Happy Thursday Saints! Hope you are well!
It’s been quite a week. I’ll get to the outreach reports in a moment (they were powerful!) but first I’ll tell you a little bit about the mission trip I just came back from.
Over the past few months, you’ve probably heard me talk/write about being involved in a movement called Faith and Family Month. It is a movement that began last year with one Mayor (Bruce Rector from Clearwater) taking a bold stand by refusing to proclaim that June was Pride Month and instead decreeing that Clearwater would celebrate Faith (in Jesus) and Biblical Family in the month of June.
He took a lot of flak for this by liberal groups, but he stood his ground and even recruited a few other Mayors to do it with him. This year, he’s doing it again, and 15 other Mayors have joined him including Mayor West of Palmetto and Mayor Brown of Bradenton.
Back in December, a group of about 20 local Pastors and Leaders attended a meeting with Mayor West to discuss the movement and how we could help carry the message to our local community. After I shared a little bit about my experience ministering at Pride events, the Lord spoke to one of the Pastors in the group and told him that I was supposed to be the “tip of the spear” of the local chapter of this movement. The rest of the Pastors agreed.
After that, the Lord put it on my heart to dig deep into the history of the gay rights movement and the sexual revolution, and I discovered that all roads lead back to a man named Alfred Kinsey.
Alfred Kinsey was a zoologist and a professor at Indiana University in the 1930’s. During his tenure, he pioneered and performed “research” into the sexual behaviors of around 10,000 people, and he documented his findings in two best-selling books- “Sexual Behavior of the Human Male” published in 1948, and “Sexual Behavior of the Human Female” published in 1953.
Much has been written about the massive flaws in his “research” because he included huge numbers of sex offenders in his sample and he altered his data significantly to make aberrant sexual behavior seem much more common. He even enlisted the help of pedophiles to gather “data” on the sexual capabilities of children as young as 5 months old.
He published that information as tables and charts, and this is probably his most (in)famous one- table 34:
One quick glance at this is enough to turn your stomach. Especially since he was celebrated and even venerated as being a brilliant scientist and a pioneer of progress by academia, media and many throughout society.
As a result of these books, many people had the “scientific” ammunition to claim that fornication, homosexuality, and adultery were so normal and so common, that we should alter laws to reflect these habits. At the time the book was published- sodomy was illegal in all 50 states, adultery was illegal in 43 states, and fornication was illegal in 40 states.
His books also changed the entire national conversation surrounding sex and led to many viewing it as simply a biological function that is no different than eating (a point that Kinsey makes in his books). This led to the rise of modern sex education, which teaches that all sex is neither moral nor immoral as long as there is consent.
As a result of this propaganda, participation in and acceptance of- fornication, homosexuality and adultery skyrocketed. This led to laws changing and ultimately society changing along with it. It is such a sad and awful chapter of our nation’s history.
As I dug deeper and deeper into this, I felt compelled by the Lord to go to the place where all this happened and to go to war in the spirit.
Shortly after that I reached out to my friend Alex, whom I travel with often, and asked if he would come to Indiana University (IU) with me to help take down this altar. He then told me that he actually grew up in Indiana and went to IU often. He also told me that his dad, grandfather and great grandfather all went to IU, and that IU even has a plaque commemorating his grandfather on campus because he went on to be such an influential figure in journalism and politics. What a confirmation that Alex was supposed to come!
Alex gave me some dates that he was available and was heavily leaning towards April 8th. Crazy enough, I found out that Kinsey’s “Institute for Sex Research” actually opened on April 8th, 1947, so I knew that was the day we needed to go.
Here’s a video we recorded outside the Institute.
The University has been so proud of Kinsey’s “contribution” to society that they even built a statue of him outside the building.
Interestingly this sticker was placed right by the statue.
And also interesting is that this message is above the entrance to the library, which is just around the corner from the Institute:
“a good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit”- very appropriate given that Kinseys book led to billions of people over the generations being “mastered” by unclean spirits.
While there, we also prayed and worshipped at the IU football stadium- home of the reigning national champs.
And what is SO crazy, is that while we were on campus, we found out that at 8pm (the same day!) there was a huge worship event being held at the basketball arena:
What are the odds that we would be sent there on the same day to cleanse the campus of the altars to Ashtaroth right before (what ended up being 10,000+) students gathered for worship???
And what else is wild is that many of the players on the football team came and testified about their love for Jesus, including the Heisman Trophy winning quarterback and Championship MVP Fernando Mendoza. Here’s a short video about the Jesus movement happening at IU:
Unfortunately, I had to get back to Sarasota that night, but Alex rearranged his flight and stayed for the event. Here’s one video he took:
All this to say, we REALLY felt the Lord all over this trip and we are believing that something has shifted significantly in the spirit that will affect all of America. Believe with us!
On another note, TODAY is a major anniversary too. A good one though! Today is the 120th anniversary of the Azusa Street outpouring, one of the most consequential revivals in history. Here’s a short video about it:
I’m excited to gather together tonight on this epic anniversary!
As for the weekend, it was awesome.
Friday night was Good Friday, and we had a solid crew of 7 and lots of people to witness to. Many people stopped for prayer too which was awesome. Here’s a few pics.
The most powerful Divine appointment though was with a man named Rory. Rory came over on his bike and listened to the worship for a while and then came to talk to us after hearing Larry’s testimony about his marriage redemption.
Rory was a mess. He began opening up to us right away, telling us he had committed adultery and that his wife had thrown him out. He was so distraught and repentant and just kept telling us how badly he needed Jesus. We prayed with him and counseled him for a while, and have followed up with him since.
On Saturday, we were joined by many from Hope International Ministries which was awesome.
We were even joined by my good friend Cody Williams, who is my favorite rapper. Here’s a clip of one of his songs “who could be against me?”
It was a great night, and many received gifts and were ministered to. Here’s just a few pics that were grabbed:
The coolest moment for me was seeing a young girl named Nicole. Nicole comes from a broken family and was not raised in the Lord. We prayed with her and gave her a God’s Promises book about a year ago and she told me that she’s been reading it pretty much every day and getting closer to God. Here she is next to a drawing she made:
Her older sister also came up while I was talking to her and she told me that when she saw Nicole reading the book at home, she started to read it with her. This led to her seeking God too. The sister even told me that she recently had a dream about going to heaven that made her want to seek God even more and that one night she even felt compelled to ask Jesus to forgive her sins.
I prayed with both of them to receive the Lord that night and I ministered to them for a while. It was awesome. They were there the entire night with their unbelieving dad too, whom I did not meet, but I could see that he was in range to hear everything that was going on.
I also got to minister to Nicole’s “stepsister” (the parents aren’t married but cohabitating) and that was cool too. Here’s me praying over them and showing her the God’s Promise book:
So cool to see the fruit of these little seeds we sow!
On Sunday, we met on the beach for the first time in a while, and it was a powerful night. The big highlight was when we ministered to a man who later decided to get baptized:
While down there, a woman came up to us with her daughter, and she said she wanted to surrender her life to Jesus and get baptized as well:
The daughter told us that she had been praying for her mom’s salvation for a long time and that she was SO thankful for what happened. They came down all the way from Tampa to be at the beach that day too. Such a move of God!
On top of her mom getting saved, she also got healed in her back while she was in the water. She said that before the baptism the pain was so bad she could hardly move…and after she came up out of the water all the pain was gone. Here’s her testifying:
So cool!
BIG thanks to the mighty warriors who made it out on the front lines this past weekend: Gene, Laney, Amber, Alan, Susan, Larry, Sofiya, Cody, Nina, the HIM crew, Mike V, Chuck, Debbie, Paul, Karina, Jack, Rachael, Julie, Tom, Pastor Robin, Sarath, Paula and Steven.
This weekend we need all hands on deck because I will be on South Beach trying to save people stuck in Alfred Kinseys propaganda at Miami Pride.
Hope to see you tonight!! Love and blessings!
C, S, N & Y