Super Bowl XLV came to Dallas. Along with it came one of the most crippling winter storms ever. Ice and snow and cold weather certainly changed some plans. But, the word of God still went out! With over 100 people coming into town and the bad weather, we only had six people not make it due to the weather. One flight was cancelled and that person arrived the next day. Another flight was cancelled, but that guy got on standby on another flight and still arrived on time.
The outreach started on Thursday night. We had several speakers to teach and encourage the group. On the opening night we had dinner together at the camp and a time of worship. We got to enjoy fellowship together and settled into our cabins. Marv at One Million Tracts brought five different Super Bowl Tracts. A group of us stayed up until midnight stacking those tracts into stacks of 100. There were about 120,000 of these tracts!
Friday morning opened with prayer and breakfast followed by two more speakers. A round table discussion finished out the morning session. The roads were in bad shape with the snow and ice. Nonetheless, most of the groups ventured out of witnessing, Myself and about ten others stayed back at camp and had prayer and fellowship. We eventually ventured out for dinner. I think everyone in the restaurant got a tract. Then we went to Target and handed out tracts there until the manager asked us to stop.
Saturday morning the weather was better. The snow was melting. After prayer, breakfast and three more speakers we ventured out to Dallas to share the Gospel. My team went to Victory Plaza near American Airlines Center in Dallas. We rode the DART train from Carrollton to downtown Dallas. This provided the opportunity for more fellowship and also the opportunity to share the Gospel. Dorothy had a one on one conversation on the train that Ellen got on video! From one train stop to the next, I preached the Gospel on the train. At Victory Plaza, we open air preached, shared the Gospel one on one and handed out hundreds of tracts.
Sunday was the big day that Dallas had been waiting for for years. The Super Bowl in North Texas. The weather was great! Early day for the evangelist. We were all tired and weary. I got up around 5:20AM and we had prayer at 6AM followed by breakfast and then worship and the final speaker of the outreach. WOW! Were we blessed with some good and challenging teaching. Then we were off to the stadium. We were blessed to have been provided some close parking at a nearby location that was donated to us. That was a real blessing.
We arrived at the stadium at 11AM. We had selected ten locations around the stadium and dispatched our teams. My team was stationed near the Southwest corner of the stadium. We handed out a lot of tracts and had one on one conversations. I read from the Gospel of Matthew.
After we were there for about an hour I had a text that one of our team leaders was warned by the police. I decided to walk around the stadium and visit with each of the team leaders to make sure everything was ok. As I walked around the stadium, I was able to experience the Super Bowl crowd and hand out tracts along the way. I checked in with each leader. The issue I had heard about with the authorities was resolved. Canyon Shearer was stop light preaching near the ball park. He said he was thinking others would alternate with him. So, I took a couple of turns and preached to the crowd as they were walking to the stadium.
While visiting with another leader, the police approached. The had a short chat with them and showed them the letter that our attorney’s had prepared for us. I am very thankful for the work these attorneys did up front. The police were satisfied with our documentation and allowed us to continue preaching. The box was empty and I was handed the mic. So I did an open air there before heading back to my team.
Along the way, there was a group of kids handing out “I am Second” cards. These cards have a web site for people to lookup. But they don’t have any gospel message on the card. I noticed they had some of the Super Bowl trivia tracts that we were handing out. They said they liked handing those out. So I emptied all of the tracts out of my backpack and gave them to them to hand out. They were appreciative.
Back with my team we headed down to Collins and continued handing out tracts. I sent the team members to walk up into the crowd to share the Gospel and experience the mayhem of the day. While they were gone I continued reading the Gospel of Matthew in the open air. One by one, I encouraged the others in the team to read the Bible in the open air. Eric, Wally, Ellen and Ann all read at least one chapter of the Bible!
Finally it was time for the game to start. We headed back to the car. Driving back to camp we stopped for dinner and had some wonderful fellowship too. A tiring weekend was over.
On Monday, we had a few people left in town that needed rides to the airport. I picked two of them up at camp and headed to the West End for some more evangelism. About 15 of us were there in all. The Holy Spirit was really moving. Guys were preaching in the open air. Tracts were being handed out. Many one on one conversations were happening. Eventually we went to eat lunch at Sonny Bryans BBQ. I got a chance to open air preach before we left to take Eddie to the airport.
As I was leaving and saying goodbye to some of the other out of town folks, I was told that a man had just received Christ. Apparantly he was handed a Super Bowl bookmark tract and a “Gospel of Jesus Christ” tract as he boarded the train leaving the West End. While on the train he read the tracts and received Christ as savior. He returned to the West End later and spent two hours talking to one of the guys on the team. It was amazing to hear this news of this mans salvation. We heard of two others who received Christ that day as well!
The Super Bowl Outreach was a big success. My guess is at least 150,000 tracts went out over the three days. The Gospel was preached. And men were saved for all eternity. We may never know, this side of heaven, the full impact of the outreach!
Were you at the Super Bowl Outerach? Please add a comment with your testimony. I’ll add additional BLOG posts with videos and more photos as I find them.
Join us next year in Indianapolis!
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