Busra, a 20 year old muslim girl, was mesmerized by the No Longer Music show she saw in her city of Manavgat, Turkey. She was the first to raise her hand when I asked who wanted to know more about following Jesus.
She, along with her boyfriend, asked for prayer, were interviewed and wanted to meet with someone as soon as possible to talk more about Jesus. There was a purity and innocence in her manner and character that you could clearly feel and see. She seemed so sincere and truly wanted to know Jesus.
The fact that she saw our concert at all was incredible. We originally were scheduled to play 3 concerts in 2 consecutive nights in a tourist area near were people were leaving to catch a bus after a long day at the beach and sun.
It was a terrible location and the first concert drew only around 50 people.
We gave it everything we had even though it was a small crowd in a bad location. Whenever you can preach the Gospel in Turkey, it's an opportunity worth taking. After the concert, I prayed that God would give us a better location.
Well God was about to answer that prayer because someone complained about our concert and so the next show in Manavgat was canceled! This was not the answer to prayer that I wanted! We were all discouraged about this, so we broke up into small groups to pray and ask God what we should do.
During our prayer time we felt that we should find a park in the city away from the tourists and do an "unplugged", adapted version of the second half of the show. So we found one of the main parks in the city and prepared to do an unplugged set. We only used percussion and our translator Safak had a handheld megaphone.
As a crowd gathered, an under cover police man came and I was afraid he would shut us down but instead he welcomed us and told us he would protect us!
Hundreds of people gathered in the two unplugged concerts in the park.
In the middle of the first concert, we had to stop for the call of prayer and wait for it to finish before we could start again.
After our two concerts, I preached about how only Jesus had the power to save us. That only Jesus defeated death. Many people raised their hands and said they wanted to know Him - including Busra. Some were so moved they came to both shows so they could see it again. 40 people filled out surveys to say they want to know more about Jesus and a few hundred NLM follow up cards were given out.
Our concert in Manavgat was just one of 8 great concerts we had in Turkey last month. We saw God miraculously provide permission to perform just hours before our concerts. Two to three thousand people attended the concerts and hundreds responded - all in a country with less than 0.01% Christians.
Our local partner expects much fruit from our Turkish tour and we are already talking about bigger plans for next year.
David Pierce
Multiplication!
While the "original" No Longer Music team led by David and Ben Pierce was in Turkey, the "No Longer Music Steiger Missions School" team performed on the Steiger stage at the Dresden City Festival - a highly atheistic part of Europe.
The festival draws over 500,000 people and well over 1000 attended the concert. The team, which consisted almost entirely of Steiger Missions School students, were able to lift up the message of the cross through the show and then Luke Greenwood invited people to respond from stage. There was a great response and a lot of people prayed to receive Jesus!
This was in addition to NLM Peru - a spanish version of No Longer Music led by Steiger missionary Cocke Cumplido from Chile - that did a tour of Peru in early August.
The multiplication of NLM is fruit of Steiger's ministry "Platform," which exists to train, equip and release Christian artists/musicians as missionaries to boldly use their God-given talent and platform to proclaim the Gospel outside the church culture.
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