His parents said that an evangelist was coming. Nolan wasn’t sure what that meant and when he asked they just told him it was someone that leads people to Jesus. He thought church was supposed to do that, what was different about an evangelist? His parents didn’t really seem to understand the difference well enough to explain it so Nolan just dropped it. He figured he would see in real life. His parents were excited about going to see the evangelist.
The day came and Nolan’s parents brought him and his sister out to the stadium. Nolan had never seen anything like it! They had to show up early so that they could get a seat; so they arrived 4 hours ahead of schedule. It was still hard to find 4 seats together. By the time the speaking started, the crowd outside was bigger than the crowd inside! Inside every last seat was full and people were standing on every stairway. There was a stage down on the football field and the biggest sea of people Nolan had ever witnessed.
They had speakers set up all through the stadium and all over the golf course for the people outside to stand and listen. People had come from all over the state, including some very special people that Nolan hadn’t met, not yet anyway. It wasn’t like the football game either. The people weren’t drinking and cussing and jumping all over the place. People were helping each other find seats, they were calm. Many were on the edge of their seats like they expected the fireworks to start any minute.
Several people came out to speak before the evangelist. They were all talking like a church sermon and people were listening. No one knew who most of these people were, but they must have been something to be speaking to this crowd. There had to be 75,000 people there, it wasn’t like any church service Nolan ever saw. Then the whole crowd started talking about the next speaker. It was the man in black whoever that was.
Nolan’s dad told him about the time one of the Rockefeller’s hired the man in black to play a free concert. He was running for political office and it was a good way to draw a crowd of young people. I guess this guy was something special back when he was a super star musician or whatever. But now he was preaching. He talked for an hour about how he had made bad decisions in life and then found Jesus. Everyone was talking about him and sharing stories about his as he spoke.
Practice Outlaw 