Kentucky Derby Outreach 2016

Kentucky Derby Outreach 2016

It was a real blessing to witness at the Kentucky Derby Outreach through Sports Fan Outreach International. Twenty four of us from around the country had a wonderful time of fellowship and laboring for God’s kingdom. Twelve hour days of witnessing were long and the nights seemed short, but it was an amazing time of sharing the Gospel through tracts, one to one witnessing, a hand held sign, prayer stand and open-air preaching. 

According to Churchill Downs, there were over 124,000 people in attendance for The Oaks on Friday and over 167,000 people showed up for The Kentucky Derby. Thousands of tracts were handed out during Friday and Saturday. We divided up into three teams and we were stationed along the street right in front of the main general admission gate on Fourth Street. So most of the 291,000 people that entered Churchill Downs came through that main gate. Whether they were going in or coming out, they were offered tracts and heard the open-air preachers, even among the circus like atmosphere. One of the restaurants on Fourth Street sets up large speakers playing vile music both days and then around 4 or 5 bucket drummers lined performing to raise money.

But the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ went forth, even with all of the other noise, drinking and carousing that was going on. We had the usual mockers. In fact, I heard more people shouting “God is gay” than I’ve ever heard anywhere else. We had the usual people yelling, mocking God, telling us to turn down the amplifiers, flipping us off, cursing God and us. But in spite of the hatred that was spewed forth, the precious name of Jesus was lifted high. Several people took tracts only to throw on the ground or throw back at us, but many more of them actually took the tracts with them.

In the midst of all the craziness, Debra stood there faithfully holding a sign pointing people to Jesus and she handed out tracts at the same time. The one to ones stand out more to me than the tracts or the preaching. Ken had a good conversation with a lost man named Mike. Jim talked to hurting people like Janell and many others. Joshua and Rachel set up a prayer stand and also walked around talking to people and praying for them. Jeff noticed a carbon white horse where they invited you to come up and write what you think would be a good name for a horse on the carbon horse. So Jeff went up and wrote 1 Timothy 1:15. The guy standing there wanted to know why that would make a good horse name so Jeff asked him if he knew what the Gospel was and the gentleman said no. So Jeff promptly shared the Gospel with him.  I saw Adam and other brothers in Christ talking to people in one to one conversations.

Most Catholics both days generally said “I’m Catholic” like that was some sort of magical phrase that kept them from needing the Gospel when we tried to hand them a tract. I talked to George who said that he was Catholic and that we were wrong. Dan was preaching and George said “he’s wrong.” I replied “he’s just reading Psalm 141.”  George admitted that he is trying to work his way to Heaven. So even though he was drunk, he was still a good Catholic and he would be alright. I asked him about various Bible verses (like Ephesians 2:8-9) and he just kept telling me that I was misinterpreting them. Someone suggested to me that I should have asked him how he interpreted them, but I didn’t think of it.

In the last three years at the Derby I’ve never seen this before, but the crowd was so large on Saturday that they had the line snake around in the middle of Fourth Street in what amounted to three lines. So at one point I went out and started tracting the line. I was on the far side and Joe took a tract and wanted to know why I believe in Christianity. He wanted to talk but at the same time he wanted to stay with his friends, so I told him that I would walk with him. I was able to share my testimony and explain how it’s supernatural when you get saved, when the Holy Spirit comes inside of a believer. He didn’t appear to have an aha moment, but it seemed like it was a good discussion.

The best conversation that I had was with Carlos. He had obviously been drinking, but he wasn’t stumbling drunk. He took a tract and we started talking. He said that he was a Christian so I asked him to share his testimony with me. He said that he was raised Catholic, but that he didn’t find God until he went to Asia and other places. I was waiting for him to elaborate, but he basically just said when he saw all the poor people and how they live that he found God. I suggested that Romans 1 tells us that we can look around and know that God is real. So I asked him if maybe he just had a general knowledge of God and not an intimate relationship with Him.

We continued to talk and he kept telling me that he’s striving to be a better person. He mentioned this several times so I directed him to Ephesians 2:8-9 and said that it isn’t in our striving, but it’s our surrendering to Jesus that saves us. I talked to Carlos about repentance and faith in Jesus. He mentioned striving again, but he shook his head like he agreed with repentance and faith. So at that point I asked him if he had gotten drunk earlier that day and he admitted that he had. So I asked him about 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 about how Paul tells us not to be deceived, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God and how no drunkard shall enter in there. He said that he was going to try to do better.

I talked to him again about it’s not our striving but our surrendering to Jesus that saves us. Then he said that he didn’t believe that people would go to Hell just for being drunk. I asked him if he was calling the Apostle Paul a liar and he decided that he really wasn’t doing that. Then I directed him to Matthew 7:21-23 and that Jesus is going to tell many people on Judgment Day to depart from Him, because He never knew them. We also talked about how Jesus said that we would know His disciples by their fruit or works (Matthew 7:17-20) and he admitted that he wasn’t exhibiting Christian fruit or works. Then I encouraged him to examine himself to see if he is in the faith because he still believes that he’s saved and yet his actions and words didn’t match up with the Gospel. I challenged him to read his Bible starting in Matthew and for him to cry out to God to see if he’s really saved or not. I asked him if he would do this and he said that he would. We shook hands and then he went on his way. I hope and pray that he really does this and that God will grant him repentance and faith in Jesus.

Talking to Carlos was one of the highlights of the outreach for me, but the most entertaining part was Saturday night when the crowd was coming out after The Derby was over. We knew it would be wild because the crowd was already rowdy around noon. So another team joined ours by the main entrance where they come out of the gate and before we all made a ring around the preacher, we prayed for God’s favor and his protection. Ivan preached first and we encountered the typical mockers. Then Ricky got up and preached and maybe because of his military background and the power of the Holy Spirit, he riled the crowd up. About the time the crowd grew more wild, a cagey old Navy veteran stood in front of us , threw his leather jacket on the ground and made his stand.

He smoked Marlborough’s the whole time and when people walked by and flipped us off, he’d reach up and try to grab their finger. As people mouthed off to us, he’d chase them on down the street. He tried to kick one guy in the rear end. I think he pushed one guy and one time he put his fists in the air and the drunk put his fists up. It looked so convincingly like they were going to fight that the police across the street came over to break them up. Heath was preaching by this time and the Navy veteran continued to protect us and we really didn’t have any incidents to speak of at all. Then when he grabbed his jacket to leave, he whispered in Jason’s ear “some entertain angels unaware” and walked off. The man’s name was Joshua and we hope and pray that God saves him.

At the very end of the night a Jewish man came up to us, drunk, and he kept getting in our faces yelling that we were all going to be his slaves when the Messiah comes. Bobby said something to him that I couldn’t hear. When he did it to me, I told him most Jews rejected Jesus 2,000 years ago and that he was still rejecting him today.

As we were getting ready to pack up to leave, a policeman came over and shook our hands. Then a Marine came over and shook our hands and took tracts from us. Earlier in the day while I was handing out tracts, a young man swapped his card for one of my tracts. He was handing out cards for state legislator Tom Riner (the young man told me that my tracts were better because they say Seek and Save the Lost on them). At the very end of the night the state representative Tom Riner came over and shook my hand, thanked us for preaching the Gospel and then he told me that He had been praying for us as he stood across the street while we were preaching. Praise God that in the midst of this wicked and perverse generation that He is still raising up godly men and women, even some who hold political office. Personally, I thought that was a great way to end the night after The Kentucky Derby.

 

 

 

(It was a real joy to witness and fellowship at the Kentucky Derby Outreach with Bill, Bobby, Adam C., Adam W., Caleb, Dan, Debra, Ivan, Jamie, Jason B., Jason M., Jeff, Jim, Joe, John, Joshua, Justin, Heath, Ken, Rachael, Ricky,  Steven E. and Steven S.)