Burbank Media Center Follow-Up 9-8-12

Many of our regular evangelists were serving at the Harvest Crusade last night or had other plans so we had a lean, mean team of only three of us: Dean, Steve and myself. 

 Dean did a great job answering some questions from hecklers and getting the gospel out.

 This guy even grabbed some bibles and DVD's for himself and his friends who were listening.

 AND THEN THERE WAS ROGER. I'll admit I encouraged Roger to go up to the microphone in hopes that it would help Steve learn to "contend for the faith" with a notoriously contentious heckler AND possibly draw a crowd...

... and that it did!! Look at how the crowd pictured above went from very few people to THIS in a matter of minutes.

This is something I learned from Ray Comfort:

"Never fear hecklers, they are the best thing for an open air."

Roger is the perfect heckler for doing that.

Steve did a great job sharing the gospel and defending the faith for an HOUR SOLID!

At some points Roger was getting heckled by other hecklers. Roger eventually was drawn away by hecklers into a side argument.

 As the crowd died down we were met by several people who had encouraging words for all of us. We even ended with giving Roger a hug and thanking him for his help. ;) What a great time!

About 30 bibles went out during the open airs and many people heard the good news.

WHAT I LEARNED:

Many times when Steve would share a scripture Roger would respond with "Thats just your opinion."

What should our response be to this assertion? Here are a few great responses I found on the web:

Sometimes in an informal debate you will encounter people who dismiss your argument by saying, “Well that’s just your opinion.”  This is nothing more than an attempt to relativize your conclusion without rebutting your arguments.  There are a few ways you can respond to this.

The first is to ask, “Isn’t it just your opinion that my view is just my opinion?  If we ought to dismiss opinions because they are opinions, then your opinion should be dismissed as well.”

The second is to say, “No, this is not just my opinion.  I have provided reasons for thinking my opinion is actually true.  If you would like to try to rebut my reasons you are more than welcome to do so, but do not dismiss my view with a mere hand-waving as if I have merely provided you with an assertion, rather than an argument.”

The third is to say, “Yes, I have an opinion, but so do you.  This much is obvious.  But what follows from that observation?  The question is not whether we have opinions—we all do—but whether we have an informed opinion.  If we both have informed opinions, then the question becomes Whose opinion is better informed?  We determine the answer to that question by evaluating the strength of our respective arguments.  I have presented you with my argument, and now I am interested to hear your response to that argument.”

What we need to remember first and foremost: These are not our "opinions" they are what GOD has said. The prophets said over 2000 times in the Old Testament "Thus says the Lord!" If it was good enough for them its good enough for me.