Before I came to New York on this trip, I connected with some people who live in New York tyring to find some Christians to evangelize with. A couple of emails later, I had a message from the pastor of Heritage Baptist Church which was only a short walk from my hotel. So after work on Tuesday evening, I walked over there and attended their Tuesday night prayer service. I’m not sure exactly what I expected. I had no idea really how big the church even was. Somehow I had in my mind that it would be me, the pastor and two or three others. Boy, was I wrong. I was told that the church has about 140 each Sunday in worship. On this Tuesday night there must have been 16-20 people there! We sang songs and then heard a wonderful message from Pastor Recker from 1st, 2nd and 3rd John. Then we broke into groups of three or four shared persoanl prayer requests and then prayed for each other and over the prayer list. I could truly sense the presence of God in this place. If you are in New York, check out Heritage Baptist Church. The church does tract distribution on Thursday nights. So, schedule permitting, I’ll plan to join them for that.
In New York, there are many “lights”. Times Square is lite up day and night. Heritage Baptist Church is shinning the true light of Jesus Christ. Please pray for this church as they shine the light of the Gospel in the midst of Manhattan.
After church, I had dinner at a little Chinese restaurant. Then I walked to Times Square. I talked to a guy at the souvineer shop. Walked him right through the “good test”. He flunked! Like the rest of us do. I said, “By your own admission you are a liar, murderer and adulterer at heart, will God find you innocent or guilty?” At that, he did not want to face the fact that he would be guilty and go to hell. So he changed the subject. I picked out a souvineer and paid. Gave him a tract and told him the truth of the Gospel. His manager was asleep on the counter inside the store. So I put a Million Dollar bill on the counter right in front of him to find when he wakes up!!
On Monday night, when I had witnessed to a scientologist and posted about it on facebook several people posted that they wished they could ask a scientologist some questions. So, during dinner, I posted on facebook “what questions should I ask the scientologists.” I got a number of responses. So I walked down to the church of scientology to see if I could ask someone those questions. When I was here in October, I asked someone the question, “Do you consider yourself to be a good person?” and their response was, “what is a person!” I had not heard that one before. It does not deter me from sharing the truth with these people.
The church is a block from Times Square. They send people out from their church with postcards inviting people to come see a free fifteen minute video called Dianetics. I have not watched the movie, nor been inside the church of scientology building. From what I have read online about dianetics it is about controlling the thoughts in your own mind. When I got about 100 feet from the church I saw the guy they were sending out. He had a stack of the post cards in his right hand and was talking with someone. So I came up and waited for my chance to talk with him. The “other guy” looked at me and asked, “can I help you?”
I said, “yes, I’m looking for directions. Can you tell me if you are from around here?”
They said, “yes.”
So I asked, “can you tell me how to get to heaven from here?”
They both said, “I have no idea. And then asked me.”
So I proceeded to tell them about the Bible, God’s Law and pending judgement. At that, the guy with the cards suddenly had to go and headed of down the street. I followed behind and tried to continue a dialog with him. I asked him, “if you are out representing your church then how come you won’t talk to me about how your beliefs differ from mine.” He replied, “go get a book and read it.” So I offered him a “one heartbeat away” tract where he can also get a book to read. But he refused.
As he continued down the street he got to Times Square where he immediately started handing out his movie invites. Here is a picture of him handing them out.
The “hit rate” in New York of handing out tracts is a lot lower than many places I’ve distributed tracts. However, I’ve found that most people that take the dianetics card will also take a tract from me. I like to hand out the “one heartbeat away” from Custom Tract Source or the “Where will you spend eternity” that we distributed in this months tract club. Both of these tracts offer a copy of Mark Cahill’s book, “One Heartbeat Away.” So while the scientologist card is an invite to watch a movie, mine is an invite to receive a free book.
Once he would hand a card to someone, I would hand a tract to them saying, “I offer you the truth.” The scientologist did not like this. He did everything he could to get away from me. I had several short conversations with him. I even invited him to go to starbucks and have a cup of coffee and talk about eternity. He told me that he had to “meet quoata.” I guess he is obligated to hand out a certain number of these cards in a certain time. However, he really was not willing to talk to me. I find it odd. The Bible says to always be prepared to give the reason for your faith. Their religion teaches people to go read a book. I did some short open airs within ear shot of where he was handing out his cards and talking to people. When I did, he eventually pulled out his phone and called someone. I suppose he must have been calling back to the church for backup. Here is a picture of him calling on the phone.
At least while he was on the phone 3-5 minutes passed while no cards went out and people were not invited to the movie. On this night, it was raining, people were just trying to get where they were going and very few would stop and talk and if they did did not want to stand in the rain very long. So, I decided to call it a night.
