Hiram GA Outreach

Greetings in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ -

O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. - Psalm 34:8

Basketball at the Park 

What a wonderful time it was at Ben Strickland Memorial Park in Hiram, GA in sharing the Gospel with many people. Thank you to everyone who had prayed for us while we were there. Your labors were not in vain. We started our morning at Starbucks in Hiram where we had the opportunity to exhort one another in the Lord and share the gospel with some customers and one of the employees there who is attending a 7th Day Baptist church. I gave this man my number and email as well as a card to our church

When we arrived at the park around 10:00AM it was virtually empty. We spent some time testing the acoustics at the amphitheater and found it to be a wonderful place to host open-air services. We decided to go to the pavilion to pray and met two women whose hearts were open to the Lord and professed to love the Lord Jesus. Both were orginally from Jamaica. After a brief conversation with them we noticed the park begin to fill with people. The women joined us in prayer for a time there and we began to go out to share the gospel with people in the park and in the parking lot as many people drove to park in the parking lot to eat a meal. This proved to be a fruitful place to speak with people as they were coming and going. One of the brothers brought water in a cooler which became a great blessing to many. One family had a daughter who was quite thirsty and they had forgotten water. As the day progressed the basketball courts filled up with young men who were able to share the gospel with as a group and one-on-one. One of the main messages that was on our hearts to share with the people was the necessity of the new birth. We asked the question to many if they had ever heard such a teaching and we were amazed to hear that many had never heard such a doctrine before. It was a true joy to open the Scriptures to them and show them their need of being born again and way through Christ Jesus alone.

Sharing the Gospel in the Parking Lot

We also invited everyone who did not have a home church to visit with us at Berean Baptist Church in Hiram. Many took our church cards and several expressed their desire to find a home church. Nearly everyone we talked to did not have a church they were a member of or regularly attending. Some we met had recently moved to the area and had been wanted to find a place to attend.

We met a man who was part of a church that teaches and preaches a false prosperity Gospel. We spent several minuted reasoning from the Scriptures with this man about the Gospel and many other subjects. He had remarked that he had prayed an hour before coming to the park to the Lord to give him direction and felt his meeting us was an answer to that prayer. When we opened the Scriptures to him that contradicted the things he was teaching, he remarked that he could not argue against the Word of God.

Praise the Lord for accompanying the speaking of His Word with power and conviction. We also met a brother in Christ at the park who was attending another church, but it was far from his home. He rejoiced to see us sharing the Gospel and giving water to people as an act of love. He said he was going to consider coming to our church as it has been his desire to find something closer to home. The Lord's will be done.

We all left greatly encouraged of the Lord to continue this work and continually seek out people to speak to about their state of their soul. We know that we saw great success this day because of the blessing of the Lord and many prayers of the saints for us. We saw a great need to have some godly women to accompany us as there was much need to minister to women. I learned from this experience that not only should I have sought to point people to Christ and a good church, but I should have sought to get their contact information for follow-up and to add to our church email list. Next time I will ask people to provide name, phone, and email so that we can continue to reach out to those who expressed interest.

Praise the Lord for this outreach. May many, many more follow it to the glory to God.

Soli Deo Gloria