Like A Good Neighbor

Like a Good Neighbor

Ministry Update October 23, 2016

No this isn’t a State Farm commercial, it’s an update from Friday night. Aaron, Erica, Diana, Elise and I witnessed downtown. Overall it was a much quieter night than the previous weekend. We had a couple of neighbors in the apartments in the old Heers building come over and complain about the noise of our amplifier. 

Sleeping And Drinking At The Same Time

The first guy came up to me while Aaron was preaching. He was obviously drunk and he was carrying a glass of what appeared to be whisky and soda. The smell was very strong and he was right in my face yelling at me and asking if I thought it was fair for us to blare the amplifier while he was trying to sleep. You can’t argue with a drunk, but I wondered to myself “how can you be trying to sleep for the last 30 minutes and at the same time reek of alcohol.” I didn’t know that you could do both at the same time.

He kept yelling and saying the same things and I kept repeating that even though we can legally be there until 11 pm, we typically quit around 10 pm. He just kept stammering why should he have to put up with this for another 45 minutes. Finally, I told him that he asked his question and I answered it. Time to move on. So move on he did, right over to Aaron and he harassed and chased him around for a few minutes, mocking and yelling the whole time.

Kind Neighbor

He left and shortly thereafter another neighbor came over and politely walked up to Aaron and said that his grandson was trying to sleep and would he turn down the amplifier. Aaron said sure thing and immediately turned it down. Both the kind neighbor and Aaron were acting like a good neighbor, unlike the first man. Some people wrongly think that we run around blaring our amplifiers, trying to be obnoxious just because we legally can do so. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We have been gloriously saved by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are grateful that He saved us. We want to obey Him and He told all believers to share the Gospel. We merely use amplifiers so more people can hear the Good News that Jesus came to save His people from their sins. That’s all we are doing and street witnessing is not about us. It’s all about Jesus, our precious Redeemer. Then a gentleman asked Aaron to read Luke 9:57-58 and he did. We thanked the guy for the suggestion.

Drunk Selfie

While we were singing hymns to end the night a couple of drunks came stumbling up from behind us and when they were standing right in front of us, they had their arms around each other and one of them pulled out a cell phone and took a selfie of them standing in front of us. We kept singing. When they continued on, they knocked our chairs around a little bit, tried to straighten them out and then kept walking. We just sang through the mini side show.

Couple of Old Classmates

On Wednesday Brian, Aaron and I witnessed at MSU. After my message, I handed out One Second After You Die booklets and Brian preached. While this was going on, two former classmates of Aaron walked up and started talking to him. They had a good conversation and I know he handed at least one of them a booklet and maybe both of them. While Aaron was preaching, someone mocked while he walked by, but I couldn’t hear what he said. Overall, it was a fairly quiet time of witnessing at the university.

(These updates are given to encourage followers of Christ to share their faith in Him with others.)