SA Outreach 1.6.07

This was a night of deep converstations, learning from the LORD, and of course bringing HIM glory!

I forget the stool. Nathan and I went in to the mall to pray and see what GOD had in store for us. Looked for a stool or some sort of something to stand on to no avail. GOD had other plans. Once we ended up in CVS pharmacy standing on two 12 packs of Mountain Dew to see if it would support our body weight - I prayed and decided: "no". No normal night for us. It was cold, drizzling, interesting. I got into an one-to-two conversation with Gabriel and "Enado". GOD had a lot to tell these young men. It was such a blessing to be used to convey GOD's Message to them. After taking them (mainly Gabe) through the Law and GOSPEL - the fear of GOD hit him! He was getting jittery and saying over and over that he ws scared. Believe me, I wasn't preaching no "hell-fire" either. GOD was giving a balanced message. I trust the the Holy Spirit was and is and will be working in those young mens heart. Pray for them.

John and Miguel. These kids were walking by and got tracts. I asked them if they liked money cause I had some Giant Money from Living Waters. They, like most people, like "big money". I asked them if they loved money enough to sell their eyes for is. No. They valued their eyes and stuck around as I explained to value of their eternal soul. It was beautiful. GOD moved mightily. They left with tracts and Miguel got a The Greatest Gamble DVD. Everything GOD had us bring was so on point. It was humbling to see GOD work with such pin point precision. Praise HIM.

Rodney, Mike and Randy wouldn't take tracts and didn't like "big money" either. I felt like I needed to not let them go though. So, I persisted and walked after them. Finally, GOD stopped Randy when I simply asked him, "Can I ask you a question?". "What do think happens after you die?" Rodney said he was going to heaven. He was a pastor's son. GOD shook him up that night. They gave me a few minutes to speak with them and I poured out my heart. Two professed to be born-again, one wouldn't answer straight.

Then we met Rocky and Jon, forwards for the Peoria Rivermen. During our unconventional open air sermon 5 or 6 guys in suits walked up to us to listen to the preaching. Two of these guys being Rocky and Jon. The heard up preaching down on the bridge going over the river. GOD really carried our voices. The came to talk and ask questions. It ended up being that they were checking us to see if we were solid and biblical! Praise GOD. They were playing a game that night and went walking but GOD had other plans. HE used these guys (especially Rocky) to speak straight to our heart. Examining out motives and fully relying of the Spirit of GOD and the finished work of the Cross! A timely message. I thank GOD for them.

The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful; for he cannot deny himself.

Soli DEO Gloria. To GOD alone be glory!
Jason Johnson, The Great News Network-ATX/SATX

Contact Us:
EMAIL: thegreatnewsatx@yahoo.com
www.thegreatnews.com
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Who is like my Father.

Who is like the LORD? Our Holy LORD.

Give GOD all the praise. Not one person deserves thanks or praise but HIM. May all pride and false motives for ministry be brought to nothing. Amen. SDG.

Saturday Jan. 6, 2007
This was an interesting start to the 2007 street minisrty. Andy was feeling sick and couldn't make it. I've been out of town for a long time. Pretty much on and off since mid-October. It's been good. Taxing at times but always turning out to be a GOD-glorifying good time.

Tonight. Whether it was my own stupidity, lack or preparation, or other folly, I forgot the Open Air Preaching stool. Sad, but true. GOD was in it and all over it. See, since I haven't been "on the stool" lately my flesh was wanting up, now. I mean, in and of itself, the desire isn't "wrong". The problem was that my heart really wasn't in the right place. With all the times that GOD has used this sinner turned servant-son that people call Jason, Jason has seemed to develop bad habits. One of those habits is thinking that if there are not "crowds" of people on the streets that living on the edge for Christ, speaking HIS Truth, HIS Word, just isn't as effective. It's insane. If all of heaven rejoices over one sinner that repents then why would I not! I do. I just needed some FATHERLY discipline. That's one of the great results of seeing that your sins (lies, stealing, using GOD's name like a curse word or with no value, etc.) are exceeding sinful. You've offended a Holy GOD, deserve the punishment due to you - eternal Hell. Confessing and forsaking sins and putting your full trust in what Jesus Christ did on the Cross. Cancelling our sin and defeating death by rising from the dead, giving repentant men and women eternal life. When one does that, realizes that, takes hold of it, abandons themselves for HIM and the sake of HIS Gospel, salvation occurs. One passes from death to life. Our fine (death and Hell) has been payed by the suffering, death, and ressurected life of Christ! OH! the glorious Gospel!

As I was saying (typing actually), I just needed some FATHERLY discipline. No stool to preach. We all needed to get more personal and cultivate a genuine love and concern for the people we share the Gospel with. Converstations we powerful, tract went out to the glory of GOD and we even got out and really interesting open air sermon. GOD showed me this Saturday night that I needed to fully rely on HIM and not my own plans or strength. Living by the law of the Spirit of life the set me free from the law of sin and death. Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Living in obedience to that Spirit of the Living GOD. Surrender. Forget a commitment. Full, complete surrender to GOD. It's life.

Fall at HIS feet before it's too late. We all need God.

Love & Truth,
Jason

The more GOD moves (or the more I submit and see His constant movement, not sure) the more difficult it gets to put things into words.

Kinda like that.

CHRISTmas Evangelism Boot Camp (CEBC) was amazing.

You can learn more about Evangelism Boot Camp (EBC) and The Great News Network (GNN) at: The Great News dot com

I've been preparing in prayer this whole week but it really got real once I arrived at Hope Chapel in Austin, Friday afternoon.

I met Thomas Umstattd. Surprisingly, I've never met him in person before.

Now, let me just clarify that this blog is kinda a dumping of thoughts, rough draft, overload of emotion, side effect of being off work for so long and thus not wanting to think workfully on a slow day at the office...project.

I guess. So, it's kinda random and not very um...thorough I guess.

Friday was the team leaders meeting. We have teams at EBC (one main, body of Christ team of course). So, the teams have leaders. I ended up being one. Which was quite a different experience for me. I mean, I am a GNN Local Leader but as of now GOD has not really brought a large team yet. Praise HIM for what HE has done so far. But this was still quite different for me. From past experience, I know that EBC team leaders are used by GOD for so much encouraging, proding, teaching, even some "pastoring" in a way. Many of those things are new to me. So, I kinda signed up not know what I was signing up for. Trusting GOD, going of the experience of EBCs and the Local Leader Summit, I felt equipped to be used by GOD in this way. Faith. That's what I was riding on, Faith. We want to see GOD glorified and seek and save the Lost and train up Laborers for the Harvest.

A few pounds of Prayer, several ounces of discusion, a pinch of stress and added Prayer to taste (actually to cover up the taste of the worry) were the main ingredients of the meeting.

It was good.

We hit the streets actually Zilker Park (Austin, TX) later that night for a break the ice, test the waters run. It was good, really it was great right off the bat. GOD used Thomas, drew a nice crowd the looked like hungry little fishies (pun intended...unless you didn't get it than just forget this whole parenthesis thing). After I moved over to "Radio" (code names, sweet), GOD allowed me to give the Gospel and then Jay came over to share some words with us. Words I really didn't want to hear. Something like, "Stop", "get down", "police". So, as you guessed (if you guessed) he didn't want up there...on public property exercising out 1st ammendment right. So, we moved. Preached and prayed the night away.

Saturday, mixed up another team leaders meeting and began the first ever official CEBC.

It was so great to get that EBC feeling again. "If you want to know than you have to go." 

We picked teams, prayed up, and preached the night away. We moved to our spot with was "Stage" I believe. Jason preached, Cynthia prea...almost, then the police came over. I think they might have been lonely and wanted to talk. Obviously, Cynthia likes to talk since she was on a stool talking to a crowd of people, right. We usually start out our messages to the crowds with trivia. Open Air Preaching is what most people call it. Cynthia got through the trivia and GOD drew a crowd. Right before the real message of Christmas went out a couple of lonely officer decided now would be a good time to talk. Cynthia's now off the stool, crowd in place waiting to hear the Great News of Life (as opposed to the Bad New of death) the real reason for CHRISTmas. So, I jumped up and took advantage of the situation. As the crowd "booed" and heckled the police I was able to share the Gospel with them. Soli Deo Gloria. GOD worked it out for out good. The crowd ( I think) was even more attentive wondering why the nice girl was getting taken off the stool.

We relocated and hit it all night. Jonathan and Matt were used by the LORD like little trumpets to proclaim the News of the King. Praise GOD it was great. Tracts. Conversation and JESUS was lifted up high.

We were privliged to have many great converstations, pass out some "silent preachers" (tracts) and preached the night away. 

That was Saturday.

Sunday was really good. We had the teams in full force. Prayed up to the max. Ready for battle. Had our code-named stations marked and heart ready for just about anything. Prayed, preached, shared, loved, tract-attacked and watched GOD move. One by one each team got shut down. No preaching or tracts allowed on the trail. Kinda late though. About 20,000 tracts late...GOD doesn't play around. Until only our team was left. Jason, Cynthia, Wei, Matt, Jonathan, Wei, Johnny, Erin, & Brazos. We were under the Zilker Park Christmas, 155 feet tall with 25 watt light bulbs all over it. From what I understand, that is technically not part of the trail so it was safe, for us. By the time I realized what was going on, Thomas came to inform me of the situation, we were all in so many converstations the no one was on the stool anymore. The only place to proclaim that was left. So, we centered ourselves and hit that stool hard (hitting the stool hard is better than hitting a hard stool. *inside joke...outside it isn't as funny...maybe) My Local Leader, Bryan Acred and family showed up and Bryan preached the Word. It was a great night of being stretched and forced into submission (full submission) to GOD for the situation. Of course the King was victorious. We closed the night up on the street at "P-Zone" with the amp and the Gospel. Countless people were lead to the LORD.

We had a great time of prayer, fun, and fellowship on the way home also. Seems to be a common EBC post-preaching occurance.

Monday was different. We knew we only had the P-Zone, Fork and Tree...no trail and pretty much no tracts...well in comparison to what we thought we would have. P-Zone was great. Surely hundreds maybe thousands more tracts went out. William, Peter and I were just hitting it like crazy and the rest of my team went on a "special ops mission". Pretty cool. GOD allowed us to preach there too. Peter and I did a, what I like to call, "duel stool". It was the first time Peter did Open Air, he broke the sound barrier and GOD continued to break hearts that were hardened to the Gospel and work as the Word went out. God is good. Our team moved back the the Tree zone and continued to preach and Jonathan the sax player played the sax there under the Tree and a crowd gathered to hear the Word again. Toward the end of the night I went to preach and GOD came to break me again, more. I opened it up for Questions and Objections and the didn't work the way that I thought I would. GOD sure was working though. A boy named RJ showed up. He had a question. And GOD had a question for me. RJ said something that will ring in my head of a while now. "I want to know how to make someone a Christian. Some of my family is Christian but some are not". This 9 year old (or so) boy heard the Gospel being preached and wanted to know how the effectivily share it with his Tio, his lost, Catholic uncle. Looking at myself and my sick, hypocritical heart sent me to the ground. I mean, don't get me wrong, I serve my King, I witness, I have a weekly outreach day where I purpose to reach the Lost, I travel all around the country and obey GOD and HIS commision and commandment. Or moreover, GOD does this all through me. Do I really submit to GOD with my family though. Mom, Dad, Grandparents, Brother, my family. Can I even say that I love my family if I'd rather have a few years of comfortable time with aquaintances that I've known for a long time. Or risk offense and step out in faith and OBEDIENCE to my FATHER and do all that I can to make clear the message of the Gospel.

It starts with me, like this: 1) me, 2) family, 3) friends, 4) neighbors, 5) strangers, etc. I kinda skipped the uncomfortable 2 and 3 and 4 and went right to the strangers. Which is good but, it's a compromise against my convictions, my conscience, my GOD.

I prayed for this child, RJ that GOD encourage, equip and protect him in his walk with the LORD. He became a Christian about a year ago. This kids about as old as me, in the Spirit. Oh, it cuts deep. I praise GOD that he broke me, that he sent me RJ, his message through RJ. I don't think that kid will ever know what GOD did in my heart. Praise GOD. I'm submitting myself to my KING and laying myself down for my family. Pray for them.

more to come. Hope this made sense.

Give GOD the glory.

Praise GOD.

Jason.