A One Year Journey

Our good friend over at Evangelism Team, Leon Brown, retired from the United States Navy yesterday and today he begins a one-year journey that will have him preaching on the streets of Southern California 8-10 hours a day, six days a week.

We ask that you keep Leon in your prayers. He will surely face spiritual warfare as he proclaims the Gospel six days a week in Open-Air.

You can keep up with Leon at his Blog, Preach Like Jeremiah.

Here is what Leon wrote after day 1:

"Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord" (Acts 3:19).

Today, I found myself saying many things similar to the passage above. As I urged people to repent, some mocked, some listened, some cried, some continued to walk by and others said, "I know we are talking for a reason."

God blessed me today to spend time with my great friend, Tony Miano. I was also blessed to spend time with an up and coming evangelist, Anthony English (19 years old). We all stood firm on the Word of God as we preached the gospel on the streets of Hollywood Blvd. As a prop, we used a casket I recently purchased. It worked wonders, as people stood around waiting to ask questions. The casket was like a big gospel tract. It was as easy as this. "What that's for?" "It's a casket. What do you think will happen after you die?" And bang, you're off.

When we arrived and set up, I made the mistake of jumping on the box without praying. I was also a little concerned about how the filming was going to turn out, since I did not have my normal wingman there. The above, fused with my desire to preach, showed me that I should never be so anxious as to not take the necessary steps before preaching. Immediately after the preaching, Tony, Anthony and I prayed.

As the day started, it was relatively quiet. The crowds were medium in size and it was hard to keep them. But that would change. My good friend Tony had his Bible snatched out of his hand and he was spit on. That was the start of an interesting evening.

The Lord blessed me with Joy at the microphone. She was a 17 year old young lady that grew up in the church. As the Holy Spirit allowed me to preach the Law to her, conviction fell on her face. She soon realized she would spend eternity in hell. After I told her about "true" repentance and the gift of faith, I had the opportunity to talk to her a little more one-on-one. Her eyes watered as she realized she needed to trust in the Savior. I gave her a tract and told her to get right with Jesus today.

I took a break from preaching and went looking for some people to do 1-2-1 witnessing with, on camera. The Lord blessed me some amazing footage that I will send my supporters on DVD at the end of the month.

One witnessing encounter afforded me the opportunity to witness to 2 homosexual men. One gentleman said, "How do I stop? I know this is wrong. What do I have to do?" The other homosexual man believed he was born that way. This was truly an amazing encounter.

I also witnessed to a girl who just stole something from the mall and asked me, "How can I get right with God if I just stole something?" When I finished talking to her, she said, "I believe this happened for a reason."

Encounter after encounter, the Lord blessed me to see seemingly true conviction. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit would convict their hearts and give them a new heart with new desires.

Well...with traveling time and preaching, I spent more than 12 hours on the streets. It's 12:58 am and time to get to bed. Tomorrow, I'm going to the beach to preach the gospel and Monday I'm heading to the ghetto.

Please keep my family in your prayers. God bless you!

Leon "Downtown" Brown