Reaching Out to the Lost is Our Job!
It took several months of planning to execute the coordination of about 12-13 preachers for three days leading up to the New Year’s Party Dec 31, 2016. Br. Marvin was very generous in offering his home to six soldiers to host about 40 minutes from downtown. For another four soldiers we got a great deal on hotel room for $150 for two nights. This was an incredible price considering the density of tourists in the area for this week and others times like it. We also planned to receive families into our home in KY so that the wives and children would have a season of fellowship, meals, and prayer while we worked the streets 130 miles away in TN. We were almost maxed out, praise Jesus!
Tuesday morning, the Lord led me and Marvin to work on a new legal outline letter to the City of Nashville. I had not crafted one since 2010 and it was high time we addressed the new mayor, new legal director, new stadium director, new Nashville Visitors director, and because the New Year’s Eve event was now going to be held in a state park the TN State Park director. We would find later on Saturday how important getting that letter out when we did would be, more on that later.
Marvin, Tim, and I went out on Tuesday night to Broadway and a Preds game to preach I initially started at the Ryman Auditorium as it is s a good quiet place off the noise of Broadway, the acoustics are fantastic, people are coming and going, and there is a bus stop there. I spoke on the wickedness of American gender confusion, exhorting lesbians to repent and let their hair grow out and sissy boys to get a hair cut that gender would not be confused in our culture and countrymen anymore. I’ll add that clip as I get it produced. It went pretty well and it was a good initial impact to the tourists many who have never seen us preach, though we have been downtown Nashville regularly for seven years..
After that we moved down onto the main street, Broadway Ave., very appropriate considering all the partying they do on that real estate. It was barricaded for the festivities. Marvin started out and we were getting good reactions/interactions with many sinners there. Suddenly, out of nowhere a very cocky motorcycle officer approached and directed us to shut the bull horn down and move off the barricaded street. Marvin did a great job interacting with the unreasonable cop, initially refusing to give his ID until the officer explained what laws we were breaking in accordance with the protection of ‘unreasonable search and seizure’ laws. He finally surrendered his ID and explained to him, he was doing so under duress. We formally requested his supervisor to wit, he curtly replied, “Way ahead of you pal, this isn’t my first rodeo.” I thought, this wasn’t ours as well and smiled slightly at the officer. Soon, we had six officers and the supervisor there and it was looking like they were about to put him in the cruiser. I asked for his keys so I could have transportation to secure bail and hopefully get him out of the jail if he were arrested. I then called the wives to start praying, which they did. We began to pray earnestly removing our covers and seeking the Lord. After about 15 minutes of consultation with the supervisor, he returned gave us our ID’s and stated he was advised by his supervisor not to press any charges or arrest Marvin, Hallelujah!
That was the big burp for the night and everything else went really well, handing out hundreds of tracts and preaching to thousands, with everyone having some one2one’s and small groups during the preaching.
Thursday the 29th we had a full crew of preachers, Marvin Heiman, Tim Brown, Joshua Heiman, Adam & Caleb Bishop, Jeff Mullen, Daniel McGlone and myself. This was the night of the Battle of the Bands, which is a bunch of wicked music coupled with wicked activities, like food eating contests gluttony, etc. I have been grieved for many years by parents who bring their small children and/or youth to wicked events and then sin in front of them being a bad example in their lives. Here in this video you will see me upbraiding a mocking, bird flipping daddy who is drinking in front of his children. The fruit of his loins, watch and laugh with daddy as he is on his way to hell. Then the youth laugh even more when I describe them turning to daddy on Judgment day asking why he led them to the very gates of hell without telling them about Jesus! I’m sure parents are motivated to come to these kinds of events for a variety of reasons but most of them are sinful; drinking, listening to wicked music, celebrating wickedness [Pride or Xmas parades], lusting, sports idols, etc.
Friday the 30th, we had the same crew but we were minus Joshua Heiman yet the Lord added Quentin Deckard. This was Music City Bowl day and there are so many things happening from early in the am it is an incredibly target rich environment for preachers.
view from downtown Nashville across the Cumberland River.
There are pep rallies downtown starting about 10am, tailgate parties at the stadium starting about the same time, people lining up for the game a few hours before the start. This was unique because our preaching had started to receive harassment from the New Stadium Lessees Nissan’s security a few months before. They began telling us things like: we allow you to be here, your causing problems at the security gates, you can’t have abortion signs or we will arrest you. With that in mind we knew that we would need to write a new legal letter to them as our last one had been in 2010 when I was still part of PinPoint Evangelism. I called the stadium VP to get his email and had a return call from the General Manager. The conversation was tense but I made it clear we would continue our work at the gates, all the property around the stadium was public, and their lease for naming rights didn’t take away out civil rights to be there. Come game day between the Nebraska Corn Huskers and the Tenn Volunteers everything returned to the standard we had set with seven years of work in that venue. Saints, you must keep pressing into these areas or the devilish communists will seek to remove our rights to have our messages heard! Exercise your freedoms in America! We had a great outreach at Nissan Stadium handing out thousands of tracts and breaking up into two different groups covering gates 8 & 9. They are the best especially when it’s cold as the north wind is blocked and it’s sunny on that side. Keep in mind brethren these environmental issues will strengthen or sap the energy of your troops. As we traveled to those gates we also stopped at gate 6 for about 15 minutes to preach to the crowd there. We had our first interaction with a TN State Trooper. Within a few minutes he got the word that we were good to go. We preached the rest of the day unhindered by authorities, but the hecklers were certainly far from being done trying to shut up the Gospel preaching, I noted that the out of town Huskers, though most professing Christians were very cold hearted about spiritual matters, cursing and threatening as we tried to engage their hearts and minds with the truths of the Bible. We wrapped it up there and headed back to town to get some much needed rest, food, and bathrooms at an undisclosed location downtown. We got about an hour of fellowship and rest before the sun started to set and we were headed to our next big event which was the Widespread Panic Concert which was being held at the Brimstone Arena for two nights. Very rowdy and violent crowds from these concert goers, one man being violently thrown out by security the second night we would be there.
Widespread Panic Concerts Friday & Saturday at Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, TN
We figured out for the Brimstone Plaza it is better to preach directly in front of the doors behind barricades about 75 feet from the entrance the acoustics are much better with the crowds in line being able to hear us all the way until they cram through the doors. We will have to keep this in mind for the future.
One of the big changes this year is the move of the New Year’s Eve bash from downtown Broadway to the Centennial Park which was about a mile away. This was not impossible to walk but really too far to drag all the troops and equipment and back to the downtown area. Saturday was forecast rainy and despite our efforts to pray it away the Lord in His sovereignty decided we would have to endure as we knew the sinners surely would for their sin. We wrestled with the ideas of where would the crowds go? Would they wait until the end of the night to head over to the park or stay downtown and try to watch the fireworks from there.
I mentioned previously that we had a new legal outline letter we sent to the city. This was to cover many venues to include the Centennial park which is a TN State park with rangers and a whole other chain of command we only dealt with once before and unsuccessfully at that being threatened with arrest and chased out of the park a few years ago.
With all that in mind, we wrestled in prayer even on the streets where to make our stands for Jesus. Ultimately, we decided though the weather was bad we would need to work the park for a period of time and then move downtown as that is where we scouted all the crowds to be. The rules of for the event/park were no poles, bullhorns, or ‘soliciting’. We knew who they had targeted but we’re confident that legal outline would be effectual for our entry to the park. Sure enough it was, though we didn’t fight the search and seizure issue with them wanding us before we entered we were able to breeze right through pretty tight security. The park is under major renovation with the whole Germantown neighborhood under revitalization which was previously overrun with thug, criminal drug / gang activity just a few years before. I believe a big developer has come in and now is trying to spread the parties/business to this area of the city. I see a big Oktoberfest party in Nashville’s future. We got in and set up near some vendors with our banners and bullhorns, preached, waiting to be approached. After about 15 minutes we got the head of the event Mr. Keeter to whom Marvin spoke. It went great, and we had the green light. This was important to set this precedent with the city. We stayed another half hour in the rain and cold and packed it up to head down to the crowds downtown where it would be much warmer and hopefully drier. When we left we estimated a hundred or so people in the park. The weather had busted the city’s plans big time.
There were thousands downtown and hundreds in the park. No brainer, we would end up working the rest of the night by the Brimstone Arena again as we didn’t realize the first night there would be a second concert NYE by Widespread Panic. The concert goers proved themselves to be very gross and violent, so much so I closed our activities about an hour and a half early calling it a night. We were all weary of the cold, rain, and we were being regularly attacked. We departed on the assurance of the Holy Ghost’s leading and we were all in agreement. We headed to the new CookOut in town and had a good meal before making the drive back to KY for fellowship the next day. Here are our testimony’s in video format. Now, get out there and seek and save that which is lost, not much time now…
