Hey Fam! Happy Friday!
I was hoping to get this out yesterday, but I gave a lecture at yesterday at 2pm and it altered the flow of the day quite a bit. It went really well though so praise God. Here’s a pic:
Friday night got off to a strong start. Within the first 10-15 minutes of arriving, there were already people that were coming up for prayer, and I got word that within the first hour or so, there were 7 people that prayed to receive the Lord! Several also said they wanted to be baptized. Here’s one video clip I got of what happened early.
Later on, I was doing my rap song, and literally as I was finishing and saying the last line “Jesus truly wants…YOU”, I turned, and this little boy was 10 feet away, heading my way on a scooter. I pointed to him as I said the last line and he stopped and listened to me share the gospel with him. Two of his friends came up right behind him and I shared the gospel with them too. All 3 of them prayed to receive Jesus! So cool! Here’s a few pics of them:
Later, our friend Bo came over and he ended up receiving a lot of prayer for deliverance. He said he felt way different after and he was so thankful, that he wanted to testify about it on the microphone. Here’s a clip:
Many believers came over that night and encouraged us too, and many people stopped to hear the gospel. It was great! We also ended up having a pretty good-sized prayer circle at the end, which is always powerful. Here’s a clip of that:
BIG thanks to Mike M, Mike K, Rochelle, Laney, Augast, Thom, Abagail, Karson, Jeff and Lucas for coming out to serve! Great work!!!
Saturday was super special for me, since I was celebrating the two-year anniversary of going more full time into the ministry. We ended up having 3 baptisms that day too, which was awesome! A family that fully surrendered to the Lord the week before, came back and took that next step. It’s been beautiful to see the transformation in them because when I first met them a few months ago, the mom was still dealing with the trauma of having been raped by a minister inside a church many years ago. She had also just gotten out of an abusive relationship, so the kids were pretty traumatized by that. Bit by bit, we’ve seen their hearts open up to Jesus and seeing them take the step of full surrender was such an encouragement! Here’s some clips:
The daughters:
Overall, there were less people at the park than usual, but there was definitely some engagement with the word and the worship. Sadly though, the bugs made it tough to pray for people for very long at the gift table, but many seeds were planted nonetheless. Here’s one video of the worship:
Another bit of Riverwalk related news is that I spoke with the woman who we met at Riverwalk who wanted us to minister in the assisted living facility and she said that anytime we want to come, we can come. If you feel led to be part of that please let me know. I think it would probably have to be on a Saturday morning sometime.
BIG thanks to Laney, Mike K, Rochelle, Chuck, Debbie, Ricardo, Nathalie, Fred and Olivia for coming out to serve!!! Great job!
Sunday was exciting. I came in with tremendous expectation because the girl I wrote about last week, who we met in Ft. Lauderdale and then ran into again in Sarasota, told her dad that he should come from Ft. Lauderdale to Siesta to have us pray over him for healing from stage 4 melanoma. I’ll get to that part of the story in a minute.
First off, let me give props to our bro Jayson, who almost single handedly brought everything to the beach for set up. I called him the first quarter MVP and I meant it!
Once we got set up, the army started coming out! It was awesome! This was our prayer circle beforehand:
And here’s one clip I got during worship. It felt like a real Jesus party!
Many people were getting drawn in and a number of them received gifts and prayers. Then, around 6, the girls’ parents arrived, and Mike spent about an hour counseling them. They both surrendered to the Lord and got filled with the Spirit. Then, we took Steven (the one with cancer) to the water to be baptized. As usual, a crowd came to join in the worship and a number of people were getting ministered to by the water. Here’s one clip. Steven is the man getting prayed over.
Then, after much prayer for healing, he was baptized:
Shortly after this, I went back up to the tent and when I got there, I saw a young woman bowed down in front of the cross, crying. I knelt down and prayed over her and when she got up, she was so overwhelmed by the power of God that she couldn’t really say much. But, with tears in her eyes, she did say “thank you for being here. People think church is only for inside, but it’s not. We need to have it everywhere.” She walked away as she was saying this, and part of me wanted to talk to her more because she had short hair and was dressed in men’s clothes, so I had a feeling she might be gay. Realizing that God was working on her though, I felt led to just let her go rather than confront that issue. Later on, I ended up hearing that she ended up going all the way to the water and meeting the team that was still down there. She then repented, surrendered to Jesus, and got baptized too! So cool!!! We had a few other people get baptized that night too, including one of the people that received the Lord on Friday at Bayfront.
Right after she left the tent area, I saw a young guy who was on the other side of the walkway, looking at what we were doing. I started talking to him and he said that he never gave his life to Jesus and that he didn’t really know what Jesus did for him. I explained the gospel to him and asked him “do you want that?” He said yes. He prayed to receive the Lord right there on the walkway. It was awesome! Here’s a picture of us. His name is Chris too.
Later in the night, I went into the drum circle, and I got to talk with several drummers. One of them had already came up to me in the parking lot and told me how thankful he is that we’re out there and what a difference we were making, so I was excited to get over there and love on the other guys. I hugged and talked to a few of them, including our old nemesis Scott, and I showed Scott that I was wearing his favorite shirt of mine. Scott’s reaction was priceless. He actually pulled another drummer aside and said “Look at that shirt man! Isn’t that awesome! Jesus is surfing with no surfboard, because He doesn’t need one!” It was like he was witnessing to his friend! It was amazing!
Between both spots, so many people got ministered to that night. We closed the service out with an epic time of prayer, where we had about 24 people warring together for over an hour. It was so powerful! Here’s a clip:
Another cool thing was that our friend Amee, who is in town from Europe, came to the service for the first time in over a year and she just so happened to have a scripture on her shirt from the passage that God has been speaking to me through a lot lately. AND that I’ve been quoting over and over again in our prayer times. Such a cool confirmation!
Whatever hardship we must endure for the sake of those that are chosen…we, as good soldiers for Christ, will endure it!
BIG thanks to Jayson, Mike K, Rochelle, Vitaly and his 3 friends, Olga, Olga and her husband, Nathalie, Laney, Michelle, Amber, Paul, Karson, Faith, Danijah, Chelsea, Sandra, Diana, Augast, Annie, Ester and the several others whose names I don’t know. Great work soldiers!!!
Oh, and cool update to the story. I talked with Steven on Tuesday and his latest scan shows no cancer!!! Praise God!!! Please keep him and his family continually lifted up!
This weekend the times will be:
Friday at Bayfront Park (177) at 7
Saturday at Riverwalk (103) at 6
Sunday at Siesta Beach (281) at 4
Please pray and please come when you can!
Love you guys! God bless!
Chris