Our ministry hosted a Free Prayer booth at the Tulsa State Fair. The results were amazing! In eleven days, we had 1,001 conversations about God. We prayed with a total of 1,844 people. We led 479 individuals in a prayer of salvation. 60 people testified they were healed by God of a pain or sickness. We had a total of 318 volunteers show up to help us pray with people. Many of these volunteers were teenagers or college students who had never had the opportunity to lead a person to Christ before.
Transcript:
Evangelist Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I am on location at the Tulsa State Fair at our free prayer booth, and my guest right now is Joshua Wagner. Thank you for being with me.
Josh Wagner (00:17):
Thank You, Daniel.
Evangelist Daniel King (00:18):
And so we have been out here praying with people. It is about the eighth or ninth day nine of the festival of the, the Tulsa State Fair. And we’ve been out here every single day praying with people talking to them about God leading them to Jesus. And we’ve already seen just tremendous fruit. Josh, what are some of the testimonies that stand out to you of what God’s done while we’ve been here?
Josh Wagner (00:49):
Well, thank you, Daniel. It’s been an amazing time of fruitful ministry. Each day, God has used us to pray with so many people. We’ve seen many people saved. I think about one young man yesterday, his name is Zian. He came and when he came up, at first he was so sad and he just had a forlorn look on his face. He’d not accepted Jesus. I got to tell him about the story of the gospel. He wanted to accept Jesus, his Lord. And if you could have seen the before and after picture between his demeanor when he first came up, and afterwards the smile he had on his face, you could noticeably see the difference in what Jesus had done in his life. He was so excited. He got his own Bible. He asked me, I took a picture with him. He says, Well, you send me the, that picture cuz I wanna show people about how I prayed to accept Jesus.
Josh Wagner (01:45):
And so he gave me his number. I sent him the picture, and he said, I’m gonna come by again later on and, and talk to you again. He was just so thrilled about the, the experience that he had had. We’ve had so many conversations like that. I also, we’ve seen not only people get saved, we’ve seen people get healed. One woman came to the fair, she complained about having pain in both her right leg and right foot. I prayed with her believing that Jesus would heal her. As of course we see him do in the scriptures and as he does at our crusades all over the world. And right there on the spot, she says, You know what? My leg pain at foot pain is gone. Jesus has healed her. One more testimony I’ll give you is this one young man came up to me last night.
Josh Wagner (02:28):
His name is Brian. Brian was already a Christian. But as I’m talking to Brian, I, I really felt the Lord was giving me a word of knowledge for Brian. That God had wanted to he wants to use him, that he has a call of God in his life, in ministry, specifically in evangelistic ministry. And so I shared with him, I said, Brian, I feel like God’s telling me that he wants to use you in full-time ministry and to be an evangelist. I love. And as I shared that with him, he said, I, that totally makes sense to me and I believe that and I want that. And so I was able to pray over the call of God in his life and he received this amazing word of knowledge. And it was just amazing to see God impacts so many different people impacting unbelievers, getting them saved, impacting the sick, getting them healed, impacting believers, speaking to the call of God in their lives and, and so many more interactions as well. So it’s just been an amazing time here at the Fair, Daniel.
Evangelist Daniel King (03:23):
Amen. This has been such a tremendous time. And going back to really the beginning of the story of what God did here. Yeah. My friend Evan Herman came out and had a prayer booth last year at the Tulsa State Fair. And over the course of a week, he prayed with about 700 people. And he was telling me about the fruit that he saw from this. And I really saw an opportunity because I’ve been praying about ways to reach people here in America. Yes. You know, people always ask me when I tell them about all the big miracles that God is doing overseas and, and we see thousands of people getting saved. They say like,
Josh Wagner (04:06):
Why
Evangelist Daniel King (04:06):
Don’t we see stuff like that happening here in the United States? Right. And, and they actually like, Why don’t you do big crusades here? Yeah. And, you know, I think that would be an an awesome idea. One of the challenges about doing things here in the United States is that things are a little bit more expensive here. Like we can go to the nation of Haiti. Yeah. And it, we can reach people at a very low cost comparatively, per person. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> here in the United States, when you start talking about renting a venue, paying for sound system, professional gear and everything, it can very quickly add up to thousands of dollars in a very high cost per person. Plus the marketing side of it trying to, to get people to attend. And so I’ve, I’ve been praying like, God, how can we reach people here in America? And really doing a, a booth here at the Tulsa State Fair really isn’t that expensive. Right. We have three different ministries that are involved in it. My ministry, King Ministries International, you have Wagner Ministries. And then Evan Herman, his ministry is called Evangelism Now. And the three of us kind of partner together, and each of us put in a third of the cost towards renting the booth. Yep. And it really is not that expensive, but we are seeing
Evangelist Daniel King (05:26):
So many people who are so open That’s right. To God. That’s right. And we’ve just seen tremendous things that, and it actually took a little bit of a process to, to get here because we started asking them if we could do a booth and then have a little platform with the sound system. Back in November, last November started sending an email and, and asking the state fair if we could come and have permission to do this. And it took all away from November until February to get a meeting with them. And so finally in February we went, we sat down with them and, and presented the, the concept of, of what we could do. And then I didn’t hear back from them. We, we kept texting them and asking them, and we didn’t hear back from them until June. And, and so that all those months from February to June, I was thinking, well, they don’t really want people out there preaching to all the fair goers.
Evangelist Daniel King (06:23):
Right. And there really isn’t a a, a place that they would want for us to do that. But in June, when they called us back, we had just absolutely tremendous favor place God, because not only did they say, Yes, we want you to come, we want you to do a booth. We want you to have a, a platform to be able to have music groups and, and youth groups come and do dramas and stuff. But we also have a Sunday morning service for all the fair workers. Would you be willing to come and preach at the Sunday morning service on both Sundays while we’re here? And so, not only did they allow us to have the booth, but they also opened the door for us to have this Sunday morning service to minister to all these fair workers and, and, and carnival people and also vendors that are here. And so, you know, Josh, I I think it’s so important for the church to go out where people are, sometimes churches get so focused on getting people to come into the church and the people who aren’t saved, they really don’t have any reason to come to church. They don’t want to come to church. Yeah. And, and so I think that if the church, if the, if the world is not coming to the church, the church needs to go to the world.
Josh Wagner (07:45):
Well it’s, it’s totally a great point. And, you know, think about the first word of the great commission that Jesus gave us is go because he knows that it is not normal for an believer to approach you with asking how to be saved. That’s why we have to go out and find them. And so I’ll tell you here at the Tulsa State Fair are many lost people. And we have come to them. We are going into this part of the world, sharing the gospel with them. And God is rewarding our obedience because we have seen so many people impacted by the gospel. So we do praise God so much for what he has done through this ministry here. And Dana, one of the things that’s also amazing about this week is not only the many people we’ve been able to interact with here at the fair, but literally the now we’re approaching hundreds of volunteers that have come and helped us at the fair. People who are already Christians, believers, many of which have never maybe shared the gospel evangelistically before, many of which who have never led someone to Jesus. And we’re able to train them and help them to do this work. And now people who started out shy and timid are becoming emboldened to preach the gospel that they’re leading people to Jesus praying with complete strangers. And it’s been an amazing opportunity as well for the church to be trained and and grow in their evangelistic calling.
Evangelist Daniel King (09:15):
Yeah. So let’s celebrate some of the numbers here. For every person that we talk to, we, we keep a record of actually talking to them. Yep. And so here we are, ninth day in. Yes. And so far we’ve had 587 conversations about God. And so these are interactions with people who are interested, have some question about God or will stop for a moment to talk to us. And then for prayer, we’ve actually prayed with 1060 people so far who wanted to take that moment to have a connection with God. And then now here’s the exciting number. We have 288 people that we’ve prayed with for salvation, and today we will go over that 300 marks. So super excited about that. And then we’ve had 36 reports of people that were healed, that we’re touched by God and feel better amazing physically than when they arrived.
Evangelist Daniel King (10:17):
And then you’re right about the volunteers. We’ve had 201 volunteers. There you go. Who have been out here helping us pray with people. That’s fantastic. And this is such a, an important part of this outreach because many of these volunteers, they’ve been students from Victory College where you’re one of the teachers there. Yep. They’ve been students from, or Roberts University. Yep. We’ve had some from Rayma, we’ve had just some older people. We’ve had younger people. We had a homeschooling group that came out Yes. The other day. Yes. tomorrow all of Victory reach from Victory Church is gonna be out here. Youth groups. Youth groups. Yeah. And music groups. Music groups. We even had people come in for a long strength teams. Yeah. We had the, the team Extreme from Kansas City came down and did feats of Strength. And so all these different people have been here, and many of them have never had the opportunity to lead someone to the Lord before. And this fair outreach has given them the opportunity to lead someone to the Lord. That’s right. And I think they’re gonna take that with them going into the future where they will be bold with sharing their faith with others.
Josh Wagner (11:26):
And that’s, and that’s the, the one of the benefits of this event is not just the people that we are impacting who are coming to the fair, but those who are part of this opportunity that are being trained in evangelism. And so we praise God. And even the numbers you shared, which are already fantastic, we’ve still got two and a half days left, and those numbers will only increase over the course of this weekend. And so, and there’s no telling how many people that we impact, of course, will go home. Like the Samaritan woman who goes home to her family and her community and tells them all about what Jesus has done for her. Many we believe are, are going to do the same for you.
Evangelist Daniel King (12:07):
Yeah. And let’s talk a little bit about how we are following up on with people, because that’s one of the very important things about ministering to people. So, you know, follow up is always difficult in a situation like this for, for some people we’re able to get their phone numbers and Right. And be able to interact with them. But I made up a, a flyer here Yes. That says free prayer, do you know God? And then it has the four spiritual laws. Yeah. Usually when I talk to people, I talk these four spiritual truths that God wants you to know. Because law sounds a little tough. Yeah. But truth sounds good. So number one, God loves you. Sin separates us from God. Jesus died for our sins, and you can be safe. Amen. And then there’s a little salvation prayer here. Yep. Some people call it the Sinner’s Prayer, but I like to call it the Salvation Prayer because it’s a little positive. Yeah. but then we have a place where they can download their free ebook. So if they just point their cell phone camera at the QR code, they can download the book. This is
Josh Wagner (13:09):
That ebook in physical form.
Evangelist Daniel King (13:11):
Yeah. And so some people, they, they want the physical book. So we have the physical book ready to give to them. We also have bibles that we’ve been giving out to everyone. So we’ve got these, these cute little New Testaments Yep. That are just really beautiful. And I noticed that kids really like these are teenagers. Then we’ve got some complete Bibles that were donated to us. Yep. And we’ve got some Spanish Bibles. And That’s right. So I think over the course of this whole time, we’ll end up giving away over 160 Bibles, probably 250 books that will give away. And many, many flyers Yes. That point people to Jesus. Then for kids, we also have stickers for them. So this is the, the three circles illustration, which it’s a, a, a, a nice little way to show kids visually how they can get to God.
Evangelist Daniel King (14:03):
And, and it’s amazing we just, a few minutes ago, a couple of kids walked by. Yeah. And I, I first of all offer them a Tootsie role, which of course every kid wants candy. And so they, they get their Tootsie role, but then I say, Would, would you like a sticker and give him the sticker? And then start with the first circle, which has a heart on it, and say, This heart means that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And then there’s a picture of a man running away and I ask, What, what do you think this guy’s doing? And they say, Oh, he is running away. He’s like, That’s right. He’s running away from God. Is that good to run away from God? And the kids say, No. And, but then there’s another picture of a man praying. And so, so the kids quickly see that if you pray to Jesus that you can be restored in your fellowship with God. That’s right. And so those two kids gave their life to Jesus. Hallelujah. And, and praise God, they had an encounter with God today. They did.
Josh Wagner (14:54):
They
Evangelist Daniel King (14:54):
Did. And we’ve also just had such a tremendous time just praying for people. One of the testimon that really stands out to me last night Robbie Leaf or two nights ago. Yeah. My friend Robbie Leaf was out here preaching, and he was preaching for about 25 minutes. Yeah. Just sharing his testimony. He says, I used to be called Mad Dog because I was mad at everybody and I was crazy. And, but Jesus set me free. And so his testimony is really wonderful. And so he’s just sharing in a loving way, his testimony, Well, after about 25 minutes, this one man just comes walking over and kneels down right on the pavement in, in front here. He says, I need Jesus. I need God’s help. Yes. And so Robbie prayed with him then I, I spent some time talking to him. Good. And he, he was crying. He, he was having some issues and his marriage and he, he, he was a little bit drunk and but he was just so moved by God Yes. And saying, I need prayer. Could you please pray for me? I need God’s help. And, and right there on the pavement Yeah. Kneeling down, he had an encounter with God.
Josh Wagner (16:06):
And those sorts of things we believe are moments that they’ll take with them for the rest of their life. You know, one other thing I wanted to mention Daniel about follow up is on that flyer that we have there, you can scan the QR code and you can of course download the book, but you also get their name and their information and Yeah.
Evangelist Daniel King (16:26):
We’ll get their email address. And so then we’re going to be able to send them some follow up material, some videos and, and some ideas that will help them.
Josh Wagner (16:37):
And because we’re here in Tulsa, you know, we are familiar with many of the churches in Tulsa. We’ve been able to direct many people to attend good Bible teaching churches in this community. One other aspect of this too, that we’ve been able to minister in, in a way that we’ve been able to minister, is we are surrounded by different vendors, other people working at the fair. And we have been able to pray with so many of the people here at the fair who are working the fair. And they, they I believe have been very encouraged, many of them by our presence here, hearing us preach the gospel, seeing us pray with people. You know, even people that are working at the fair far distances from where we are when we walk around with our shirts and they’ll say, Oh, we’ve heard about your booth, You know, very positively. And so word is getting out, People are hearing the gospel, people are being saved, healed, and delivered and encouraged. And we just praise God for it.
Evangelist Daniel King (17:36):
Amen. And so I think this is an idea that churches across America should pick up and start doing. You know, there are fairs that go on all over the place. In fact, right in Broken Arrow they have a, a fair, they’re called Rooster Days. It’s been going since like 1918. Sure. And so we set up the same little tent out there for three days. Yeah. And in those three days we prayed with over 300 people. We had 56 people give their lives to Jesus. God. And so people are just walking by and, and out there we were giving away free water and stuff cuz it was really hot. Yeah. And it just had such a tremendous impact. But why shouldn’t Jesus be lifted up in these public venues? That’s right. They have every other type of thing that is being sold. I mean, you could buy a pickup here at the fair.
Evangelist Daniel King (18:26):
Right. You could buy an ice cream cone. Yes. You could buy a hot dog. Yeah. You can buy a, a running machine. You can buy yogurt. I mean, they’ve got all kind, You could buy a tornado shelter. Sure. I mean, they’ve got all kinds of booth here. Sure. But why shouldn’t Jesus be lifted up? Absolutely. And so I think that across America, if churches would look for outreach opportunities like this and say, you know, we’re gonna do a prayer booth. And this is a really easy way for people in the church to get involved in the outreach. Anybody can come out and pray and, and, and it’s it’s nonthreatening. Yep. We’re just offering to say, Hey, is there anything you need prayer for? That’s right. That’s right. It’s, you don’t have to be a theologian. That’s right. In order to do this, just a normal, everyday Christian can go out and pray. And then with a little bit of training and some simple tools, anybody can be equipped to go ahead and lead someone to the Lord.
Josh Wagner (19:19):
That’s right. A hundred percent. Not only is it something every church can do from the standpoint of logistics, but it’s also a very inexpensive thing comparatively to the work that we’re doing. Like you mentioned for us to do, crusades overseas is much less expensive than it is to do them here. But even this is less expensive than most of the crusades we do overseas. And so we just I I would echo what you’re saying. I encourage all churches to work evangelistically in your communities. This is a very simple way that you could create a schedule and have a rotation of your people coming and helping to man the booth, giving them opportunities to share the gospel. And it’s great practical way for people who are in the church to be able to exercise their their love for the Lord evangelistically.
Evangelist Daniel King (20:12):
Amen. And so if you’re listening, I want to encourage you to find a fair that’s going on near you. Yes. And think about doing a prayer booth at the fair and using this tool in order to lead people to Jesus. I think that if churches across America would do this, we would see revival. Yes. If the world is not coming to the church, the church must go to the world in what better place than to go to a fair where people are walking around Right. With a Turkey leg in one hand and a Coca-Cola on the other hand and they’re just looking for entertainment. Yeah. Something to do. Why shouldn’t they have an encounter with Jesus? That’s right at
Josh Wagner (20:52):
The fair. Amen. Amen. A hundred percent. And you know, not only is the fair bringing all sorts of centers from different backgrounds, even the nations of the world at the fair, there’s so many people wherever you live, you’ve got many immigrants from many nations to, to obey the commands of Jesus, to go into all the nations of the world and preach the gospel in many ways, you attend your local fair, you will get many nations of the world coming here. People of all different ethnicities and languages, all of ’em need Jesus. So go and do it. Yeah.
Evangelist Daniel King (21:26):
We we had a Hispanic concert here at the fair the other night. Yes. So there was lots of people that spoke Spanish here. And so we actually did one of our presentations in Spanish and prayed with many Spanish people, Spanish speaking people to receive Jesus. Yeah. And we’ve had some Burmese people out here praying with us. And, and it’s just been amazing to see what God has done.
Josh Wagner (21:49):
Amen. Well, we praise God for what he has done, what He’s yet to do, and what we believe God is going to inspire many of you to do as well in your given communities.
Evangelist Daniel King (21:59):
God bless you and thanks for listening to the Evangelism podcast.
