mommy mommy, A grumpy old man yelled at me.

I manned the booth today for a few hours at MissionFest Winnipeg 2007. Wow what an experience! I entered this large church which was housing the fest and wandered around for 15mins looking for the C4C booth. I couldn’t find it because our signage was so small in comparison to the numerous other missions groups.

A few things I learned:

1. Mission Fest is like the automobile show everyone’s trying to sell their product: “your best service for God”. I constantly heard the following from the various tables: “We are the best at what we do!”; “No one has the vision and heart like we do”; “We know what we’re doing”… I even heard: “Our ministry touches 98% of the world population with the gospel. We are doing so well because we have great speakers who practice, memorize and repeatedly give great sermons. We are successful because our ministry is great.” Sorry, but what happened to G.O.D.

2. Mission Fest has booth babes. I am offended.

3. We were all using media, music, free candy to attract people.

So since I was there manning the table, some of you might be wondering… I simply shared the vision of Campus ministry: we’re here change the world by helping to fulfill the great commission by winning university students to Christ, building them up in their faith and sending them to win, build and send others. I’m not that good looking and am missing a chromosone so no booth babe… Yes I used project videos to attempt to capture an audience, but when I turned on my laptop to show the videos the booth beside me turned up the volume on their dvd integrated 20in wide screen LCD monitor. I lost.

Saw a few students who were visiting the Fest, saw a few friends from Church. I enjoyed some of the other tables. I had a great conversation with the “stop-abortion” clinic people…about cohabiting and negative effects on marriage relationships. What can you say I am curious. Got to meet a few people from “gospel for asia”

And if you’ve made it this far: An older gentleman came up to me to ask if we (Campus Crusade for Christ) were giving away Josh Mc Dowell’s new book “the witness” I said, “no but I have a copy at home back in B.C.” He proceeded to ask me if I ever heard of McDowell. I said of course, I’ve read large portions of “evidence of the verdict” and finished “beyond belief” and am currently reading “A quest for answers”. I think he was trying to catch me off guard thinking…this little asian kid has no idea who Mc dowell is…hah.

This is when it gets interesting. He moves in closer looks me straight in the eye and asks, “so what do you do with Campus Crusade for Christ?” I say, “I am new to staff with Campus staff here in Winnipeg”. He asks, “how long you been a Christian?” I replied “…about 6.5years” He moved in closer…we’re now 6in apart (he’s in my personal space) He looks me straight in the eye and says: Do you believe in the word of God? How do you know it’s true? How do you know it’s true versus the Koran?” I am a bit thrown back. I reply, “there’s good evidence: external, historical, fulfilled prophesies….there’s good evidence for Jesus resurrection to validate his claim to be God. I am cut off. He retorts, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you even a Christian? Why did Jesus die on the cross? I am a spiritual grandfather. I’ve been a Christian for 53 years and I know what’s right. You have to be ready to defend your faith.” By this time he’s 3 inches infront of my face yelling at me. Normally I’d step back but this guy was being a jerk. I was sticking my ground. He proceeds to tell me that I better figure things out that I should always be ready to defend my faith.

So I was told that I’m not a Christian and shouldn’t be here at mission’s fest nor in Winnipeg doing what I’m doing…

Thank you for that experience lord. Thank you for reminding me that I should have a good reason for my belief in God….even if I don’t get the chance to fully respond about my believes, convictions and the good reasoning for believing and doing what God has asked me to do: to serve a spiritually desperate and hungry generation.

As I was typing this up I got an update, my director who replaced me after my shift told me that two people want to join the ministry. Two students who want to join a discipleship group and learn how to share their faith.

I guess the booth was a success and I was wrong. MissionFest is good as long as I am not behind the booth. I seem to attract the wrong crowd.

Everything I do falls through yet everything Kevin does succeeds. I think this year will be filled with much failure. It will be a good learning year. Maybe I should be mature and recognize that God is sovereign and that I need to be constantly reminded and ready to defend what I believe even to highly confrontational, obnoxious old Christian men.

Signing off. J.C.