Bay Area Outreach Ministries Newsletter
Battle for Berkeley
Dear Christian friends,
Many people are surprised to learn that George Berkeley, for whom the city was named, was a Christian evangelist. Since the 1960’s, Berkeley has become notorious for its ultra-left politics, the free (dirty) speech movement, occultism, drugs, sexual immorality, and hostility to the Gospel. From 1966-1976, there was much evangelism in Berkeley and many hundreds were saved. From 1976-1986, however, there was virtually no evangelism in Berkeley and the city became increasingly entrenched in spiritual darkness.
In 1987, after laboring for 10 years in the equally-dark city of San Francisco, God called me to begin an outreach in Berkeley in cooperation with Richard Paradise of New Horizons Christian Ministries. During the past three years, we have experienced much opposition but are now beginning to see some real breakthroughs in reaching the people of Berkeley.
We are setting aside the days of September 14-16 for a major evangelistic thrust into Berkeley. Christians from churches from all over Northern California will join together for this outreach. This will be an opportunity to reach the new students at a time when they will be most receptive to the Gospel. We will be witnessing every afternoon and evening and will be planning some major rallies. Please pray for this important outreach and plan to get time off from work so you can participate Thursday through Saturday. Overnight housing will be provided for those who need it. The outreach will involve many additional expenses for us so we certainly appreciate whatever you can do to help us financially. We will be sending you more details in the next newsletter.
Outreach Reports
The past month has been an extremely busy and productive one for us. On June 3, we were able to witness to tens of thousands of people at the Festival at the Lake in Oakland. We set up two maximouse amplifiers at the entrance to the Festival, with one person preaching and a worship group 100 feet away. People listened to the preaching and worship as they waited an hour or more to purchase tickets for the event. We gave out many thousands of tracts and had some wonderful conversations throughout the afternoon.
On June 9-10, over 100 Christians participated in an evangelism seminar we did at the Cornerstone Assembly of God in Fresno. On Saturday morning, we spoke at a church service for prisoners at the Fresno County Jail and later participated in an outreach with the Church on the Street ministry at a downtown Fresno mall. This ministry gets a permit to have church services every Saturday from 10-5 at this mall. They preach, sing, give testimonies, and give out food to the homeless.
On June 17, we went to Santa Cruz to witness on the beach by the boardwalk. Again, we found many people to talk to who were not in a hurry and were very receptive to the Gospel. We hope to help work with local churches to begin an ongoing outreach to that city.
On July 1-2, we joined with Christians from four major Lake County churches for Lake County for Jesus. The Lake County Record-Bee gave us free publicity with a big article on the outreach. On Saturday we went to Library Park in Lakeport. On Sunday, we went to two parks in Clearlake. The outreach featured worship, preaching, and one-on-one witnessing. Everywhere we found many open hearts and people who wanted to know Jesus. One of our goals for this outreach was to see an ongoing weekly evangelism team started in this community. One brother has committed to starting this team and we expect many of the sixty outreach participants to join him. Please be praying for this brother, Guy Strohmeier, and for this new outreach.
We have also seen some real breakthroughs in our Berkeley outreach. We had been ministering to one young man for several weeks but he seemed more interested in getting money from us than coming to Christ. One night we saw him but he had changed so radically we hardly recognized him. He had gotten saved and was living in a Christian ministry house in Oakland! Another young man, from Sioux indian background, had had a curse put on him as a child and was heavily demonized. He expressed a sincere desire to turn to Christ but immediately began to be attacked–first with serious illness after which he attempted suicide. Please pray that he will be set free from this bondage to serve the Lord. Finally, when we first met Matthew, he told us he was a Satan worshipper, though his parents are Christian. Recently, we have seen a tremendous change in him, and he is very close to salvation.
Our gospel preaching on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturdays has been drawing large crowds. Often, as many as 500 people will listen to the message for 20 minutes to an hour on a single day. We are usually opposed by a heckler, Java “the Hate Man.” While he helps draw a crowd, he also ridicules the gospel and blasphemes our Lord. Please pray for his salvation. While Java opposes the gospel, he is silenced by our worship and we very much need Christians to lead in worship on the streets and to intercede as we witness.
Upcoming Outreaches
“I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen, and sing praises unto thy name” Psalm 18:49. God has opened a wonderful door for us to worship the Lord in the midst of tens of thousands of people at the Santa Clara County Fair! On Saturday July 29, we have a permit from 5-10 PM to use a stage at the fair for music and we are scheduling five worship groups for this event. This is an unprecedented opportunity and we hope many of you will join us so we will have enough workers to witness to the people who will be there. We will be meeting at 2 PM at Evangel Christian Fellowship in San Jose (address below) for prayer and instructions.
On August 7-19, we will be participating in the tenth annual SOS- San Francisco outreach. Surely the time will come when God will bring judgment on the ungodly, but right now He wants us to do everything we can to bring as many as possible to Jesus Christ. I strongly encourage you to come to this outreach. Special guests include Chuck Girard, who will be leading worship and teaching on spiritual warfare and evangelism, and Ray Comfort, who has written 18 books on evangelism and teaches evangelism seminars around the world.
Ministry Needs
On June 29, a brother who was witnessing with us in Berkeley was arrested for preaching the gospel (without an amplifier) and spent four hours in jail. It had been almost a year since I was imprisoned for the same charge of “disturbing the peace.” The judge threw out my case since disturbing the peace can only occur where there is a clear danger of violence. We expect this case to be similarly dismissed. But the legal fees for defending this brother will be about $1000. We want to help him with this expense, but need your help so we can do so.
Unfortunately, many Christians assume that we must be doing something wrong if someone gets arrested and they stop supporting us financially and become even more fearful of witnessing. The apostle Paul, who wrote most of his epistles from jail, had the same problem. Many Christians said he wasn’t a true apostle and even some of his closest friends deserted him. All our Lord’s disciples forsook Him when He was imprisoned. Jesus predicted that “they shall…persecute you, delivering you up…into prisons” (Luke 21:12). There are many other such scriptures. Do not be quick to pass judgment on those who are imprisoned for the Gospel. In America, few Christians are being imprisoned, but then again, few Christians are preaching the gospel openly in the public places as Jesus and Paul did.
While we have constitutional protections in this country, those protections are almost nonexistent for those who cannot afford a good lawyer. We are setting up a legal defense fund to help this brother. We also believe we will need to begin a civil rights lawsuit to prevent continuing arrests, but such a suit would require thousands of dollars–an amount that is well beyond our current level of support. We believe that a successful lawsuit would help not only us, but Christians doing evangelism in other places as well. We regularly hear from Christians who were arrested or threatened with arrest for witnessing in other cities. Please designate “legal fund” on any checks for this purpose and the amount of support we receive will help us determine if we will be able to proceed with this lawsuit.
Our “Tape of the Month” will be a two-tape series on Legal Issues in Evangelism, by Scott Crawford and Christian attorney Michael Imfeld.
Yours in His love,
Larry Rosenbaum
OUTREACH SCHEDULE
WEEKLY OUTREACHES—WEDNESDAY 10:30 AM-2 PM FRIDAY 6:45 – 11 PM SATURDAY 12-4 PM Meet at 3039 Dakota St., Oakland. Take 580 Freeway to Fruitvale exit. East on Fruitvale to MacArthur. Right on MacArthur to Maple. Right on Maple (2 blocks) to Dakota. Left on Dakota. House is 1/2 block up on right. Call to confirm meetings.
SPECIAL OUTREACHES—
SATURDAY JULY 29 SANTA CLARA COUNTY FAIR OUTREACH. Meet at 2 PM at Evangel Christian Fellowship, 1255 Pedro St., San Jose, (408) 279-2133. Outreach lasts until 10 PM.
AUGUST 7-19 SOS-SAN FRANCISCO. 10th annual outreach. Guests include Chuck Girard and Ray Comfort. Contact SOS Ministries, Box 27054, San Francisco, CA 94127, (415) 552-2300.
