Saturday Night at Bricktown

Jinger, the girls, Samuel and I went to Bricktown in Oklahoma City late saturday night with the Determan family. John Determan has become very convicted about sharing his faith with others. His daughter along with Rebekah, Leah, and Susanna really enjoy passing out tracts to people. So we all went out. When we arrived we met with Derek Woods, the local leader for the Great News Network, (GNN, see http://www.thegreatnewsokc.com/ ) an evangelism training organization. With him was Zak King a local "seed sower". He recently moved to the area from Nashville, TN. They had set up a flip chart (download available free at http://www.livingwaters.com)/) for allowing people to take an IQ test in an attempt to draw a crowd. It just asks simple trivia questions before swinging to the Ten Commandments and how we have sinned towards God (an example is available at http://www.needgod.com/ ).

After Zak spoke to several people and ran them through the Law and Gospel it was my turn to do some open air. I was able to engage approximately seven different small groups during my time on the box. Of the people that I was able to speak to during this open air opportunity the most memorable was a guy that was very angry. He was a good heckler and was used of the Lord to attract several other people to the debate we began to have. He began by asking who created God. Once spending some time answering this question for him he went on to say that the Bible was just written by a bunch of people and was not accurate. Zak and I then answered this objection. He then asked about where the races came from. I informed him that there was only one race, the human race, and he agreed. The gentleman then began to rant about God changing his mind on judgement day. I continued laying the weight of the Law upon him before he began objecting stating the God was a murderer. Zak then asked him what it was in his life that was holding him back and creating these "excuses" not to believe. At that moment he screamed several curse words at us and left very angrily. Later John and I saw him break dancing in another area of Bricktown. Pray for that young man.
I was also able to open air to three Hispanic teenagers concentrating on one of them named Juan. After walking through the Law and asking if they thought they would go to heaven or hell, Juan said heaven, because he had been baptized. I then spent much time speaking to them about the reality of God’s grace and that no amount of works or allegiance to any church could save them. When I quoted Paul, "By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." His mouth dropped. I then made reference to the mass and told him that Christ does not die every week for our sins, but that "Christ had once suffered for sins. The just for the unjust." You could tell that God was working in their hearts as I spoke of his grace and forgiveness. I continued speaking with them for some time before giving them some literature and a gospel of John. They said that they had never read the Bible, but had grown up going to mass every week. I pray that the Lord would continue to work in their hearts. Having had many conversations with numerous different hispanics over the last several weeks is proof to me that there is a pre-reformation population in our midst. Most of this population have never read a Bible for themselves. They need the word of God.

We got to hand out about 350 tracts including several Forth of July tracts after a fireworks display at the end of the Oklahoma City Redhawks game. Pray that the Lord would continue to use the written word (tracts) to bring others into His kingdom.
Pray for those that we were able to preach the gospel to. Pray that the Lord would work on their hearts.

Thanks for taking the time to read this first of what will be, Lord willing, many evangelism outings. Oh how I love to be his instrument and to partake in what he has called all Christians to do. Pray that the fire of his word will be set upon our lips that we might boldly proclaim His setting of the captives free.

-Aaron