Dear praying friends,
Christmas has been called “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” and that is certainly true about Evangelism!
People tend to be more open and friendly and willing to take gospel booklets, listen to Open-Air Messages, and engage in evangelistic one-on-one conversations at this time of year.
Also, a number of cities and towns have outdoor events, like Tree-Lighting Ceremonies.
These provide wonderful venues to reach people for Christ!
God provided a very fruitful season of Evangelism at Christmas this year (as always).
I’ll let the following photos show how God worked this past Christmas.
Please pray for us and those we meet!
A City Tree-Lighting Event is a GREAT opportunity to talk to tons of folks, give away hundreds of gospel tracts, and share the best Christmas present ever: a saving relationship with Jesus the King through repentance and faith! Praise God!
Open Air Preaching leads to great one-on-one discussions.
This is so cool: brothers Matt and Kevin are each sharing Christ with someone who stopped by to look at our riddle board. Matt is chatting with an ROTC Highschooler on the left-hand side. Kevin is chatting with with a young man in the middle of the shot.
OAC Missionary, Jay Ricci, takes Mark 16:15 very seriously where Jesus commands us to 'preach the gospel to every CREATURE.' All kidding aside, the man in the 'Christmas Mouse' costume had a great conversation with Jay for over half an hour! We praise God for the people He sends our way (even if they're dressed like vermin.)
Here's Jay talking with the guy in the mouse costume. They talked about Christ and salvation for over half an hour!
Does anyone know what this is? Get ready for the answer... It's Mark with a Shark in the Dark at the Park!!! Hahahahahahaha
During the Christmas Season, I haul a manger into the Subway because it's a very effective object lesson for Open Air Messages at Christmas.
Of course we want to reach a lot of people with the gospel message when we open-air preach in the subway, but we also want to get Biblical booklets into people's hands. This woman came right up to me and took a gospel booklet from my hand. A number of others did as well. What I didn't expect was having a Pastor come up to me with literal tears and tell me, 'I preach the same message you just did every Sunday, and I try so hard to reach unbelievers. You reached more unbelievers here in the subway than I do at Church. Keep it up!' That was very humbling for me and very encouraging as well. All praise to King Jesus! (If you look beneath me you can see the manger that I use at Christmas.)
Here's Joshua, one of our volunteers, delivering a short open-air message in the Subway, using the manger as an object lesson. You can see that many people were listening.
It was brutally cold out in our State Capitol, but there was a 'Midnight Merriment' event that drew a lot of families out to the streets, so we were there. Here, Gary, one of our volunteers, was doing a great job taking a group of people through the gospel message. We gave out nearly 500 gospel tracts, had some terrific one-on-one conversations, and no frostbite! Praise God!
Chris got to chat with two friends in this pic. One was a Christian and one was a Jehovah's Witness. Chris asked her, 'What do you see as the difference between what you believe and what Biblical Christianity teaches?' (Great question for pretty much anyone). She said she didn't know and that she attends the Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall because that's where her parents go. I overheard and gave her a resource that shows from the Bible where Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong about who Jesus is. She thanked us and said she'd read it. Praise the Lord for Divine appointments! (Oh, and you can download that resource at: http://luke-15.org/trinity.pdf).
This very nice Hindu man from India believes that Jesus is one of millions of gods, and that the gospel is one of many ways to 'nirvana.' I shared with him Scriptures that Jesus is not 'a god' but the 'One and Only God.' And that the gospel is the 'One and Only Way' to forgiveness and Eternal Life. Please pray for this man and his family.
Chris had a TERRIFIC conversation with this Atheist Professor. He said he had lectured on world flood legends, and seemed to know a lot about geology, but had never heard of polystrate fossils. These are fossils that go between layers of the 'geological column.' They destroy the idea of 'millions of years' in a heartbeat, because how could a tree be fossilized vertically as 'millions of years' of strata was laid down around it? These trees are all over the planet and were simply buried vertically in the sedimentation of the flood. Chris asked this professor what he would do if Noah's Ark were discovered 16,000 feet up Mount Ararat, right where the Bible says it is. He said 'I'd say kill me now God, because I've been talking trash about You for decades.' Chris explained that God doesn't want to kill him, and that the message of the Gospel is one of salvation from God's judgement. He walked away looking a bit troubled, like God had found a crack in the dam of his unbelief. Please pray that he comes to repentance and faith in Christ today.
Derry, NH, had a town Christmas Parade and the theme of our Church's float was 'Jesus Is Our Superhero.' My son, Caleb, and I participated by walking the route and handing out invitations to our Christmas Service. Our Church handed out 4,000 invitations that afternoon! Please pray that God will water those seeds and unchurched people will come to Christ as a result!
Christopher stopped by and asked what our Christmas Riddle painting was all about. This led to a great conversation about the Lord and what it means to trust in Him for salvation. He shared that his grandmother is a believer and that he feels peace when she prays for him. Chris encouraged him that if he commits his life to Christ, that the peace of God would be his permanently. Chris explained what it meant to abide in Christ and encouraged him to seek the Lord in His word, the Bible. Please pray for Christopher that he would do just that.
This is Jessica, who identified herself as an Atheist. When I asked her why, she told me that something 'bad' happened to her when she was 9-years-old. I immediately explained to her that if somebody hurt her, especially someone who was supposed to represent God, then that should never have happened and I'm so so sorry for her. She said after it happened she went to her Priest and he blamed her and told her to pray to be forgiven for what she had done. And she never wanted to be a part of religion since. I just wanted to cry with her. I did tell her that humans mess up all the time, and it sounds like whoever hurt her, and also the Priest, screwed up. But Jesus came not to hurt us but to heal and love us. I encouraged her to look to the REAL Jesus in the Bible. And just like the people who hurt her had sinned, she and I and everyone else also sin and we need the wonderful amazing loving Savior Jesus to forgive and heal us. Please pray for this understandably very jaded and hurt woman. And please pray that no more children will be hurt in the name of religion. Thank you!
And if you’d like to see and hear for yourself what an Open-Air Message looks like in the Subway at Christmas-time, please watch the short video below:
You might have noticed in a bunch of photos our “Christmas Riddle” Painting. It’s a very effective way to attract people to come over to us. The riddle is designed to lead into an Evangelistic conversation. Here’s what it looks like:
So here’s how the “Riddle” works:
If they have trouble with the first, I point out, “There’s Santa. He’s checking his list. And the arrow shows that he’s going to that TOWN.” Santa Claus is coming to town.
The next one usually everyone gets. If not, I point out that there’s FROST on the E. Frosty – the snowman.
The next one people often says “Away in a Manger.” But I point out there’s a child with a Question Mark. There’s a question about this child? WHAT CHILD IS THIS?
And there’s the spiritual transition. You ask, “So, what child is this? What do you think? Some people think Jesus is a good man, a teacher, a made up mythological person, and some say he’s Lord of lords. What do you say?”
And the answer to this most important riddle is in the last box. You see, this child grew up, He never sinned, lied stole lusted, never. And He died on the cross for our sins as a substitute and rose from the dead and is alive today and coming back. And we finish the same as with all our messages, with a call to TURN and TRUST.
Also, I often ask them to read the sentence in blue at the bottom, the one that says, “GODISNOWHERE.”
Typically, they read it aloud as “God Is Nowhere.” Sometimes they read it “God Is Now Here.” Either way, whichever way they read it, I point out the other way to read it, and they usually react positively, like, “Wow, I didn’t see that. Yeah, it can be read that way too.”
And then you get a second gospel appeal. I tell them, “People have heard this message for thousands of years, that we’ve all sinned, that Jesus paid for our sins on the cross, died, rose again, and is the only way to God, and some people react to that by saying ‘God is nowhere,’ and others react by saying, ‘God is NOW HERE!!!'” And we encourage them to be a “God is NOW HERE” person, because your eternal destiny is literally at stake.
Anyhow, this Christmas Riddle is superb! I think I’m going to make some changes to it a bit for next year, but it still worked great the way it is.
As you can see, God uses the Christmas Holiday Season to reach a lot of people who might not otherwise hear the truth about Jesus. I’m sad that it’s over, but I look forward to Easter, because people tend to be more friendly and open around that holiday as well!
We love you and thank Jesus for you!
Thank you so much for your prayers, financial support, and notes of encouragement, without which we would not be able to reach the Lost for Jesus Christ!
Please contact us anytime and let us know how we can pray for you!
And please feel free to forward this to anyone you think would be blessed by it!
For Christ and His gospel,
Mark, Shelby, Vivienne, Juliana, Caleb, and Gabriella
Praise the Lord for his faithfulness in opening people’s hearts to listen, and your faithfulness in proclaiming truth!!