Police Try To Stop Street Preaching in Dallas & Shreveport

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RECENT OUTREACHES DOWNTOWN DALLAS, TX   One of the great things about using signs and banners for street preaching is that it captures the attention of the public for the gospel. And it is very common for random people to want to have their picture taken with you and your sign. I always enjoy doing this because you know that they are going to upload these pictures to their facebook account for all their friends to see, and in doing so, all their friends will get to read the message on your banner as well. You just never know what a seed like that will do when it is planted in their heart and mind. On this particular outreach I went out with two other brothers. We set up with our signs and banners in the West End of Dallas and started street preaching. Crowds of people were coming and going all day, and this area has a lot of trains and buses picking people up and dropping them off. One man who worked in this area doing security saw what we were doing and really enjoyed it. He said that he has walked with the Lord on and off and has had struggles with backsliding. But he really enjoyed listening to us preaching. He said that he is walking with the Lord now and has been for some time, so I am glad that we had the opportunity to encourage him with our message. DOWNTOWN FORT WORTH, TX Downtown Fort Worth usually has a lot of street preachers, but I am told that many of the have since moved on to new locations. And the area is also under construction so we could not preach at the spot where we normally do. Instead, we decided to stand on this particular street corner that gets a lot of traffic. It is across from a resturaunt/bar that often has large crowds outside of it. We used to preach with an amplifier in this city, and have been doing so for years, but the city has no created an ordiance that forbids it. Of course, the bars are still blasting their music for all to hear. Its unfortunate that street preachers cannot do the same with the gospel. There is an area of Fort Worth, not far from where we normally preach, that has primarily bars and clubs. Years ago this spot was not very active so we didn’t preach there much. But during this outreach we went to check it out and there were a great deal of people out there. Though the music can be a bit load, there are places that we can preach without that interferring. There was one spot where we preached that was right in front of three bars all at once. That was great. DOWNTOWN SHREVEPORT, LA  We have been going out to Shreveport all summer to preach the gospel to the nightlife and still we see new people every time that we go out. And we have yet to go out there to preach without having groups of people come up to us throughout the night to talk with us. Chicago is the new club in the district that seems to have stolen all of the customers of the clubs we used to preach in front of. I am glad that all of the sinners started going to this club instead of the other one that used to be popular, because this one has a bigger sidewalk for us to preach on and also a wall that we can stand on. And this area is not as noisy as the other one. DOWNTOWN DALLAS, TX  Two pastors came out to preach with us during this outreach which was encouraging. If we can get our pastors witnessing, we will get our churches witnessing. There were five of us total which made a good size team. We had a big presence in the area because we all has signs and banners. I suspected that since we were growing in numbers and since we had some pastors with us, that the devil might try to shut us down somehow. And sure enough, he tried. First some Police Officers that work for “Dart,” the company that owns the train area, came over to talk with us. They seemed like they were going to try to stop us from preaching but after I explained that were were on city property, not Dart property, and since we were doing nothing but engaging in freedom of speech, that we were doing nothing illegal or wrong. He called in to report what was going on and then came back and said that we were good to go and could keep preaching. However, after we continued preaching the City Police arrived. Officer Runnels approached me and asked, “Do you have a permit to do this?” I said, “Yes I do.” He said, “Can I see it?” I said, “I don’t have it on me.” He said, “Who gave it to you?” I said, “The Founding Fathers of the United States. It’s called the American Constitution, which you swore an oath to.” He said, “We are getting calls and complaints that you are disturbing the peace. It’s called disorderly conduct.” I said, “Free speech doesn’t qualify as disturbing the peace or disorderly conduct.” He said, “You need to get a permit.” I said, “Where can I get a free speech permit.” He said, “You know everything else, why don’t you know that?” I said, “I know that there is no such thing as a free speech permit. The Constitution is all of the permission that I need.” He said, “You don’t have the right to come out here and offend people.” I said, “You are offending me. Where is your permit?” He said, “I don’t care that I am offending you.” I went on to say, “If I need a permit to talk with people, where is your permit to talk with me?” He said, “You are creating a disturbance and could be arrested for disorderly conduct.” I said, “It wouldn’t be the first time. I’ve been arrested for that before and its cost the city and the police a lot of money.” He said, “Are you threatening me?” I said, “I am warning you. I am sure that you are a family man with kids at home.” He said, “You think that you have a right to be here and do this?” I said, “Of course I do.” At this point he walked away, got everyone’s ID, and did a warrant check in his car. There were at least ten Police Officers at this point. When we gave them our ID we also gave them a card that listed our legal rights, stating the law that says we have the right to preach without a permit, that we have the right to preach even if it offends others, that if these rights are violated that we can sue the Police Officer in his capacity as an Officer and as an individual, etc. After maybe twenty five minutes an Officer arrived that we talked with two weeks ago at this location. He said, “You guys are back. That’s good. It keeps the crime down.” They gave us back our ID’s and we kept preaching! After the Police left we continued preaching. We were drawing a pretty good size crowd and had a lot of people come up to us to ask us their questions. One man was walking home from work when he saw us out there preaching. After listening for a little while, he decided to jump in and start preaching the gospel too. And de would defend what we were doing to those who didn’t like it. He said that he plans on coming out to this location himself now on a regular basis to minister to people. DOWNTOWN FORT WORTH, TX  After we finished preaching in Dallas during the day we went over to Fort Worth for some nightlife street preaching. Since we had so many guys with banners we decided to split up. At one busy intersection we put one or more street preachers on each corner of the sidewalks. So people crossing the street would go from one street preacher to another. It was great. One time a crowd approached the crosswalk and had to wait for the light before they could walk. I said to the crowd, “You don’t want to cross the street and go over there. There’s some crazy street preacher over there with a sign.” Of course, I was there holding my big sign as well. This made the crowd laugh. I thought it was good because it showed them that we are just normal guys with a message about Jesus. I think sometimes showing a sense of humor can help break down the walls and barriers that people automatically put up. BROADWAY TYLER, TX   There is a bar in Tyler that I have been preaching outside of on and off for years. It is called, “Where’s Rufus Sports Bar.” It has an outdoor patio that a lot of people will hang out on. Right next to that patio is the city street with some public grass. We will stand there and talk with people and preach the gospel. Sometimes the owner, who used to be a Christian that even took trips on the mission field, would turn the sprinkler system on us. However, this particular night was not very busy for the bar. I suspect that it is because most of the college students who normally go out to this place have gone home for the summer. But I looked over at “Andy’s Custard” right next to the bar and there were tons of people out there. So we decided that it was a better sidewalk to preach from over there. I suspected that this large crowd might have come from a local Christian camp that is in the area called “Pinecove.” In years past whenever I saw a large crowd at Andy’s it was the counselors and leaders of this Christian camp. Sure enough, it was them again. Some of them came over to talk with us to see who we were, what we were doing, why we were doing it, etc. They were not hostile towards us at all but just curious. One of them in particular was a staff member at the camp who said that he has a heart for the mission field. He wants to spend the rest of his life overseas on the mission field spreading the gospel. It was encouraging to meet him. We talked about the Lord and tried to be an encouragement to him. It is good to preach the gospel to sinners when you are street preaching, but it is also good to encourage future missionaries when you are out street preaching too! DOWNTOWN SHREVEPORT, LA The Police in Shreveport gave us a hard time this particular night. We were preaching on a street corner and were drawing a pretty good size crowd. The Police approached us and said that they didn’t want us to go back and forth with the people. They didn’t like it when we would rebuke or answer a heckler. I argued that they have the right to heckle us and we have the right to respond. Then the Police tried to tell us that we cannot block the sidewalks. I said that we ourselves were not blocking the flow of any traffic. I said, “If the crowd is blocking the sidewalk, you will have to tell them to leave.” Sure enough, when we were preaching and the crowd grew to be a pretty big size, even though there was still plenty of sidewalk for everyone to walk on, the Police made the crowd disperse. Considering that the sidewalk was more than big enough so that we were not blocking anybody, I suspected that the Police just didn’t like us drawing an audience. And after this, another higher up Officer came to us and said that we could not preach after midnight because of a noise ordinance! In my ten years of street preaching, and countless encounters with the Police, this was a new one to me. I have heard about noise ordinances before in regards to amplifiers, but never in regards to your bare voice in a commercial nightlife district! If our bare voices violated a noise ordinance, then certainly the music that is much louder than us must be as well. I argued that we have the right to be loud enough to be heard. The Officer threatened to arrest us if we did not stop preaching after midnight. Midnight came and we kept preaching outside of the club. We never did see that Officer again. One local brother has joined our street preaching team. He is fresh out of a four year Bible College up North. He just moved back to Texas and wanted to start street preaching with us. He found my open air preaching videos online when he was still in Bible College and when he heard that I was living in Texas near where he is from, he couldn’t wait to graduate and move back! This was his first outreach with us to Shreveport. At first he thought that I had taken him to a dead location, because when we first arrived there were not many people. But after a little while the nightlife started to pick up and we were drawing some good crowds. He boldly preach his heart out in front of Chicago, a night club that has a nice wall that we can preach on. What I like the most about street preaching outside of “Chicago” is that it not ony has a long line of sinners waiting to get into the club, but it also has a balcony above us with sinners as well. The people on the balcony always lean over to watch us, talk to us, heckle us, etc. One time someone pee’d off the balcony and tried to get us. This time someone tossed a beer can and got the brother preaching. It is similar to when George Whitefield would preach and people would throw peices of dead cats at him, or when John Wesley would have people toss flower pots out the window at him. These are the honors of a street preacher. They are badges of honor. The sad thing is that many of the people that go out to party on Saturday nights will tell us, “I’ll be in church in the morning.” Most of them profess to be Christians even though they admit to going out to get drunk and fornicate. For many of them it is bad doctrine. They have been taught, “You are once saved always saved,” “You can’t be perfect,” “everyone is a sinner,” “God’s grace covers you when you sin,” and “Jesus paid it all.” One women asked me, “Didn’t Jesus die for all of our sins?” I said, “Yes he did.” She said, “Then we are all saved! All of our sins are forgiven!” As she continued to go out to party. What they fail to understand is that the atonement of Jesus makes pardon possible and available for everyone, but only those who repent and believe actually receive it. And if we do not persevere unto the end, we will most definately have our pardon revoked. By the way, I have an upcoming book called, “The Vicarious Atonement of Christ” which I am very excited about releasing soon… EVANGELISM & APOLOGETICS CLASS, TEEN MANIA I was honored with the opportunity to teach an “Apologetics & Evangelism” class at Teen Mania Ministries, Honor Academy. The Honor Academy is the internship program of Teen Mania which puts on The Acquire the Fire, Global Expeditions, Extreme Camps, etc. It is located on Keith Green’s former “Last Days Ministries” property. I was an intern from 2002-2003 and was in the graduate intern program from 2004-2005. That year I was in “The Fellowship of the Burning Hearts” which is a mentorship program with the founder, Ron Luce. It was immediately after I graduated from that program that I went full time into evangelism ministry. Now, seven years later, I was able to teach an evangelism and apologetics class to the internship for four days.  Throughout the four days that I taught I told many stories of winning souls, being assaulted, being arrested, etc, while street preaching. The interns seemed to like the stories most of all. Some of the things that I taught seemed to be revelational to them. I taught that sin has broken the very heart of God. In His natural state, the Lord is fully happy. But our sin has even provoked Him out of this natural state to anger and wrath. We ought to seek to win souls, not only for the sake of our fellow men, but for the sake of God. God rejoices when sinners repent! So we should seek to turn sinners from their sins unto Christ, to bring joy and happiness to God. If we have sympathy for sinners when we contemplate how they will receive what they deserve, how much more should we have sypathy for God when we contemplate that He is not receiving that which He deserves! Many of the staff at Teen Mania have told me, “I heard great things about your classes!” One intern told me, “You are probably the most significant speaker that I have heard all year.” That was a major compliment because Teen Mania has big name speakers come and speak all of the time. One intern even told me, “When you were teaching I thought to myself, ‘This is the reason that I pay to come to this school!” Teen Mania filmed the classes for me and I will be uploading those videos to my YouTube eventually. I posted the outlines from these lectures online and the links to get to those are below. DOWNTOWN SHREVEPORT, LA   After the week of classes that I taught at Teen Mania, I took an alumni and some interns out to the streets of Shreveport for some street preaching. This was an opportunity to put into practice everything that they had been learning. They said that it was a real eye opener for them. One of them even open air preached outside of the club for nearly half an hour. That’s was pretty good considering that when I preached open air my first time, I could barely preach for ten minutes without running out of things to say! UPCOMING CAMPUS PREACHING TOUR The map above is the tour that I will be taking along with my wife and two children in just a few weeks. We will be preaching on various campuses in these locations for the new semester as well as speaking at a conference and various churches. If you are in these areas and would like to fellowship or join us on campus just let me know. Or if you would like to help fund this campus preaching tour, as we will need money for food, gas, and hotels, please see the “Support The Morrell Family” at the bottom of this newsletter. We will be traveling 2,463 miles as a family!

These are some of the lectures that I recently gave at Teen Mania’s Honor Academy. The video footage from those classes will be uploaded to my YouTube account eventually. An Introduction to Evangelism & Apologetics: Click Here The Right Heart for Evangelism & Apologetics: Click Here How to Refute Atheism & Defend Theism: Click Here

JESSE’S NEW BOOK ON FREE WILL! The Natural Ability of Man: A Study On Free Will & Human Nature by Jesse Morrell is an exhaustive theological volume that defends the Christian doctrine of man’s free will against the false Gnostic/Calvinist doctrine of man’s natural inability. This volume explains the truth of man’s freedom of choice in light of Church history and other doctrines like total depravity, regeneration, atonement, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, predestination, repentance, faith, the believers security, original sin, etc. One Bible teacher called this book “the most comprehensive exposition on man’s natural ability in print.” 690 pages $20.00 To Order: Click Here SAMPLE SECTIONS FROM THE BOOK ONLINE Did Augustine Corrupt the Church with Gnostic Doctrine? Click Here Man’s Repentance & Christ’s Atonement: Click Here Do Men Inherit A Sinful Nature? Click Here

James Holmes is the man who recently opened fire on a crowd watching a movie. He murdered 12 people and attempted to murder 58+ others. Should our government have this man executed? If so, for what purpose should he be executed? See my article. Should James Holmes Face Capital Punishment? Click Here

When I was visiting with Winkie Pratney recently, I found some rare writings by William Booth on the doctrine of the atonement in his library. I have often wondered what atonement view Booth held to. In these writings he clearly refutes the “payment of a debt” perspective and argues for the Governmental view instead. William Booth on the Atonement of Christ: Click Here

HOW YOU CAN HELP SUPPORT THE MORRELL FAMILY The Morrell Family is supported entirely by personal gifts from individuals. The financial support we receive from the body of Christ makes it possible for us to continue to live and to travel and preach. All personal gifts from $5 -$500, either monthly or one-time, makes a huge difference. Will you consider being a monthly supporter, giving as little or as much as you can?   Paypal: Click Here Physical Mail (NEW ADDRESS): Jesse & Krista Morrell P.O. Box 1527 Lindale TX, 75771 Special thanks in advance to our supporters. THE BATTLE IS ON! We couldn’t do it without you!

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