So many crazy and wonderful things happened in our evangelistic endeavors in 2008 that I want to recap some of the highlights so that you may be inspired to go and preach the Gospel to all creation in new, exciting ways. When I look back on this past year I’m reminded of controversial Pentecostal evangelist A. A. Allen’s quote:
  “If you are walking with Jesus, in the Spirit, you need not fear going too far. No believer has gone as far as God wants him to go.”

As far as evangelizing goes, this has been a seminal year in many ways; a lot of “firsts” were experienced by myself and the team. You can click on the various links below to read “the rest of the story” if you’d like as I recap the highlights.

January-March

On January 1, a dream was fulfilled: After seeing the huge Porta-Potty line at the 2007 Rose Parade—and being unprepared—I vowed to preach to it in 2008.

So I did, going head-to-head with these people.

On the way to the Rose parade, I was pulled off the Metro Rail trainby an over-zealous police officer who thought I was a counterfeiter passing out phony million dollar bills. First time that has happened. You’ll be amused at the “disciplinary measure” leveled at the officer when his superior got wind of his action.

I was greatly encouraged by a woman who visited our church after a Million Dollar Bil Gospel tract blew on her foot in the parking lot of a shopping mall. Three weeks later she gave her life to Christ.

Pink’s Hot Dogs in West L. A., always has a line of at least 100 people in front of it.

I’ve always relished the idea of preaching to this organic congregation because you just never know when someone may choke on a Martha Stewart dog and go to Hell! This was another first.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Parade was a very different type of evangelistic outing. The evangelism team, being primarily Caucasian, felt a little out of place in this predominantly African American community. The spectators were warm and friendly, and Stevie Wonder loved getting his $100 bill Gospel tract.

For a little while on GodTube, my video interview with a KISS/Gene Simmons wannabe was in the top 40 in comments, until inexplicably, the comments got disabled.
Nevertheless, I was blessed to get this angry comment from the KISS wannabe himself when he stumbled upon my blog!

The Dollhouse Dude was a little strange. Ambassador’s Alliance leader Tony Miano and I met him when we shared our faith at Cerritos College.

I can still hear Tony’s shout of “Whoa!” when The Dude appeared out of nowhere and gave him a start.

This little old lady, 103 years of age, loved her Giant Money tract. This was our first foray into Little Saigon during their New Year celebration. Her son-in-law complained about this sweet little granny: “She’ll never admit to any wrong. She came at me with a knife once and she still is not sorry.”

My then 8-year-old D.D. stood her gound when Frank the Atheist tried to get her to deny God.

“D.D., is there a God?” Frank asked.

D.D. replied matter-of-factly, “Yes!”

With a smile, I pointed out to Frank that even an 8-year-old child knows that God exists.

I later got even with him when I used him as a preaching dummy.

Most Tuesdays I preach outside an inner-city type school, Leuzinger High. I discovered a novel way to win friends and influence people—especially teens: Free food.

The key to a teen’s soul is through their stomach.

Persecution is always a threat when sharing the Gospel. One of our guys actually got punched, while another got fired, and yet another got pushed off his preaching box. That’s why I was thankful for the Christian Security guard at the DMV, where I started preaching twice a month.

And “Righteous Richard” Chavarria, our intrepid DMV preacher (who celebrated one year of DMV preaching in March), made his big T.V. debut in Episode 1 of Season 3, of The Way of the Master video series, where he worked about 13 hours for free and got about 12 seconds of screen time.

Way to go , Richard!
 

And once again we were at the Academy Awards, where I had to emphasize God’s love in my preaching because members from a hate church in Kansas were there spewing their hatred. (See the “Love Sermon” here.)

I was very surprised that this man immediately gave up his pipe…

…after I prayed for him.

This just goes to show that in all our evangelistic efforts we aren’t just blowing smoke.

Read what we did the rest of the year by clicking here!