Christ for the Nations in Dallas, Texas has a rich history of evangelism going back to the early days of the Voice of Healing movement with Gordon Lindsay. In this video, you will learn from the evangelism director of CFNI, Ayelen Saavedra. She explains how the students of CFNI are reaching out through tent crusades on the campus of CFNI and at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
Connect with Ayelen Saavedra: https://www.facebook.com/aye.saavedra.7
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:04):
Hi, I’m Daniel King and I’m here on the campus of Christ for the Nations in Dallas, Texas. And I’m with Ashlyn, who is from Argentina. She is the evangelism director here on campus. And so I’m gonna ask her some questions about what God is doing through Christ for the nations in the area of evangelism. You’re here at Christ for the nations. Yes. In Dallas, Texas. What do you do here at
Ayelen Saavedra (00:31):
Christ for I’m over at the evangelism department? I teach evangelism. I lead the crusades. I lead weekly outreaches and mostly mission trip within the United States.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:41):
And you’re just showing me some of these pictures from different crusades that happened in the history of Christ for the nations, which Christ for the nations was rooted in the evangelistic ministry of Gordon. Lindsay, looking at some of these, these pictures, we’ve got one from Puerto Rico. We’ve got one of another evangelist in a tent crusade. This is amazing. What is CF and I doing today to continue that legacy
Ayelen Saavedra (01:10):
Or, and Lindsay started his minister at early age. He started putting crusades. He gathered the funny story is like he gathered a few friends and he bought it. He, and that’s how we started doing crusades. Massive miracles were happening. So that’s our legacy. Our legacy is born in revival in, in evangelism, in crusades, in salvations over for more than 150 tens in those days. So everything started by the boys of healing, which was the main purpose was to announce all the miracles that had taken place. So the voice of healing and a couple of years later, it, it transitioned into Christ for the nations. We are currently leading Alridge every week. Every Monday, every single week.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:49):
What type of outreaches do you do?
Ayelen Saavedra (01:51):
We do street evangelism. We do homeless. We do jail and prison. We do high school. We get into high schools. We preach the gospel. We have literally service inside the high school, local high school. We work with one and nearby, which is 50 minutes away. I don’t wanna say the names just for sake of information, but it’s one of the top 10 high, biggest high schools in America. Not only high school, but also homeless. We go there every week. We have street evangelism four times per week, where we take our students to the streets, literally to bridge the gospel, even one-on-one setting or in a, in a group setting, like kind of more like a, as a corporate alre. Also we do two main big outreach per, per semester. One of those is Mardi GRA, and we’re here in the fall doing every four.
Ayelen Saavedra (02:38):
We, we do that. We’re starting to do this this year and we’ll continue to do this every year. We put a 10 and it just, it just, it, it is massive. Last year 40 people was, I mean, it got safe. One. We had, we had one boy who couldn’t walk. He came in and Walter, and then he, he just received the power of the holy spirit. And then he just stand up and he began to run outside the tent and he said, mama I’m healed. And he was crying. It was, it was amazing. We, we have miracles like crazy here and enclave, like many people say that, nothing, nothing, you know, there there’s nothing going on in enclave. This is poverty is one of the most dangerous places in Dallas, but we are seeing the power of God moving in a tremendous way.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:25):
Yeah. So Christ for the Nation’s campus is right here in the middle of Dallas, in the Oak cliff community. And there are lots of people right here that need Jesus. And so you’re reaching out to them. Yeah. Now you’re, you’re going to be doing a, a tent crusade coming up. Tell, tell me about the tent crusade, what you’re
Ayelen Saavedra (03:42):
Doing. Yeah. I’ll leave these photos a little bit here, but we’re putting the tent. Basically. We are expecting one types of people to show up, to hear the gospel. We’re gonna feed them. We’re gonna have training in gospel in the afternoon from two to five. And then from five to seven, we’re gonna give food. We’re gonna have a blessing in store. We’re gonna give close to the community. And then at seven, we’re gonna start the crusade. We’re partnering with different churches up room, Trinity, joy, church, family, C different churches that are partnering because we cannot do this crusades without the hub of the local churches. So beside partnering with local churches, we’re partnering with ministries as well. We’re, we’re working with YM kna with sacred writers with time to revive in Texas different other organizations, evangelistic organizations, we’re starting we’re starting the 45 days praying 45 days of praying and fasting and evangelization every day.
Ayelen Saavedra (04:39):
And we’re dividing OC cliff sections. We’re doing a map and we’re dividing those sections. We’re working with local churches in order to, to prepare for, for the 10th crus se that’s, that’s the way that we’re doing. We’re giving flyers. We’re, we’re visiting every church, many churches. We started last weekend. We’re visiting many churches on the weekend. We’re promoting the event. We’re saying invite a non-Christian invite a coworker, invite a friend, invited somebody from college, from high school to the 10 to experience God, if you need a miracle, if you need prayer, if you need, if you just need something from God to show up and we’re gonna get wild in worship, but we’re also gonna preach the gospel in a simple way that will reach masses to, to the kingdom of God.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:21):
So I saw some, some flyers here that you’re passing out for the tank revival. Could you tell me how you’re passing these out and what you’re doing
Ayelen Saavedra (05:28):
Now? Absolutely. Well, one of the technics is just to do a straight evangelism. So we are, you do this. It’s says let’s party because the 10 revival
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:35):
Let’s party, the greatest party of all time. Yeah. Music, food VIPs. It’s already paid for a real party that lasts for he forever heaven. Wow. That’s
Ayelen Saavedra (05:46):
Awesome. It’s preadmission. When we put the tent it’s it’s gonna be in the midst of Halloween. Wow. So we even put in fire says like demo on party or exorcism life, free entry. Like we’re doing different creative ideas to invite people because it’s in the middle of Halloween. Who’s gonna go to like a cheese stand. You know, sometimes we use the word Jesus on the fire, but sometimes we don’t and it’s like, oh, what’s it. You be, I mean, you be surprised of how many people are, feel more like, curious about like the spirituality rather than just the name. Right. But then we just do it three evangels and we invite them. You want me to show you the way that we do? Yeah. In a practical way. Hey, hello. How are you? This is my name. ASHN I wanna invite you.
Ayelen Saavedra (06:30):
We’re having 10. We’re having this event. We’re gonna give food. It’s gonna be good. Please show up. And this is the event. It’s gonna be October 30, October 31st or November 1st and 7:00 PM. But if you come at five, we’re gonna give up. We’re gonna give food. We’re gonna give clothes and I, I would love to have you, and I believe we’ll have a great time. And if you have any need, if you have, if you need prayer, please come. I’m sure that, that your prayers will be answered. I, I have a high expectation for what’s gonna happen. Something like that. It’s just very fast.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:05):
Yeah, that’s great.
Ayelen Saavedra (07:07):
So this is some of the flyers that we used to evangelize because it doesn’t say the tent. It doesn’t say any event in particular. So we use this even in Mardi GRA, or even when we do a straight evangelism or homeless or high school, because it cause attention. And if you see the back of the, the fire says, here’s how you get in admit, you need to Jesus, God, son, as for forgiveness, for all, you done run against him and the people. If you really want, God’s help in your life to have eternal life, then pray simple, pray, God, we’ll hear you, forgive you and help to bring help to bring about a change in your life. And this is kind of the, the, the short prayer that we put in the flyer. Jesus, I need your help and forgiveness. Forgive me now and cleanse me, come to my heart and gimme new life.
Ayelen Saavedra (07:49):
Thank you for hearing my, and thank you for answering my prayer. Amen. Wow. It’s a very simple prayer that we put there because people said, okay, I wanna pray for you. Can I pray for you? Or you need prayer. Okay. We can pray together. You know, we don’t push the, our student to say, tell them to repeat a prayer after me, because sometimes they don’t even feel like it. Sure. And I mean, by repeating a prayer, people don’t get saved. They get saved, but acknowledge the name of Jesus and asking him as their Lord and savior. So we don’t push our students to repeat a simple prayer that they don’t even feel like repeating it. We push them. Okay. Can I pray for you? Okay. I can pray for you, but can, can I teach you how to pray? And this is a way that you can pray, but it, it has to come up from the heart. What, what you need is Jesus. And then you will preach the gospel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:33):
So here on the wall, behind me, there’s pictures from Mardi GRA, which is a huge party in new Orleans that takes place every year. And you’re doing evangelism reaching out to the, the people who come to party at, at Mardi. GRA, tell me about that.
Ayelen Saavedra (08:50):
Yes. In Mardi GRA this is a festival that is taking place every year by, by the end of February, beginning of March, one, people, especially young people gather in those streets of Mar in terms of new Orleans to party, to drink, to, to just to take drugs just to, just to lose theirself. And we go there, we take a voucher for students. Every year we take around 100, 150 students to the street of Mardi GRA. It’s crazy because the people go there and they they’re just there to party. And then suddenly we have the signs here that says, for example, free destiny. And, and they was like, oh, read my destiny. Because there is a lot of people that are on the streets that actually work as their car tellers that they’re just working. They get, you know, they get money for doing that. So we take our students and we utilize the gift of the holy spirit, like prophecy, like words of knowledge.
Ayelen Saavedra (09:43):
So we, we have signs that says free destiny. That’s one of the ways that we preach the gospel. And then it was like, oh, they, they will. I come to you, you have a sign. And maybe you part with, with the team of two or three, and then say, okay, read my destiny. I’m here. Or they, they can even give you, they give you their hands and say, read my destiny. And then they utilize our kids, our students, kids, as I did with, you know, with the good heart, our students utilize the gift to the holy spirit. And then we gonna prop over them and say, okay, this happens to you last year, you had a family problem. You, you, you are sick. You, you have a pain in your back right now that, that you are using the words of knowledge, like it’s related with the past or the president, but they, then they ask, okay, tell me about my future.
Ayelen Saavedra (10:24):
And they say, okay, if you give your life to the Lord today, he will change your future. He will give you hope. He will give you a life and life and a boom. He will take away the pain. So we preach the gospel through those kind of techniques. There’s no one technique. We have utilize many techniques. We just have, we have science that says different things. For example free hub. Do you need to hug? Do you need prayer? We we’re just creative. Not only the time we use science, we also have teams of, of 12 people that go inside the street of Mardi GRA. And 1, 1, 1 person it’s designed to be the IOR for that night. So what the others are preaching one person’s it’s within those teams, praying for the ones who are evangelizing and preaching. Then we have another person who is with a guitar.
Ayelen Saavedra (11:10):
Each team has their own worship leader in their own worship songs, their worshiping and people might come and say, oh, can I give you some money to worship? Because it’s, it’s crazy. It’s wild out there. Ma GRA. And we put some songs of, they sing worship songs of people come. And when in the midst of that, we preach the gospel, like in more massive way. Then we have another techniques of, we just go to restaurants and we, we, we minister to the workers because they work all the time. If you can imagine, like they, they, you know, they, they go and party, they drink, they go to bars like to four or five in the morning, even at eight in the morning, they people still partying. So it’s, it’s just, it’s just, it gets wild. Our students go there and preach the gospel, love those broken heart.
Ayelen Saavedra (11:52):
And so I had one testimony from last year. I wanna share very quick, this, I never seen this in my life. I’ve seen miracles. I’ve seen crazy things. People coming to Christ, but this is what I’m gonna tell you right now. I’ve never seen in my life. It was this girl. She was completely Aly. She was completely, I’m sorry. She was completely drunk. She was, she was, she was, she was passed out and I said, I’m gonna preach the gospel. And I had a team with me two people with me and I was a struggling. My mom’s like how I’m gonna preach the gospel if she’s like, she’s lost in her mind. But the whole spirit said to me, every seed is worth it. Every city is worth it. So amen. I went and I preach the gospel. I was with a team. We prayed for her. And after that, she, she began. So she, she start being sober again and she began to whip and cry. And we asked her, did you understand what we just did for you? Which, which is, did, did you remember what we just talked? And she said, yes. I cannot believe that today. My life has been changed because I met Jesus. Wow. And she will. So again, so every the drunkenness disappeared.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:59):
So Jesus saved her and sobered her up
Ayelen Saavedra (13:03):
Rather in the middle of the party, in the middle of the, the drunkenness in the middle of the chaotic atmosphere.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:11):
And what are some other results that you you’ve seen from there? Like how many people does your team minister to over the course of the ministry and party?
Ayelen Saavedra (13:19):
Well, we said that average, we get to pray like two, we pray for two, 2000, 3000 people. And then we last time the results were, we got 170 salvations. Wow. Within one day then many miracles like we had stomach, okay. Problems just being here, right there. A person who was having like a, like a thing in the neck just disappear right there in the, in. I want you, I want you guys to think that Mardi GRA is not like a church setting only like in normal street. It, I mean, it’s wow. It gets Crowdy. It’s noisy. It’s just like you are in the middle of a, of a club. So it’s kind of hard sometimes to pick. So you gotta pull the person a little bit outside the sound, outside the music in order to establish a conversation. But in the midst of that in the midst of that one, my million people from around the world to go there to party, God is bringing hope through his people.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:19):
Wow. That’s so beautiful. Now I saw you have some postcards here where you’re, you’re telling students about it and it will happen this year, February 21st to the 25th. Tell me about how you are training the students and how you’re getting them ready, because it’s pretty intense spiritually to go and administer in a, in a situation like that.
Ayelen Saavedra (14:39):
We, we do prep meetings every week seven months prior to the trip. And we, we do, we do interviews for every application, cuz not all are called to microgram because of the if, if, if there are students who are still dealing with, with some things struggling with some addictions, we cannot take them into this kind of atmosphere because it’s gonna be more hard for them in, in, in a medium or long term. So we wanna make sure that the people that we, we take to preach the gospel and this kind of they’re free, they’re solid. They have a good foundation. Because you know, you, there are people really getting naked in, in the streets and just completely just our law. So when I take people that are, are going through this process of preparation, we teach them how to evangelize.
Ayelen Saavedra (15:30):
We give them, we give them different techniques on how to approach in these kind of settings. We, we have a manual that we grad in. And we, we put their everything related with the spiritual, emotional and physical preparation because we’re gonna be walking a lot throughout the days and throughout the nights. So the trip is five days. So if you can imagine from Dallas to new Orleans and then preaching every, every night, the people get tired and it is not an easy task because when you are with a lot of people around you and you’re preaching the gospel through hours and hours in the morning, in the afternoon, in the night, it takes a preparation, not only in the spiritual and emotional, but also in the physical real. So we do that seven, seven months prior to the trip and we interview everybody can go through a process of interview for the process of mentorship, one on one and through our leaders too, in order to get there prepared and ready with bold, with authority and release the power of God in, in, in, in this festival Mardi GRA
Evangelism Podcast Host (16:37):
Daniel King is on a mission to save 1 million souls a year, but he can’t do it alone. Would you consider sewing a financial seed today to give, please visit www.kingministries.com.
