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TTUN @ tOSU Ministry Report – Nov 24, 2018

November 28, 2018 by Michael Coughlin

Me, Nick, Sarah, Jeff, Rusty and Jason (l to r)

The outreach to the game in Columbus, OH with TTUN actually began on the evening of November 23.  We had great joy that evening because several evangelists visited from out of town to help us this week!

We began the weekend with a time of prayer with president and founder of Sports Fan Outreach International, Bill Adams via conference call. After beseeching God by His mercy to bless us and our efforts, we headed to Skyline Chili to enjoy one of the many blessings God has given us through creation. The photo to the left is the Friday night team after downing some chili together.

After we ate, we headed back to my house where we worshiped the Lord through song and Bible reading. It was a sweet time of fellowship and praising God. It isn’t often that people give up an entire weekend or two days for the sake of the gospel, and I am grateful to these folks who all drove from more than 3 hours away to assist me at my primary fishing hole, the corner of righteousness, at THE Ohio State University.

Rusty and my son, Michael Robert, worshiping Jesus Christ through song.
Here’s Nick, Sarah and my son, Wesley singing. As part of our worship, Nick read Revelation 5 and Wesley read Psalm 1. God be praised!

“The Game”

Jason Bradshaw preaching on the right.

“The Game” is always the most crowded event at Ohio State. So we left earlier than usual on a cold and rainy day so that we could begin to minister by 9am. It is actually hard to believe how many people were out walking around in cold rain at 9am when kickoff wasn’t until noon! I praise God for my co-laborer Jason Roberts who met us near the stadium in order to help with the ministry.

Most of us don’t mind getting a little wet, and we live in a culture where keeping warm in the cold isn’t very difficult (at least in central Ohio). But keeping electronic equipment and tracts dry becomes the name of the game for evangelism. No one is going to take a wet, soggy, tract, and we certainly don’t need a speaker to malfunction or even electrocute someone due to water!

 

The Result

The day went like any other. We sang, we prayed, we preached, and we passed out hundreds of tracts. There were very few hecklers and a lot of kind-hearted souls who God sent to offer encouragement. A young man selling pies to raise money approached me for prayer, and I prayed for him. I offered to buy some of his pies and his response surprised me:

“I can’t take money from you, sir. I see you out here every week. I just wanted to encourage you.”

I was really excited to hear that. One of the reasons we don’t change locations is so that people will consistently see us, and that maybe that would have an impact on them. Another aspect of being at the same location for years is that we actually get to know the vendors and the ticket sellers. When you think about it, we are there doing the same thing…

Here you get an idea of the crowd size as they cross Lane Avenue to go to the game.

Street vendors and ticket sellers have the same physical goals we have:

  • Keep your equipment dry/protected
  • Get your message to as many people as possible
  • Stay warm; go home safely, and try to enjoy yourself while there.

Now we have a supernatural aspect to what we are doing, but in many ways, we are employing methods that by God’s grace are common to man in the dissemination of information. I think we build a kinship with the vendors when they realize we are not “against them.” ** When I left Saturday, I actually walked around and said bye to all of them. They were all very kind and chuckled as I said, “See you next season.”

Overtime

After the outreach I took the team to Raising Canes, another restaurant (like Skyline) which they do not have in that state up north. So we enjoyed a final Raising Canes lunch as the result of the kind supporters of this ministry. The fellowship was sweet as we shared stories and talked theology and simply enjoyed each other’s company.

Jason, Jeff, Sarah, Jason, Rusty, me and Nick

But the story doesn’t end there! The Buckeyes completed their season with a victory over our rival, and earned a place in the Big Ten Championship game. Now, several of us had already planned to go to Indianapolis on Dec 1 to minister to the crowds there, but now we get one more chance to reach our Ohio State fans. Will you pray right now that God would save souls in Indy? And pray that my crew of 8 would all be able to make it and dispense His gospel that day.


** The exception is when people peddle their pornography or strip club cards. I am openly against what they are doing, and God has driven those folks away because of His mercy toward us.

Filed Under: Gospel, Open Air Preaching, Witnessing Tagged With: 2018 OSU, attributes of God, God, Grace, Love, Mercy, Open Air, people, power, preaching, pride

Nebraska @ tOSU Ministry Report – Nov 3, 2018

November 6, 2018 by Michael Coughlin

On November 3rd, we went to OSU to preach the gospel to the fans of the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the Ohio State Buckeyes. But it was the events of November 2nd which in many ways are most notable.

My 2 year old son packing ESV NT Bibles into a box for us to bring to OSU.

I was actually beginning to be a little depressed near the end of the morning of November 2nd. Only 3 people had committed to meeting me at Ohio State for evangelism the next day. Please don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful for all those who accompany me and labor with me in the gospel. But there’s a strategic side of evangelism whereby we know that the more laborers there are, the better chance we have of reaching more people, and thus, reaching God’s elect.

My brief sadness was not only quickly overcome by our Lord Jesus Christ and His providence, but HE LITERALLY OBLITERATED it.

Around 2pm, I received a text from someone asking if she could come with us.

Minutes later, my friend John texted asking if he could stay at my house and evangelize with us the next day. 

Things were heating up!

Dear brother John Rataczak of Eleutheros Books.

Side note: John may be the smartest and most educated person I know. I relish every minute I get to sit at his feet and learn, frankly. You can buy his books here – https://www.eleutherosbooks.com/book_store

What joy I experienced now that I had 6 team members, when a coworker texted me completely out of the blue around 10pm to tell me he wanted to come too, and then Kurtis who was not sure he could make it also texted to say he could come!

I had gone from a team of four to eight in 8 hours! This was truly an answer to several prayers we had prayed throughout the season.

Here are some pictures, be sure to scroll down to the end for a really neat story about our public worship.

Miri, Jason, Kurtis, Alayna, Matt, Caleb, John and me before we began.
Here you can see Caleb preaching in the Buckeyes shirt on the far left and Alayna handing out tracts to people as they passed by on the right.
In this photo, Kurtis is exhorting the man walking away from him near the yellow car. This man yelled at Kurtis as he walked by and Kurtis was trying to help him see his need for God.
In the middle is Dennis, a drummer who was playing on some homemade drums most of the afternoon. We asked him if we could sing Christian hymns while he played the drums.
We sang a couple Christian hymns while Dennis played the drums. It was a sweet time of worship and also it drew attention from the passers-by as they heard God glorified through song.

Dennis was quite pleased to play with us. After we finished, we prayed for Dennis and his family, thanking God for him and for salvation for all. Dennis received our tract and one of our team members had $100 bill for him as a gift. Hopefully, God will use our generosity and gratitude to lead Dennis to Himself.

After we finished, we had a sweet fellowship meal together, as is our custom. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us this season through prayer and financial gifts. Everything we do is made possible and more enjoyable thanks to saints who care about getting the gospel to people. We have one remaining home game on November 24th against Michigan.

But God, in His infinite wisdom has seen fit to send me to Michigan November 17th to preach at the Indiana vs Michigan game. This will be the second time Indiana fans could see me. And Michigan fans will see me two weeks in a row now.

And the Big 10 Championship game is December 1st where likely Michigan or Ohio State will be playing. So who knows what God will do with his preached Word? Maybe someone will see me at multiple locations and be affected by that? Pray it may be so!

Filed Under: Gospel, Open Air Preaching, Witnessing Tagged With: 2018 OSU, attributes of God, God, Grace, Love, Mercy, Open Air, people, power, preaching, pride

Minnesota @ tOSU Ministry Report – Oct 13, 2018

October 14, 2018 by Michael Coughlin

For the second time this season we had back to back Saturdays with an Ohio State football home game. This was a particularly exciting week because I had 8 fellow evangelists who wanted to join me!

The clouds provided protection from the sun’s rays, resulting in very cold temperatures for an early October day. Pictured above is Kurtis preparing to preach with Jason Roberts and his daughter Miri in the background standing firm to pass out tracts.

A lot of folks don’t like to talk about “strategy” when doing ministry work. Employing strategy is considered a bit taboo because so many people have used man-centered and man-made strategies to try to attract people to churches.

But there is nothing wrong with using good wisdom to try to reach as many people with the gospel as possible — as long as the methods are biblically approved. And it is wise and caring to be sure that the folks you minister with are well taken care of.

Take, for example, the fact that 8 people were offering their time to get the gospel out at the Ohio State football game Saturday. In order to maximize the amount of time on the street engaging the lost, we need to minimize any wasted time. A big time waster on game days is “looking for parking.”

Praise the Lord for a man who was selling hats at the Ohio State game this weekend. I was very cold and unprepared for the cold and wind we would face!

Here is a description of our pregame activities along with an explanation of why we do what we do. I like to believe that my preparedness and organization is a blessing to those who join me (as long as they can put up with the pedantic nature of it).

Our first goal is to be at the preaching location 3 hours prior to kickoff. So, since the game was scheduled for noon, that meant we wanted to be there by 9am.

Nine people from 5 different vehicles all met at a location about a mile away from where we minister. Our goal was to arrive at 8:30. After meeting, as many people as possible piled into my van, while the rest walked the mile to the location. This amounted to the “young people.”

Then I drove the remaining folks to the location and dropped them off along with back packs, a box of tracts, etc. Then I went back and parked my car. 

Then I rode my bike back the location. The goal is to:

  • cut down on the total time spent trying to get from parking to the “corner of righteousness”
  • minimize any monetary spending on parking (we park so far away we don’t pay for parking)
  • reduce the amount of walking that people have to do — standing on concrete for several hours to preach and pass out tracts is actually already very tough on your legs!
I love this photo of Miri handing this OSU fan a gospel tract. 

So after meeting at 8:30, and all the shuffling back and forth, we were finally able to begin together by 9:08. You can see how everyone has to do their part for the team’s success.

By the time of kickoff, most of us have already been away from home over 4 hours without a meal or a break. I encourage my team to take care of restroom breaks before the crowd arrives. We have a window of about 2 hours where there is a consistent crowd, with a large concentration about 90 minutes to 30 minutes before kickoff. You don’t want to have to leave your post to use the restroom!

After the evangelism is over and we are all tired, we normally try to make time for a fellowship meal where we enjoy each other’s company, nourish our tired bodies and share stories of what we just encountered. I am very grateful to everyone who helps provide these meals, as well as the gospel tracts we pass out. This year so far we have already passed out about 5,000 tracts.

This week, because of the maturity of the team members who all arrived on time, we were able to sing Nothing But the Blood and pray together before splitting up to preach and pass out tracts. I am so thankful for Mike, Jason, Miri, Nick, Allie, Joe, Kurt and Adam who labored alongside me.

May Jesus Christ be praised by those who heard His Word preached or received a tract this weekend. He watched over us as usual, keeping us safe from harm, sending encouragement through the brethren, and sustaining us as we endured the elements. Praise His holy name.

Filed Under: Gospel, Open Air Preaching, Witnessing Tagged With: 2018 OSU, attributes of God, God, Grace, Love, Mercy, Open Air, people, power, preaching, pride

Indiana @ tOSU Ministry Report – Oct 6, 2018

October 9, 2018 by Michael Coughlin

Kurtis preaching while Miri holds a sign. We gave away over a half a dozen Bibles!

Oct 6 was the first game this season where we arrived after the game began. For the first three games this year, we would normally arrive about 3 hours before kickoff, and minister to the crowds as they walk to the game.

This week’s game was 4pm, so we planned to arrive about 6pm. This gets us there about an hour to an hour an a half before the game ends. The evangelism is very different from before to after game.

Kurtis is almost 19 and is a college freshman at Cedarville University. He has been preaching for a couple years and the Lord is growing him. 

Imagine a simple scenario with simple numbers. Before the game, let’s say about 30,000 walk past us over the course of 3 hours. That is about 10,000 people per hour or about 1,600 people every ten minutes who walk past and hear the gospel or get a tract.

Post-game evangelism differs because instead of a few hours of people hanging around and making their way toward the stadium, the entire crowd is leaving the football game at roughly the same time. So that 30,000 people who are walking back to their cars makes their way in about an hour. So instead of about 1,600 people walking past you every 10 minutes, it’s more like 5,000 people every 10 minutes!

This makes for much larger crowds while preaching. Notice in this photo below how many people are within earshot of my preaching!

Additionally, it seems people are more willing to take tracts or Bibles because they are just on their way home. Very few people want to carry a Bible to a football game, but if you’re just getting in your car anyway, why not?

 

Jason and Miri

I’m thankful to Jason and Miri Roberts and Kurtis and Kenton Gould for going with me this week. We had a sweet time of worship prior to evangelism and sang A Mighty Fortress. Jason commented that this really got him in a spirit of worship and service to God, and he thinks it had a calming effect on Miri, too, who is only 9 years old, but is a baptized believer serving the Lord Jesus Christ.

Worshiping with hymns is something I hope to do every time we are out together!

We handed out hundreds of tracts, and Kurtis and I preached for almost a total of 3 hours. Many souls heard the Word of God. Our Lord kept evildoers away from us and sent encouragement, as always. I even received a $1 donation. Praise the Lord that someone desired to support us!

It was a night when we could see that a few more laborers would have helped us pass out thousands more tracts. Would you pray that the Lord would raise up more laborers for the harvest?

One highlight was when I was preaching after the game, Kurtis overheard someone say, “Ugh, I thought that guy wasn’t here this week.”

I actually wondered if people would notice we weren’t there for pre-game! It is nice to know that our consistency is noticed. This is one of the keys to returning to the same location every home game for a whole season. Sinners notice, and we hope God would use these means to draw folks to His preacher — that they might hear and believe!

Filed Under: Gospel, Open Air Preaching, Witnessing Tagged With: 2018 OSU, attributes of God, God, Grace, Love, Mercy, Open Air, people, power, preaching, pride

2017 B1G Championship Outreach Report.

December 8, 2017 by Michael Coughlin

What an exciting day God had in store for us as we ministered the gospel to the good folks at the B1G 10 Championship Game in Indianapolis, IN for the fourth time ever out of the 7 total Big 10 Championship games which have been played.

Caleb, Josh, Joe, Kenton, me & Kurtis pictured Left to Right. The six of us filled nearly 6 hours of preaching and handed out tracts to hundreds of people who need Jesus.

We had a really bad experience with the police in 2015 which prompted us to get a lawyer to assist us prior to this year’s event. So we arrived with a letter from a lawyer outlining our legal rights. Around 2:30, Kenton was approached by the police and he motioned for me to come over and talk to the officer. I tried to record the conversation which started with me giving him a letter we had from The Liberty Institute regarding free speech laws.

Have a listen to my Conversation with the Police It’s less than 6 minutes long.
http://michaelcoughlin.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2017-12-02-Police-Encounter.mp3

The real money quote from the whole thing though was when the police officer said this.

You know what, if they come up and complain, then I’ll just tell them it’s their…their freedom of speech. That’s why we live in the United States.

It took all my energy to not shout, “Yes! That is exactly what you should be doing!” I’m so glad he came to that conclusion. May this cause you to praise our glorious God and Saviour, Jesus Christ who graciously allowed us to continue to preach and tract the crowds the rest of the day undeterred.

Kurtis calling sinners to repent and believe in Christ the Savior.

We managed to fill almost 6 hours of preaching that day. We competed with a loud music concert and even a small two man trumpet and drum band. Hundreds of people received tracts and thousands of people heard the gospel preached. We left 3 hours before game time, we could reach thousands more if we stayed in Indianapolis!

We are grateful to good brother Chris Dean who showed up with 3 pizzas and 6 water bottles for the crew. This allowed us to stay on the mission without leaving for lunch.

Kenton tracting the crowds.

You can get an idea of the layout. For perspective, we stood directly to the left as you look at this photo to preach. The city blocks off Georgia Street and the entire street for one block is a big party with a big screen TV showing other football games, a music concert and food and drink booths.

As always, we sang a couple hymns and preceded most open air sermons with prayer. Our team worked hard and enjoyed very mild weather. It was actually a little warm until the sun went behind a building. We were prepared with handwarmers!

Thanks to everyone who has helped. So many people have contributed in various ways whether it is encouragement, service, financial help or prayer. Thanks you for your faithfulness! And praise God that He is ever faithful!


http://michaelcoughlin.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2017-12-02-Police-Encounter.mp3

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Filed Under: Love, Open Air Preaching, Theology, Witnessing Tagged With: attributes of God, Bible, Christ, church, Forgiveness, God, Gospel, Grace, humility, Open Air, people, power, prayer, preaching, programming

MSU@OSU Outreach Report

November 12, 2017 by Michael Coughlin

November 11, 2017: 12 evangelists gathered at the Ohio State University to read the lost with the gospel. We preached for 2-3 hours on two corners, so there were 2 preachers going most of the time. We had no less than 8 people handing out tracts at any time. I am grateful if only one person desires to accompany me on an outreach. And I agree that it is not about numbers, but the more laborers there are the more work we can get done.

For today’s post I want to look at some photos and talk about the human strategy surrounding out evangelism.

If you look at this photo below, you can see where our people are positioned (the 6 red arrows point to our folks). In the background, on the right side of the photo, you see Dan Carr and Alayna Hoop. They are standing on either side of a walkway which is a high foot traffic area. That walkway leads back to much of the parking to the north of the Ohio Stadium.

In the foreground, you can see Elaine and Rachelle Holman standing in the wide sidewalk area in front of the preacher in the maroon sweatshirt. This areas is where all the people from the West travel across in order to get to the game. Their location is also a blessing because they get to head the Word of God preached while tracting folks.

The team.

Kurtis Gould is the one preaching and next to him is Joshua Richards. We try to always have a person near the preacher. This is not only for protection if needed, but also so there is something there to give people a Bible or help in any way that the preacher needs.

If you traveled to the right from this photo, you would begin walking across a bridge toward Ohio State. On that sidewalk, but not pictured, were Alexandra Coughlin and Kenton Gould. Anyone who slips past Rachelle, Elaine, Alayna and Dan without getting a tract will still be offered a tract as they travel down Lane Ave to the east.

Looking below, we are now across the street from the photo above. So if you imagine in this photo you are looking Northwest toward the Schottenstein Center. The photo ABOVE this one would be across the street to the right from the photo below. As you can see, Kurtis is preaching about the Way, the Truth and the Life beneath a sign that reads “The Undisputed Way.” We love this.

The Undisputed Way: Jesus Christ!

As I pointed out, it would be very hard for people to walk past the northeast corner of this intersection without encountering my team, but people could bypass that corner by coming south and then crossing the street to the left of where Kurtis is preaching in this photo. By having multiple men preaching, we are able to ensure that no matter which route people take they will hear preaching. At this corner, we preach to the people on the left (across the street) until the light changes and then we preach as they walk toward us. After the people have walked toward us and are going past us (to the right), we turn and preach to them and then we preach to the people waiting to cross from the north. While Kurt preached I passed out tracts, but down the way to the east (the direction most people walk), Nicholas Coughlin and Chase Vendley were on either side of the sidewalk tracting.

So you can see that with a team of 12 people, we were able to have 4-5 full hours of preaching, and covered both sides of a major street with tracts. If you can imagine that we could easily cover 4 corners of the stadium with teams like this, you can see how many more laborers for the gospel could be useful to the ministry! My understanding is that Ohio State games attract approximately 200,000 people: half inside the stadium and half outside. That’s 2% of the population of the state of Ohio.

Think about that. 1 person out of every 50 people in Ohio has the chance to hear the life-saving gospel of grace on gameday. Yet I doubt we reach more than 30,000. Pray for more laborers!

So you see, we are spiritual minded people. We preach the Word and we give out gospel tracts, but we also try to be wise and strategic from a material perspective. Let me give you one more example.

When we go to the game, any parking anywhere near the stadium costs 20-25 dollars. With 7 home games that really adds up! One of the things I do is drop the team off, because with a large box of tracts and other equipment it would be very hard to walk! But they would wait a very long time for me to park my car a mile away and walk back to them. It really seems like a waste of time. So I began bringing my bike. Now I can park another quarter mile away and park for free on a side street, and ride my bike to the location much quicker than walking. So we are saving $20/week and some valuable time we can use for evangelism.

I want to commend my team and tell you a little of what it took this week to be there. First of all, my team ranged in age from 13 to 56. We had at least one person who it was their first time trying contact evangelism, praise the Lord!

We arrived and were ready to start about 9am. It was less than 30 degrees outside and the wind chill factor apparently made it feel like 16 degrees. I coached my team to do smart things, but to labor for our Lord without rest or complaining. We gave everyone a couple handwarmers, too. But it is hard to hand out tracts with gloves and it’s hard to hold a Bible and preach with gloves so many of us just get cold hands. No one on my team complained. I was so grateful for their kind spirits. It was funny because at noon I called my wife and one of the things I told her was it had “really warmed up.” She told me it was 32 degrees. But compared to what we’d stood in all morning, that seemed balmy!

The thing is, lost souls were out there braving the cold weather: some of them out of love for their team, some out of idolatry, and others just for the fellowship of being with friends or family. Vendors were making money selling tickets, buckeyes, wool caps and other OSU paraphernalia. Why shouldn’t a Christian be there for his God? Why shouldn’t a Christian stand and bear those elements for the sake of the elect? As I told the team, “we’re all going to be cold, we might as well get the work done.”

After the game, we went to a local fried chicken restaurant called Raising Canes and enjoyed some time together and some hot food. Here are a couple team pictures.

Nicholas, Kenton, Chase, Alexandra & Kurtis (l to r)

I want to thank my lord Jesus Christ for a wonderful day which was largely made possible by several dear saints from my church, some of whom donate large sums of money to pay for things like our gas and our meals, and also for Peter & Alyssa Wilson who loaned me their Honda Odyssey for the day so that I could fit a full load of people in it and also my bicycle.

Rachelle, Elaine, Caleb, Alayna, Joshua & Dan (l to r)

Filed Under: Gospel, Open Air Preaching, Theology, Witnessing Tagged With: Bible, church, discipline, Forgiveness, God, Gospel, Grace, Jesus, Love, Open Air, people, power

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