Witnessing in New York City

Last week I was back in New York for company business. When I travel on business, I work long days and put in many hours. Often we have group dinners after work as well. But, being in New York City and staying a block from Times Square, I like to take advantage of the opportunity and go out and do some witnessing while I am there. Let me hit a few highlights.

Church of Scientology

The Church of Scientology has a location about a block off of Times Square. They send out their “missionaries” into Time Square to hand out post cards inviting people to come to their church and watch a 15-minute “Intro to Dianetics” video. On my past two trips, I have found that I can find the person handing these out and then try to witness to them. If I can talk to them, I can distract them from handing out their invitation and possibly save someone from also following the lie. This trip I brought some “One Heartbeat Away” tracts. These are postcard sized tracts that are about the same size as the invitation that the scientologists are handing out. The tract also has a website on it where people can get a free copy of Mark Cahill’s book. These tracts were very popular. Several people said they would be ordering a copy of the book. By standing near the scientologist, I can hand one of these tracts to anyone that took one of their invites. I have nearly a 100% “hit rate” getting people who took the scientology post card to also take my tract! One thing that was interesting was that the scientologists scurry away from me. I believe that they are repelled by the Holy Spirit. I even had one woman offer me a dianetics invite twice within about 15 minutes. Then both times when I tried to witness to her she scurried off. The second time I asked why and she just scurried off again. One other thing about Scientology. One night I stood outside of their church and handed out these tracts to everyone that was coming out!

Pray for FD
One night while trailing the scientologist and handing out tracts to everyone who got an invite from her, I handed a tract to a man named FD and he asked me to explain it to him. He had a long conversation; probably at least 45 minutes. He had been raised in a church, but saw the hypocrisy from his own family regarding the church that he was totally turned off from it. The things he told me about how he had been abused in the name of Christ really broke my heart. He asked a lot of good questions and seemed genuinely interested in answers. I answered his questions and then told him that there were even more detailed answers in the One Heartbeat Away book. I suggested that he order a copy. He said he would. I gave him my card and asked him to contact me with questions. I also told him that I could put him in touch with the author of the book if he had questions. He liked that. We parted company. I’m praying that he will repent and trust Jesus so that I’ll see him in heaven one day.

Madison Square Garden
This trip I ventured further from Times Square than I previously had on my other trips. On Tuesday, I had no business obligations for dinner and there was a NBA game between the Celtics and Knicks at Madison Square Garden (MSG). I looked a the map and it seemed like taking a subway to MSG was the best bet. However, when I asked at the hotel front desk, I was told that I could walk there just as fast as dealing with the subway. So, I choose to walk to MSG – about 12 blocks. I arrived at MSG about half an hour before the tip off of the game. There were people everywhere! An amazing difference between MSG and the American Airlines Center in Dallas where I have done a lot of ministry in the past is that at MSG only a small fraction of the people were going into the game. There we far more people simply walking down the street than were going into MSG for the game. In Dallas, the only people at the stadium are those going to the game. Anyway, because of this, there was no noticeable change in the number of people on the streets before or after the game started. I tried several different locations to hand out tracts. Finally, I realized there is really only the front entrance off of Broadway for people going to the game. I stood there and handed out tracts. I got into a couple of good one on one conversations while I was there. One woman was also distributing literature. She asked me what I was handing out. “Gospel tracts”, I replied. It turned out she was handing out coupons for a topless club nearby. I had a short conversation with her, gave her a tract and shared the Gospel with her. Finally some guys came to ask her about her club and then they all left. I moved to the street corner and handed out tracts to lots of people. I must have handed out more than 500 tracts this night.

A Miracle on 34th Street
The Macy’s from the movie is on the corner of 34th and Broadway. Having been to New York two other times, I’ve had some of my friends encouraging me to open air preach on the streets. One comment on Facebook was something like, “you need to do it for those of us who have not been to New York!” Being out by myself in a strange and big city makes it a bit unnerving to do open air. However, I was standing across the street from Macy’s and I was handing out Celebrity Million Dollar Bill tracts. Probably one person in ten was taking them. It was a little discouraging. Then, as the light turned red and a crowd of people started to gather at the corner, I raised the million dollar bill tract above my head and started speaking loudly, “ladies and gentlemen, the million dollar question is, when you die, will you go to heaven?” I quickly shared the law and the gospel as the light was changing. Whew! That was not so bad. So I hung out there for about 30 more minutes handing out million dollar bill tracts and stop light preaching. One street vendor got a little bent out of shape that I was distracting from his business. But, that is OK. Another, man came and asked for money for a hot dog. Since there was a stand right there, I bought him one for dinner.

Central Park

My last day in New York, the meetings wrapped up a little earlier than normal. A group of us were going to go to MSG later in the evening for the NHL game between the Rangers and the Devils. So, I had a couple of hours to kill. I had not had the opportunity to do any sight seeing in day light, so I took the opportunity to walk to Central Park. As I walked, I handed out a few tracts and prayed. When I got to the park, I was impressed by how big it was and also that it was very clean. You go down some steps to the trails. There is a huge ice skating rink and people were skating. Other people were just walking around or sitting and talking or eating dinner. The park has some large rocks. One is the height of a couple story building and has stairs up to the top of it. Some people were taking pictures. So I would offer to take a picture of the whole group. Then when I handed the camera back to them, I also handed them each a tract! As I was doing that, the Holy Spirit began telling me, “Carl, those rocks look like a nice place to preach from!” I was thinking, “surely, not! Not here. I can’t!” But the feeling did not go away. And I could sense that there were a lot of lost people right there in the park. Those rocks did look inviting. I remembered Tony Miano saying, “Don’t Quit” at the Ambassadors Academy. I had every excuse. No Bible to read from. Not enough time. But, alas, my iPhone has YouVersion Bible on it. I looked up 1 Corinthians 13, the Project Ezra reading for the previous weekend. I read it. Prayed. And then headed for a rock that was right on the main trail. About 50 feet away there were groups of people sitting around. Others were walking by the heavily traveled trail. I got up on the rock and started, “ladies and gentlemen. good afternoon. There is a group on the Internet call Project Ezra. Project Ezra is dedicated to the public reading of God’s Word, the Bible.” At that I could see several people look away. But, I continued, “today I will be reading First Corinthians chapter thirteen.” Then I read the chapter. Using Tony’s springboards to the Gospel, I then preached the law and the gospel right there in Central Park. When I finished, I thanked the people for listening and got down. Just then two people walked up and said, “that was bold.” We spoke for a few minutes. They were fellow believers. It was so nice of God to send these believers to encourage me. Thanks!

As You Go
I have not even gotten around to telling about sharing the Gospel with people at the airport, on the plane or at Starbucks and other restaurants that I visited or even doing some sight seeing at Rockefeller Center and walking to the Empire State Building. Some of these events took place in a very intentional setting. However, the open air at Macy’s and in Central Park were both spontaneous. And any of the tract distribution in Times Square could be coupled with any ordinary vacation or just an evening out. So, remember, share the Gospel “As You Go”. That is what Jesus commanded in Matthew 28:19. For more information on witnessing “As You Go”, please check out the series by that name on this blog.

There are no immediate plans to return to New York. But, when the next business trip arises, you can be sure that I’ll be packing my tracts so I can go back out and plant some more seeds.