Satan's big party.

The long overdue update from Sunday the 15th of July (posted 24 July, 2007).

Satan throws a party at Acacia Park, Colorado Springs - Gay and Lesbian Pridefest 2007.

A pretty scary notion...a Christian man and woman, heading into a Gay Pride Festival for the sole purpose of having eternal conversations with a few people. As we parked, we had butterflies in our stomachs. I had to keep remembering why we were going down there....not to protest, not to condemn, not to "get in their space"...but to show with our presence and let them know with our mouths the truth of the Gospel.

By the way...before about 8 months ago...I was dead set against tracts. I thought they were cheap, stupid and a really cheesy way to represent the gospel to someone. Of course...I wasn't even out there witnessing at all...

If you currently have a distaste for tracts like I used to please check out this video clip - it might change your mind:

George Street - Mr Genor
How a dedicated little old man, set out to share the Gospel with 10 people a day from the day he was saved. He shared it with an estimated 140,000 plus people throughout his life...and all the amazing conversions that he never heard about until the last days of his life.

We walked in and started handing out "A Gift For You" tracts...it looks like one of those envelopes you got from your grandma when you are a kid...the ones you always looked forward to getting with a few bucks tucked inside. These tracts are disarming, because the recipient opens it up and right there is a real cold hard cash staring at them. They pull the money out and printed right behind the bill...it starts out with "Why give out money? First to apologize for all the times that people have asked for money in the name of Christianity...".

Well, we gave out 24 of those buggers with $5.00 in each one. Super simple...walk up to people as they're milling around and say "Did you get one of these?". They say "Thanks" and you walk on.

I had handed out my last "Gift For You" envelope and I was walking in the middle of the park when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and a guy says "Did you give this to me?" I said "Yes"...trying to read his face to see if he was angry or inquisitive. I fully expected to get flailed and flogged right then and there...well, he looked more puzzled then anything so I said "Do you want to talk about it a little bit?" He said "Yes, please, let's move away from the music."

So we walked off to the edge of the park and he was SO interested, he soaked it all up - we JUST got to best part...(grace and salvation), when his friends came over and dragged him off to go play a soccer game. Pray for AJ.

There were performances going on at the bandstand as I was mulling around handing out Millions...and then they put on the Rocky Horror Picture Show's "Time Warp". Wow...I saw that movie at least 25 times in college before I was saved (23 years ago). I had some weird recollections pop up as that music blared in the background. The horned dirt bag was trying to derail me!

The performance was done, my wife had caught up with me...and we were walking down a sidewalk toward a far corner of the park, when all of a sudden there we were standing right behind all the performers that had just done the "Time Warp". I kind of froze...as this little warfare started going on inside me.

I knew I had to speak, but it was the whole group right in front of me. I almost started shaking, then I turned and we walked off toward that far corner again. As God would have it...and he's done this SO MANY TIMES that I should know better by now...I turned the corner to walk back along the far edge of the park...and there they were again (literally 2 minutes later). Only this time they were a little more dispersed, on the edge of the park in a quiet grassy area.

I'm pretty thick, I'm pretty "dumb" sometimes - but I know when God tells me once to do something...and then miraculously says it again and presents me a second opportunity to accept a divine appointment that He has arranged, at that point, swallow hard and as Nike says "Just Do It".

My wife peels off to the right and drops down to talk to a girl who was sitting on the grass.

So...I walked up to this tall thin kid who was barely wearing a thing. As he pulled some more modest shorts over his tiny little "show stoppers". We started off just chatting about the festival. The conversation had just started toward some eternal stuff when another one of the performers comes running over to our conversation and says to him "Agh, there's this freaky 'Christian' lady talking to so and so."

I turned and winked at her and said "Hey...don't tell anyone else, but I'm one of those too." She laughed and actually hung with our conversation for a few minutes before wandering off. Well...as it turns out the young man I was talking to had one of the most unique "beliefs" of the afterlife that I've ever heard of or encountered.

This kid was SMART...but certainly deceived. His thing was "Quantum Physics". That was his answer to "What do you think happens when we breath our last breath?" I asked him to explain...he goes on to describe how Quantum Physics tells us that when we die we'll immediately be transferred into a parallel existence/universe and continue living another parallel life somewhere. I say "Wow...that's a new one to me."

I asked him to explain...he totally lost me, started throwing out sentences full of 20 letter gee whiz terms. I hung with him and listened. At one point he excitedly told me "You know science has proven that even on the molecular level, when molecules are observed they behave differently?" I asked him "OK...so how do scientists know how molecules behave when they're NOT being observed?" Logic. Wow, it really threw him a curve ball.

At that point I said.."Well, those are some very interesting theories - would you mind if I shared with you what I believe to be the truth?" He said "Oh sure". Bada-boom - he opened the door and allowed me to share the whole Gospel. It all boils down to truth...thanks Mark Cahill for that logic argument. And I left him with that to think about. "It doesn't matter what you believe, or what I believe, what matters is the truth - please take a cold, hard look and you will find that truth; the Bible is irrefutable on scientific, historical, archaeological and prophetic truth."

He offered his hand to me to shake it and told me "Thanks a lot man."

I then turned to find my wife...and she was talking to some kids on the sidewalk. She teaches at an alternative high school and there were a few kids from the school there. They had come down to the festival to check it out because they had nothing better to do because they're currently living in a teen homeless shelter in downtown Colorado Springs (Urban Peak).

I started up a conversation with a young boy (16 I think). I have tears in my eyes as I type this. His dad is in prison, his mom is in a halfway house. Both of his parents are druggies and he has to live at the shelter because...as he said "My mom can't get it together, so I'm kinda on my own." He's never been to church, never heard the message of salvation, the Gospel...NOTHING.

I have never seen a more humble and receptive heart. He hung on EVERY word. His eyes got red and welled up with tears as I spoke to him about what Jesus did to atone for everything he's ever done and will ever do wrong. I was rocked, I lost my place because I got so wrapped up in his emotional response. I have to tell you...it felt like I could see the Holy Spirit breathing into this young man's soul. In retrospect, I want to think he was ready, right there on the spot for salvation and maybe I should have asked him that. I do trust though that if the Holy Spirit has a hold of him...then the Holy Spirit will certainly "close the deal".

For SURE...the more you do get out there...the less you focus on your own petty problems, the more you start praying for those divine appointments. And once you do have those conversations, your own problems shrink that much smaller as you start praying and interceding on behalf of those people you have invested a few minutes of your life with.

If you truly have the love of Christ in your heart, share it.

If you truly believe that the treasure of heaven exists, share it, invite them.

If you truly believe in the eternal pain and suffering of hell, warn them.

If you love God, if you love Jesus and want to obey their commands, Just Do It.

For personal witnessing is not a gift, it is not an individual calling - it is something that you do because it is who you are in Christ.

Tagging on yet some more "fallout" from the festival...

The day AFTER the festival, I'm in the break room at work. I was getting coffee and chit chatting with a guy (Josh) that I've witnessed to before. There were two people sitting at one of the tables. Josh turns to them and says "So...did you guys do that performance yesterday? I missed it, we left early."

I turned and said "What performance?"

One of them says "The Rocky Horror Picture Show 'Time Warp'" downtown yesterday. I said "What? I was there, YOU guys were in the performance? Cool?"

The boy says "Yeah...I saw you there."

I then said "What? Why didn't you say something?"

He says "I was tired...and I was in drag, you wouldn't have recognized me."

Turns out that HE was the "girl" my wife peeled off to talk to (in drag)...and the girl that came up and said something about "a weird Christian lady" as the same girl there in the break room.

More divine appointments...praying I can turn the collateral of just being down there and talking to folks at the festival into an open door that God would allow me to drive the Mack Truck of the Gospel through. Maybe invite them to lunch on my dime or something...