ConNiPtioNs

New Messengers

I happened to see some of Nightline on Thursday night. They had a two part show called "The Messengers" about teenaged boys competing in an evangelical preaching contest. They had footage of one tall skinny white boy "witnessing" to a young black woman in front of her tarpaper shack. He was on one side of a fence quoting bible verses to her on the other side. Then he asked her to pray with him and she timidly repeated his words.

I don't really get this "witnessing," but I am subjected it to it quite often. Do these people get points for talking to people about their version of christianity? Do they get even more points for converts? Didn't Jesus say:

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. - Matthew 6:5-6

So I ask these people to listen to Jesus and go into their closets to pray. :)

N.H. teens wins preaching contest, gets TV appearance By Associated Press

CONCORD - At 16, Isaiah Lewis has mastered the cadences of public speaking, the rise and fall, the calculated pacing, the dramatic pause, and he has a command of fire and brimstone.

Lewis has used it all to become the 2003 national evangelistic preaching champion, and get chosen to appear on ABC’s "Nightline," which is chronicling the national competition in a program Thursday and Friday nights.

He won the title in April at the championships at Bob Jones University in South Carolina.
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