Trout
October 7th 2004, 03:48 PM
Hello everyone,
Recently I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate in an innoculation/counter cult mission at the Utah State Fair.
It's always great to get out amongst the masses and spread the good Word of Christ, Crucified, Resurrected and Glorified.
Jude 3 Missions/Utah Gospel Mission have had a booth at the Utah State Fair going on 20 years, with the exception of two years during which we weren't allowed at the Fair due to some ongoing harrassment from the ever-tolerant Fair directors. After Fair security beat up, and dragged off a lady who was working at the booth. (Read the full story here, (http://www.acluutah.org/vangordencomplaint.htm) it's pretty wild!)
The main objectives of the outreach are:
1. To innoculate visitors to the Fair who perhaps haven't come in contact with the teachings of the LDS church. This is crucial simply because the largest number of new converts to the LDS church in the U.S. come from an Evangelical Christian backgroud. So we try to inform those visiting the state that in fact the LDS church, is a polytheistic, non-Christian organization.
2. To preach the Good News to those people who have already fallen prey to the wiles of Mormonism.
3. To get as much literature about Jesus in circulation as possible. And to engage people in conversation about the things of God.
Numbers 1 and 3 are the easiest, number two on the other hand. . .
If anyone has ever been involved in street level witnessing to the LDS, they'll understand why number 2 is pretty difficult. Over the years the LDS have become pretty indifferent to people wanting to tell them that Mormonism is a false, man-made religion. It makes for some pretty hilarious encounters though.
Leroy and I were pamphleteering at the SLC Temple one day when I asked a man if he'd like a tract, his reply was, "No thanks, I have plenty of toilet paper at home." I was frozen in stunned silence, until I noticed Leroy doubled over with laughter.
Another favorite response when presented with some literature is, "I don't read religious porn".
I haven't figured out why someone would take a tract, tear it into little tiny pieces right in front of you, then proceed to hurl it onto the sidewalk with a look of great satisfaction. Like I'm going to pick it all up and tape it back together or something? Or, they'll wad it up into a little ball and throw it back at you? Sometimes I have to just walk away and laugh.
As far as personal insults go, this trip to the Fair was pretty un-eventful, with the exception of the occasional, "You're just a bunch of anti-Mormons".
There were a couple of pretty exciting highlites however. I was able to speak to one of the candidates for Utah Attorney General at some length about Christ. He gave every impression that he was an agnostic, parroting all the standard criticisms about the resurrection. I think when the conversation closed, he had a new respect for those of us who do believe that Christ rose from the dead. And that his old standby argument "if I can't see, taste, touch, smell, I don't believe it", simply doesn't hold water. Hopefully God will continue to work on him.
Leroy was helping out one afternoon and had "accidently" taken home one of the cassette tapes we were handing out, in his shirt pocket. When he got home, his daughter had a visitor she was chatting with, a young man she had known a long time, when the young man was about to leave, Leroy offered him the cassette tape to listen to. He took it and said he'd listen to it. The next morning Leroy gets a phone call from him saying that he'd gotten home and couldn't stop listening to the tape, in fact he'd sat for over an hour in his car in his driveway listening to it. He told Leroy that he prayed right there in his driveway for Jesus to come into his heart. He had been a life long Mormon, changed in an instant by God's grace. . .Hallelujah.
Leroy was pretty excited about the whole process, and relayed the story to Kurt and Cindy, come to find out. . .Cindy had come to Christ the same exact way, by listening to that same tape twenty years prior. Needless to say, Cindy and our new brother had quite an instant bond, and she and Kurt were able to disciple him a little bit.
Speaking of Cindy, she was at the booth by herself one afternoon, when she was approached by a woman who had read some of our material on the previous day and had some questions, Cindy began to answer her questions when the ladies friend came into the booth and began listening, before it was over, both of the ladies prayed to receive Christ.
When the Fair had ended, and the booths were being dismantled, Kurt and Cindy were trying to find a segway to share the Gospel with the vendor in the booth next to ours. They were exchanging some small talk with him when he admitted that he'd read one of the books that he'd taken off the table four times during the Fair, he was so intrigued with the words in it that he took a sample of all the tracts that we were handing out, went home one night and read them all. And finally he said, "there was a prayer in the back of the last tract I read, and I got on my knees and prayed it."
All in all, it was a blessed time, thanks for your prayers and support.
Trout
Recently I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate in an innoculation/counter cult mission at the Utah State Fair.
It's always great to get out amongst the masses and spread the good Word of Christ, Crucified, Resurrected and Glorified.
Jude 3 Missions/Utah Gospel Mission have had a booth at the Utah State Fair going on 20 years, with the exception of two years during which we weren't allowed at the Fair due to some ongoing harrassment from the ever-tolerant Fair directors. After Fair security beat up, and dragged off a lady who was working at the booth. (Read the full story here, (http://www.acluutah.org/vangordencomplaint.htm) it's pretty wild!)
The main objectives of the outreach are:
1. To innoculate visitors to the Fair who perhaps haven't come in contact with the teachings of the LDS church. This is crucial simply because the largest number of new converts to the LDS church in the U.S. come from an Evangelical Christian backgroud. So we try to inform those visiting the state that in fact the LDS church, is a polytheistic, non-Christian organization.
2. To preach the Good News to those people who have already fallen prey to the wiles of Mormonism.
3. To get as much literature about Jesus in circulation as possible. And to engage people in conversation about the things of God.
Numbers 1 and 3 are the easiest, number two on the other hand. . .
If anyone has ever been involved in street level witnessing to the LDS, they'll understand why number 2 is pretty difficult. Over the years the LDS have become pretty indifferent to people wanting to tell them that Mormonism is a false, man-made religion. It makes for some pretty hilarious encounters though.
Leroy and I were pamphleteering at the SLC Temple one day when I asked a man if he'd like a tract, his reply was, "No thanks, I have plenty of toilet paper at home." I was frozen in stunned silence, until I noticed Leroy doubled over with laughter.
Another favorite response when presented with some literature is, "I don't read religious porn".
I haven't figured out why someone would take a tract, tear it into little tiny pieces right in front of you, then proceed to hurl it onto the sidewalk with a look of great satisfaction. Like I'm going to pick it all up and tape it back together or something? Or, they'll wad it up into a little ball and throw it back at you? Sometimes I have to just walk away and laugh.
As far as personal insults go, this trip to the Fair was pretty un-eventful, with the exception of the occasional, "You're just a bunch of anti-Mormons".
There were a couple of pretty exciting highlites however. I was able to speak to one of the candidates for Utah Attorney General at some length about Christ. He gave every impression that he was an agnostic, parroting all the standard criticisms about the resurrection. I think when the conversation closed, he had a new respect for those of us who do believe that Christ rose from the dead. And that his old standby argument "if I can't see, taste, touch, smell, I don't believe it", simply doesn't hold water. Hopefully God will continue to work on him.
Leroy was helping out one afternoon and had "accidently" taken home one of the cassette tapes we were handing out, in his shirt pocket. When he got home, his daughter had a visitor she was chatting with, a young man she had known a long time, when the young man was about to leave, Leroy offered him the cassette tape to listen to. He took it and said he'd listen to it. The next morning Leroy gets a phone call from him saying that he'd gotten home and couldn't stop listening to the tape, in fact he'd sat for over an hour in his car in his driveway listening to it. He told Leroy that he prayed right there in his driveway for Jesus to come into his heart. He had been a life long Mormon, changed in an instant by God's grace. . .Hallelujah.
Leroy was pretty excited about the whole process, and relayed the story to Kurt and Cindy, come to find out. . .Cindy had come to Christ the same exact way, by listening to that same tape twenty years prior. Needless to say, Cindy and our new brother had quite an instant bond, and she and Kurt were able to disciple him a little bit.
Speaking of Cindy, she was at the booth by herself one afternoon, when she was approached by a woman who had read some of our material on the previous day and had some questions, Cindy began to answer her questions when the ladies friend came into the booth and began listening, before it was over, both of the ladies prayed to receive Christ.
When the Fair had ended, and the booths were being dismantled, Kurt and Cindy were trying to find a segway to share the Gospel with the vendor in the booth next to ours. They were exchanging some small talk with him when he admitted that he'd read one of the books that he'd taken off the table four times during the Fair, he was so intrigued with the words in it that he took a sample of all the tracts that we were handing out, went home one night and read them all. And finally he said, "there was a prayer in the back of the last tract I read, and I got on my knees and prayed it."
All in all, it was a blessed time, thanks for your prayers and support.
Trout