Happy Thursday Fam! And Happy Religious Freedom Day!
Today is a very special day in American history. It is the anniversary of the very first bill passed in America that guaranteed the right to live out one’s faith without government persecution or interference. This bill became the legislative seed for the same rights that were later enshrined into national law in our first amendment.
You can read more about that here- www.nationalreligiousfreedomday.com
How fitting that tonight we will be gathering to further discuss how our forefathers came here for that exact purpose as we dive deeper into the Pilgrims biography. Looking forward to seeing you there!
On that note, how interesting is it that just yesterday, one of my clients came in and showed me his family genealogy…and he just so happened to be related to the author of this biography- William Bradford. Middle sections of the genealogy not pictured:
Very cool!
Last weekend, even though it was pretty chilly…we had a great time exercising our religious liberties.
On Friday, traffic was pretty light but after we had been at Bayfront for a while, an entire family from Venezuela came over and prayed with Maria to receive the Lord.
On Saturday morning, I was invited to a gathering of intercessors that were meeting in Desoto County. Many of the 60 prayer warriors were from the 941 area, so the leader- Keena Cowsert, told me earlier in the week that I should go so I could meet some of them and rally more prayer support for the ministry.
Praise the Lord- 7 of them have agreed to provide prayer cover while we are at the outreaches, which I’m super excited about. Here’s a video of the meeting:
Also, because the Lord has used my friend Keena to raise up intercessors in all 67 counties in Florida, I will be making connections with those that are in the regions where we will be ministering on our mission trips, which I’m very excited about. As I told the group, every military needs not only an Army, but also an Air Force. As is the case in actual war, prayer warriors need to “drop the bombs on the battlefield” before the troops go in on the ground. That way they have the army has the greatest chance of victory. They were encouraged by this and were excited to partner with us in this way.
Saturday at Riverwalk was great too. When I first arrived, I preached a little bit, and I gave an altar call. A young girl (maybe 6 years old) and a teenage boy came over and prayed to receive the Lord afterwards which was awesome. Throughout the night we were also able to give out many tracts and we had some good conversations with people. It was also great to have a team from a local Hispanic church come that night to help us as well.
At the end, a teenage boy came up and asked us to pray for him to get closer to God and to serve Him more fully. What a great prayer request! We ended up ministering to him for a little while and he was touched:
On Sunday, the crowds were a little light and we had a lean crew, but it was still a great time. Many people heard, we gave out a good number of tracts, and we got to pray with several people. A few people were even hanging around in the pavilion listening pretty closely for a while. We didn’t get any pics, but we did get one video:
BIG thanks to those who braved the cold last weekend- Mike M, Amber, Karson, Sarath, Ken, Mike V, Rene, Maria, Gene, Joe and Mike F. Great work!
As for the BIG announcement….
Our brother Karson will officially be stepping up to take over the Bayfront Park outreach beginning soon. Karson is a mighty evangelist and a great leader, and I believe his leadership over this outreach will allow it to become even more fruitful. For one reason, because he will be able to begin much earlier, when there are more people at the park to minister to. This will also free up Sofiya and I to add to/expand the ministry in other ways because we will have this evening open.
Please be in prayer over Karson and the Bayfront team during this time of transition and please be in prayer over us as we navigate through this next chapter.
That’s all for today! Hope to see you again soon!
Love and blessings,
Chris, Sofiya and Natalie