Church drops surprise ‘end-time’ message at carnival

As they have done for more than a decade, worshippers from the Ekklesia Bible Fellowship once again transformed Carnival Sunday into a high-impact street evangelism mission, stepping directly into the heart of the road march to distribute hundreds of bold armbands to revellers amid the pulsating chaos.

The armbands were stamped with the striking warning "Behold I am coming, are you ready?"

"We gave out hundreds of them," said the church leader, Pastor Barry Hall.

"As we put on the armband, we would talk to them about the Lord. Persons were very receptive of them and some even came over to collect them," he said.

Hall said the cost of producing the armbands was "pretty expensive" but stated "You can't put a price on the word of God".

Hall, who for more than a decade has been ministering to carnival revellers with his team along Hope Road in St Andrew, said they were able to interact with more revellers this year.

The church leader said the revellers now realised that the group's mission is not to condemn them and "call down hell fire on them".

"So they felt comfortable to even approach us. Some of the revellers even came to take pictures with us. We don't allow anyone to come and dance up on us so they wouldn't try that with us. They know full well that we would not accommodate them," the clergyman said.

"What I noticed was that a lot of persons were not exuberant . They were just like going along and you did not see too much gyrating, they were just walking. We were at two different spots as one of the carnival groups did not come down Hope Road but a team was prepared to intercept them. We covered all of them," Hall added.

Hall told THE STAR that they are looking towards spreading their ministry to other huge secular events with the hopes of bringing partygoers closer to the Almighty.

"Our mission is to spread the word and that is exactly what we did. It is God who gives the growth so we went and planted the seed for the harvest," Hall said.

Last week, the police announced that to maintain order and ensure the safety of all revellers and spectators, distribution of free items along the parade route was strictly prohibited. In the past, members of the fellowship have given out bottles of water. Hall, however, stated that the police did not prevent them from sharing the holy word.

"We were not selling or promoting anything so the police did not give us any problems," he said.