Bay Area Outreach Ministries Newsletter
A New Ministry Begins
Dear Christian Friends,
In 1975, I was living in Orlando, Florida when God called me to go to San Francisco to witness on the streets. I took a Greyhound bus across the country, not knowing what was in store for me. I got a part-time job, a $55 per month room on Mission St., and went witnessing every chance I had, mostly by myself.
Over the next few years, I met some other Christians with a similar burden for San Francisco, and together we began doing evangelism outreaches and starting a ministry–SOS Ministries–that would involve thousands of Christians in evangelism and bring a gospel witness to hundreds of thousands of people in San Francisco.
Two years ago, God directed me to move to Oakland to establish a Christian evangelism house and an outreach to Berkeley and the greater Bay Area. God has blessed this work abundantly and now He is directing us to establish a separate ministry to carry out this outreach, which we have named “Bay Area Outreach Ministries.”
Bay Area Outreach Ministries
Over five million people live in the Greater Bay Area–from Santa Rosa to Sacramento, Modesto to Monterey. Our goal is to help each interested church in this area to raise up a team of workers to evangelize its own community. We are in the process of contacting churches, offering to help them raise up evangelism teams to witness in parks, on the streets, at shopping centers, at special events, and door-to-door. (If you live in this area and would like us to speak at your church, talk with your pastor. Then contact us, and we will make arrangements.)
Outreach Report
So much has happened the past few months that we can’t begin to tell you everything, but here’s a brief overview. We have had special evangelistic outings to Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel, and Guerneville. We have had opportunity to witness at special events, such as the “Butter and Eggs Parade” in Petaluma, the “Festival at the Lake” in Oakland, the “Juneteenth Parade” in Richmond, the “Youth Fair” in San Francisco and the “Russian River Jazz Festival” in Guerneville. These past few months have also seen two major outreaches in Berkeley with Jerry Brandt, in which Oakland Christian Center and El Cerrito Christian Center were involved.
Berkeley Outreach
In addition to our outreaches to other cities, we spend much time reaching out to Berkeley. Like San Francisco, Berkeley is a trendsetter with great influence worldwide. The University of California is one of the world’s great universities and trains many of the future leaders of this and other nations. We have regular outreaches on Wednesday afternoons, Friday nights, and Saturday afternoons (when we are not having an outreach in another city).
Telegraph Ave. is a hangout for hundreds of high school and college students on Friday nights. Our Friday night outreaches have mainly been a time of one-on-one sharing, passing out tracts, and occasionally having worship on the street.
On our Wednesday and Saturday afternoon outreaches, though, we have been preaching on the Berkeley campus, using amplification. This has caused no small stir, as the campus and city known for its rebellion and liberalism has been hearing the way to salvation. Many times we have had people come by screaming and cursing. A man named Java, who dresses like a bag lady with a shopping cart, has been a regular opponent of ours, mocking what we say. Many times a crowd will gather to watch, and will grow until hundreds of people, mostly college students, are standing around watching. This gives us an opportunity to present the gospel to all these people. We also are able to talk with many individually. In one afternoon, up to 500 people may stand around for 20 minutes or more, many staying for hours.
In our preaching, we present skeptical students with reasons for our faith, often relating current events to Bible prophesy. We challenge them to read the New Testament and honestly examine Christianity before rejecting it. Often, we ask people in the crowd if they have questions and then attempt to provide intelligent answers to these questions. Many students must certainly be impressed as they see us (by God’s grace) respond calmly in love when we are cursed at by hecklers. Often, I am reminded of how the apostle Paul’s preaching provoked riots in many cities. God used these strange situations to confront people who would otherwise be apathetic towards the Gospel. We are seeing the same thing happen today in Berkeley. Come join us and you’ll see what I mean.
Testimony
Chris was born 26 years ago to a Catholic family in Ohio. Like many young people, he drifted away from God and got involved in drugs, alcohol, and Eastern religions. He dropped out of college and started drifting around the country, following the “Grateful Dead,” and ending up in Berkeley.
One Friday night he was walking down Telegraph Avenue when Mary McKenna asked him if he would like to talk with someone. He said, “Certainly, I would love to.” Mary’s husband Mike began asking him about Jesus. Mike and Mary ended up taking Chris into their home and a week later he committed his life to Jesus Christ. During the past eighteen months, Chris has been growing in the Lord and he has been involved in outreaches in San Francisco and Berkeley.
Ministry Needs
As you can see, we have taken on a very big task–seeking to evangelize Berkeley and help churches throughout the Greater Bay Area start outreaches in their communities. In order to be successful, we need your prayer support. The main reason we are sending you this newsletter is so you will know what we are doing and be praying for us. Please do pray that God will direct our activities; that people will commit their lives to Jesus in
Berkeley; that we will get more workers for our outreaches; that pastors will welcome us into their churches so we can help them start outreach ministries; and that our financial needs will be met. We are definitely involved in “front line evangelism.” Satan will attack all those who seek to do God’s work and some will get wounded and stop witnessing. Pray for those who live in our house and those who witness with us that they will resist these attacks and continue to do God’s work.
Another reason we are sending you this newsletter is so that those of you who live near us can participate in these outreaches. Often we’ll have a big crowd listening to us in Berkeley, but not have enough Christians to witness to those who are interested. We especially need musicians to help with worship on the streets. Also, we want to help you start an outreach in your church and city.
Finally, we trust that God will direct some of you to support us financially. We don’t believe in manipulating people to give, but we do want to let you know our needs and offer praise reports as He meets these needs. God has already blessed us with an office, use of a computer, an IBM typewriter, and a state-of-the-art copy machine–all of which have come to us for free! We try to keep our costs to a minimum but we still have ongoing expenses–office supplies, tracts, travel expenses to outreaches and churches, etc. We are starting from scratch at a time when a lot of Christians have stopped giving because of TV preacher scandals. From a natural viewpoint, this seems like a bad time to start a new ministry. But God has directed us to do this work, and we trust that He will meet all our needs.
Two years ago, I wrote a book called You Shall Be My Witnesses: How to Reach Your City for Christ. Several thousand Christians have already read this book, and it has helped many to start outreaches in their own communities. This month we would like to send a free copy to anyone who writes us. If you already have a copy, write for another copy to give to your pastor or an interested friend.
God bless you. I hope you can join one of our outreaches this next month. Don’t forget to pray for us.
Yours in His Love,
Larry Rosenbaum
