It was a typical night in Tempe this past Saturday. Police, zombies, belly dancers and fireworks - you never know what you'll see out on Mill Ave.
The police had a DUI center set up just around the corner, and a couple of them came over to make us take down our sign that we hang up on the post office. He said we could be there because it's closed, but could not hang anything on the building itself.
A group of belly dancers were making their way around Mill Ave, and stopped nearby for a while, which helped generate a crowd.
For some reason, there was a fireworks display for a few minutes, but we had no idea why.
It was a pretty busy night, zombies were riding bikes tonight - I had heard of the "zombie walk", but wasn't really sure what tit was all about, so I looked it up. You can find some info here: Zombie Walk
Although it is an annual thing in most places, it seems to be every weekend at Mill lately.
Tom kept different crowds with his Open Air for glow sticks, and a group of Christians from Gilbert were interested in coming to his class this Saturday at Redemption Church.
There was an older couple named Don and Carol, who were from Oklahoma City, and they spoke with Alan for a while. I'm not sure how all that went, but they came back again later and talked with me. They wanted to discuss justification and that you cannot live for yourself after you've accepted Christ. I agreed with that point, but wasn't really sure where he was going with all of his stories. He told me different ones of going to places and "knowing that God was going to shut these businesses down" and how they were later replaced (a bar was replaced with a blood bank in one of the stories). I'm not exactly sure of what his point was, since it did not seem that he actually spoke to people to explain the Gospel to them.
Keith came out to Mill for the first time tonight. He had been out to First Friday earlier this month, and has just completed the Conquer Your Fear, Share Your Faith class. When Dan showed up a little later, Keith, as any good evangelist, handed him a tract, not knowing who he was. So, Dan decided to test him a bit, asking questions to see how he would do with witnessing to him. Keith did an awesome job at taking him through the Gospel and answering any questions that Dan asked him.
I talked with a couple of girls, one of them was named Mariah, and she agreed to go through the Good Person Test (GPT). She started out with a bit of a self-righteous attitude, claiming that I called her a liar. I explained that I had done no such thing. I asked her questions and she answered them, admitting herself that she had lied in the past and would refer to such people as liars. She also admitted to blaspheming and adultery in the heart, but claimed she had never stolen anything. As we continued, she seemed to be more convicted and have less of an attitude against what I was saying. She seemed to understand that we all deserve hell for breaking God's law, and to comprehend the sacrifice He made on our behalf to keep us from that punishment.
Even though she did not pass the GPT, didn't deserve and couldn’t earn the cash that I had offered in the beginning if she could pass it, I still gave it to her as a demonstration of God's grace. Just as we don't deserve salvation and cannot earn it by anything that we do, He still offers it to us. In the same way, I gave her the cash, which seemed to confuse her. She later asked if she was supposed to give it back, and I explained that she could keep it and use it anyway that she chose to. I also gave her a "Are You Good Enough to Get Into Heaven?" tract to read later.
Meanwhile, Tom was talking to a young guy who had been drinking and was quite self-righteous. He said he didn't care, and that he had much more life experience that Tom (even though he looked less than half of Tom's age). That conversation didn't go far, since the guy was not really open to hearing anything from us.
Mariah was waiting for this guy, and I told her that he would not be a good influence on her and her friend. Please pray for Mariah, that she would stay away from the bad influences on Mill Ave, be convicted of her sins and turn to Jesus Christ for her salvation. I pray that she would read through the tract I left her with and that the Lord would give her understanding and draw her to Himself.
After we packed up, we went out for some food and fellowship. We asked our waiter if there was anything we could pray with him for, and he asked that we pray for his relationship with his adult children. Marty had been separated from them for some time, and is trying to get reconnected (hopefully sometime in July). Please keep him is prayer for this.
Soli Deo Gloria
No comments:
Post a Comment