Lord, give us souls!

every friday i lead an open air meeting at Pigeon Park with the Revolutionary session. here's a picture of the so-called park where we open attack-- there's a small fountain downstage in this photo that is always running, and those benches are usually full of people. there are more benches on the other side of the park as well. the artwork in the back is all done on giant chalk boards (cool, eh?) so it's changing all the time. the soggy weather pictured here is generally accurate.

pray for our open air meetings: last month we had 5 people get saved through conversations after open air finished. i long to see mass repentance like you read about, but in my experience thus far, most people get saved through relationship and conversation. however, there are many benefits to the open air in my opinion--
1) excellent conversation starter-- we're a bunch of freaks out there
2) the conversation gets right to Jesus because they see what we're about
3) we're worshipping and lifting up the name of YHWH in a place where His name is cursed and false gods are exalted-- we smash them down
4) the Word goes forth. they hear it, it's out there, whether they respond or not
i personally feel it is much easier to stand on a soap box and preach the good news, than to meet someone, invite them to cell, visit them, call them, take them out for coffee, pray for them for months, compel them to have faith and repent, and then bug them for months to make sure they don't backslide. but that seems to me to be what it takes. i'm not a very experienced evangelist i recognize (i've only been seriously at it for 13 months), but this is what i've seen. thoughts on this?

no matter what the method, praise the Lord, 5 people have been saved, and more than that delivered from addiction, and/or plugged into community. the plan is to be responsible for our converts and go by Lieutenant Colonel Rader's theory, "the most important part of an open air meeting is follow up." easier said than done in a neighborhood where the majority of our friends do not have a home or a phone. our hope is that we invite them to one of our cell groups and they come, and if not, we simply pray that we bump into them on the street. any thoughts? we want open air to be effective.

Lord for a might revival we plead,
Lord, give us souls;
Thy saving power in this meeting we need,
Lord, give us souls.
Quicken our hearts by the Holy Ghost's power,
Of sin the sinner convict, Lord this hour,
Lord, give us souls.

Let every heart on this object be set,
Lord, give us souls;
Help us to pray till the answer we get,
Lord, give us souls.
Give us the faith that will not let Thee go,
Faith that says, yes, though the devil says, no;
Lord, Thy salvation in this meeting show,
Lord, give us souls.

Lord, we believe Thou are going to save,
Lord, we believe;
Floods of salvation and power we shall have,
Lord, we believe.
Souls shall be truly converted to Thee,
From all the bondage of Satan set free,
Made into soldiers to fight well for Thee,
Lord, we believe.

(sasb #something)

fight on!