Open Air Preaching in New York city

sermonindex May 31, 2005

My friend Miles who preached open air in Toronto about 1 year ago has been really following the Lord and continuing to stir up the gift that the Holy Ghost has given him.check out more about his preaching in NYC recently:Videohttp://www.shawnholes.com/salvation.movPhotoshttp://shawnholes.com/saving_ny/Highlights from the trip to NYC this weekend include:Friday we left at around 12:30 from Lake Placid to meet up with Miles in Albany. It is about a five hr drive to the Big Apple. Jon Zander, Bruce Goff and I were anxiously awaiting to meet up with Miles Lewis and Robert Parker.Friday night we headed over to the Statton Island Ferry and ended up just doing 1-2-1’s, tracting, and Miles did O.A. Robert tried to do O.A. on the boat but a police officer said that he couldn’t and had told him that it is the last time he will ride the boat. Really unfortunate cause he barely got into his message. It was exciting to see how eager people were to accept tracts though.We stayed in NJ and it was about a 45 minute drive to get to where we had to go. With no arrangements made for lodging we went to a church and asked if we could stay there for the rest of the night. It was probably around 2 a.m. and we were starting to get tired. The people in charge said that they couldn’t authorize us to stay there but could allow us to park in their paring lot. I was sleeping in the bushes with Miles, Robert went home, and Jon and Bruce were in the van. What do you know, driving up to our van was the guy we had just gotten finished talking to and he was telling us that he had gone inside the church, asked some people in there if they could gather an offering for us, and had $76 for us to get a hotel. PRAISE GOD! This was really going to help. We found a hotel about an hour later and we got a brief but good night’s sleep.Saturday a.m. we then went to the Ferry again. The authorities would not allow us to preach in the ferry terminal this time so we went to the boat. They allowed us to preach on the boat and Miles did a great O.A. and we handed out tons of tracts. A good crowd was gathered. On the boats the passangers can’t take off too far from the preaching and if they really wanted to escape, they would have to jump overboard and start swimming. People thanked us as they got off the boat. Really quite the opposite of what you might expect. Actually just about everywhere we went I would have to say that we were often times thanked and encouraged. Miles was given a $30 donation from some women.We went down to ground zero and handed out hundreds of tracts. It was kinda off to the side by where you go into the subway. It was a clean, well lit, very well trafficked area.Oh yea, during our three days we took a bunch of video. We are going to hopefully work on a video and hope to have it soon.We went to Battery Park and then finally made it to Times Square area. Times square was perfect for doing O.A. (open air) and witnessing. At one point we were just coming onto the sidewalk from having crossed a busy crosswalk and as we got across a preacher walked up to us and said something to the affect, “I have been waiting for you and I know that you are on a mission, let’s pray.” This man was preaching, and somehow knew that we were there to preach the Gospel! Amazing. It blew us away. You wouldn’t believe how amazing he was at preaching. It was joy to pray right there with a Christian that was there for the same reasons.Well the day rolled on and we all had lots of opportunities to sow seeds. Incredible. Miles is a real joy to hear preach. He has a gift for certain. Robert is great at speaking to cultists. I know he had one encounter with Mormon girls and one encounter with Hari Krishna’s. He is great at the cultists. Jon, Bruce, and I were mostly doing 1-2-1’s and and tracting, but Bruce did his first Open Air.We wrapped it up around 11:30 and had a challenging time in the subway. We had to get off the train to move up in cars and Bruce got shut out of the cars. We had to back track three times before we got out Posse back together and could move ahead, to the ferry and then drive to NJ. We slept in the van and made it to a service of a new church that some ladies had told us about on Saturday night link. We all enjoyed it! In fact we made some great contacts for the next trip so that we are assured we won’t be sleeping in our van again for the next time in NYC, and we will be on manhatten, which is great. I just got home and am posting this for all of you who have been prating for me! We would love to hear what is going on in your lives. If you have any prayer requests please e.mail them this way.May God bless you.In Hs grip,Shawn http://www.luketentwo.com/whatsnew.html*if you want to talk to miles personally to encourage him or let him know of any opportunites you can email him here: Mileslewis1984@aol.com

_Disciple_ May 31, 2005

Videohttp://www.shawnholes.com/salvation.movvery very encourageing! also like Street Meetings Compilation in it.played it already a couple of times, and stirred me, thanks!William

sermonindex May 31, 2005

Miles, Shawn, and the rest of that team are great brother! That video is very inspiring and will make you want to go and preach.

mileslewis May 31, 2005

Greg, I appreciate you hitting up a thread for this video. I miss you brother. I also thank God for you and this website.I figured I would add a little bit about what I posted on the GNN board...Getting there was a.... let's just say "challenge". (Thanks Robert... Just kidding bro, I love you)We finnaly arrived and witnessed on the ferry, when Robert got up to preach, he was shut down. The officer accused him trying to start a riot. The people were almost all sleeping, even when giving out money. Oh well.We asked the gaurds in the ferry station about preaching and they were cool with it as long as we stayed to one side. I spoke to the crowd of about 30 or so. It was well recieved.Passing out tracts as people unloaded the ferry was a lot of fun. We passed out hundreds of tracts in minutes. We had some good one to ones, I recorded an interview with three young guys that went very well. The very first one to one I did on the ferry, I thought I was going to get a "decision". I didn't want to push, but I did press for him to get right with with God that night, he was not promised tomorrow. I think we all found the folks in NYC to be very open to speaking with us.We left late that night, and being pressed for cash, we decided to knock on the door of a really big church. As Shawn said, we couldn't sleep inside, but we did try to crash in the car in the lot. Actually me and Shawn tried to camp in the bushes. They showed up a few minutes after we were comfortable, and gave us money for a hotel. We got lost looking for one and about an hour and a half later we found one. Thankfully this one didn't charge by the hour.The next day we went to the ferry station again and to our dissappointment, we couldn't preach inside. We passed out lots of tracts and hopped on the boat. I asked the gaurd on board if I could speak and he agreed. He even pointed me the best spot to do it. So I went up front and called for the attension of everyone. I gave away a few bucks and then just told everyone who I was and what I wasnted to do, preach. I gave away a dollar to anyone who would like it. A little girl came running up and I was pleased, child like faith. She had no pride, so I spoke on that for a minute. I then just preached and teached all the way untill we reached the shore (too many rhymes there). It was almost too encouraging, I got one too many AMENs from the crowd, I though it was church. When I told the crowd I had free gospel tracts for everyone, they rushed us and we couldn't pass them out fast enough.We went to Battery Park where we saw two street performing brothers do a show. I took a lot of really good tips for working a crowd. I tried to do an open air but the crowd was pitiful. I was dissappointed to say the least. As I was breaking down my easel, three women waved me down... (it does happen occasionally)So these three, dear, elderly women...Said how much they appreciated what I was doing and that they were believers who watched WOTM. I gave them a copy of HBKS and TF Conversions. They almost had tears in their eyes they were so touched. They left and then a minute later came back and placed $30 in my hand. She was so moved that they all gave me a big hug. So I was encouraged, especially after such a tough crowd.So we walked a ways to ground zero and passed out tracts at the top of some subway stairs. (see the vid of Shawn sliding down the rail for the sake of the gospel) We did this for a while. I should note that this is now at least 4 hours after I preached on the ferry and over a mile from the ferry station, in a city of millions of people. A guy walks up the subway stairs and I hand him a tract and he looks at me and shouts that I am the guy who was speaking on the ferry! And that he was just telling some others he was with about it. So I asked if he remembered what was said and he actually did! I spoke with him about his day in court, he would be guilty, going to Hell, and it did concern him. I asked if he knew what God required of him, seeing Jesus paid the fine on the cross and rose again. He did. He said he needed to repent of his sins, and put his faith in Jesus Christ. I don't know if he did that day, but he thanked me profusely for telling him these things and gave me a big hug. I LOVE NEW YORK! What are the chances of that happening out of the maybe 200 who heard on the ferry compared to the millions in the whole city. It is no surprise with God.After this we headed to Times Square. When we got off the subway I almost couldn't believe my eyes. There were so many people I almost didn't know what to do. Possibly one of the coolest things that happened all weekend happened next. We crossed a busy street corner along with a mob of people and I noticed this guy on the corner who was really excited passing out something. Normally I would have thought someone like this was probably a nut, but something just said, "No, this guy is the real deal." We all knew he was brother in the Lord before stepping onto the sidewalk. As we stepped onto the sidewalk, he just stopped what he was doing and looked at us like, "There you all are, c'mon, I have been waiting for you! Brothers! Let's pray!" So we held hands and I though this guy was going to pray down an earthquake! As he prayed, he said exactly why we were there. After, he gave us a sermonette. When we were telling him what we were planning on doing all day, he just gave us this, "Of course I know what you are doing here..." kind of answer. This man was definitely Spirit filled. (there is a short clip of him on Shawn's video, I think he is originally from Africa. He reminded me of Sarkov in Toronto)So off we went to fulfill what we came there for. We preached in Times Square at a few different locations. The crowds were enormous. At one point on 7th, the police said if we had crowds that big again, he was going to ask us to move. I was able to stir up one atheist heckler. I finally have realized more perfectly how to keep a crowd. There must be tension. It was getting late so we decided to take off. Bruce got locked outside of the subway car as we were all inside. You should have seen the look on his face as we all looked at him through the window of the car as the train took off. It was priceless. To be honest, I probably would have cried if I were him. The story is somewhat long, but we finally found him. He ended up selling two Giant Money tracts for a quarter a piece to use a pay phone to call Jon's cell phone. We headed out and ended up sleeping in the car at a rest area. The next day we went to a church and then took off back home. This was probably the most memorable trip I have ever had. Who knows how much of an impact this had on eternity. I thank God for the brothers on this trip. You are a real blessing and encouragement to me. It was a real blessing seeing one guy get up and do open air for the first time. I did have to leave bootprints on his back to get him up there, but I know he will be hooked for life! I truly thank God for all of your prayers, they were felt in a huge way. God's hand was all over this trip. Keep plowing and planting.Milesp.s. If you haven't seen the video yet, you must! It is awesome! I am sure seeing Shawn slide down the rail passing out tracts will have you in tears as well. Tracts went so well in NYC that you can see our secret method of "tract shootin" in slow motion in the video.