Hey my friend! Happy Thursday!
It’s been another exciting week. Among other things, one big highlight was our Faith and Family Month meeting this past Tuesday, which was attended by Mayor West of Palmetto and Mayor Brown of Bradenton.
Mayor Brown hasn’t made it fully official yet, but it looks like he will be joining the movement and making the proclamation this June that Bradenton belongs to Jesus. Here’s him and Mayor West speaking to the 20 or so leaders that came out for the meeting.
Here’s Mayor Brown and I after the meeting:
What a time (and what a place) to be alive!
Please keep us in prayer as we continue to plan and organize the various Faith and Family Month community events for this June, and as we work towards the (far) more difficult task- uniting and mobilizing the church to get behind it.
Speaking of community events, I’ve been invited to speak at a Gospel Crusade event happening this Saturday called Faith and Freedom Fest. Various ministries are uniting for this, and they are expecting upwards of 1000+ people there. Should be fun. Come check it out if you can. My slot is around 2.
As for this past weekend, it was a great time. We had pretty cold weather on Friday, so the traffic was a little light, but we still managed to give out a lot of tracts and several people received prayer. The big “highlight” of the night for me was having an extended conversation with a man from First United Methodist Church. He told me that he was going to be leading up an outreach to the youth, so I started telling him about our experiences going to Spring Break, etc.
The conversation got really weird though when I mentioned that I had interviewed for the youth pastor job at First United Methodist back in 2019 (at the recommendation of a client who was the “lay leader” at the time) and how I was very disappointed when I found out that instead of hiring me, they hired a gay man and later put a pride flag outside the building.
As soon as I said that he went into this convoluted conversation where he was trying to convince me that people don’t have to repent of sin in order to be saved. After much back and forth and me quoting many scriptures to defend my case for repentance and holiness, I finally asked him if he was practicing homosexuality and looking for justification for it. He never answered.
After more back and forth he finally left in a bit of tizzy, but I’m believing that the Lord will use the interaction (and more importantly HIS Word) to bring this man to repentance. Or at the very least, keep him from doing outreaches to spread his propaganda.
Saturday, the weather was beautiful, and there were lots of people at Riverwalk for the boat races. We posted up in a few unusual spots and many people came over. We also had our friend Karina with us leading worship, and our friend Calvin who brought the Jesus raps. It was so great to have them. Here’s a few clips:
One cool moment was meeting these 4 teenage boys, who had never really heard the gospel before. I got to share it with them and pray with them to receive the Lord.
Maybe close to a dozen children prayed with us too, and so did a number of adults. Here’s a few other pics that were grabbed:
One other incredible moment was when a young man in his 20’s came up and asked me for a Bible. I had to go to the van to get it, and as I was walking back, he met me in the parking lot. When I asked him if I could pray for him, he literally just started travailing. He was already in his car, so after I prayed and prophesied over him for a few minutes, he just thanked me (still travailing) and drove away without explaining what was going on. That was a HUGE Divine appointment for sure.
While walking back to the park, a woman stopped me and asked me to pray for her. She said she was in town visiting her dad who was in hospice. She started crying while praying for her too. God was really meeting people that day, it was beautiful.
The next day, it was VERY cold and VERY windy at Siesta, but there was still a decent crowd in the pavilion for the drum circle. We set up by the entrance and had some good interactions with people. We gave out a good amount of tracts and had some good conversations.
The highlight of the night for me was seeing one of the drummers (who has come every week for years), show up in a Jesus shirt!
His name is Luke and back in the day he was one who was somewhat antagonistic to us. One time, he even very rudely instigated several of the drummers drumming over us in the pavilion after the regular circle was over. He got much more friendly with us a few years ago, but never once has he mentioned to us that he was seeking Jesus. When I saw the shirt, I told him “I’ve gotta take a picture of this!” He then told me that he’s been going to church regularly!
How amazing!!!
That’s all for today. Please also keep us lifted up as we put the plans together for the Fort Lauderdale trip, which is just a few weeks away.
Love and appreciate you!
C, S, N & Y