Stone the Preacher

By Tom Nance-Ulrich

I am not ashamed to say I was the man handing out Giant $100 bills and Million Dollar bill Gospel tracts, and the leader who didn’t preach in the open air because “I lost my nerve,” as mentioned in Steve’s article about the Sarah Palin Rally held a week ago (read it here).

How interesting is the comment from that article, left by Michael Herrera, about my leadership:

Pastor Steve,
I’m so glad you did not heap any criticism on the group leader. I got the impression that things did not go well at all. Am I right? I have faced angry left-wing college students in the early 70′s (are there any other kind?) and believe me, it was not fun. These people grew up to be the Clintons, the Pelosis, and the Harry Reids of this world. These people are heady and high-minded thinking they have all the answers. But I guess all that I can do is to pray for them and to say, “Did you get one of these?” [when I offer a Gospel tract].

Thanks to our amazingly loving Father, I am a new creation in Christ. I did not want to get in a shouting match with the “anti” people. I no longer want to be seen as “anti” anything (except perhaps my own sin). I want to be FOR Jesus Christ and His marvelous Gospel.

The internal battle of where, when, or if to preach lasted so long that soon the doors opened and the thousands of people in line streamed into the stadium… and I was nearly overrun with people wanting the Gospel tracts!

The take-away lesson for me is to remember that the “Old Man” is DEAD! I am no longer the same person; I’ve let the past go. As Pastor Steve says, quoting Charles Spurgeon, “Do something, Do something, Do something.” The time is short, people are going to hell every moment of every day.

My encouragement to you reading this is: Don’t give into fear of man; instead, FEAR GOD!

(Is God a Liberal or a Conservative? Click here to find out.)

When he’s not complaining about how cold it is in Canada or how much snow he has to shovel from the roof of his house, Paul LaTour contributes witty, encouraging commentary to this blog and is a fervent Gospel preacher.

Paul sent me a few pictures about how things are done in the frozen North:

I’m just sending you these so you can get a gander and agree that I am a better-looking-gospel-giving-million-dollar-tract-giver-guy than you are. Not to mention…more humble.

I also wanna show you what Timothy 2:4 is all about here in Canada:: “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season.” Just so you know that in Canada we define “in season” as summer and “out of season” as winter. I much prefer the “in season”.

This summer pic is me giving the gospel to a teen (one of many) at the National War Monument on July 1, Canada Day last year in Ottawa.

The winter pic is me doing the same at our city’s annual Winterlude festivities a few weeks ago. See our cool million dollar bill? By the way: minus 20 degrees Celcius. That’s like minus 5 degrees Fahrenheit. My nose fell off before I got home.“

Come on up and give it a try and watch your breath freeze in front of your face before you can finish saying “Are you a good person?”

The following E-vangie Tale is by a brand new student who showed up the third week of our 6-week class. On the third week, I surprise the students by taking them out unexpectedly to share their faith. And boy, was she surprised—and touched. 

By Mia McName

I started the Evangelism (without fear) class two weeks late and Steve decided to take us all to mall to hand out tracts – WHOA! what an introduction! I have never given out a tract in my life, so I was a little more than nervous.
However, with supportive sister by my side and cute baby in arms – and the memories of inspirational video in my mind – off we went.

In the mall parking lot, my sister Minnie and I each gave out a Million dollar bill to two women exiting the mall and they so cheerfully accepted, I figured, Hey! this really IS easy. Then we entered the mall and it was a bit different. I felt a bit like a covert operations team, pulling tracts out of the baby bag and dodging the security. It was exciting, but I didn’t feel as if I was making any connections with the folks I was handing the tracts to.

Then Minnie and I went in to Macy’s, looking for the bathroom. On the way, I saw a woman browsing through the clothing. I offered her a tract and she coldly declined. When we started off again, she called us back and asked us why we chose her to speak to. “Did you think I’m stupid?” she asked. (more…)

One more E-vangie Tale from a student in my Drama/Evangelism class for 9-13-year-olds. This is from Cody Heath, age 12:

Yesterday I handed my buddy some tracts. We talked, then my buddy’s Mom came out and handed me a gift certificate for $300.00 for martial arts lessons. I was so happy that I almost forgot what my buddy’s reaction was when I handed him the tract. He was very happy and asked for a few more tracts to hand out to his buddies. So… it was a cool day. I guess the saying, “Give and you shall receive” is right.
Thank you…

This is the third E-vangie Tale written by a student from my evangelism/drama class. 10-year-old Kristina Pagett is the author:

I was at Target with my mom when a lady walked toward us. I said, “Did you get one of these?”

She said “No, thank you,” which in other words was, “No I don’t want it.”

Mom said that they weren’t rejecting me, they were rejecting Christ. It made me a little sad.

The End

Hear is another “Gospel tract testimony” from my evangelism/drama class, in which the 9 to 13-year-olds, as part of their homework, must write their experiences of what happened as they handed out one million dollar bill Gospel tract a day.  This one is from Bronson McFarland, age 12:

 “When I was walking my neighbor’s dog, a girl walked past us. I stood up and gave her the Million Dollar bill. She said ‘Thanks,’ and walked away.”

I teach an evangelism/drama class at my church for kids 9-13 years of age (ya gotta teach them when they are young because when they get older they just won’t do it!). Part of their homework is to hand out a million-dollar bill Gospel tract each day and write about their experiences. I will post one of their testimonies each day this week. This is from Seth Lewis, age 9.

“I was at the park. I saw a man and gave him a million dollar bill. He did not want it at first, but then he took it.”

BY RAY WORLITZ

(Ray is a student in our latest evangelism class. Each student’s homework is to hand out one Million Dollar bill Gospel tract each day of the class. Here are two sad and humorous encounters he experienced.)

I made two attempts to give out a Million dollar gospel tract:

Attempt #1- A pastor: He politely declined saying he was given two and said that they were still sitting on his desk from a year ago. The pastor told me how bad church attendance was and that they can’t seem to get anyone new. I thought it was sad that here was a perfect opportunity the pastor was given to restore enthusiasm among his struggling congregation to evangelize for Christ, yet he wasn’t using it.
Attempt #2- The lady at the water store reading a bible:I asked her if she had received a million dollar bill yet and she said, “Yes! Every week a priest comes in and hands me a bunch!” I asked if that pastor’s name happened to be Steve; sure enough it was! Well, I tried Steve… but you got to her first.

(Steve’s note: I’m not a priest…)

By Amy Ross

Amy is a friend of mine who encountered an interesting coincidence while on a mission trip…

Walking in front of Edinburgh castle on Wednesday after Andrej met me at the train station, I was handed a flyer by a man dressed as a monk. I didn’t pay much attention until I heard him say to the next person, “Free tour tonight.”

I assumed the tour guides would be expecting tips, like the famous free walking tour that I missed in Paris due to my bad foot. Little did I guess what they were really up to.

About halfway through the tour, we stopped in front of a statue of David Hume, reclining Roman-style on a throne with a smug look on his face, clutching a pair of blank stone tablets.

“Anyone think they know what the blank stone tablets represent?”

The Ten Commandments, of course, and our Cuthbert-dressed tour guide proceeded to explain that the tablets are blank to represent that David Hume didn’t believe humans have a need for laws passed down by a divine being. Then he took us around behind the statue to point out an image of Medusa on the backside of Hume’s throne. I think he explained what the image was supposed to represent, but I was too distracted by the tour guide dressed as John Knox who had climbed up on the front of the statue, and seemed to be tacking something onto the front of the blank tablets.

Finally he called us around to the front and sure enough, a laminated copy of the Ten Commandments was now affixed to the formerly blank tablets.

“What are you doing, Master Knox?” asked Cuthbert.

“Ah, Master Cuthbert!” replied Knox, completely in character, “I thought I would restore God’s law to the place where it belongs.” And then he asked a question I was NOT expecting to hear. “What does Commandment number 9 say? Anyone here ever NOT told a lie? What do you call someone who tells lies? How about number 8? I bet all of us has stolen something before, even if it was small. And number 7? (more…)

Here’s yet another reason why I try not to patronize Starbucks. I do however, enjoy Peet’s Coffee, even though there is an angry server there who hates me with a passion; that story will be told next week.

BY ANNA (BANANA) JACKSON

If you follow this blog, you may remember reading a while back about a coffee house ministry that I was involved in for the last four months at a local Starbucks. (Two gals, Anita and Liz, had been asked to play and sing there on Tuesday nights.
They set up a tract table, and then they allowed me to tag along to share the gospel on the mike a couple of times a night. Read the story here.)

Well, about three weeks ago the assistant manager happened to be in while we were there. Normally she was not there while we were “performing;” in fact, I had never even seen her, only the other two gals had talked to her before. And although nothing was ever hidden from her, we all had our doubts that she really understood what we were doing. Last Tuesday evening she picked up one of our coffee trivia tracts. Then she came around to me as I was standing by the tract table.
She walked up holding it and said, “This is really great!” I had no idea who she was and I immediately assumed she was a Christian who had read the gospel message and was telling how great she thought this outreach was. I started reaching for a copy of Hell’s Best Kept Secret to hand to her while saying offhandedly, “So, you’re a Christian?” She looked puzzled and replied, “No.” I stopped reaching for HBKS and sort of stood there awkwardly trying to figure out what in the world she thought was “great.” She paused for a second then continued, “I think this coffee trivia is a great way to expand the coffee house experience. I’d like to share this with all the other managers at our regional meeting (or something like that). Would that be alright?” Now I knew who she was. “Um, sure,” I peeped. And then I thought to myself, Well, that’s it… when we arrive next week, after she’s read that thing all the way through, we’re outa here.

The next week we arrived; all three of us expecting to see her standing there scowling… but there was nothing. We did the outreach as usual, all of us surprised. The week after that, it was the same… no one stopped us. Then it finally happened.

The girls had already set up and were ready to begin when a different assistant manager came up very apologetically, but somewhat coldly, saying that we were welcome to play music and sing, but we would not be allowed to pass out literature or “ask those questions” on the mike anymore. She said that they liked the coffee trivia paper but that on the back when it started talking about our “religion” it sounded very “exclusive”—as if it was the only right religion. She also said that a customer had complained about us asking those “questions” on the mike, and she didn’t think it was appropriate.

Anita was very gracious and friendly to her. She told the assistant manager that if we weren’t going to be allowed to pass out the literature or talk to people on the mike then it wouldn’t be worth our time to be there. The manager again said she didn’t want to offend us, but these were Starbucks’ policies. Anita told her that we understood and we thanked them very much for the opportunity we’d had already. Then Anita told her that God had used them to spread the gospel over the last four months. We had a very amiable parting.

The three of us sat down and had a cup of coffee. We figured out that over the last four months we’ve probably given out more than 2,000 tracts and well over 100 CDs and DVDs; in addition we verbally preached the Gospel to several hundred people. What a fruitful window of opportunity God gave us here. He actually blinded the eyes of Starbucks management for more than four months so that He could accomplish His own purposes.

Read two other Starbucks stories: “God of Starbucks” where I ask the question: “Should Christians patronize Starbucks?” and “The Shepherd of Brokeback Mountain,” an encounter with a gay Barista.