The Great Benefit of Open-Air Preaching

The great benefit of open-air preaching is that we get so many newcomers to hear the gospel who otherwise would never hear it. The gospel command is, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," but it is so little obeyed that one would imagine that it ran thus, "Go into your own place of worship and preach the gospel to the few creatures who will come inside."

Lectures to My Students, p 255 | Charles Spurgeon

Comments

[Nick P.]

Steve,
This seems to be a recurring theme for you -- is this something you are doing in Woodstock?

[Frank!]

Yes, I too am interested to see how the Reformissionary would do street preaching in our contemporary context. What do you think of my friend who does this in Santa Monica CA? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV16inlGv_w

[Frank!]

I might add that if I were to do something like this I would use power point. But that's just me.

[Steve McCoy]

Hope to. I'm not sure how to do it well in a time different than Spurgeon, and when most street preachers are nut-jobs. That's what I'm working on.

[Jay]

I'm really excited that you're even thinking about doing it! I took classes several years ago at NIU and some "nut-jobs" were doing their thing, but it was a catalyst for lots of good evangelistic conversations on the periphery.

[Scott Morgan]

Ever heard of Open Air Campaigners? http://www.oacusa.org/

[Frank Recinos]

Good for you Steve. Not sure if you saw the video that I posted, but what my pal does is go to an open air shopping center that allows this, he has a mike set up, and just talks to people in his normal voice. He preaches from the word, and then takes questions. His friend uses power point at times. Of course you could do what my Pastor does. He and some friends hand out free burgers at a local college and then talk to people as they eat.

[Steve McCoy]

Jay, that was my experience in college. The problem is that as unconverted then, the open-air preacher-guy made Christianity seem wacky and for judgmental people. We seem to be stuck in an odd "open air" place where few people do it well.

[Steve McCoy]

Frank, I did watch the video. That's not how I'd do it, but I'm still trying to figure it out.

[Steve McCoy]

Scott, I have. I wrote a paper on open-air preaching in seminary and that (I think) was my first exposure to them. I'm not fond of their big, colored pictures.

See, this is a part of my issues with the current state of open-air preaching. As of right now, I wouldn't use a microphone, an easel, powerpoint, anything gimmicky, large theological terms, etc. But it's much easier to say what I don't like when guys are out there doing it rather than figuring out how I would do it and then go do it. I get that, and I'm thankful for those who know the gospel and are out preaching it.

I think we need simplicity. Utter simplicity. The foolishness of preaching. I think we need to be careful of canned approaches. It turns people off. It turns me off.

[Jason]

@Jay, when I went to NIU, those nutjobs were there too. They were really horrible.

When I was in seminary though in Austin, Texas, there was a dude named Cliffe Knechtle who would come to the UT campus and set up a speaker and preach a bit, and people would gather around and ask questions and he would engage them. Students would skip class to sit and listen because he was so intelligent and gracious. I think he was a pastor at the time and now travels to campuses full-time. Not sure. Here's his site with videos: http://givemeananswer.org/

[Steve McCoy]

Jason, Knechtle was one of the guys who opened my eyes to this stuff. I think it was a CT article about him that triggered it.