Frosty the Evangelist

There must have been some magic in that old silk hat he found; 'cause when he placed it on his head, he began to dance around. And a very good friend of mine turned into Frosty the Snowman. :-) So, who's in the costume? Well, you will just have to read on to find out.

Today marked the annual Granada Hills Holiday Parade. For the last couple of years, my family and other fellow evangelists have gone to the parade to distribute gospel tracts and to share the gospel with parade watchers, during one-to-one conversations.

This year's parade seemed bigger than ever, which meant more people to reach. By God's grace, our team (Michelle, Marissa, Amanda, Ty, Hannah, Mike, Nicole, Dave, Celia, Melissa, Mark, Dru, Chris, and me) was able to distribute about 2,000 tracts in just a couple of hours! One of the special blessings about today's efforts was that several people on our team had never before been out with us.

It seemed that every kind of tract we gave to people were hits: Big Money, Billion and Million Dollar Bills, Christmas Cash, Avoid Identity Theft, Pink/Blue Optical Illusion, The Smart Card, Ten Commandment Coins. People just ate them up; and it wasn't uncommon for people who had received tracts to come up to us later asking for more. The Optical Illusion tract was particularly popular with everyone who saw it.

I was blessed to take a group of parade watchers through the Law and the Gospel. It was akin to a mini open-air session. Due to the noise of the parade, I had to raise my voice to be heard; which meant that not only did the group with whom I was speaking hear the Gospel, but so did the people nearby. This was evidenced by one man, all decked out in Christmas red, who angrily yelled while pointing at the street behind me, "Hey, the parade is over there!"

"Yeah. But my conversation is over here!" I replied. :-)

The man got up and stomped away.

I took the group of six through the Good Person Test, offering all of them a $5 gift card to In-n-Out Burger if they passed the test. Obviously, no one passed the test. But they all got the gift cards when I finished sharing the gospel with them. I explained to them that they were receiving the gift cards, not because they earned or deserved them, but rather as an example of grace. "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23).

Well, it's time to reveal Frosty's true identity. Chris spent more than two hours in the costume. He was as popular as the parade itself. While the weather was cool, you should have seen Chris when we helped him out of the costume. I'm sure he lost a few pounds today.

Children of all ages wanted to hug him and take pictures with him. However, he wasn't quite as popular with the numerous tiny, foo-foo dogs along the parade route. Toward the end of our time at the parade, Chris actually ran into the street and joined the parade! :-) Thank you, Chris, for willingly and lovingly being a fool for Christ, this afternoon.

And thank you to the entire team. It was a blessing to serve alongside all of you. It was a great afternoon of evangelism, in our community--all for the glory of God.