What's The Deal?
Not only did I see lots of evil things down at Mardi Gras I saw lots of religious people. I guess we were not the only ones that had the idea of doing some evangelism at Mardi Gras. There were all kinds and manners of people doing different types of evangelism. The majority of which I thought were ineffective at best and possibly unbiblical.
The different groups:
- The fearmongerers: This group had large signs and a huge cross made out of pvc pipe. They used PVC because it is a light material. They don't want the cross too realistic and an actual burden to carry. Anyway... Their method was to tell everyone how much God hates them and what they are doing. This is posted on their signs and is the message coming from their bullhorn. Was it effective? The only people they seemed to talk to was belligerent drunks. My favorite part was when one belligerent drunk showed up with his own bullhorn that was louder than theirs. A great shouting match ensued and I am sure many converts were made.(my tongue is firmly in my cheek)
- The biblically illiterate. I ran across a couple of groups that fit this category. They too had signs, they were just not what the Bible says. One young guy had a sign that read, "Everyone goes to heaven, but not everybody gets to stay." What?! We approached him and asked about his message. He didn't have a good answer but we took the opportunity to teach him the truth that everyone does not go to heaven.
Another poor theologian held up a sign that read, "You are so incredible that Jesus died for you." This one made me downright mad. I calmly approached this man and told him his sign was unbiblical. Romans 5:8 says that "while we were yet SINNERS, Christ died for us." If we were so incredible Jesus wouldn't have had to die for us.
- The street preachers: There were a couple of groups that had a microphone and were attempting to preach or something. The problem is no one was listening. I really wonder what they were thinking.
- The personal witnesses: I was in this group. We had a two pronged approach. One was to hand out as many gospel tracts as we could. Not everyone took them, and not everyone read them. But we cast the seed out. The other prong was to get into a one-on-one conversation with people and personally share the gospel with them. We got to do this with quite a few people.
Obviously, you can tell what I think of those other approaches. At times it was almost embarrassing to think that I was in the same group as some of those "religious nuts". But, then again, you might think I am a nut just for going down to Mardi Gras.
Just another interesting observation about the events surrounding Mardi Gras.
3 comments:
I have participated in "outreaches" to what could be described as "strongholds" of sin, but I came away from (most of) those experiences recognizing that while we may have had scriptures, we had no anointing, little wisdom, and certainly no "authority" to break through such great spiritual darkness. I don't judge people who seek out such venues for their "ministry"; God may well have called them to do that. But I think in my own case, my motives and perhaps those of my associates were very much in question, especially since the "sensationally lost" are not any more damned than most of the people hanging out at my local Sonic.
Bryan
Hi,
I saw your blog and thought I would respond to your criticisms of our street preaching "methods." Firstly, I appreciate your being a laborer in the harvest. Praise God for that. Whether you think you are better than us or not matters little if someone out there repented and was reconciled to God. So I thank God for your willingness to do that.
Our ministry is more in line with prophetic than evangelistic. Although we certainly have led some people to salvation, what we do is to purposely confront these folks on their sin issues. You are right. They don't like it. They get down right angry sometimes. Then they find us on Facebook and Youtube and we have a golden opportunity to reteach the message of salvation and to let them know that 1 Cor. 6:9-11 says that it is deception to believe that you can sin and be saved. In that way, we have led many of them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and reconciliation to Him through His blood and His righteousness imparted to us through faith.
You might want to check out some of our one-on-one confrontations:
http://www.youtube.com/user/veraberry
If you look at my uploads, you can see a whole lot more. I try to find as many so called Christians out there who are offending a Holy God and our talks with them.
I would be more than happy to show you Scriptural examples of the apostles acting and dealing with people in ways that might not fit an American definition of "love." And it was solid and it worked because it created a variance. I mean, just one example would be Stephen. If you were standing there with Stephen, you would have called his little speech and confrontation a total fail. Not only did not one person turn to Christ, but he was stoned to death for speaking out. According to Scripture, he got a standing ovation into heaven. See, those messages gave a person the information needed, the faith by the Word, and then they used their free agency to choose. Steven said, "You do always resist the Holy Spirit." Did it ever occur to you that this is the problem with these folks and not the preachers?
Many blessings and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Vera
Thanks for your comment. It was very civil and thought out. I wish your approach on bourbon street was like that.
First of all, I do not think that I am better than you or anyone. I am certain that I am not.
I do think that some methods are better than others. By better, I mean easier to justify biblically.
My main disagreement with you has less to do with your content and more to do with your approach. The approach seems more arrogant and less caring.
When I say that you need to be more caring, I do not mean watered down and compromising clear biblical truth. I am against easy believism and false candy coated gospels.
By caring I mean that the motivation for your approach must be out of concern for the lost. Those that I witnessed out on the streets seemed more concerned about themselves in the performance of their "prophecy", than with the lost people that were walking by.
It just seemed to me that those yelling through the megaphones were more concerned about yelling through a megaphone than actually engaging the lost with the gospel.
One additional thing. It is not a good comparison between your methods and that of Stephen. Completely different contexts. You were not hauled before a religious tribunal for talking about the resurrected Jesus. You were in the middle of Mardi Gras. Stephen was not "asking" to be harassed and persecuted. You were.
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