Evangelism at the Chesapeake Jubilee, May 18th, 2019.

Joshua 1:8 “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

This past weekend, the Lord blessed our small group of friends with some free time, so we decided to go to the Chesapeake Jubilee to pass out gospel literature. The Jubilee is an annual carnival held in Hampton Roads. Sean, Addy, Zach and I stayed for around two hours, but Galal and Rachel came soon after Zach and I left.

The Lord gave us such a wonderful opportunity this day, there were so many people who took tracts. I am praying they were able to read them– even the more involved ones. Because we were not very sure of the laws regarding giving out things within an event that you have to pay for, Zach, Sean, and I stationed ourselves outside of the carnival and gave people the literature as they were walking in. All in all, Zach, Sean, and I passed out around 250! They were all Million Dollar Bill tracts and Smart Phone tracts.

I only got to have a conversation with one young man. He and his friend had been walking around asking people to sign up for something, and so I tried to use that as an opening to talk about the gospel. It turns out that they were asking people if they would like to sign their children up for sports camp at a local church. After asking what their ultimate goal was, I was surprised to hear him say “Just to promote community involvement and love.”

After some further prodding, they said their end goal of being out there was to share the gospel. In light of that, I asked the young man to share it with me at that moment! I wasn’t trying to be provocative or rude, but to simply see if he would. I set up a scenario, telling him “If I only had five minutes to live, what would you say to me?”

After a couple awkward seconds, he told me that he would ask me if I was a Christian, and that if I wasn’t he would ask me if he could pray for me and my soul. Then I pressed further, saying that I didn’t know about Christ but I want to get to heaven. To put a long dialogue in one sentence, he basically told me that Jesus loves me but that I have to put my trust in Him and love Him back. There was no mention of sin!!!

Unfortunately, this is all too common in young believers nowadays (and I say this as someone who is young!). We are reluctant to call sin what it is, let alone tell other people what it is. I have noticed that many contemporary Christians prefer to call sin “mistakes” of the past. This is so, so wrong and very dangerous!

Dear readers, not believing in Jesus is not what sends people to hell– SIN is. We all rightly deserve this eternal punishment, but God, who is so rich in mercy, sent His son to die a sinners death for us (Eph 2)! In light of this, we should be thankful to God, loving and trusting in Him like the young man said. HOWEVER, we should not neglect the seriousness of sin, especially when we are evangelizing to the lost. How else are people supposed to know why Jesus came at all???

After the young man gave his explanation of the gospel, I asked him if I could share the gospel with him. And so I did, detailing sin and God’s standard for us in full. I definitely wasn’t as bold as I am behind the keyboard now, but I hope that it was a fruitful conversation and that I was gentle. Please pray for these young men and that their fear of God grows so that their love of God may flourish.

Near the end of our time out at the Chesapeake Jubilee, Sean got to talk to some young men who were seeking to share the gospel with others as well. He basically asked the same questions that I did, except these men were much more prepared for them. They gave a good explanation of the gospel, and that was very encouraging. It is easy to feel like an island when sharing the gospel because it is not very commonplace in the church, despite the fact that it is commanded of us. Being able to see others doing what we have been doing for years was so incredibly awesome.

I know they were affiliated with a church, but I am not sure what their core beliefs were aside from gospel essentials. Sean suspected they were KJV only, based on some of the things they said. I don’t think it would be profitable to speculate any further, although it is tempting.

Lastly, Zach was able to share the gospel with a young man who was volunteering at the event. He professed that he used to be a believer, and wouldn’t really tell Zach why he stopped. Zach gave him a Million Dollar Bill tract and asked him what he thought of it. Something they talked about at some length was how no human is ever promised tomorrow. The man said that what Zach and the tract said raised some interesting points, but that ultimately his mind remained the same. Zach then asked him to reconsider, and we went on our way. Please pray for this man, who Zach had the brief opportunity to share the gospel with. Pray that the Lord would open his heart and save him.

All in all, please pray that the Lord would sanctify Sean, Zach, and I. Pray that we could all continue in our daily readings of the Bible and that we would be changed by God’s word. Pray that these people who read the gospel literature we provided would be saved and that they would find a biblical church. Pray that young believers would fear the Lord and hate their sin. Thank you!

Zach and Addy

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