Notice the cross in the midst of the sea of people bowing down to their "golden calf".
INTRODUCTION: This past weekend, I along with 100 other evangelists teamed up with Sports Fan Outreach International to bring the gospel to the 2012 Super Bowl crowd. My Canadian friends, Sye Ten Bruggencate and Cory McKeena joined the rest of our team for 3 spiritually and physically grueling yet God-glorifying days in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was a real blessing to shine the light of Christ's gospel in the midst of spiritual darkness with a cadre of like-minded Christian soldiers. I share the following videos for your edification:
I will put up more videos as I have time to upload them. The schedule was physically grueling and was designed to wear us down a little to prevent too much dependence upon the flesh and promote dependence upon the Spirit. Here's how the schedule went so that you can get an idea about the intensity of the days as they unfolded:
SUPERBOWL OUTREACH 2012 | ITINERARY
Thursday, February 2nd
3:30-4:45 a.m. - Team leader Justin Edwards and I get up at 3:30 a.m. to meet with our team to leave Charlotte by 4:45 a.m for Indianapolis. We anticipated getting there by 5:30 p.m., but didn't arrive until @ 8 p.m. due to I-40 being closed at a particular point and us having to take a detour in Louisville, KY. Not to mention, our team leader became sick and we thought that surely we too were going to get sick since we were breathing the same air.
8:00 p.m. - We were able to hear the final parts of Tony Miano's presentation about the dangers of “nomadic” evangelism and the need to abide in Christ unto perseverance. We then headed back to our cabins for fellowship, singing, and discussion about the pros/cons of various apologetic methods. We probably got to sleep @ 12:30 p.m.
Friday, February 3rd
6:30 a.m. - Rise and shine.
7:00 a.m. - Prayer followed by a fellowship breakfast
9:00 - 10:30 a.m. - Teaching on the role of the evangelist in the local church.
11:00 - 9:30 - Traveled to downtown Indianapolis for open air preaching, one-on-one evangelism, and tract distribution.
11:00 p.m. -1:00 a.m. - More late night one-on-one iron sharpening.
Saturday, February 4th
6:30 a.m. - Rise and shine.
7:00 a.m. - Prayer followed by a fellowship breakfast
9:00 - 10:30 a.m. - Teaching on living and preaching in light of Christ’s grace and humility
11:00am – 9:30pm – Traveled to downtown Indianapolis for open air preaching, one-on-one evangelism, and tract distribution.
11:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m. - More late-night conversation about evangelistic methods, apologetics, and fellowship.
Sunday, February 5th
5:30 a.m. - Rise and shine.
6:00 a.m. - Prayer followed by a fellowship breakfast.
9:00 - 10:30 a.m. – Teaching on persevering through trials for the glory of God.
11:00 a.m. - 6:30 p.m. - Traveled to downtown Indianapolis for open air preaching, one-on-one evangelism, and tract distribution.
7:45 p.m. to 7:45 a.m. – headed back to Charlotte for an all-night drive. I slept no more than 30 minutes during the entire drive home.
This is a photo of my newfound long-lost brother Brian Ottinger getting on the box for the first time!
I think I may have gotten less than 20 hours of sleep total during the entire trip and by God's grace, my immune system broke down and I got a nasty cold. But God's grace is sufficient for us, and so I praise God for this time of outreach, fellowship, and evangelism. The opportunity to train and encourage men to open-air preach, pass out tracts, and interact with unbelievers with gentleness and respect was the personal highlight of this trip for me (1 Peter 3:15). It is so much more of a blessing to find faithful, available, and teachable people to pour myself into rather than wearing myself out by hogging the box and doing most of the preaching and/or evangelism (2 Tim. 2:2). Thus, I thank God for giving me an opportunity to encourage, exhort, and equip others to do the work of the ministry (Eph. 4:15).
Smashing idols with the love of Christ.
A little worship occurring as we prepare for war:
Sye Ten Bruggencate talks truth with a couple football fan
Justin Edwards answering the objections of hecklers.
Yours truly stoplight preaching at SuperBowl XLVI
Yours truly trying to reason with an irrational Bengals fan. This guy became violent later along with his other two friends as Justin Edwards' video shows above. Some people need to stop watching MMA and drinking beer and beg Jesus for mercy from His coming wrath!
GOD WAS DRAWING PEOPLE TO CHRIST THROUGH THE PREACHING: The Spirit used our preaching efforts to powerfully draw a few, sober, convicted sinners out of the crowd to talk about His Son while their drunk friends waited impatiently for them to finish the conversation. As we preached and witnessed, some passerby's came to tears as they were convicted by the public preaching of Christ crucified. I personally prayed for at least three of these folks after they asked us to pray for them on the spot that God would grant them repentance and faith. These were exciting and fresh reminders that our great God truly is mighty to save and that open-air preaching is not dead!
75 y/o Frank Robertson still going strong at hitting the street with the glorious gospel of Christ.
Perhaps the most inspiring “glory story” from the streets of Indianapolis involved a 75 year-old street evangelist named Frank Robertson. While brother Buck Hamilton and I took a bathroom break at the 2012 Superbowl Outreach, we saw some brothers not with the Sports Fan Outreach International group (our organizing group) handing out tracts, preaching the gospel, and holding signs with Scripture on them. We introduced ourselves to these men and the fellowship was so sweet. One of their evangelists was 75 years old and had been on the streets since the 1980s. He told Buck and I, "I'm 75 years old and I'm going to die soon, I've been praying for 20 years that God would raise up some young men to take my place." I then told him, "Brother, this young man with me and myself have been preaching the gospel with a group of young men; some of which have only been saved two years." His eyes started to well up with tears and he got choked up and he said, "Can I pray for you?" We then prayed and went our separate ways overjoyed and full of the Spirit.
Pastor Cory McKeena preaching to the masses.
Our blessed team praying for one another and the lost.
I want to extend a gracious thanks to Bill Adams of Sports Fan Outreach International for inviting Shepherd's Fellowship to participate in this outreach and our following team members for their encouragement, fellowship, and teachable hearts:
IN CONCLUSION, I want to thank all the dear saints of Shepherd's Fellowship and other saints who support my evangelistic activities who were upholding me and our team in prayer during this outreach. Without your prayer and sacrificial giving, I would not be able to reach the lost! I know that I speak on behalf of all the other evangelists involved when I say that the Lord strengthened us for the task through your faithful prayers!
Here's Pastor Cory McKenna and I talking with Nick and Jake (1 hour, 15 minutes) SBO2012_Dustin_Nick&Jake.mp3 WARNING: the audio file above has not been edited and contains profanity. Listener discretion strongly advised.
CLICK HERE to see more pictures from SuperBowl Outreach 2012 on Pastor Cory McKenna's Flickr page!
SBO2012_Dustin_Nick&Jake.mp3
