October 1998
SOS-San Francisco Outreach Report
Once again I’ll try to convey what happened during this year’s SOS-San Francisco outreach. About 300 Christians joined us at some point during the week, with an average of 100 persons each day. Of these, 50 were youth from Western Canada. We also had teams from Calvary Assembly of God (Salinas), Vineyard Christian Fellowship (San Diego), Gulf Coast Foursquare Church (Hitchcock, TX), and First Baptist Church (Ellensburg, WA). Christians also joined us from Florida, Minnesota, and Oregon.
On Saturday August 1, Last Days Harvest Church and The Father’s House ministered in worship at Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park. Cheryl from Canada met Robert from New York. “Why are you here?” she asked. He replied, “I don’t know.” Cheryl told him about Jesus and prayed with him to receive Christ.
On Monday, Pastor Bill Bolin of Calvary Assembly walked down Market St. and saw a tarot card reader with two people getting their cards read. Bill prayed silently that the demons would be bound. The tarot reader lunged at him but something stopped him. “Let’s get out of here,” he yelled as he left. After Bill told this story to his team, some youth from his church walked by a store offering tarot readings. They went inside and asked the woman if they could pray for her. She said, “No. If you do I will lose my power.”
From Monday through Wednesday, Chuck Girard ministered on the street and in our evening meetings. On Monday, Chuck sang at Union Square for an hour. Afterwards, we all marched to 5th St. and Market. After the march, Trey met T. J., who was mocking the Christians. As he spoke with him, T.J. said he had just gotten out of jail. He came under conviction and Trey prayed with him. Christina told him that God gave Saul of Tarsus a new name when he was saved. T.J. asked God to give him a new name. “Did you hear that?” he shouted. “God gave me a new name. He told me that my name is Joseph.”
On Wednesday, we returned to Sharon Meadow. Paul Salas and Michael Long met two 11 year old girls, Cherrelle and Jasmine. They read a children’s tract to them and both girls prayed the prayer on the back. Afterwards, the girls gave their testimony over the PA system. That afternoon, Janet Long approached a demoniac who was disrupting the rally. She began to pray and the man got on his knees and was delivered.
On Tuesday, as Chuck Girard ministered at 6th and Market, a Vietnamese man angrily threw a dollar bill at him. When a Christian returned the dollar, the man started to cry. Leslie from Minnesota prayed with him as he repented of his sins and gave his life to Christ.
That night, Paul Salas met three people on Haight St. that he had witnessed to last year. Since then, each had been saved. He also met Marco, whom he had also witnessed to last year. Marco rededicated his life to Christ that night and two of his friends prayed to receive Christ. Paul also prayed with a homeless man at the Embarcadero. The man traded his syringe for a Bible!
Craig Halverson was walking through the Embarcadero when a woman chased after him. Yesterday, she said, Jennifer from Canada had prayed for her and her boyfriend to find work. Today, both had gotten jobs. Ann from Alameda gave her testimony tract to Rhonda. After reading it, Rhonda said she was trying to get free from heroin and was using methadone. Ann prayed with her and referred her to a Christian program.
On Thursday night, Nathan, the youth pastor from New Life Vineyard in Canada, was praying that he could lead someone to Christ. The outreach ended at midnight and it was 11:59. He talked with a street kid named “Germ.” Nathan was disappointed when the boy walked away. A few minutes later he returned. “How do I know if I submit to God that He is not evil?” he asked. Nathan shared about how Jesus had demonstrated his love for him by dying for him. Germ prayed to commit his life to Christ.
On Friday night, Cathi Mooney spoke at our meeting about how God had led her to give up ownership of a prominent advertising agency to start the Prodigal Project, a ministry to street kids in the Haight. She brought Bill with her. Bill had given his life to Christ that day.
Sound System Seized
It was truly a glorious outreach, but Satan was angry. On Thursday we had a wonderful worship rally at Market and Sansome. At every outreach, we try hard to keep our sound level low and not break any law. Nobody had complained to us about the sound level all day. But after the outreach ended, a police officer arrived and, with no warning, cited us for a noise violation. He also said he was confiscating our sound system under orders from the Captain. One of the arresting officers said the orders had actually come from the Mayor’s office.
The ordinance we were cited under says that an amplified event cannot be “audible 250 feet from the periphery of the attendant audience.” In order to protect ourselves from being cited under this ordinance, we would need to station someone with a video camera in every possible direction 250 feet away for the entire period of every outreach. We would also need to check the sound in every building in the area, even buildings to which we are not allowed access. Of course, this is impossible.
We are the only permitted group that has been cited under this ordinance–at least in the past 6 years. I have videotaped many other groups who were audible up to 2000 feet away. When I complained to the police about these groups, they always refused to enforce this law against them. Since nobody else is ever cited under this ordinance, other groups aren’t concerned about this law. But despite our best efforts to comply, we have been cited three times under this ordinance.
Four people from the Faith Fellowship Church in San Leandro had taken off work so they could play music with us on Friday. We had to cancel them because our permit was only a block away. If we brought a PA system, we thought the police would confiscate it. Even though we had a loudspeaker permit, we decided to use 9 watt amplifiers (which do not require a permit) on Friday.
That afternoon, a police officer ordered us to take down our banners and threatened to cite us again. Meanwhile, he refused to cite a band that was playing illegally without a permit across the street from us.
On Saturday, we took the remnants of our sound system to Powell and Market St. Celebration International Church and “Children of the Rock” ministered. The police left us alone this day.
Please pray for us about this situation. Every time we hold an outreach, our equipment could be confiscated. Of course, things could be worse. In some nations, Christians are put in jail, tortured, and killed for preaching the gospel. Please pray that we will have wisdom in handling this situation and that this persecution will end quickly. We filed a complaint with the Office of Citizen’s Complaints. We also have two lawsuits against the city and continue to defend ourselves against the criminal charges.
In February, 1997, Eric Livingston was put in jail and charged with “disturbing the peace.” We are still trying to get these charges dismissed. We attended a hearing on August 24 but the judge was not there because of some bureaucratic mix-up. We rescheduled it to September 9. Pray that Judge Burleigh will dismiss the charges on that date.
On September 4, we lost a motion to get our sound system returned immediately. The District Attorney will probably prosecute me and I will probably go to trial in October. Please pray that the judge will dismiss the charges or that I will be found not guilty. Please pray that this ordeal will finally end so that we can again preach the gospel in San Francisco without fear of arrest.
