riverfront park

Team Yeshua Outreach in Spokane’s Riverfront Park

It’s a joy to finally have my wife officially alongside Team Yeshua here in Montana. Saturday, we made an airport run to Spokane, Washington and enjoyed a good time of street ministry. After several days of training concerning the Christian’s responsibility to evangelize the lost, I turned the volunteers loose in Riverfront Park (a great place to preach) while I went to snag Jamie form the airport. When we returned to the park sometime later and began searching for them, I heard preaching! It gave me great joy to walk around a corner and discover my son Josiah preaching and all the team members engaged in distributing Gospel tracts and having conversations about the things of the Lord. When Josiah finished, a young boy with his skateboard, Austin, approached to ask some questions. He gladly received a Bible. I also learned that some socks had been given out to the homeless, along with the Gospel, and that our volunteers had prayed with a few hurting folks. Almost all the tracts I had left with these had been distributed.

It blessed me to preach for a few minutes myself and to sing aloud all four verses of my favorite hymn, Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” a concert of sorts in the park. #TheLongWalkUSA cross was carried around the park. A youth group from Alabama on a mission trip was greatly encouraged. Our team engaged Mormons, Muslims, a screaming Karen, and even a hater who accused one of the young men of spreading “hate speech.” All he had asked was “Hey, can I offer you a Gospel tract today?” I made sure the hater walked away knowing he was a murderer at heart and a vile hypocrite in need of a Saviour. He made the mistake of thinking he could talk over a street preacher :) That mistake elicited some laughs from a group of kids fishing from a bridge over the Spokane River. They all took Gospel tracts.

Yesterday was a good day of fellowship with the brethren of a local church fellowship who meet each Sunday morning here on the property where we are based in Missoula. I was asked to exhort those assembled concerning the Great Commission of our Lord and Saviour, its FIVE instances in the New Testament. That Great Commission is not merely a good suggestion. It’s our Lord’s last commandment to His disciples before He returned to the right hand of the Father. Moreover, the Book of Acts, more than anything else, shows us how those disciples and the earliest Christians understood and carried out that Commission. Do we follow their example?

Josiah Boyd draws a small crowd of youth while preaching in Riverfront Park with #TheLongWalkUSA cross.

I’m excited to have Brother Shawn Holes with us for a few days. His teaching and exhortation will be a true blessing for the team. Hopefully, we’ll be out on the streets in Missoula, and soon, we need to get back down to Madison County. This Team Yeshua Big Sky summer has started off strong. Thank you for your prayers. We depart for India on July 17, and there is a lot to accomplish before then. We really do have a great team this year. Please pray that the Lord will meet their needs and our needs and do a mighty work. I love opportunity to train young people in the work of the Great Commission. It’s a true honor.

Stay tuned …