Eddie Roman’s Podcast Interview With…Me?

Eddie Roman is a producing director and editor at Ray Comfort’s ministry Living Waters. His podcast, “Roman’s Road with Eddie Roman” talks about Christian evangelism and apologetics through everyday conversations. He interviewed me at the 2020 Shepherds’ Conference in L.A. from his car office. I spoke about my days as an active evangelist with The

Doing the Gospel Different

How do feel about Christians who present the message of Jesus a little creatively? What is your first reaction to someone proclaiming the Gospel in what you perceive to be an unseemly or undignified manner? Are you happy and excited or embarrassed and ashamed that they are a brother or sister?

There are many different ways to reach people for the Kingdom of God, ways that we may think are kooky, ineffective or weird, but, can advance the cause of Christ further than we ever expected. You may not do it that way, I may not do it that way, but if the Good News is proclaimed accurately, then, it doesn’t matter what we think. We serve a creative God who uses creative people to get his saving agenda done.

What do you think about the cross-walkers? Our fellowship hosted Steve Epp a year ago who’s walking the cross throughout America. Why does he do it that way?

“I’m reaching out to the younger generation who’ve experienced drug abuse and home abuse,” he says. “I took to the street because they are sure not coming to our churches. I tell them that God loves them and I love them. I want to show that living for Jesus is a life of surrender, and I’m trying to show them that by example.” 

In 2015 Mitchell Manning carried a 12-foot cross from Florida to California as a way to represent his faith because “the cross is the whole point.” In 2014 Arthur Hollands did it because “I just want to share that people are loved, and you can have peace in your heart.” But the most famous living cross carrier of all is Arthur Blessit, who began his cross-walk in 1969 and still continues to this day. He has been in 324 countries and is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the “Longest Around-the-World Ongoing Pilgrimage/Walk.”

I met a man named Skipper a few weeks ago in Johnson City as he was biking around the country for Jesus. He was just leaving to pedal back to Sacramento, California, his home. 

The Horrible Incident at Stripes

SOMETHING HORRIBLE happened at our local Stripes convenience store: I gave the Gospel to three teens.

One of the teens went home and told his mom that I said he was going to Hell. This is something I rarely say, and I didn’t say to these teens. 99.9% of the time I ask this question: “If you died today, would you go to Heaven or Hell?”

Here is a similar conversation I had with a gaggle of giggling girls a few years back:

Well, the mom got mad and posted my name on Facebook saying that I told her son that he was going to Hell,  among other untrue things. Locals in our small town read the post and made all sorts of false accusations against me. Here’s a sample:

“He told me the same thing, too.”

“He doesn’t like gays.”

“He hangs out at the high school three or four times a week and evangelizes.”

“He scolded me for wearing my cheerleader outfit, saying that men will lust after me.”

Evangelistic Tipping or Giving Gospel Gratuities

UTI received an email from a University of Texas student who complained about finding a Teddy Trillion Dollar Bill Gospel tract on the ground. Here’s what he wrote:

Subject: Fake Trillion Dollar Bills

Hello! I’m a student at UT Austin, and I was walking around the library when I saw a dollar bill on the ground with Teddy Roosevelt’s face on it (obviously fake, because he’s never been on a bill). Curious, I picked up the bill and saw it was a Trillion Dollar Bill (wahoo, I’m a trillionaire!), with a statement on the back about the trillion dollar question being “Will you go to heaven when you die?”.

If I had not seen a similar thing before this would have just seemed like an odd outreach program by the church to get people’s attention, but sadly I’ve seen bills like these be put in tip jars, used as a tip for waiters, and given to homeless people in lieu of valid tender.
Seeing this, I have to ask, what is the reasoning behind using these bills? It’s definitely not going to get any converts.

trillion

A waiter/waitress whose just spent 30 minute waiting on a table that didn’t even pay for the service definitely isn’t going to appreciate what would seem like a snide comment from a holier-than-thou person.