In New York, Tom Kiser lead groups out to evangelize at the Yankees games on March 31 and April 1. Tom wrote:
The outreach to the Yankees went great. We passed out 4,900 tracts. I have about 100 left which will be very easy to get rid of.
Looking forward to this weeks outreaches to the Mets!
A couple of pictures from the events are below!
Kevin and his mom went to the Royals game and also had the chance to share the Gospel and some tracts. Kevin wrote:
I was blessed with the opportunity to share the Gospel at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri on Saturday, April
2 for the MLB Outreach. My mom joined me at the ballpark to help hand out the Baseball Trivia Gospel tracts. This was the 2nd time I have done this including once last year after a night game. We arrived to the ballpark about 30 minutes before the game started and I had to still buy tickets, so my mom began handing out tracts to people as they arrived near one of the gate entrances. I left a few stacks in and around the stadium near the hotdog and ketchup concessions which were gone when I checked later. God willing they were taken by the public. After the game my mom and I distributed more of the tracts to people as they left the stadium. All in all we handed out between 250-300 of the Baseball Trivia Gospel tracts. I would have liked to have handed out more, but God is in control and he had things occur exactly as he planned. It was a reall blessing to be a part of a national outreach that helps proclaim the Good News. God willing seeds were planted outside Kauffman Stadium on Saturday. All for HIS glory !!
On Friday, April 1, Mike, Wally and I went to Arlington to evangelize the Texas Rangers opening day game. As the defending American League Champions, the atmosphere was electric. We arrived about two and a half hours before the game. I found a place to park for $5 about three quarters of a mile walk from the stadium. As we walked to the stadium we saw signs for parking go from $15 to $30 to $35 and all the way up to $50!
Wally, Mike and I at Rangers Opening Day
Our mission was two fold. First was to glorify God by sharing His gospel message. Second, was to do some recon for the outreach the following day where we were anticipating about 30 participants to come with us so I wanted to have the lay of the land.
We brought with us about 1,800 baseball trivia tracts as well as another 1,700 or so other tracts that we had. We decided the best plan was to combine the two purposes of the outing. So we made our way walking around the stadium and handing out tracts and talking to people as we went.
Within a few minutes of being there, we had the only difficulty we had with the authorities. A woman who worked for the ball club told me that we could not hand out literature and had to go across the street. I told her that we are on public property and have the right to free speech. Around then another guy in Rangers credentials came by. He rudely snapped, “you have to be within 10 feet of the curb. I’ll step it off for you.” I looked toward the street and it seemed like maybe eight feet. So I told him that I was already within ten feet of the street. They decided they would go get the police. We continued to walk around the stadium and never saw them again nor heard anything from the police.
When we got around to the home plate corner of the stadium the crowds were really streaming in from the parking lot. The ballpark is situated such that some remote parking all funnels down to one bridge across a creek up to the stadium. We simply stood by the street (within 10 feet of the curb :-)) and handed tracts to the streams of people as they came across to the stadium.
Fans arrive for Rangers Opening Day
Wally and Mike manned one side. I took the other. Eventually I realized it would be easier to hand the tracts out by going across to the parking lot side of the street. So I proceeded over there and handed out 100’s of tracts.
I was running low on tracts and the people were still coming. I pulled all the tracts out of my back pack. Eventually Mike and Wally were out of tracts too and they came and joined me. They were out of tracts. I split up the remaining tracts that I had and we handed them all out. Then we picked up some of the tracts we found on the ground and handed them out again.
We made our way around the stadium to check out the rest of the corners. It appeared all four corners of the stadium would be ideal for witnessing for Saturday’s outreach!
I got the following report from Craig following the Marlins outreach:
We only had 3 of our Apocalypse Open Air preachers show up, (work day) so we each took a section of the parking lots. On
private property we kept a low profile and were welcomed into almost every tailgate group, telling them “we are undefeated! Let’s celebrate! Here’s a million dollar bill!” They laughed and warmly accepted us (99%) and we were able to handout thousands of tracts. The inside lots started to overflow, so we were able to do our normal routine and preach on the public right of way as they queued up to cross the street from the overflow lots.
We discovered that the folks that were tailgating were very sociable and receptive – excellent targets! Very few rejections or negatives. Many Christians gave us a thumbs up. All in all, a great day.
Doug posted on twitter:
@ckalbfleisch @Phillies game went great. Had 9 of us there passing out tracts, 1-2-1’s, and a little open-air.
MLB Outreach in Cleveland
The weather was better than forecasted, but still only in the 40’s for the opening game in Cleveland. Despite the weather, a large group turned out to share the Gospel. Paul wrote:
As the National Anthem began at 1:00, things still hadn’t picked up. We made our way home feeling a little discouraged. Where were all the people? Well, it turns out that we were a part of history. With just over 9,000 people in attendance, it was the lowest attendance in the history of Progressive Field. Of the 2,500 tracts, we probably gave away around 1,000. And when you factor in how many rejections we had, we probably reached out to a hefty percentage of the people there!
Please read the rest of the details on Working the Harvest Field BLOG.
A group went on Saturday to the Rays game in Tampa. Here is a snipet of their report:
We passed out gospel tracts yesterday at the Tampa Bay, FL
Rays Game – opening day. It was a good day! Passing out tracts at baseball games was new to us and traffic held us up so we didn’t get there as early as we wished to. Still, it was a great time – handed out 100-150 tracts. Had quite a few who said ‘no thanks’. Had one nice young man who said that he was so grateful to see Christians here because the day before he was greeted by JWs (‘Jehovahs’ witnesses) at his front door. And he commented that Christians have stopped reaching out, but we need to get back to that – we agreed! We gave him a tract and another booklet to read, and we saw him reading it as we left. Please pray for him – his name is Mike.
Please read the rest of their report on their BLOG.
There is another Rays outreach on April 16th. You can RSVP on the Facebook event.
Here are some initial reports from the outreaches:
Tom in St Louis wrote on Facebook following their March 31 outreach:
2500 (ish) tracts in two hours, thanks Zachary and Jesse – St. Louis
Handing out a tract to a Cardinals fan
Christians – read the description about Fresh 102.5 and their apparent hatred of the Gospel
Stephen wrote on Facebook about the outreach at the Colorado Rockies game on April 1:
Great day witnessing at Coors Field at Rockies opener. Great fellowship. with everyone. Handed out 7500 tracts. God was glorified.
Tim posted on Facebook after the Toronto Blue Jays outreach on April 1:
Preaching at Blue Jays game
We only had hundreds of tracts today for the MLB Outreach, not thousands as we had intended, but God is good to His children. He brought crowds to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, and Mark and Michael both took good person tests and seemed convicted by their sin. An atheist named Robert began to scream at me as I shared with Michael but God convicted him too and he retreated.
and
The Lord gave a couple of crowds today for “Good Person Tests” at the Blue Jay opening game. In this picture a young man named Michael took the test as another you man named Mark waited to speak to me. Mark returned from an earlier session and waited for me to finish with another crowd to give me back the money he took, and then confess that he had not repented to Jesus for his sins yet. Pray for Mark.
Texas Rangers on April 1:
Mike, Wally and I handed out about 3,500 tracts. I posted on Facebook, “Ran out of tracts!” We handed out about 1,800 baseball trivia tracts and then handed out bucket list, million dollar bills, reject the Gospel and any other tracts I had found for this so that we could save 8,000 tracts for Saturday’s outreach.
Here are the tracts for the Cardinals and Rockies outreaches!
St Louis Cardinals tracts
Colorado Rockies tracts
