Campaigning For Christ at the DNC
The CHAIM team spent Wednesday and Thursday in "Center City" Philadelphia doing street evangelism, wearing "Messiah Has Set Us Free" shirts and "God is Love" shirts, talking to people, and passing out gospel brochures. We had some great conversations and one Jewish man made a profession of faith in Christ. Added to the three people who made professions of faith during Independence Week early in July, that makes four professions of new faith total for July, and about 12 others heard the gospel from us in street dialogs. "Jews for Jesus" also had some people there, as well as "Chosen People Ministries", the two larger Jewish missions groups. CHAIM was the only Reformed and Covenantal outreach to the Jews present, however.
One thing you have to say for Philadelphia: they had a powerful police presence: SWAT teams, DHS (Dept. of Homeland Security) personnel, Secret Service, regular police: they were all there. A week before the event, I was invited by a Christian attorney to attend a Philadelphia Bar Association meeting to hear what protest groups could expect from city law-enforcement: the City provided a lawsuit fund to take care of frivolous (and NON-frivolous?) suits against the cops so that they could do their job without worry about provocateurs who might try to get cops to over-react.
That was smart, because there were protesters at the DNC. Despite the fact that Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary for the sake of keeping Trump from getting elected, there was a break-away wing of Bernie supporters who were devastated that he threw his support to Hillary. Some had a "sit-in" outside the media tent near the Philadelphia Convention Center, and there was another "Party-Crasher" group that made their presence known, but as far as I could see, everything was peaceful enough, at least where we were.
CHAIM had six street missionaries present, including two from a PCA church in Augusta, GA. Other volunteers wanted to attend but had work schedule conflicts. We set up at 10th and Market Sts., amidst hawkers of buttons, pennants, "Dump Trump" shirts, legal and illegal street merchants, vocal protesters, street musicians pan-handling for donations, etc. as the DNC delegates and attendees walked by, under the nervous eyes of law-enforcement.
We had a couple people ask us if we had anything to do with Westboro Baptist Church (we did not). Westboro Baptist does "in your face" denunciations of homosexuals, and I'm not sure if they were present or not.
We used two specially-made gospel tri-fold brochures to get peoples' attention. Rev. Fred Klett designed them. (He designs his own.) One was a bright yellow "Who Is the Most Radical Radical?" It defines "Radical" as "One who seeks to get to the ultimate root of a problem in order to offer the deepest solution" (Answer? Yep. You guessed it: Jesus) The other was a blue "Hillary-Trump-Bernie" brochure, with caricatures of each, and then mentions Jesus as the ultimate candidate. Using quotes from Isaiah 2: "Of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end ..." and "He will judge among the nations, settling disputes for many peoples ..."
Few passers-by took brochures, however. They seemed to see that we were "religious", and steered clear. However, there were some great conversations with those that did take our brochures. Here are some highlights
During the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia July 27th and 28th, I had 15 quality gospel conversations with an amazing variety of people, including a Bernie Sanders delegate (Jewish woman) who said Bernie had transformed her life and that perhaps he was the Messiah. (She likely meant that figuratively, but who knows?), a former yeshiva student of 8 years (Jewish), a Philadelphia steeplejack, a young bike-delivery man for a cookie company wearing Rastafarian dreadlocks who knew another Christian bike-delivery young man for a competing cookie company who I happened to know, a Swarthmore U. professor of comparative religion who talked to me about the the logical grounds for biblicial faith a DNC delegate who returned to talk to me about an surprising providential event she just experienced when talking to me previously, a Muslim lady who gave me her contact information for further talks, a Catholic-born agnostic who feared the "Void" of the afterlife and gave me his contact information for further talks, an attorney who correctly read all four languages on my "God is Love" shirt I was wearing, identified himself as Jewish, listened to me explain the gospel and listened to me clarify for him that the concept of vicarious atonement and substitutionary sacrifice originated in the Hebrew Scriptures. I quoted him a large portion of Isaiah 53 (he was familiar with Isaiah), and the conversation ended after 10 minutes when he promised that he'd read Isaiah 53 when he went home. We had a Jewish man come to faith in Christ right there on the street as well.
All in all, it was a great two days!
PS: Two things we need your help in praying for:
1) I spent 10 minutes speaking to this Jewish attorney named "T". I was an in-depth conversation about the the promised Messiah's atonement and sin-bearing prophesied in Isaiah 53. He told me he'd go home and read it. We sent out an e-mail "blast" to pray for this man (without giving his name). Pray for him, and we'll let you know what happens.
2) Rev. Klett's health: (In the 6-people group photo, he's on the right, I'm on the left.) Fred's faced with a kind of "catch-22" situation regarding what to do about it. Ask God to give him the spirit of assurance as to what path to take. Even the doctors he's spoken to about it don't have that wisdom right now.
The CHAIM team spent Wednesday and Thursday in "Center City" Philadelphia doing street evangelism, wearing "Messiah Has Set Us Free" shirts and "God is Love" shirts, talking to people, and passing out gospel brochures. We had some great conversations and one Jewish man made a profession of faith in Christ. Added to the three people who made professions of faith during Independence Week early in July, that makes four professions of new faith total for July, and about 12 others heard the gospel from us in street dialogs. "Jews for Jesus" also had some people there, as well as "Chosen People Ministries", the two larger Jewish missions groups. CHAIM was the only Reformed and Covenantal outreach to the Jews present, however.
One thing you have to say for Philadelphia: they had a powerful police presence: SWAT teams, DHS (Dept. of Homeland Security) personnel, Secret Service, regular police: they were all there. A week before the event, I was invited by a Christian attorney to attend a Philadelphia Bar Association meeting to hear what protest groups could expect from city law-enforcement: the City provided a lawsuit fund to take care of frivolous (and NON-frivolous?) suits against the cops so that they could do their job without worry about provocateurs who might try to get cops to over-react.
That was smart, because there were protesters at the DNC. Despite the fact that Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary for the sake of keeping Trump from getting elected, there was a break-away wing of Bernie supporters who were devastated that he threw his support to Hillary. Some had a "sit-in" outside the media tent near the Philadelphia Convention Center, and there was another "Party-Crasher" group that made their presence known, but as far as I could see, everything was peaceful enough, at least where we were.
CHAIM had six street missionaries present, including two from a PCA church in Augusta, GA. Other volunteers wanted to attend but had work schedule conflicts. We set up at 10th and Market Sts., amidst hawkers of buttons, pennants, "Dump Trump" shirts, legal and illegal street merchants, vocal protesters, street musicians pan-handling for donations, etc. as the DNC delegates and attendees walked by, under the nervous eyes of law-enforcement.
We had a couple people ask us if we had anything to do with Westboro Baptist Church (we did not). Westboro Baptist does "in your face" denunciations of homosexuals, and I'm not sure if they were present or not.
We used two specially-made gospel tri-fold brochures to get peoples' attention. Rev. Fred Klett designed them. (He designs his own.) One was a bright yellow "Who Is the Most Radical Radical?" It defines "Radical" as "One who seeks to get to the ultimate root of a problem in order to offer the deepest solution" (Answer? Yep. You guessed it: Jesus) The other was a blue "Hillary-Trump-Bernie" brochure, with caricatures of each, and then mentions Jesus as the ultimate candidate. Using quotes from Isaiah 2: "Of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end ..." and "He will judge among the nations, settling disputes for many peoples ..."
Few passers-by took brochures, however. They seemed to see that we were "religious", and steered clear. However, there were some great conversations with those that did take our brochures. Here are some highlights
During the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia July 27th and 28th, I had 15 quality gospel conversations with an amazing variety of people, including a Bernie Sanders delegate (Jewish woman) who said Bernie had transformed her life and that perhaps he was the Messiah. (She likely meant that figuratively, but who knows?), a former yeshiva student of 8 years (Jewish), a Philadelphia steeplejack, a young bike-delivery man for a cookie company wearing Rastafarian dreadlocks who knew another Christian bike-delivery young man for a competing cookie company who I happened to know, a Swarthmore U. professor of comparative religion who talked to me about the the logical grounds for biblicial faith a DNC delegate who returned to talk to me about an surprising providential event she just experienced when talking to me previously, a Muslim lady who gave me her contact information for further talks, a Catholic-born agnostic who feared the "Void" of the afterlife and gave me his contact information for further talks, an attorney who correctly read all four languages on my "God is Love" shirt I was wearing, identified himself as Jewish, listened to me explain the gospel and listened to me clarify for him that the concept of vicarious atonement and substitutionary sacrifice originated in the Hebrew Scriptures. I quoted him a large portion of Isaiah 53 (he was familiar with Isaiah), and the conversation ended after 10 minutes when he promised that he'd read Isaiah 53 when he went home. We had a Jewish man come to faith in Christ right there on the street as well.
All in all, it was a great two days!
PS: Two things we need your help in praying for:
1) I spent 10 minutes speaking to this Jewish attorney named "T". I was an in-depth conversation about the the promised Messiah's atonement and sin-bearing prophesied in Isaiah 53. He told me he'd go home and read it. We sent out an e-mail "blast" to pray for this man (without giving his name). Pray for him, and we'll let you know what happens.
2) Rev. Klett's health: (In the 6-people group photo, he's on the right, I'm on the left.) Fred's faced with a kind of "catch-22" situation regarding what to do about it. Ask God to give him the spirit of assurance as to what path to take. Even the doctors he's spoken to about it don't have that wisdom right now.
