A Part of History (April 2, 2011)

In partnership with Bezeugen Ministries, we took part in a nationwide effort of taking the Gospel to every major league ballpark for each team's opening weekend.  We were excited to take part in this exciting opportunity, as well as to see the warm weather sport of baseball return! 

As always, we were watching the weather forecast, and it wasn't good.  Even the night before, they were calling for it to be in the low 30's with a rain/snow mix heading into the first pitch.  We trusted the Lord.  It ended up being in the 40's with sunshine and blue skies.  It was still really chilly being so close to the lake, but much better than forecasted!  We were praying that God would bring together a team of 15 people for this event, and He saw fit to bring together 20 laborers!  Praise God!  So, we met for prayer, gathered our 2,500 tracts and made our way to Progressive Field. 

We got down there at 11 AM, two hours before the game started, and we were delighted to see that we had arrived before the crowd starting coming in.  Perfect!  The first hour was pretty slow, as people just weren't coming, other than a few here and there.  Well, that just meant that the second hour would be a fast-paced rush, right?  Twelve o'clock passed and we approached 30-minutes before game time and the crowd flow was still really light.  Not only that, we were also getting a lot of rejections. 

We pressed on, knowing that the stadium holds over 40,000 people and they were bound to pour in any minute.  Maybe people were waiting until the last minute because it was so chilly.  We were ready for when they came - we pretty much had every entry point to the stadium covered.  We even had a little open air preaching take place. 

As the National Anthem began at 1:00, things still hadn't picked up.  We made our way home feeling a little discouraged.  Where were all the people?  Well, it turns out that we were a part of history.  With just over 9,000 people in attendance, it was the lowest attendance in the history of Progressive Field.  Of the 2,500 tracts, we probably gave away around 1,000.  And when you factor in how many rejections we had, we probably reached out to a hefty percentage of the people there!

We went there to glorify God by reaching out to the lost, and that is what we did.  We have tracts left over, so we will come back again for another game when the weather warms up.  Please be in prayer for those who did get a tract and/or who heard the open air preaching.  I praise God that we were able to get the Gospel to so many, even if not as many as we thought.  And I praise Him for allowing the weather to defy all forecasts.  And I praise Him for bringing together such an amazing team!