Street Stories - A Ringside Seat To Over 4 Decades Of Taking Jesus To The Streets Of The World

would you like to go to the Fantasy Festival and beat up on the devil?” It was my good friend, Denny Nissley, calling me. Only a few years prior, Denny and his wife, Sandy, had founded Christ In Action, a radical front lines street ministry. Denny was a powerful street preacher and he and his team shared Jesus in some of the darkest places imaginable. Their ministry slogan was “Taking the love of Jesus to where it’s most desperately needed and hardest to find.” I knew if Denny wanted to go preach at the Fantasy Festival and beat up on the devil, this must be some kind of radical outreach. I told Denny I had never heard of the Fantasy Festival. He began sharing with me that it is a Mardi Gras-style street party and parade on the streets of Key West, Florida. The Fantasy Festival was only two years old and was celebrated on Saturday night on or before Halloween each year. According to Denny, this festival was even more radical than Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Denny and I, along with thousands of Christians from across America, had ministered and preached on the streets of New Orleans since the late 1970’s and very early 1980’s. Each year, hundreds of thousands of crazy revelers flooded the French Quarter in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. As bold and radical Christians confronted them with the Gospel each year, thousands were saved and filled with the Holy Ghost… right out on Bour bon Street in the midst of the drunks and hellacious partyers. I started to imagine what the Fantasy Festival would be like. Jesus told His early disciples if they followed Him, He would make them fishers of men.

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