Human Rights Festival 2018-Athens, GA

There is a human rights festival every year in Athens. This years was typical, I suppose.

On Saturday it was, for all intents and purposes an LCBTQ fest, complete with drag queens and an MC that asked the crowd how many straight people, homosexuals, lesbians, tri-sexuals and freaks were in the audience, to cheers from the crowd. As the Professor (Rich) said, it was “a case study in Romans 1” on display right in front of us. Due to the noise level we did not preach but had signs speaking to the rights of the unborn. The signs generated some good conversations. I had one such conversation with a gentleman that seemed to be prompted, by my sign, to consider the rights of the unborn. It seems, in the good ole USofA, we have so “normalized” abortion and “de-humanized” the unborn that people have to be reminded the “fetus” is an actual human being before they can even rightly think about what abortion is, the murder of a child. Hopefully our presence, at least, created some thought in the minds of a society that has numbed itself to the plight of the unborn babies.

I had another long conversation with a man, his name escapes me, that was very reasonable but could not commit to unborn babies having the right to life, especially when it came to cases of rape. I agreed with him that it would be a tough situation but the question remains, should a child be executed for the crimes of his father?

On Sunday I was back at the festival with Rich, Chike and Mike. Bobby also stopped by for a few minutes after his return from Kentucky. Sunday was not like Saturday at all. There were bands and climate change speakers and also an open mic time where they gave people 3 minutes to talk about whatever they wanted. Rich actually had 3 minutes to share a bit about his journey from Atheist UGA professor to Christian Apologist. There was also a lady who spoke about how we have known that extraterrestrials have been visiting us since 1900 and that we have the technology to time travel. Like I said, 3 minutes to speak about anything you wanted.

There was a speaker who gave a lot of statistics, one of which was the number of people that would die due to climate change. Although I am no expert, I have to wonder how that can even be scientifically predicted, with any reasonable amount of accuracy. There was also a sign on the stage during the entire festival that read, “STOP ALL WARS”. Now that may seem like a good idea, but I think it implies and assumes a lot. First, it implies that there is no such thing as a just war. If they could speak, I believe there are 6 million or so jews that would beg to differ. The assumption is that ALL wars are evil and could, and should, be avoided. There is another implication that , as a veteran, I take offense to. Now, I’m not a snowflake and didn’t have to go find a safe place to cry through it, but I was offended by this sign because it also implies that all soldiers are warmongering murderers. I believe it is well known that nobody hates war more that a combat veteran. They have a first hand experience to speak from. When they say “we should never go to war”, I take that to heart, because they are speaking from an experiential position and not from an agenda driven one. I will say, the festival organizers certainly have a right to have the sign and think and say what they want.

Chike and I got to preach on the corner of College and Clayton during the festival on Sunday. I had a couple of ladies stop buy as I was preaching. One told me I should wear white instead of black because it shines the light better. Not sure what that really means. The other asked me if I thought the festival was all evil. I assured her that wasn’t the case, but did tell her that the Saturday night event was certainly a perversion of God’s design. She asked why and I explained that the entire night was a parade of homosexual perversion on the stage. She seemed puzzled, which puzzled me, since she had just told me a few minutes earlier that she was a minister. That’s a pretty broad term these days, so I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised.

The overall take away for me was that the event, at least for the hours I was there, totally ignored the unborn children we slaughter at the rate of over 3800 per day. They do not seem to have any rights, and yet, society demands special rights for the LGBTQ community.

Rich was correct. The festival, at least on Saturday night, was nothing more than Romans 1 on display.  

Footnote: I was informed by a person on the festival’s facebook page that there were in fact pro-life folks there and I believe they even had some time to speak from the stage. This had to have happened when we were not present, but I will take them at their word. I have no reason not to.

Until All Hear!

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The Gospel, Scoffers and Objectors Corner of College and Clayton Athens, GA April 27, 2018

Friday night Mike and I went down to College and Clayton, in Athens, to share the Gospel. As I was preaching, we saw 2 Peter 3:3 played out before us as some young folks came by scoffing. I thanked them for confirming what the Bible says but also encouraged them to repent and trust Jesus, assuring them that even scoffers could be born again.

As Mike was preaching, a young couple stopped by and informed us that God’s love came before His hate. Mike did a great job of ignoring the kid and continued preaching, so I asked him what he meant by his statement. The young man walked over and repeated his statement and, claiming to be a Christian (he might have been, God knows), told me that in doing Mark 16:15 we were wrong. Of course, he didn’t quote the verse, or any verse, he just objected to God’s word being preached. Then, he informed us that darkness couldn’t exist without light. I let him know that darkness was simply the absence of light. He declared he didn’t care about us, so I questioned how he could be a Christian and not care about us. He had no reply. His point was that God loves and accepts everyone. At least that’s what I think he was saying. If his perspective were true, which it isn’t, then I could see why he thought his objection was valid. The truth is, God will judge those who are not born again, for their sin, so we warn of the wrath to come and plead with sinners to repent and trust Christ.

As we were getting ready to leave, a young guy came up and began a conversation with us. He had been raised in church but said because he knew a lot about the Bible he had doubts about it because of the contradictions in it. We asked him what his biggest problem was. He said he struggled with John 3:16 and the fact that the person over in the jungle somewhere who never heard about Jesus would die and go to hell. We read Romans 1:18-20 with him, showing him that there was no contradiction and that God was just in judging all people and that nobody had an excuse. Earlier he had told us he was agnostic now so Mike tried to turn the conversation back to his need for a Savior. The kid made a comment that began with, “As a Christian am I…”. Mike told him that an agnostic wasn’t a Christian and the kid, who had been very nice and respectful, suddenly said, “I thought you guys were real Christians”, flipped us off, cussed us out and stormed off. Mike and I looked at each other amazed at how quickly the kid’s attitude went south.  I’m not one to see the devil behind every bush and every angry objector as demon processed, but it was almost like someone else had taken over his body at the moment he began to blast us.

I also got to have lunch today with one of my biggest encouragers. Always a blessing to see Scooter. Thanks for lunch! I appreciate you very much Brother! He’s probably the only person, besides my mom (Hi Mom!), that reads these blog posts. 🙂

Until All Hear!

Alex

2 Corinthians 5:21

Friday April 13, 2018 -Athens, GA

College Football Championship Weekend

 

The college football championship game has become somewhat of a 3 day event. Similar to the NFL experience on Super Bowl weekend, there are activities, concerts and the like on Saturday and Sunday before the the game on Monday. So, I made the decision to come out of my sinus infection slumber and go down to meet up with some other guys, to preach the Gospel to the fans, as they roamed the area where the festivities were taking place.

I arrived around 1:30 Saturday afternoon and as I was nearing the CNN center I could hear a familiar voice. It took a second to register but what I heard was my good friend Chike preaching. We spent Saturday rotating preaching and passing out Gospel tracts. At one point we split the group and ministered in two separate locations. The foot traffic was good at times and really slow at other times. This can partially be attributed to the weather. It was pretty cold, for us southerners, with a high of only 38° for both days. Many received the Gospel through tracts and hundreds heard the Gospel through open air preaching.

I had another first on Saturday. Something I never thought would happen. As I was preaching I kept hearing someone behind me yelling. I was facing a building,with my back to the road, and being in a large city I just assumed there was something going on across the street. All of a sudden the person started yelling, “Hey!, Hey!, Hey!” over and over again so I turned around to see what was happening.

What to my amazement did I see?

A Lyft driver, pulled over, yelling at me!

I inquired about what she wanted and she informed me that I was something “not very nice” and that God was also something “not very nice”. I offered her a Gospel tract and encouraged her to turn to Christ through repentance and faith. She informed me she would repent, in a very sarcastic way, and informed me she was going to Heaven and I was going to Hell. I asked her what she bases that on and her response was, “Because you’re stupid”. As I was trying to tell her how illogical  that was, her passenger arrived. I encouraged him to NOT ride with her and told him I would be afraid to get into a car with her. She finally found the tract I had tossed into her window, after she refused it, and tossed it back at me, said a few more nasty things and drove off.

On Sunday, as we were preaching, several hundred Iranian Americans showed up, basically overran our position and had a protest against the Iranian government, which lasted about 2-3 hours. Now I’m all in favor of the freedom and liberty to do that, but the fact that their leadership arrived early and saw what we were doing, and yet didn’t even bother to let us know what they were doing, just as a courtesy, was kind of irritating. They just showed up and overran us. Maybe I am a bit touchy. 🙂

I was unable to attend Monday but a lot of guys went down to preach the Gospel before the game on Monday, so many, many people heard and/or received the Gospel in tract form.

Until All Hear!

Alex

Football Season 2017

I have been terrible at doing blog updates so I want to summarise last fall.

We were able to get to all of the UGA home games this season and I also rode up to Knoxville with some of the guys to meet Bill Adams for the UGA vs Tenn game. We also had the opportunity to preach at the SEC Championship game in Atlanta.

As usual, we passed out Gospel tracts and preached the Gospel on the bridge at Sanford Stadium. We had some good conversations along the way as well. There were many believers who came by and gave us encouraging words, while other professing believers tried to discourage us. I will touch on a few interactions below.

At one game, a man stopped and questioned the sign my friend Rich had on his whiteboard. It said, “What if the South worhipped Jesus as much as football?” His question/objection was all about how it would be perceived. We had a good discussion and I found out he had been out of church for a while and didn’t actually share his faith.  I’m always tempted, and sometimes I do responde with, “I like the way I do evangelism better than the way you don’t”, but I refrained from doing so this day. Almost all of the time the “Christians” that rebuke us for our efforts are of the smooshy sort that don’t believe you can actually say anything to anyone about sin, judgment hell, etc., because doing so is pushing them away from God. Nevermind the fact that the Bible is clear that they are already condemned, so how much worse can they get?

Along the same lines, a young professing believer came up and asked me if she could pray for me, so I agreed. She began her prayer by asking God to open our eyes and help us preach with love and listen to other people’s stories, etc. etc. I thanked her and told her we certainly did preach with love. Is it really loving to know someone is headed for eternal torment and say nothing?  

Another man came to me as I was preaching and asked me if I preached the full Gospel. I assured him I did and so he began to drill me with questions. What he really wanted to know is if I preached baptismal regeneration, which I informed him I did not because it was part of the Gospel. I know there are those who disagree, but this isn’t the place to go off on that rabbit trail.

The point is, instead of encouraging the preaching of the Gospel, he made a spectacle of himself by shouting rebukes at me and calling me a liar for not adhering to his pet doctrine. Always wonder why folks want to come and critique the preacher but don’t seem to be interested in actually sharing the Gospel.

There are also good positive conversations that take place. For instance, Chike and I (mostly Chike) had a great conversation with two young ladies who were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Chike did a wonderful job of explaining Scriptures in an attempt to help them see the truth. They were kind and polite and listened as we shared with them.

The last encounter I will share is one that was kind of a combination. It began with a young man coming by and trying to yell down the preacher. I can’t remember who was preaching at the time but I decided to engage the young man. He threw all of the standard objections at me, about God, creation etc., and I attempted to answer each one the best way I could. At the end of the conversation he said he enjoyed the conversation and said I had an answer for all of his questions. I pray he has repented and trusted the Savior.

Overall, it was a great season. Hundreds of tracts were given away and thousands heard the Gospel. Now, it is between them and God.

.

 Until All Hear!

Alex

My New Friend Tony

MS State vs UGA September 23, 2017

Kick off was around 7:00pm so we arrived about 4:00 to set up on the bridge.

Bobby, Hannah, Lydia, Rich, Mike, Chike and myself, began preaching and handing out Gospel tracts. We didn’t seem to have as many conversations as we did last week but every week is different.

There was a young British man that came up at the end and asked me how many religions there were in the world. I told him I had no idea. He informed me that he studied religions at university and asked me what made Christianity different than the rest. I began explaining to him that Jesus was the difference because He was the only one who was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, was crucified, buried and rose from the dead, defeating death and proving He was God and that He was seen after the resurrection by hundreds of people. He wasn’t buying it and attempted to discredit the Bible and Jesus. I tried to tell him his problem was really with sin and that Jesus had the only answer but he and his friend decided the conversation was over and they went on their way.  

Earlier in the day I was across the bridge as Rich was preaching and I heard a young man tell his friend they should stop and hear what the guy (Rich) had to say. They stayed for a long time and listened.  Rich would have never known if I had not overheard them. We also heard of another person hearing the preaching and commenting to others about how needed the message was. Be encouraged preachers, people are listening!

We had a wonderful day of evangelism! We have 2 away games in a row so there will be no pregame evangelism at Sanford Stadium for a few weeks. However, some of the guys are heading to Knoxville as UGA travels there to take on the Tennessee Volunteers. Please be in prayer for this trip.

Below is a testimony from Chike Uzuegbunan who began coming out to the games with us this season and has been a huge blessing.

“It was truly a wonderful privilege to thunder the almighty gospel of Jesus Christ at the last two UGA games. Overall, the crowds were vast and intently aware of the open-air preaching going on. Many gospel conversations were had along with hundreds of gospel tracts dispensed to the masses.  Praise God for giving us His grace and leading us through the triumphal procession of Christ! May the glorious enthroned Lamb be lifted on high both now and to the day of eternity! Amen.”

 

Until All Hear!