Here are two stories I thought you guys might enjoy. 9/3/04: Honor Academy Open-AirFriday night I was with a friend, Jeffrey Olver, and we were trying to find something to do. Something that has been on my heart this year is having open-air meetings on our school campus to minister to other Christians. I suggested to him that we park my car in front of the dorms for prayer, praise, and preaching. He was all for it so we did just that! We started with about 5 guys praying. One of them had a guitar so he lead us in worship. More and more people gathered to join us. It continued to grow and grow until we had 30-40 people all worshiping and praising God. This went on for a long time until I stood up on the trunk of my car to preach. The message was on saving souls in the sight of eternity. Then Jeff jumped up there, said some words, and read out of a Methodist Hymnal I have which is from 1857. The meeting continued in prayer. Students were on their faces praying to God. Some of them were laying face down in the middle of the road so we have to move them when cars would come. After a few hours I suggested we all get together for one big prayer chain. What a sight it must have been for people to see! I was deeply blessed to have been apart of this! 9/4/04: Downtown DallasI don't know if there is anything I like to see more then seeing other Christians out sharing the gospel. That is when all of heaven rejoices and all of hell trembles. On saturday I took a team of 5 to Dallas for some hell-fire, street-corner, soap-box preaching. Some of them ha never been out witnessing before so I explained how there are only two things we need to be talking about when we are out there: Sin and Salvation. If we aren't talking about those two things then we aren't really witnessing. I read from Colosians 1:28 how Paul "warned every man" so that all men might appear perfect before Christ Jesus. When we found a nice area I set up my easle with my Ps 7:11 display. We all sang worship songs to try to get a crowd. Unfortinately nobody gatherd to hear our new found boy band (unfortinately no women came out witnessing that day). I stood up and preached for some time, then introduced a friend to share his testimony. As he shared his started to explain Ps 7:11 which stirred up a heckler who said "God is not angry". That helped get the attention of some others. I stood up again and tried to stir up the hecklers to help us draw a crowd. Two men were stirred up by Ps 7:11 and started yelling things at us like "God is not angry" and "Everybody is going to heaven". As the preaching continued more and more people were listening because of the attention the hecklers were drawing. We had people everywhere watching, even people accross the street! After a long time of preaching my voice was getting weak so a women came and asked if she could sing a gospel song in my mic while my voice rests. It was perfect.After this another friend of mine, Matthew, stood up and shared his testimony and then Jeffrey read out of Jonathon Edwards "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". After a pizza lunch break we found another area to preach were another friend of mine Jason Thaxton stood up and preached hell-fire. You need to remember, some of these guys had never gone out and witnessed before and here they had the courage to even stand up on my one-step stool and proclaim the gospel! Jeffrey preached on how we call this the bible belt because there are so many churches, however there is a porno shop to match every church. "This isn't the bible belt" Jeff said. "This is the bondage belt and its around your neck sufficating you". These guys were hardcore! I was throughly impressed! While I was up preaching the cops showed up and told us that someone complained we were being profane but he said he sees we are out preaching the gospel so he said "God Bless you" and walked away. After a full day of ministry we headed home. All of the guys fell in love with open air preaching and said they are hooked. They wont to go out often. Others heard about the time we had and want to go out with us. Hopefully next saturday we can take out 2 or more cars of people to witness. It will grow larger and larger as the year goes on.God Blessjesse
