Open-Air Preaching, Gospel Power, & Interruption

I think we need to regain a healthy, biblical view of interruption.

Interruption can be good or bad. When I'm hurt and a doctor tells me I need to go to the emergency room, that's a good interruption. When I'm leading family worship and I get a recorded phone call from a politician, it's a bad interruption. Much open-air preaching is bad interruption. Sometimes very judgmental. Even cruel. Good open-air preaching, humble and loving preaching, would be the best interruption we could ever have. 

God has called us to the mission of good interruption. We don't need permission. We don't need to find an invitation to speak. We speak. We declare. We preach. We have been given the command to interrupt the world before they face the judgment of God. We are physicians crying out to a sick world to get life-saving medicine. We are ambassadors of another Kingdom warning that the current Kingdom will be destroyed and the only rescue is to join the Kingdom of the Good King. That's what the Gospel does. It forces the issue. It interrupts.

Praise God, the Gospel interrupts with power. The Bible tells us we have the power of the Gospel for salvation, the power of the Holy Spirit to be witnesses. We have the Word that is fire and a hammer that shatters the rock and won't return empty but accomplishes what God's purpose for it. We have a sword that separates joints from marrow, the sword of the Spirit. God doesn't give us an ineffective Word, but an effective one. It saves. 

If we have this power at our fingertips as preachers, and given God's permission to interrupt the lives of everyone around us, how can we not preach to everyone? How can we be content to confine our preaching to those who show up? 

(Check out all my posts & resources on open-air preaching)

Comments

[Jessewinkler]

The more I think about this the more I feel like I need to do some work to gain clarity on the difference between preaching and talking. Because if there is no difference then I am already preaching to more than those who just show up to my services.

[Steve McCoy]

How will that help you concerning this issue, Jesse?

[Jessewinkler]

Because if preaching is talking one on one (if I'm communicating the good news of the gospel) then preaching is happening quite a bit outside of the 4 walls of my church services and guys like Spurgeon would have no criticism with me as a preacher. And the guys today who easily write off open-air preaching because it doesn't jive with our culture are correct to opt for private conversations. In other words there is no interruptions necessary unless my preaching in the open-air is heralding good news, declaring an announcement publicly, declaring, publishing, etc.

[Steve McCoy]

Spurgeon was not talking about 1 on 1 in his 2 chapters on open-air. The whole point is to get the gospel to many with one message. If we call 1 on 1 "preaching" so that we don't have to do larger proclamation, I see that as a problem. Wouldn't you?

In Acts we see it all, and I believe we should, generally speaking, do it all.

[Jessewinkler]

Yes I would. But the more I talk to people about it the more I realize how many people see preaching and dialog as one and the same. Or at least they would say dialog fulfills the mandate to preach. If that's the case then we are simply talking about methods. I'm for heralding. We need to preserve it in our corporate gatherings and I'm thinking we need to reclaim it outside our gatherings.