Every time I speak at Calvary Baptist Church on 57th Street there are people from Jews for Judaism or the JCRC picketting my presence. Yesterday I was to speak there once again and frankly I am just slightly disappointed that there were no picketters this time. They always add such excitement to the day. The church people at Calvary are usually amused, excited or confused by their appearance. Some years they have served the picketters lemonade. Some of the braver members of the congregation have tried their witnessing skills out on these guys. So I think there was some eagerness to see if they would show up and some disappointment that none did. In fact, the associate pastor teased me that I must be falling down on the job. :)
But as I think about it, the no show from Jews for Judaism and the JCRC at Calvary Baptist this year has been par for the course throughout our entire campaign. There had been a lot of hype leading up to the start of our campaign about what an amazing show of unity there would be from the Jewish community in withstanding us. Jews for Judaism promised to send counter-missionaries as did the JCRC with their newly named SDPC, spiritual deception prevention committee. No one came to Calvary yesterday and the sightings of these anti-missionary folks have been rare to non-existent. A few years ago we used to have a guy named David, a volunteer from the JCRC who faithfully countered our efforts. He would show up in some of the likely places and stand behind our people. He was fairly harmless. Marcia Eisenberg even came out for a few times in years past. She is a ganse macher attorney with the JCRC now so perhaps she is getting too big (or too old) to come out onto the streets. Either way we haven't seen anything of the supposed opposition materialize. Haven't seen the supposed 60 newspaper ads, "say yes to Judaism." Big fizzle from JCRC and Jews for Judaism. It isn't that I am so disappointed. Usually the opposition has helped us to raise awareness of our efforts but we haven't even needed that this year. Now in our 4th week we have had newspaper and television coverage every week. It is hard to believe that our campaign is worthy of a 4 week news cycle in the press, but we have a very good pr agent, Y'shua HaMashiach. It's kind of funny because we have actually been asked who is handling our media for us since we seem to be getting such saturation. We can't claim credit for it unless like Hebrew National, the press answer to a higher authority. I am thankful that we do and I give Him all the praise. What is more important is that we have had the kind of one to one encounters with Jewish people that we could have only prayed for and dreamed of. 2088 Jewish seekers giving us their info and asking for literature and further contact, 426 people praying to receive the Lord, fully half of whom are Jewish. Now that is worth getting excited about!