned, and that any compromise on God's part would destroy his perfect attributes. I then went into the Gospel message and showed forth God's perfect love and mercy toward lost sinners. The conversation was a good one. Really good.

After a few minutes however, another young man by the name of Taz showed up. Taz cut into our conversation and attempted to discredit everything I said. He was quite snarky and condescending. He spoke like Jeff Goldblum, snippy little diatribes, separated only with "uh... uh... uh...". Wanting to be "the bigger man", I just let him talk. I didn't defend myself or lose my temper. I just prayed for the Lord's help... and I got it. What happened next was most impressive. Dominic, the agnostic, looked at Taz and said:

"What are you doing? Why are you being so sarcastic and condescending? This guy isn't doing anything wrong... definitely nothing worthy of contempt."

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Not only was an agnostic sticking up for me, but Taz totally backed down and was apologetic. Never saw anything quite like that! At that point, Dominic and Taz started speaking of various philosophies, trying to understand the nature of morality, faith and happiness. It was quite the conversation. I contributed very little to their exchange, but when they wanted to hear what I had to say, I replied:

"My friends, I don't feel I'm well equipped to comment on the various philosophies you've been debating for 10-15 minutes now. All I know, for sure, is that Jesus died for me. He saved me from sin and misery 25 years ago, and by His grace, I have saving faith, the Holy Spirit is working sanctification in my life, and I am the happiest man on Earth. That's why I'm here tonight. The Lord has done so wondrously in my life, and this work is my reasonable service."

Neither of them had anything to say at this point. Taz shook my hand and bid us "goodnight", Dominic and I conversed a little more before he took off as well. Both men said that I had given them much to think about. I truly hope this is the beginning of wonderful stories of grace.

I'd say the first hour of our evangelism was the best. We handed out a fair number of tracts and the street preaching went on without much opposition. Both Pastor Tim and I spoke briefly with Christians who were walking by, and answered a few questions from curious souls.

By the second hour, we started receiving more mockery and scorn. From F-bombs to grievous blasphemies, we heard it all. An Eastern European woman, at one point walked up to me, just to make it clear that she "didn't care at all about the Gospel". An older gentlemen suggested I read some of Christopher Hitchens' works to "edumecate" myself. I replied that poor Hitchens knows a whole lot better today, sadly.

At 10:30pm, we called it a night and headed home. On our way back to Pastor Tim's house, I thanked the Lord for enabling us to serve Him tonight. It's rarely easy. There so much unpleasantness to endure, but as Hebrews 4:12 puts it: "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." I know Someone who has though, and I hope to serve Him all the days of my life.

God bless you, dear readers. Have a blessed and safe weekend.


Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism

No Notes

time for family...

There will be no street preaching report for tonight, dear readers. My eldest son and my daughter had a piano recital. Here are a couple of pictures from the recital:

Here's another picture of the kids presenting their science project at the Museum of Nature a couple of weeks ago:

Have a blessed and safe weekend, dear friends.


Rand

Labels: Personal

Friday Night Notes

you meet all sorts...

Winter street preaching is definitely here. Had all my winter gear on this evening, for the first time this year, to keep me warm for our customary three hours of open-air evangelism. The colder weather is probably to blame for the thinner crowds (compared to last week), but still, we easily preached to hundreds of lost souls tonight. The Lord use our work as He sees fit.

We dealt with all manner of people tonight, and by this I mean all sorts of wicked crazies (and I'm not using that word lightly). Consider:

- While I was preaching the Gospel, a couple of homeless drunkards decided to have a seat and enjoy a drink just a few feet from me. They professed to be believers and referred to their cheap booze as "holy water".

- A young lady walked by me while I was distributing Bible tracts and seeing my Bible sign said: "My friend stole one of your signs awhile back, took it while you weren't looking!" She said this with a "take-that" tone in voice, obviously pleased that her friend had defrauded us. Pastor Tim had had a sign stolen when he was out by himself a year or so back, so it is quite possible that this young lady was speaking the truth. What I found remarkable was the joy and contentment that crime brought her. I'm sure that in her mind, she honestly believes she is a "good person"... makes you wonder what makes a "bad person".

- Two French ladies walked by me and after reading my Bible sign they said to one another: "It's Friday night, not Sunday Mass!" ('cause God only exists for an hour on Sunday... apparently)

- Had a conversation with a couple of French guys who wanted to know if my evangelism was a mandatory practice of my faith. They weren't mocking, or being insulting so I told them that my Christian service wasn't mandatory; it was and is my "reasonable service". They asked me a few more questions and my answers seemed to surprise them, as in, they were surprised I was logical and reasonable. One of the guys, before leaving, hugged me.

- Tonight's street music was provided by a couple of young men with harmonicas. It was a welcome change from the vile guitar player we usually have to put up with. That is, until about 9:30pm when one of the men put away his harmonica and decided to "rap" for 40-45 minutes, a rap which made use of the f-bomb as noun, verb, adverb and adjective. Only two words could describe it: vulgar and annoying.

- On our way back home, Pastor Tim and I were approached by a very drunk young man. He asked us to speak to him about the Gospel. So we attempted to do so. I say we attempted to do so because the young man never let us get beyond "sin", or more specifically, "his sin". At first he seemed to reject the notion that he was a sinner. We pointed out his obvious drunkenness, and that for that one sin alone, he was guilty before a holy God. Well, that offended him to no end. He went off on an angry diatribe, and seeing no point in carrying on, Pastor Tim and I walked away as he continued to spew venom.

I believe I said this before... some Friday nights more than others (but all of them at varying degrees) are carnivals of demented wickedness. I often come back home on Friday and it takes me an hour or so to just get over the folly and evil I've witnessed. Before falling asleep however, I usually remember that without the salvation of the Lord, my plight would be no different than the lost souls I've endeavoured to help in the market. My closing prayer usually begins with...

Thank you, Lord...


Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism