OMAHA, Neb. — Freeway Ministries launched its newest program in Omaha on Saturday, August 1 the old fashioned way – by going door to door, sharing the gospel.
A team of 20-plus people, all of whom came from the Springfield-based ministry, canvassed the downtown area earlier that morning to converse with the addicted, the poor, the tempted and the broken.
One hundred and seven people responded to their invitation to attend the first meeting at the Omaha Baptist Center.
“We didn’t have enough ministry vans tonight to go pick everybody up,” said John Stroup, one of the ministry’s founders. “We had to use our cars.”
The evening included the testimony from a team member who had been arrested 28 times. He had previous ties to the organized crime, but he also had ties to Freeway Ministries – where he had once made a profession of faith, but then slipped back into his former ways after a family tragedy struck.
But Freeway hadn’t given up on him. Neither had Jesus.
One day, a man from Freeway visited him in a “trap house” (slang for “crack house”) to confront him. At the same time, some of the founders of the ministry began to pray he would be apprehended. That prayer was answered, and he was imprisoned for thirty days.
“I cried out to God,” he told the audience, recalling his time behind bars. “I had a two-year old girl out there with a mom who was on dope, and not a man out there to protect her. I cried out to God, asking him to please send a man – any man – to protect my daughter.
“The [my former partners in crime] bailed me out of jail, thinking that I was going back to work for them, but I wasn’t going back to work for them. I went back to Freeway and started learning how a dad should act. And I stayed out of trouble.”
His parole officer liked the changes he saw, and he informed him that he wasn’t going to have to go back to prison. Two years later, the man was sitting in a Bible study and he recalled the prayer he had prayed, asking God to send a man to protect his daughter.
“And he did,” the man said. “He sent me.”
The crowd broke out in applause, fueled by the hope that only the gospel can offer.
These are the types of testimonies people will hear every Saturday night going forward. Attendees will also have the chance to find accountability and prayer, and they will hear a message with an opportunity to respond to the gospel.
Rick Lechner, another one of the ministry’s founders who recently moved to Omaha from Springfield with his family, shared a message that night from Acts 3 about the lame beggar whose friends carried him to the gate every day in search of healing.
“What are we willing to do for our friends?” Lechner asked the crowd. “If you knew where your friend could get help, would you take him there? Raise your hands if you know somebody addicted to drugs or alcohol.”
Everybody in the place raised his or her hand. In fact, some of those people are smack dab in the middle of addiction themselves.
After his message, Lechner opened the altar and invited all to come.
Many did.
Stroup kneeled next to one man who was struggling with an addiction. Stroup opened his Bible and began to speak truth into the man’s life.
One woman felt compelled to come back the next day, and one of the team members prayed with her in the parking lot to receive Christ.
Freeway wants people to understand that it’s a ministry, not a church. In fact, they are working to funnel people into local churches and are looking for more SBC churches to work with them in doing so – arranging for rides, and committing to people whose lives are still a mess.
LifeSpring Church, which has a campus downtown as well as in Bellevue (an Omaha suburb), is already involved. One of those pastors, Steve Holdaway, told The Pathway why.
“There is a huge need here,” Holdaway said. “And this is a way of getting back to downtown Omaha, and hitting the streets, and doing something for Christ here.”
Eventually, Freeway will offer transitional living for up to 24 men at a time, in a setting they describe as a “discipleship center,” not a homeless shelter.
“They will be trained to be fully committed followers of Jesus Christ,” Stroup told The Pathway. “They will work, pay their bills, learn structure and they will have a safe living place where Jesus is not just a way, he is the way.
“We have six men [in Missouri] in Bible college right now who come from drugs and alcohol and prison. We have three more who are in regular college who would not be there if it wasn’t for a place like this.”
Freeway wants to plant other branches of the ministry in Omaha, and one SBC church is considering offering transitional facilities for women.
“Our goal is to make disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples,” Stroup said.