from the outside, today seemed to be just the same as every other day preaching this semester, but for me, i perceived something noticeably different. we are at the university of nebraska this week, omaha monday and today, lincoln campus tuesday and thursday. so today at the lincoln campus, we had the usual hecklers with the usual arguments with the usual “i eat christians for breakfast” attitudes. nothing too exciting.
throughout the course of the day, though, i had some interesting conversations. one with a self-proclaimed “militant atheist” who indignantly stated that he hated me due to my faith, how lovely. another who kept interjecting with “you believe” after every claim that i made, how obnoxious. but two conversations that struck me in a positively were with two christian girls, the first was mallory. earlier, she approached tom in the middle of a fantastic discussion he was having with a group of inquisitive, she had an honest question about his methods, but unfortunately it came across with that “do you really think Jesus would be doing this” demeanor. sensing confusion on her part, i went over to clarify things and chat with her. a few minutes into our conversation she began to weep as she explained that she was so burdened for the lost and so thankful that tom’s preaching was done in an effective manner. we exchanged contact information and prayed together before she left with a huge smile on her face. about half and hour later, another young girl, amber, walked up to me asking if i knew tom, and began to repeat the exact same thing mallory had said earlier. as she went on about how thankful she was for tom’s preaching, her eyes became soft as tears of joy came down her cheeks.
in both of these interactions, it struck me how deeply these two yearned for Him to be proclaimed on their campus, apparently something that isn’t done too often here in nebraska. to see their level of appreciation, to the point of tears, i have a deepened sense of honor and privilege knowing how valuable our message is. to think that the Lord of Israel has left us with such a weighty and holy responsibility is quite humbling, yet how emboldening to grasp the power of our Assistance in the Holy Spirit. the Lord is moving on these campuses, in a mighty way. on monday, rory whitney, rick’s brother, was continually pointing out people in the omaha crowd who were saved within the last year through tom’s preaching. person after person heard what tom had to say on campus which triggered a series of events leading to the beginning of their regeneration. i honestly couldn’t believe what he was telling me, i had no idea that the Lord had been working that much. and people say open-air preaching is out of date.
Wednesday, September 24
Thursday, September 4
University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND: Day 1
Well, today was really our second day there, but that is because we found no action at University of Minnesota Crookston (school of 1600!), so we headed back to UND without a permit. So our fall tour officially began...
It only took five to six minutes of preaching for the GLBTQ group to show up with three rainbow flags, making a silent protest right in between Tom and the building crowd. This only served to play into our hand more as a hot-headed liberal student began to scream at Tom about how he's spewing hatred, discrimination and judgment against the "gay agenda." Keep in mind, during those five to six minutes of preaching, Tom never, NOT ONCE, brought up the issue or made it a point to even mention homosexuality. They came out looking for a fight, in which Tom engaged appropriately and respectfully as always, never flippantly throwing out outlandish statements about their lifestyle. As the debate developed, it always amuses me how people stand in Tom's face, scream til their veins surge about how he's always yelling at people, never letting them finish their statements and being so judgmental. They continually fail to see how well they exhibit those accusations in their own actions. Well, maybe "amuse" isn't the right word, it breaks my heart. People are so incredibly held captive of their sin, they can't see around it, over it, under it or through it, they are completely blind. One kid was jumping around like a four-year-old, screaming some completely unintellectual banter about Lord knows what. My heart reacted in ways that I had forgotten. I'm not as compassionate as I once thought.
In the first half of the afternoon, I found myself becoming very angry and frustrated at the lost out there arguing. That's not good. It kept getting worse and worse as I saw their blindness, their degraded and defiled consciences, their sly remarks and "witty" comments, or so they thought as they look to their friends for approval and laughter. At one point I had to walk away to pray and think, so I went to where any man would, the restroom. I sat in there a bit, attempting to analyze my frustration, discern if the anger is towards them or their sin and have a good ol time on the porcelain throne. I found that my anger and emotions had abated as I walked back to the debate, which brought some degree of elation. I'm still processing that anger.
I was able to share the Gospel with a religion t.a., Adam, who was incredibly prideful and arrogant, I've never heard such blasphemous statements before. For someone to respond to the "what would you say to get into heaven?" question with "I would ask God for my forgiveness, for dictating us and demanding perfection the way He does, He neeeds my forgiveness" takes an incredible amount of selfishness and arrogance. When we had to wrap up our conversation, I was going to ask him if that's his decision and if he wanted to pray with me and tell God that himself, but Adam jetted too fast. It's one thing for people to say, "yeah, I know the truth, but I'm going to completely ignore Him and continue to blow Him off" to me, but it's a whole other issue to say that to God directly. I'm going to use that a lot more, Tom told us that some people aren't bold enough to do it and actually come to repentance!
There's so much to write, so much I'm already discovering in our first trip about my own heart and my own desires, but I'll save that for my Moleskine. I love you all and miss you, but I got to tell you, it's pretty dang exciting being out here as well! I'll be occasionally throwing up pics on twitpic and facebook, the mid-west is a completely different world!
It only took five to six minutes of preaching for the GLBTQ group to show up with three rainbow flags, making a silent protest right in between Tom and the building crowd. This only served to play into our hand more as a hot-headed liberal student began to scream at Tom about how he's spewing hatred, discrimination and judgment against the "gay agenda." Keep in mind, during those five to six minutes of preaching, Tom never, NOT ONCE, brought up the issue or made it a point to even mention homosexuality. They came out looking for a fight, in which Tom engaged appropriately and respectfully as always, never flippantly throwing out outlandish statements about their lifestyle. As the debate developed, it always amuses me how people stand in Tom's face, scream til their veins surge about how he's always yelling at people, never letting them finish their statements and being so judgmental. They continually fail to see how well they exhibit those accusations in their own actions. Well, maybe "amuse" isn't the right word, it breaks my heart. People are so incredibly held captive of their sin, they can't see around it, over it, under it or through it, they are completely blind. One kid was jumping around like a four-year-old, screaming some completely unintellectual banter about Lord knows what. My heart reacted in ways that I had forgotten. I'm not as compassionate as I once thought.
In the first half of the afternoon, I found myself becoming very angry and frustrated at the lost out there arguing. That's not good. It kept getting worse and worse as I saw their blindness, their degraded and defiled consciences, their sly remarks and "witty" comments, or so they thought as they look to their friends for approval and laughter. At one point I had to walk away to pray and think, so I went to where any man would, the restroom. I sat in there a bit, attempting to analyze my frustration, discern if the anger is towards them or their sin and have a good ol time on the porcelain throne. I found that my anger and emotions had abated as I walked back to the debate, which brought some degree of elation. I'm still processing that anger.
I was able to share the Gospel with a religion t.a., Adam, who was incredibly prideful and arrogant, I've never heard such blasphemous statements before. For someone to respond to the "what would you say to get into heaven?" question with "I would ask God for my forgiveness, for dictating us and demanding perfection the way He does, He neeeds my forgiveness" takes an incredible amount of selfishness and arrogance. When we had to wrap up our conversation, I was going to ask him if that's his decision and if he wanted to pray with me and tell God that himself, but Adam jetted too fast. It's one thing for people to say, "yeah, I know the truth, but I'm going to completely ignore Him and continue to blow Him off" to me, but it's a whole other issue to say that to God directly. I'm going to use that a lot more, Tom told us that some people aren't bold enough to do it and actually come to repentance!
There's so much to write, so much I'm already discovering in our first trip about my own heart and my own desires, but I'll save that for my Moleskine. I love you all and miss you, but I got to tell you, it's pretty dang exciting being out here as well! I'll be occasionally throwing up pics on twitpic and facebook, the mid-west is a completely different world!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
