To start, let me provide a little background information about how this entire project started. On Thursday, September 27, I received an email containing the following:
We have a donor who is interested in getting 1000 “180” DVD’s into the hands of young voters on college campuses in time for them to understand the content of “180” and the importance of their voting pro-life, particularly for the President of the United States in this election. He would like to target southern Ohio.
The faith of the donor is inspiring to me. For someone to feel so strongly about getting the message out is exciting. I’m glad that this generous donor had a desire to invest into sharing this movie with people. But to me, what is more exciting is the faith they must have to trust their large investment to someone they do not even know! Dear Christian, will you please take time to pray for the loving couple who desired to see our Lord exalted in Ohio this week? Ask God to grant them joy and peace and continued blessing.
So by early October we had settled on dropping in on the Ohio University campus with 500 copies of 180 (the other 500 are being sent elsewhere). Excited about the day we had picked (October 11), I began planning. Fred found that OU would be celebrating National Coming Out Day the same day! My soul was excited to be ministering in an environment where people clearly needed the Word. In order to complete the mission, I decided to use a vacation day at work. In order to ensure we were following the rules, Fred Triplett and I did research concerning OU’s policies. What we quickly found was they had some tight restrictions on the time and place for free speech, as well as a $100 fee for the use of space which I was not inclined to invest. Considering the fact that there were similar locations where we could distribute the DVD for free, we opted to switch to The Ohio State University. I was reminded (loosely) of the scripture where Paul’s plans were diverted in order to preach the gospel where the Spirit would have him.
Acts 16:6,7,10 Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, 7 After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not. 10 And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.
Great joy was brought to me as our change of venue allowed two dear saints to be able to commit to attending! I had a small team of 4, maybe 5 people by October 8, only 3 days before the drop. By the evening of October 10, we had a team of 9 people, plus our dear driver Jerry Murphy who carts us around and saves us the cost and trouble of parking! One saint had to opt out, but that still left us with a nice size team!
Please pray for my team. These dear saints really made this day great for me.
Fred Triplett, Vince Montgomery, Melissa Burdett, Ben Cuenin, Ryan Muniak, Andrew Zunic & his friend Chase whose last name I don’t know.
Vince, Andrew and Chase (all the way from Florida) to help distribute @180Movie @OhioState Christ-exalted all morning! pic.twitter.com/xhAwLzh5
— Michael Coughlin (@ABereanOne) October 11, 2012
After finally finding each other in the center of the “Oval” on Ohio State’s gorgeous campus, we prayed and began passing out movies. Traffic was light at 9:30am, and a bit of discouragement came over me as I expected the movies to be gone quicker. Ryan got on the microphone ever once in a while to invite people over, and we had some fellowship as well. We started to see a pattern as classes would let out and then start. It was a generally noneventful day until noon, when we realized we had finished distributing the 180 Movies.
Andrew, Ben, @repent319 & Melissa passing out @180Movie @OhioState 100's of tracts, lots of preaching, Praise Christ pic.twitter.com/scWQz9Kn
— Michael Coughlin (@ABereanOne) October 11, 2012
After this time, only a few of us remained. Armed with thousands of tracts, bibles and a gigantic speaker and stool, we decided to stay a while. I got on the stool and read John 19, then preached for a while. A very kind man named Arthur was watching and listening. I invited him over and allowed him to interrupt me to ask what sounded like legitimate questions. He finally asked me what I thought of homosexual relationships. I continued to preach while answering him. I pointed out to him that as a biblical Christian I’m FOR relationships which are according to God’s design and opposed to all relationships which are outside His design. I was firm, but made sure to add that heterosexual relationships which are sexual outside of marriage are in danger of God’s judgement, as well as homosexual. He then revealed to me that he was homosexual. Up to this point, his questions had seemed hypothetical.
Then he asked me why do I care. He wanted to know why I couldn’t just let other people live the way they wanted. He even said what if he didn’t care about an afterlife, he just wanted to enjoy him time in this earth with his partner. I stayed on the microphone and explained to him that there was a two-part answer to his question. First, I told him that I love Christ and have a desire to see righteousness exalted. So part of my mission on this earth is to promote good and restrict evil. I pointed out that just like he desires laws which protect him from murder, theft and cheating in business, I desire rules which protect people from evil. The difference is my broader definition of what is evil. Then more importantly I showed him that according to my worldview the only loving thing I could do would be to speak up about homosexuality. I said, because homosexuality is sin, it is damaging to society and to him. I let him know I loved him, and as trite as it sounds, that I really did love him as a fellow human and wish the best for him. He understood that my actions were loving based on my worldview and he actually thanked me for my kindness. He said, “You’re not like the other guys. You’re not rude.” That, dear brother or sister, is a direct answer to prayer.
Will you take time to pray for Arthur?
Ryan and @repent319 on a beautiful day God gave us on OSU campus distributing @180Movie @OhioState pic.twitter.com/VajuaANr
— Michael Coughlin (@ABereanOne) October 11, 2012
Finally, I preached from Psalm 34, my favorite chapter of the bible. I used that as a springboard to speak about “security in Christ.” OSU’s campus is often used by sinless perfectionists, and I wanted to let people know that they are secure in Christ. I read from Romans 8:28-39. While I preached for about an hour, Ben, Melissa and Ryan distributed tracts and talked to people. Finally a precious young man named Danny approached as I was packing up. He seemed to be very knowledgeable about the bible and inquisitive. He was semi-confrontational. In a sense he was disagreeing openly with me, but he was very kind about it. I had a great time talking to him, but I did feel we were going in circles a bit. He did not have the same understanding as I had about what it means to be born-again, Christian or how to interpret the bible. This could be frustrating, but I chose to enjoy his presence and his desire to speak to me. He even invited me to eat lunch with him sometime. I hope I get the chance.
Will you please pray for Danny?
As usual, I appreciate if you’ve read this far. You are a dear friend. I hope that you are encouraged by the Lord’s work in Ohio this week. Many people heard the preaching of the Word or received tracts or 180 movies this week. May God provide an increase!
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