The West End
Dec. 15-16, 2005

Thursday: My car was in the shop all week this week, so I was itching to go out open-air preaching. As soon as it was fixed, I drove right to the west end of Dallas to preach.

I set up in the center of the transfer center, with lots of people walking by. Some of those who were sitting, waiting for their bus, listened. One girl came up to me who had been listening to tell me that she really appreciated what I was doing. She said she was a Christian and was encouraged by the open-air preaching.

Just then another man, a thug, came up to also talk with me. We talked about sin, righteousness, judgment to come. And though he seemed interested, he was still a careless sinner. If a beautiful girl walked by, he would start trying to talk to her and would start lusting after her, even though we were in the middle of a conversation about God! I felt it necessary to rebuke him for his careless behavior. And once I did that, it wasn’t long until he decided to leave.

I continued to preach until the cops eventually showed up. One officer said, “You’re going to need to stop now. We have gotten a few complaints.” I said, “What were the complaints for?” He said, “That you were out here yelling and preaching.” I said, “Were they justified complaints?” He said, “It doesn’t matter, they were complaints so now you have to leave.” Another officer came and he said the problem was trespassing because Dart is a private company that owns the transfer center. I explained that I have no problem with leaving at all if the issue is trespassing. I understand private property. (But I don’t think Dart ever complained or has any policies against it.)

Before I left a business man came up to talk with me, and tell me that he too was encouraged by the open-air. I spoke with him a bit and then went home.

Friday: Right next to the transfer center and the train pick up is a parking lot. I paid to park my van in that parking lot, and was able to preach from it. There was the perfect location, across from a big brick building. I was directly facing the building and the people waiting for the train, while standing on the private parking lot. I figured the cops can’t bother me here, and they didn’t.

Crowds of up to 100 would gather at a time for the train. Every 20 minutes or so the train would come and pick up my congregation; but I was still able to get a 20 minute sermon in each time.

There were some hecklers and mockers. One man threatened to come and beat me up if I didn’t stop, but he never moved at all as I continued to preach. Overall the open-air was peaceful, with the people sitting the whole time waiting for the train. Total I estimate that 300+ were able to hear the true gospel of repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ. Once the sun started to go down I decided to go home.