Bezeugen BLOG

Our experience here was the exact opposite of the Cubs experience.  I had a different set of people who signed up for the White Sox.  There was only 5 people at this outreach but everyone was very enthusiastic about handing out the tracts and people were interested and excited about taking them.  We hit a snag when we first got there.  We went twice last year and no one bothered us but this year a White Sox security guard made us move from our best location by stating that the sidewalk was owned by the White Sox and therefore private property.  I was discouraged but we agreed to move across the street.  It turned out that because of how the foot traffic flowed, this turned out to be much better.  One member of our team as far as I know had never handed out tracts before and he turned out to be the best tract passer that I had ever seen.  It was almost as if he was selling peanuts or something. He engaged a lot of people in conversations about the trivia questions and got them interested in reading the tracts.  There was a police officer standing next to us (I had him stand next to me because I wanted to make sure that he was not going to be too uncomfortable but I turned out to be wrong).  He brought a tract to the police officer and asked him if he knew the answer to the third trivia question.  It was a hard question that I did not think anyone could possibly know but the police officer knew it immediately.  After a friendly conversation with the police officer we had no trouble in our location.

There was another reason that I believe we ended up where we were.  After we were there for a while two men started handing out business cards in front of us.  It turned out that it was a coupon for a strip club.  I was glad that we were there to represent the Lord’s interest and cross swords with the devil’s interest.  If we were not there I felt that their perversion would have gone unchallenged.  Chicago is such a dark city.  I do not think that people who live in other parts of the country realize how dark it really is.

In the end we distributed all 2000 of the tracts we brought and ran out right about the time that the game started.  One of our group brought more tracts that he had purchased and we put them on the cars around the neighborhood after the game started.  We then had a very nice fellowship lunch at an old neighborhood restaurant in the neighborhood where Mayor Daley grew up.

The contrast between the reception we had at the two outreaches really illustrates how the deceitfulness of riches can really choke out the gospel.  The wealthy Cubs fans think that they have all they need (except for a team that can win).  What if I was giving out coupons for free food at the game?  They would not even look at the tract.  The less affluent White Sox fans know that they have needs and were willing to look at what we had to offer.

Tom sent this report from the outreach at the Cubs game:

I think that this was the first warm Cubs opening day in history.  It is usually bitterly cold with a stiff wind coming off of Lake Michigan but it was surprisingly warm this time.  I was excited by this prospect because I thought that this would mean a lot of opportunity for our team.  Unfortunately, things did not turn out so well.  I was only able to recruit two other people other than my son and I so we had only four.  We hit such heavy traffic coming in that we only arrived about one hour before the game.  There were three of us in one car and the other person was to meet us there.  When we got to Wrigley Field there was such a mob for about a block around the stadium that we could not move enough to hand out tracts and we could not find our fourth person.  One of us circulated in the crowd and was able to get out a few tracts and I took my son about two blocks away from the stadium to a place with a narrow sidewalk that had constant foot traffic.  I got excited again because there was heavy traffic and enough room for us to hand out the tracts.  The problem was that no one would take them!!  I have never had such a low take rate when handing out tracts.  More discouraging was the look that people had on their faces.  It was so empty!  It was almost as if they were in a trance.  Cubs fans tend to be affluent and it was obvious to me that the vast majority of the people were of substantial means and seemed to have contempt for anyone trying to hand them something.  I thought that perhaps it was my outfit but the fourth person (who I had given tracts before the outreach) reported a similar lack of willingness to take the tracts.  In the end we got out about 500 tracts but we should have gotten out thousands.

Here is the report from Steven on the outreaches in Tampa

Hello brothers and sisters in Christ, and friends!

Greetings from one of your favorite fisherman and the main speaker at this exciting program here that we call ‘Follow the Fisherman’ – welcome. I’m glad you could join us today. I’m your friendly fisherman leader here, Steven 🙂 And, this little regular program is where we share stories of our conversations with people about eternity – the most important subject in this life and in eternity is where we are going when we die. Many people think about – but they typically only talk about it with their closest of friends – unless someone brings it up 😀

So, this little episode is catching you up from our fishing adventures in Tampa – for the starting of the MLB season.

What was amazing about this evangelism adventure is that when we looked at the calendar in the first several days of April, we quickly realized that we were already booked the weekend of the opening weekend, and the 2^nd weekend of homegames (2 weeks later) also seemed completely booked… until 4 days before we could go. God works in mysterious ways doesn’t He? Thank you to all of you who prayed for us – that helped a lot!

Okay, so we found out like on a Tuesday that we could go and started getting ready for a Saturday evening/Sunday mid-afternoon evangelism trip. And we invited several friends who all really wanted to go, but the spiritual warfare and last-minute invite didn’t give them enough time to be able to get past the barriers they came across. So, it was just the four of us with their and others prayers! 🙂 It was a blessed weekend!

So, we drove mid-afternoon and got to the baseball stadium in time to pass out several hundred tracts. Our favorite evangelism events are those where we can talk with people, but most of the people either didn’t want the tract or wanted the tract and wanted to get to the game – so 🙂 not much Saturday.

Paul and I set up on a corner where people flowed by and across the street. Because of our friendliness with the people – whether they took our tract or not, the officer across the street grew to like us and interacted here and there. We always like that 🙂

Dad and Madre were at a busier thorough-fair and were able to pass out a lot of tracts to those who wanted them. When we pass out tracts, we typically will say something like ‘It’s a gospel tract’ or ‘It’s about Heaven – you can have one if you want’. Most of the people who take a tract after hearing that it’s because they really want one and they seem to value it more.

Saturday evening, we got back to our hotel, got some sleep, woke up – had some brief Bible discussion and headed to the stadium around noon. This time, Paul and I traveled all the way around the stadium to see if we could find a better corner with more people to interact with, and we did – sort of. We found that if we split up within view, we could reach more people – so we did. Paul got to pass out tracts and built a little friendly conversation with the officer on his corner – they talked about life and eternity. Good conversations. I was passing out tracts and then one  young man with earbuds in his ears stopped and looked at the tract and asked what it was. I explained that it talked about eternity and where we go when we die. That really caught his attention and we talked for the next 30-45 minutes. His name is Munir. He was raised by Muslim parents, is now a Christian and he is growing in following Christ. What changed his life was a car accident that almost killed him – damaged his brain, from which he’s recovered mostly. We talked about his family, how Jesus and the God of the Bible are different from what Islam says, etc. I told him about Mark A. Gabriel’s books ‘Islam and Terrorism’ and ‘Jesus and Mohammad’ and told him some of Mr. Gabriel’s testimony. (note: Mark A. Gabriel is his pen name, not his real name).

After Munir and I had talked a little while, he wanted to stick around, so I said that he could join me in passing out tracts – and he did. So, I showed him what I was doing – how I was engaging with people, and how to respond when they said no thank you or were rude. He helped pass out tracts to people for the last 15-20 before the game began, and the crowd thinned out. Towards the end of my conversation with Munir, the rest of my family joined me and we got to encourage him.

It was a great trip – thank you so much to all of you who prayed for us. I hope that some of you in our area or in areas near a baseball field will plan to head out to pass out tracts to those who come to watch the game. Maybe you can write it on your calendar next year 🙂

Well, this is your friendly fisherman signing off! ~ till next time, let’s keep serving Jesus and calling others to give Him their lives to follow and serve Him too. ~ a growing servant/life-slave of Jesus, SH 🙂