This weekend was a very good weekend of preaching. Many seeds were planted.Friday:A brother from Morrow (Spelling?), Arkansas came out. Neither one of us knew that the other was going to come out. He had a sandwich board. It was great to labor with him. I hope he gets to come out more often. I was standing on one corner with a sign and all of a sudden a large mass of people began coming out of the Walton Art Center, so I ran across the road, jumped up on a flowerbed, and started preaching. I didn't preach for a very long time, just long enough so the people could hear as they were leaving and crossing the street. I haven't had the opportunity to OA preach in awhile so my voice didn't last like it should. After that I walked up the street with a sign. I got in a very long conversation with a man and woman. I believe the man was a homosexual. The reason I think that is because he was very feminine and just out of the blue he started defending homosexuality. I didn't even mention it. It just came out of him. He was very avid about trying to defend his sin. The sign I had was about drunkards. He later tried to tell me that the word drunkard was not in the Greek. This was about the only thing I agreed with him on. I began to explain to him that there is no English words in the Greek. Greek is a different language than English. People will use the most unintelligent things to justify their sin. Saturday Afternoon:We went to the parade of fools for Marti Gras. I would give praise to the man that named it. I think its very fitting. I began preaching and as soon as I started a man beside me threw glitter all over me. Then he gave some to his child (probably around 3 yrs old) so he could throw it at me. Also, the child threw a paper wad at me. That father will face a fearful judgment in that Great Day. Then some ladies started yelling and proclaiming, "We are sinners and we will go to Hell!" in a mocking tone. Then they walked off and one of them began to flash me. That's how the first 90 seconds of preaching went . After that it calmed down and people seemed to just listen. I felt like a had a complete message in and we should move on to another part of the parade. As we were walking off a girl and her mother came up to us very convicted and encouraged by the preaching. They were Christians. The girl began to confess how she was lacking in her efforts to preach the Gospel. It was good to see earnest conviction. We then walked around holding our signs. There was a radio station that had a float which was a big radio. On the loudspeaker the announcer made a comment about us. It was great. It brought much attention to us, which meant people looked to read the signs. Then I preached on a corner as the parade was ending. Cars were driving by "flipping us off" and yelling. One man while in his truck, waiting to go through the light, started to rev up his engine to drown us out. After he stopped I started preaching to him about me knowing he can hear me. Even with his windows rolled up he could. I know this because after I started addressing him he began to stare at me with a disgusted look. Saturday Night:I could tell the (morally) low pressure system of Marti Gras is moving in. Lust was running rampant. We talked to a philosopher for a long time. He kept getting mad because we were "personifying God." He was trying to make God some irrelevant object far off into space. I will be going out tonight to "Fat Tuesday." Please be in prayer for that. I will try to update everyone on how it went.
_________________Josh Parsley
I began to explain to him that there is no English words in the Greek.
_________________Mike Balog
Hi all. I was watching the news in Dunkin Donuts yesterday(I think) and saw them talking about Marti Gras and was wondering if someone would be there sharing the Gospel. PreachParsly, are you there in New Orleans or is this a seperate Marti Gras in Arkansas?Whatever the case, praise be to God for lifting up your voice like a trumpet. I recognize some of the reactions you were describing. I wish I could be there with you. I have been sharing the Gospel by myself for the most part for about 2 years and it has gotten to be pretty lonely at times. I have had brothers come with me from time to time but never anyone that would go day after day.May our God be with you for His name's sake. And may He protect and keep you in Jesus name.
_________________Christopher Joel Dandrow
The Marti Gras I am describing is in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I'll try to write up a report about how last night went later today or tonight.
Forgive me Preach, but that just struck me as hilarious ... As well as applicable to some certain translation controversies...
I went to Wal-Mart and bought a cloth nail pouch. It is perfect for a bottle of water, Bible, and tracts when OA preaching! To be honest it wasn't as wild as I was expecting. I'm not complaining! This was probably due to the fact there were so many police. When we first got there we started walking through the crowd with our signs, and several people began to 'Boo" us. I guess that was our welcoming committee. :-( I found a good place to preach and preached for probably around 20-30 mins. As soon as I started a mocker jumped up beside me and started yellling to drown me out, or if at anytime I would pause he would fill in the gaps with his comments. Then some guys behind me said, "Hey! Are you Josh Parsley?" I guess they remembered me from high school. I don't know who they were but they seemed shocked to see me out there. By the way, I was not a Christian in HS, maybe that is why it was shocking. A little later a few teen girls came up to me and began to question what I was doing and why. One of them left because she was talking on the phone, but the other I got to talk to and she seemed very convicted. We then walked around with our signs. I seen many people that I knew from before I was converted. We were standing there with our signs and it seemed a wave of hate seemed to hit a few people. A few guys came up to us and we barely said anything to them and one of them was furious and cussing us out. He then left and a woman, who I think was on crack or some other hard drug, came and said, "Why aren't you preaching?! You shouldn't ever stop! You need to say, "Jesus is the ***." She slapped our signs as she walked off. Then within a minute or two she was back and was mad at us because we were not preaching. I advised her that if she felt so passionate about it she should go stand on that flower bed and start preaching. Instead of doing that she just started yelling, "Jesus is the ****!" to everyone. Then she got mad because we would not join her, so she started to punch our signs. We then started walking off and then the police came over to her. I don't know what happened to her after that. A little while later, I jumped up on a brick pillar and began to preach, I would guess 30-45 mins. Not a whole lot of confrontation, just people trying to put beads on me. The police began to crowd around where I was. I think there were about 7 police standing around me. I was expecting them to ask me to leave, but it turns out they were there for my protection or they just wanted to listen because as soon as I stopped preaching they left. We then made our way down the street. We talked to a group of guys for, I would guess, well over an hour. One kept telling me how he knew he was saved because they way he felt a certain day. He then kept telling me that he sinned all the time because he was human. He would even admit that it was his free will choice, and he chose to sin, but felt that God would forgive him for trying. He really wanted to stop partying, but he always had beer in his dorm, when there was some left... He even said that he asked God everyday to change him and told me that since he was still in sin it was God's fault. He was drinking and somewhat intoxicated. He told me that he started to drink after he was "saved." His excuse was that he stopped doing other sins. If you are not saved from sin and rebellion to God, your not saved from anything! After we talked to them, we were ready to leave. There was a man very drunk sitting down and asked us to come near so he could read our sign. His friend wanted us to stay with the drunk man for awhile, so his ride could come. We told him we would stay for a minute but we had to be going. Then all of a sudden the one that asked us to stay got extremely mad and began trying to rip my sign out of my hands. He bent the sign up a little bit and probably would have attacked me, but one of the guys we had talked to earlier came and got in between us and calmed him down. The one who calmed him down told me later, " I don't agree with almost anything you are saying, but I won't let people talk to you like that or hurt you." So, we had a couple body guards while we walked to our car. They didn't follow us all the way but, most of the way up the street. I think our "body guards" were a little drunk, but it was interesting how they "came to the rescue." Overall it was a good night. We were there from 8:30pm-1am. There are several other things that happened, but there are the highlights.
To be honest it wasn't as wild as I was expecting.
Well.. I was expecting a lot more of what goes on with the beads and women. I'm very thankful I didn't see any of that.
I'm very thankful of the favor I had with the police and the man who stopped the other from attacking me. I just wrote an e-mail to the police thanking them. It's always so staggering to me when I look back at instances like that how I was so calm. It's all God!
Hi PreachParsly, glad you made it back alright.
I advised her that if she felt so passionate about it she should go stand on that flower bed and start preaching.
