Left to right: Josh Lohn, David Lohn, Luke Lohn, Nathaniel Lohn, Brad St. Clair and Rick Manweiler.

Jeff Dixon and Rick Manweiler

When I arrived at 8:00pm, Jeff Dixon was there with Rick Manweiler. Rick has been a born-again Christian for a week now, even though he went down to "receive Christ" when he was 16 years old. He said that he has always "believed" in Jesus, but never "repented", which is not only to be sorry for your sin, but to make a 180 degree turn from your sin and live your life for Christ.

It's like believing in a parachute to save you from the jump to come. You can "believe" that the parachute will save you all you want, but unless you actually "put on the parachute", you will perish when it comes time to jump through the door of death from this life into the next. I thank God for Rick. God has totally transformed his life since he repented and trusted in Him.

Jeff, Rick and I began walking around passing out gospel tracts, primarily the million dollar bill and Giant $100 gospel tracts.  I handed 5 teenagers: Chelsie, Brittany, Trevor (and two other guys that I can't remember their name) a giant $100 bill and asked them if they had a Christian background. Some did, some didn't. I asked them if they were a "good person". Answers varied on this point. I took them through the "Good Person Test".  

They all admitted that they were guilty of breaking God's law, and if they were judged, they would be found guilty on the Day of Judgment. That did concern them. I explained that Jesus said, "except a man be born-again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven". There are two things that one must do to be born-again. 1) Repent (be sorry for committing the sins and make a u-turn, and 2) Believe (trust) in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Then challenged them to think seriously about what we talked about before going to sleep tonight. They were convicted. They thanked us and we left.

Jeff has a passion to seek and save the lost! He walked up to a man and woman and gave them a tract. He was an agnostic and she was a wiccan. The wiccan woman was debating everything. They spent a long time in bantering back and forth about the validity of the Bible, different things that happened in the Bible, etc. Jeff took them through the Law, then grace. They did not seem convicted. However, Jeff did plant God's Word in their hearts and the Bible says in Isaiah 55:11, "so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

At this time, a group of Christians from a local church came out, pulling ice chests filled with bottles of water. Roughly 10 of them come out every other Friday night and pass out water and witness to people. I walked up and introduced myself to David, Chris and Mandy, and gave them a giant $100 bill tract. They then gave me one of their gospel tracts that they were handing out. I asked if they had heard of the "Way of the Master".  They did.

I went through a roll play of how we start up a conversation with people and what we say, using the law to convict their conscience. I gave them a "Not My Job" bookmark gospel tract and a "Hell's Best Kept Secret" CD and explained that I was the Local Leader for this area for the Great News Network, which is a ministry that partners with Way of the Master. I thanked them for coming out to witness, and that if they would like further information on the Way of the Master witnessing training or needed resource material to let me know.

David Lohn arrived, along with three of his sons: Luke, Josh and Nathaniel. I thank God for David. He is not only teaching evangelism training to his football seniors, he is teaching it to his teenagers! David and Nathaniel paired up and went witnessing and passing out tracts. Jeff and Rick paired off and Luke, Josh and I teamed up.

We had my video camera and had planned on doing a "survey approach", asking people to be on camera, answering questions about the afterlife, trivia questions, etc. However, no one wanted to stand around and talk very much because it was cold. We did pass out tracts to people.

Since it was pretty cold outside, we had to do the Christian thing and go get a cup of coffee at the local coffee shop. :-)

Luke ran into some teenagers that he knew that attended a local church. He gave them a tract and started witnessing to them, standing right there in the middle of the coffee shop. While we were there, another one of David's football players arrived. His name is Ben.

At the coffee shop, they have an area where people place literature about what is going on, on the counter for folks to take. I placed about 40 million dollar bill gospel tracts on the counter. We do this almost every time we go in there. They are all taken I guess, because we never find them sitting on the counter later.

On the way back to Park Central Square, all the guys were passing out tracts to people. Luke gave tracts to some Bible college students that were talking with another guy. On our way out, one of their guys, Tim, came up and yelled for us to come back. He wanted to pray for us for being faithful to come out and witness for Christ. We all stood around and he prayed for us. We thanked him and I gave him a "Not My Job" tract. I didn't have any more of the "Hell's Best Kept Secret" CD's, or I would have given him one.

Like I said before, there are many Christians that go out into the downtown Springfield, Missouri area to witness. It is important that when we go out to witness, we are presenting the gospel the right way. We need to be loving, caring, and not yelling at people telling them they are going to hell. However, if we take someone through the Ten Commandments (we sometimes call it, the "Good Person Test".  It will bring conviction to the person. It will show them that they have violated God's Law and have offended him, and they have to stand before Him on the Day of Judgment. This is a very Biblical and effective way to witness.

Please pray for the people mentioned in this post.

I thank God for everyone that came out tonight and was obedient to the Great Commission.