National Day of Prayer Carrollton

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Carl

Thursday, May 5th was the National Day of Prayer. It also marked one year of our First Thursday Day of Prayer in Carrollton, TX. The theme for this years National Day of Prayer was “A Mighty Fortress” based on Psalm 91:2. We started with that text and then used the ACTS form of prayer. Approximately a dozen people joined the event including the current mayor and a council member who are both running for mayor and another candidate running for city council.

A – Adoration – We read from Job 38 and then joined together in praying and praising our great God!

Fellowship after praying!

C – Confession – We read Psalm 51 and then joined together crying out to God to forgive us both individually and corporately as a country for our sin.

T – Thanksgiving – We read Psalm 107 and then prayed to God to thank Him for everything.

S – Supplication – We read Hebrews 4:14-16 to remind everyone that we can come boldly before God with our requests because of what Jesus has done by shedding His blood on the cross. We then read selected verses from Psalm 33. This was followed by prayer requests to God to guide our nation and our upcoming elections in Carrollton.

We concluded by singing together “A Mighty Fortress” by Martin Luther. Why not spend a few minutes meditating on those words now?

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be

losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own

choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:

The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;

The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth:

Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.

Our next prayer event will be Thursday, June 2.

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Whiteboard

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Carl

Took the whiteboard out to the Dart station again at lunch today. The question was “will any train take you where you want to go?” We got 22 no and 1 yes in about an hour. Unfortunately the one yes did not stick around to talk. The question lead naturally to “could there be just one way to heaven?” We got into a number of good on on one conversations and handed out a couple hundred tracts.

 

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I met Carly at the dart in Dallas. Gave her a tract. She read it. Came back and talked to her and asked what she thought. She said she would be guilty. I asked where she would go. Hell! I asked if that concerned her and she said yes. Walked her through the courtroom example and gave her a million as example of bail. Shared his to get savrdm. Then I have her a copy of Mark Cahill’s One Second After booklet. She did not have any more questions and thanked me for my time.  I took this picture about ten minutes later. She stood there reading the booklet while waiting for her train. Pray for her salvation.

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Wally had modified his tripod into a very sturdy holder for the whiteboard that worked great.

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Would you trade your eyes

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Carl

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Our second time out with the whiteboard took us to the Dallas West End DART station. The question was “would you trade both your eyes for TEN MILLION dollars?” We got 27 no and 1 yes. We then tried to ask a follow up “one eye for one million?” We got 3 yes and 8 no. This lead to great spiritual conversations talking to people about the fact that the eyes are merely the window to the soul and therefore how much more valuable the soul is.

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Sketching the Gospel

Posted on April 23, 2011 by Carl

I first heard about Open Air Campaigners in March 2010 when I

Rick Moore at Shops at Legacy

attended the Living Waters Ambassadors Academy. Since then I’ve talked to several people about it and have had an interest in learning more about it. About three weeks ago, while looking at a friends pictures on Facebook, I saw a picture in one of his albums of a guy doing evangelism with a sketch board. I posted a comment “is this Open Air Campaigners?” The answer came back, “yes” and my friend connected me with Rick Moore. I sent an email to Rick and he called me a couple days later. We talked about meeting up.

Last night, my wife and I were able to meet up with Rick, his wife, a couple who were visiting from Oklahoma to learn from him and a couple of other people who had come out. Rick had picked a spot near the pond at the Shops at Legacy in Plano. As he got set up, we talked a bit about how he did this with the Sketch Board. He explained that he would have a dialog explaining what he was doing. And then afterward for people that were there and interested in more information he would talk one on one with them and give them a tract to take with them. He told us that after a little while he would paint up a sketch called “solve this riddle” and that people would likely come by to solve the riddle after the painting part was already done.

Sounded simple enough. So Rick got started with the Titanic illustration. At one point there were probably 20-30 people listening. Unfortunately as Rick shared the Gospel, many of the people left. We were able to talk to a couple of people and hand out four or five of the tracts.

The crowds near the pond were thinning out and we considered moving up the street. I walked up the street to see if the area that Rick had in mind would work. We decided to move and began packing up to move. As we were packing up, a couple of people came and asked what we were doing. Rick turned the black light back on and got going again with the sketch. As he did, the crowd began to assemble again. When Rick finished all of the riddle, he was talking with a couple of people that had been listening in.

Around then a couple of kids walked up to the board looking at the riddle. I walked up to them and started to explain the panes of the riddle and walk them through it. The played along and solved each pane of the riddle while I was giving them a little help and some hints. The last pane said “death / life” which of course leads them to say that “Harvey had life after death”. I was then able to explain the Law and the Gospel to them.

For the next 45 minute to an hour there was a constant flow of people coming up, asking what we were doing, solving the riddles and then sharing the Gospel with them. Each of us that was there to help were engaged in various conversations. At one point, another believer and his wife walked up and engaged with one of the people I was talking too.

The whole experience was very uplifting. The sketch board was an amazing way to draw people in to spiritual conversations and share the Gospel with them.

I am planning to get with Rick soon to get some training and learn more about how to use this to share the Gospel. If you live around North Dallas and would be interested in getting some training please let me know and I will coordinate it with Rick. If you live outside of North Dallas, additional information on Open Air Campaigners training is available on their web site as well as their YouTube channel.

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Whiteboard debut

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Carl

For some time now, I’ve been wanting to try out using a

Final Tally

whiteboard while doing Evangelism. Today we got our first chance. I first heard of the idea from Tim who has put together a Whiteboard Facebook group.  The idea is that you put the whiteboard up on an easel with some question on it to take a survey and use that question to draw people into a spiritual conversation. Tim has a list of questions and results posted on his BLOG.

Wally and I had been discussing the idea. He found the materials at the hardware store and made the whiteboard for me. The board folds in half for easy transport.

We arranged to use the Free Speech area at Brookhaven College in Dallas. We set up the board and wrote “Do you consider yourself to be a good person?” on the top. As the kids walked by we would ask them if they had time for a quick one question survey. In an hour and a half we got 27 yes, 6 no and 4 I don’t know answers. That is 37 answers. In the same time we handed out about 150 bottles of water. So about 1 in four answered.

The great thing was that having the white board there lead to a number of conversations with the kids. In addition to Wally and I, David, Brian and Arnold were also there. I believe that all five of us were in near constant conversations with the kids the entire time that we were there at the college. At one point it seemed like each of us was actually talking to small groups of 3-5 kids each.

Carl with Whiteboard

Wally with Whiteboard

Witnessing at Brookhaven

Wally witnessing at the Whiteboard

Witnessing at Brookhaven

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San Antonio Mission Outreach

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Carl

What a wonderful encouragement. I received this email from Linda that she had gone out to witness at the minor league San Antonio Mission game over the weekend:

Well you can add one more minor league team to your list.  I wasn’t able to go on opening day, nor did I manage to get anyone to go with me.  Oh, well.  However, I went to the Missions game today.  Had a great time passing out 200 baseball trivia tracts.  No one-to-ones—everyone was going into the game.  I had one man come back and tell me what a clever way to pass out tracts.  Quite an encouragement.

I found out that Thursday, Friday and Saturday are their biggest days.  I’m going to try to go again, hopefully with some others.

Thanks for the idea and encouragement.

Thank you, Linda! You are an encouragement to us. Keep it up!

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Springfield Cardinals Outreach

Posted on April 16, 2011 by Carl

Greg of Born of Him Ministries wrote:

Attached are a few pictures from our MLB outreach to the Springfield Cardinals. There were just three of us for this outreach (Dennis, Brad, and myself). We did right at 1,400 tracts between the three of us. I would say that most everyone who went into the stadium had the opportunity to take a tract if they wanted one. The overall crowd size seemed to be a little smaller than normal, I think this was do to the storms that were forecast later in the evening.

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MLB Outreach Update

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Carl

The Major League Baseball Season is underway. Some teams are performing as expected. Some are surprisingly better (or worse) than expected. At every ballpark across the USA and even in Toronto, fans were greeted by groups of evangelists to share the Gospel. So far, FIFTY FOURoutreaches have taken place at Major League, Minor League and college ballparks. We have reports of over 85,000 tracts being distributed – and I still have not heard from about half of the teams! We have received many pictures, videos, testimonies and reports from the team leaders and posted them on the BLOG under the MLB 2011 category. You can click here to access them! Be sure to check out the pictures of White Sox Man in Chicago, the video from Minneapolis and many other memorable moments. If you participated in the outreach and your report is not yet on the BLOG, please forward me the pictures and report or a link to your BLOG. Please also forward the link to people who participated in the outreaches and ask them to post their testimony online.

One of the most encouraging aspects of the outreach is that it brought together many seasoned street evangelists along with those who had never handed out a tract before. It brought out many kids as well as teens, college students and adults. We had couples come and witness with us as their “date night”! We saw people hand out their first Gospel tract. And we saw others on the box for the first time!

 

For those that are new to evangelism, please consider joining our Tract Club. We send out 30 tracts per month (for FREE) and simply ask that you hand out one each day. Please let the people that went out to the outreaches with you know that this resource is available. Enroll online!

There are still three more planned outreaches the rest of this week and one that is yet to be rescheduled following bad weather.

Our final two prayer calls for the outreach will be held today at 7AM and 9PM Eastern. Please join us in thanking God for these outreaches. To join the conference call prayer meeting, dial 1-605-715-4920 & enter 204-5935when asked for the access code.

As the Major League Baseball outreach officially draws to a close, we pray that this is really only the beginning. With 81 home games in each city, there are plenty of more opportunities to reach the lost through witnessing at Major League and Minor League parks. One Million Tracts continues to offer the Baseball Trivia tracts at reduced prices of $59 for 2,500 and $89 for 5,000 tracts until the end of April. Why not order a fresh supply for some summer outreaches!

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Braves Outreach

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Carl

Alex wrote on his BLOG:

Handing out tracts!

Over the two days we gave out at least 1,300 tracts, exposited portions of Psalm 75, Jeremiah, Galatians, and Luke 18, and preached the gospel at least 15 times. We distributed 450 baseball trivia tracts and 850 tracts including I Love Jesus and Are You Born Again? The Word of God went forth with power. Preachers were being poured out by Christ as they pleaded with baseball fans to repent towards God and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. We had great fellowship after the game on Saturday, ending with purchasing a meal for a homeless man named Barry. Praise the Lord!

Please see the complete report on Alex’s BLOG.

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Salt Lake City Outreach

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Carl

The outreach for the Salt Lake Bees (the Angels’ AAA team) ran into a weather

Eric's wife, Terri, handing out a card to two fans. Trust me, it was cold!

dilemma.

1. The opening game, Thursday, April 7, was snowed/thundered out
2. The second game, Friday, April 8, was snowed out.
3. The third game, Saturday, April 9 (a scheduled doubleheader with fireworks) went on despite the rain and was cancelled in the 7th inning of the first game due to snow. They basically played it so that those holding tickets from Thursday/Saturday would not be able to use their rain tickets for other games. Needless to say, most people thought the games would be cancelled because it rained the entire day. The newspaper counted a total of 27 fans in the stands “shivering and huddled up” when the game began at 5 p.m.
4. The fourth game, Sunday, April 10, was played with 38-degree temperatures. Needless to say, few people came to the afternoon game. A youth group from my church was there, as we handed out approximately 100 cards in the hour before the game–gates don’t open until the hour before. We think that they had fewer than 500 in attendance; the community here (70% Mormon) is not allowed to attend baseball games on Sundays; couple this with the weather, and it won’t be a large crowd.
5. Today, Monday, April 11, fared much better. We had about 10 people out at all three gates and we distributed approximately 500 cards.
6. Tuesday and Wednesday, it appears that it will rain throughout both days. If not, we will have people there to continue handing out. We’ll also be out there on Thursday, when the forecast appears to be better.

Most people are very accepting of the cards and we’ve had little trouble handing them out. The goal we have is for those getting them to visit our website, www.GotForgiveness.com, where they can take a “repentance” quiz, whether they’re Mormon or not. One of our volunteers from today was allowed to stand at the entrance and hand the cards out, which is amazing. Meanwhile, he had a spiritual conversation with the usher. Go figure. On the other side of the ballpark, meanwhile, our volunteers were told to move closer to the public sidewalk because they strayed too far over, in the security guard’s mind. From one side of the park to the other, there was little consistency.

We also made friends with the scalpers, whose business was definitely not booming because so few have gone to the games. We hope to continue these relationships in upcoming weeks.

We probably have 13,000+ cards left. Even if we hand out 1,000 more in the next three days, we have plenty to continue throughout the season. We plan to attend some of the more crowded games, such as the fireworks show games and Family Nights (a popular night in Utah). We will host these types of outreaches until our entire stock is depleted. So no rain outs will affect this outreach!

May God bless you and everyone involved–we’ll continue to pray for results!

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