A Panthiest, a Buddhist, a Catholic, and the like

It was a good, but short night. For some reason only 1 lane of I-30 was open so we sat in traffic for a good half an hour on the way down to Deep Ellum. Deep Ellum seemed a little dead, although there was a big crowd at one of the clubs.

*Anne, Dara, Daniel, and Jason*

Dara went with Anne, Daniel, and Jason. Dara has come once or twice in the past so she has a little familiarity with Deep Ellum. She and Anne were able to talk to a Pantheist name Jose. Here’s a summary of what he believed. He was a pantheist so he believed that everyone and everything is God. His beliefs were really conflicting, because he said that we’re all Gods, and Jesus, Mohammad, and Buddha were all good examples. The path to spiritual enlightenment was to feel less and less guilt. And Jesus was a good example of how to love. (Comment from Luke : If we’re all Gods, why does it matter if we feel guilt or not? Isn’t God the highest being that there is?). Hell to him was when we feel bad and our conscience is bothering us. (No afterlife, just re-incarnation) . So once you’re like Jesus (or one of the other good religious teachers) you have heaven on earth. To him, Jesus wasn’t really a person, but an entity. One of the biggest influences in his spiritual journey was his gay friend, who was the person “the most like Jesus” he had ever met. Anne asked him if he had a Bible, and he said no. He had a small amount of familiarity with the Bible, but said he got confused when he read it. So Anne gave him hers, and told him to read the red-lettered portions because those were the words of Jesus and he could find out what Jesus REALLY said and what he was REALLY like. (and not based on his gay friend). All in all, they talked to Jose about 40 minutes. Near the end of the conversation they asked if they could pray for him.

Jason and Daniel started a conversation with a couple of guys, but the guys had to leave halfway through it. There were not as many people down in Deep Ellum this week as some other weeks so neither of them got into any big conversations. Since Jason and Daniel went with Dara and Anne, they stayed in the vicinity while Dara and Anne were talking to Jose. They Handed out lots of tracts and got in some brief conversations. We trust that some good some good seeds have been planted.

*Spenser, Mrs Maclean, and Elizabeth *

Spenser had a great night handing out tracks and encouraging the recipients to read them. When his group, which consisted of Mrs MacLean, Elizabeth, and himself, would happen upon the unfortunate soul who would stop to talk to them, Spenser gave the Evangelism questionnaire. This questionnaire consists of two questions: “If you were to die today, would you go to heaven, or is that something that you are still working on?” and “If God were to ask you, ‘Why should I let you into my heaven,’ what would you say?” They encountered three girls while they were walking down the street, one of whom lagged behind, so they picked her off. As they went through the evangelism explosion presentation, the girl understood that she was trusting in herself, but she didn’t pray the prayer of salvation because she had to catch up with her friends. Lizzie described her as more interested in the cares of this life than spiritual things, and that she was trying to act cool, and acting like she really wasn’t interested. They also talked to a couple of guys who were both raised in the church, but had developed their own sense of truth and of God. They didn’t want the tract because they were environmentalists and didn’t want the paper to be wasted on them because they would just throw it away. When confronted with sin, they were offended and felt as though they had been judged, so they ended up walking away. At that point, one of the guy’s girlfriends walked up and was very engaged in the conversation, and had questions that she genuinely wanted to know the answers to. Elizabeth was able to ask some questions to this lady, and actually engage her in conversation. (Yay Elizabeth!) Though the lady was a catholic, she had given up on the Catholic faith and instead had a “multifaceted” view of entrance into heaven. (All paths to heaven are valid.) Finally, in their last conversation on the way back to the Car, they encountered two young men that were high, who said they they were good people and had kept the Ten Commandments.


*Joel, Andrew, and Mark*
The night for Mark’s group started off with a bang after trying to talk to one guy, who flat out rejected the Gospel. Mark then talked to a Buddhist. The Buddhist guy respected Christianity and thought Jesus was a very good guy. However, Mark surmised that the Buddhist was very very confused in his beliefs. While Mark was talking to the Buddhist, Joel and Andrew were talking to a guy named James. James professed to be a Christian, but he had “got into drugs, and left God.” He wanted to come back to God but he doesn’t know how. James said he would e-mail Joel with more questions that he has. Joel described the whole night with the phrase “made me feel good inside." They also tried witnessing at Club One but they got the standard, “Now is not the time for us to hear the gospel” response. Mark saw the police Officer who had told him a few weeks ago that he needed a “religious permit” to be able to hand out tracts or share his faith. Mark wished him a happy Thanksgiving :) .