Episode 10: Calvinism, Evangelism, and Street Preaching

The Rural Church Podcast, 2 .0. Just a couple of pastors discussing life, ministry, theology, and the gospel from a local church perspective.

Eddie, what's it time for? The Rural Church Podcast. All right, welcome back to The Rural Church Podcast, episode 10.

We continue the conversation on Calvinism and street preaching and evangelism with Gunnar Madewell, Alex Osborne, and of course, myself and Eddie Ragsdale.

Here we go. All right, they got a couple of verses. What you got, Gunnar? You got something? Yeah, so why street preach, right?

Just real quick before I read this verse, I listened to Paul Washer today and he said something so good. He said that -

No. No, he didn't. Paul Washer said something good? Who is

Paul Washer? Paul Washer is - No, it's good stuff. We know him. We know Paul Washer.

Okay, I'll take this seriously. Anyway, so Paul Washer said something so good.

He said, most people are not going to hear the gospel in churches nowadays. They're going to hear it, and they're coming, and they're going.

They're going to hear it from somebody. And so 2 Timothy 4, this is

Paul telling Timothy, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge.

So why does he charge him? He's like, well, because Christ is going to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom.

And then verse 2, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, refute, and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

So it's funny. I'm looking at this verse.

Why does he say to preach? Because Christ is going to judge. It's urgent. He's going to judge every single person based on their sin.

Either they're going to pay for it or Christ has paid for it. So that's why we ought to preach.

Amen. And I think also we need to remember God is glorified when

Christ is preached, even if no one is born again. That's right.

Like we want people to be born again, but if no one, if you go out and you proclaim the gospel and you only receive the hatred that you guys seen the other day or that's common,

Christ was still glorified because the gospel was proclaimed. Well, that's the thing.

And this might push some people, but that's good. I want to push them. And they say, what is your number one reason for going out and sharing the gospel?

My number one reason for going out and preaching or sharing tracks or whatever is not that people be born again.

That is a reason. And I want to see that. But my number one reason is to bring honor and glory to God.

And that happens when Christ is right, rightly proclaim, even if, even if men rejecting

Alex, you got to, you got to pass it. Yeah. Well, like along that line there in Habakkuk 2 .14

says for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord's glory as the waters cover the sea.

And I think that's future tense because I don't think that's happened yet, but like, it doesn't say that everyone in the world will be

Christians. It says that it will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord's glory. And how are they going to know unless someone tells them, right.

And that's there to preach to along the point you're making there is it's a message, right?

Like, you know, pizza parties, block parties or whatever are fine, you know, to, to tell people about your church or whatever, but that's not how they're going to get saved.

It's through the message of the gospel. And that's, that's got to be priority, whatever, you know, you were talking about creative ways of sharing the gospel.

It's got to communicate a message and it can't be watered down. It's got to be the whole unadulterated message.

So the earth will be filled with the Lord's glory and his word will not return void as well.

Right. Like it will accomplish a purpose, whether that's life unto life or death unto death, but he's commanded us to preach and that's as we, as his slaves need to just obey.

Amen. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm not against, again, let me just clarify.

I'm not against churches doing creative things or whatever. The issue is though, we have a real bad mindset of we're going to do events to get people to come to.

And I, again, there is not that that's wrong, but you also need to think where are people and how can

I go to them? Yeah. I was thinking about that very thing, because like, even with the goat fest this weekend, we need to be in the church more attuned to looking for the opportunity to go.

I was listening just the other day to your conversation with Michael Coughlin on the Things Above Us podcast.

And even thinking about the distinction between, look, there is more opportunity in the large cities, right?

Because there's just more people. And it is harder in Perryville or a Marshall where there's not people standing in the squares.

I mean, I'm a block from the square in Marshall, but there's no people just walking around on the square in Marshall.

The square in Marshall is pretty much dead because most of the business has moved to the other end of town anyway.

But that doesn't mean that there aren't opportunities even in rural places to share the gospel.

And we just have to be more diligent about looking for those and then actually engaging those opportunities.

Yeah. So let me say this, because you've done these things too. You're going to put on an event for your church.

It costs your church a ton of money. It's exhausting. Usually it sits with the pastor.

You have to organize everything. You have to do all this. Again, I'm not saying that it's wrong all the time. It can be wrong, but I'm not saying every event is wrong.

Exhausting, stressful, all that. And then you do it, and you get eight people to show up, and you share the gospel.

Okay, praise God. But think about this. This festival, it's cost us nothing. It's cost no planning.

It's cost no stress. And there's going to be, it's funny, we've been joking. We've heard so many weird numbers.

I've heard 2 ,000, 5 ,000, 8 ,000, 20 ,000. That's how many, you know? Just the tracks.

Yeah, that's right. But we're going to have tracks, and we're going to be there, and it cost us nothing to put this together, and there'll be more people than the church could get anyway.

That's like sometimes the church tries to compete with the world. Like, oh, we're going to do this thing. And it's like, dude, you're not going to get that many people to come anyway.

Sheep fest. Yeah, that's right. We're going to have sheep fest. Yes. That is a goat fest over there.

Yeah, sheep shearing contest. But the point I'm saying, look for opportunities.

There's also in our community coming up in October, like a little Day of the

Dead festival thing. It's going to be much, much smaller. But like we can be there. I also thought about this.

There's tailgate parties and stuff before the high school football game. Like why can we not be there in a tent?

Like not just cooking burgers, which that's fine, but also like being there with like, hey, we're telling, we want you to know.

Here's an analogy I thought of yesterday. Y 'all picture this with me just real quick. Let's say

Noah is on the ark, right? All of a sudden, it's starting to sprinkle a little bit.

Okay. God hasn't shut the door, but he's about to. And so Noah sees on the hill, like there's this wedding, you know, on this hill.

So he says, okay, I've got just enough time. He leaves the ark. He runs up the hill to the wedding.

You know, it's starting to sprinkle. People's kind of wondering what is this coming from the sky? And he just starts preaching at the wedding, you know?

And he's just like, you need to repent. You need to trust God. You need to go with me on the ark.

Now, what would we say about that? Like, would we be like, hey, dude, come on. That's not the right time.

That's not effective. He's pushing people away. You're pushing people away from the ark. No, we would be like, yeah, he's desperate.

Like, he understands. Like, this is it, you know? And I think that -

Who cares if they get offended? Who cares if they get mad? Who cares if, you know, his sons are on the ark and they're like, dad, you're being a loser, you know, whatever.

Like, I know it's a silly analogy and I don't want people to push back, you know, but the point is, the point is, if we understand that kind of desperation, that Christ really is returning.

Judgment really is coming. God has commanded us to preach and God actually is saving his people.

Like, if we can have that kind of desperation and unction and desire, you know, then

I think we'd be less, you know, I'm not necessarily saying you should go interrupt a wedding, but -

But maybe. But maybe you should. And we should - I'm going to be opposed to that. I'm not, you're not going to hear me complain, but the point is, we need to have a real urgency for the glory of God, for the souls of people, and for what

God has told us to do. Yeah. The world doesn't end today, like, for everyone. It ends today for 150 ,000 people because people die every day.

You know, this could be the end for them. Like, it is an urgent thing. None of us know the day we're going to die, but it could be tonight, it could be 100 years from now, but it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that comes judgment.

Yeah. It's probably not going to be 100 years for me, but yeah. Gunnar, you were about to say something.

I want to know the wisdom of Madewell. So, I've only street preached one time, but I was thinking about this, and I think it's important when we're talking about street preaching.

Somebody might listen to this podcast and be like, well, I'm not reading my

Bible like I should, and I'm, hey, look at these qualifications in Titus. I'm not meeting those, but I feel like I got to go street preach.

I think the same qualifications for these people, for an elder, ought to be a qualification, one for every

Christian, but especially people that are preaching the gospel. Amen. If you're not loving the

Lord as you should, if you're immature, if you're doing all these things that are against what the word says, be like, well, okay, but God told me

I have to evangelize. I got to go preach. You could be doing more harm than you. So, a person who's going to street preach,

I think Quatro invited me to street preach, I hope, because he has a certain amount of confidence in me and a certain amount of affirmation that I meet some of these qualifications, but I think someone who's going to street preach really does, one, they need to love the

Bible themselves. They don't need to be somebody who's preaching and doesn't know the word, so they need to love the word, and what they said earlier was so good.

We need to love God's glory more than we love people. He's going to be glorified.

Look, the Lord's going to do one of two things. He's going to change hearts, soften them, make them parts of flesh, or He's going to harden them.

Either way, He's doing His will. He's doing what He's going to do, and so we ought to preach either way.

You know, I'd like to speak to one more thing on this issue of opportunity and the difference between come events and going to the world.

You know, like this week, I've been preaching in this church in these revival meetings, and I'm not,

I don't, this is not really my bag. They invited me to preach, and so I'm preaching there, and I hope that it's a blessing, but honestly, we're mostly getting the people that are part of the church.

They've had some visitors, and of course, I don't know the people really, and I don't know their hearts, so I don't know if they're genuine converts or if there's been lost people that have heard the word.

You know, I've just tried to preach the gospel all week long, but I think so often, like you were saying,

Quatro, we think in terms of we've got to do extraordinary things to see

God do His work, but the ordinary means are what we ought to expect

God to use to build the local church and to build His kingdom. Ordinary means like the regular preaching of the word on the

Lord's day, the right administration of baptism in the Lord's supper, training up our children in the knowledge of the

Lord, and going out to the community to proclaim the gospel is ordinary means.

We don't think of it as ordinary beads. We think that we think that having, you know, whatever our events that we do during the year, that's something ordinary.

No, those are extraordinary. Those are novel. Those are innovative. Street preaching or open field preaching like they were doing in Whitfield's day or, you know, the preaching we see the apostles doing in the marketplace in the

Bible, that's ordinary means, right? Even the Lord Jesus, that's ordinary means, and God has seen fit to bless the ordinary means by which

He grows and builds the kingdom of God. Yeah, I want to say one other thing too. It's again from the back of 1689.

This is chapter, it's the one on the church, chapter 26, paragraph 11 says, although it be incumbent on the bishops or pastors of the churches to be instant in preaching the word by way of office, yet the work of preaching the word is not so peculiarly confined to them, but that others also gifted and fitted by the

Holy Spirit for it and approved and called by the church may and ought to perform it.

In other words, I just want to be clear, when we're talking about street preaching, by the way, we're talking about qualified men, but at the same time, you do not necessarily have to be an elder in order to be a street preacher.

However, there's, and I know this is kind of in a, this might be getting in a sort of an area of where some street preachers

I think could improve, and that is it must, it ought to be, and it must be in conjunction with the local church.

Yes. That is a street preacher, one who's preaching doesn't necessarily have to be the elder of a church, although more elders should be doing it, but the idea is, according to the 1689, which of course is not the scripture, but we believe that it articulates, you know, a faithful articulation of the scriptures, and so someone that is out there street preaching, it ought to be in connection with a local church.

The local church ought to know about it, and there ought to be, there's an obligation from the church, like the church ought to support it.

The church ought to support it, whether it's just like in our day, letting that brother know, like texting, calling, like we love you, we're praying for you, we support what you're doing, there might be some financial support, there might be some, actually

I'm able to go with you support, like maybe there's someone that's not a preacher, but they can go for support, you know, and they just be there, they can pass out tracts, you know, so I just want to say that there's a connection with street preaching in the local church, it all has to go together, because the hub of evangelism, and like the hub of missions, the missions entity of the

New Testament is the local church, so you know. Yeah, and if I could just quickly say, that was one reason we moved here, like to this area specifically, like our family was looking to move to the states, and we were contacting a bunch of solid doctrinally churches that were reformed, and like, you know,

Calvinistic, and a lot of them, we weren't even looking for ones that necessarily had an open -air preaching ministry or something, but so many of them were like part of this seeker -sensitive evangelism, that's like, well, what our church does is we go and, you know, grill in gospel, or you know, like we'll go to the park and pray for people, and it's like, like all these things that's like, you preach one thing inside the church, and then go out and do another thing, but like, you know, it's such an important part to us, that we were like, we want to be in a church where the elders or the leadership, not is only okay with it, but endorses him, and that we can submit to in this, in going out to the streets and preaching the gospel, so and we're very blessed to find

Quatro's church here. Yeah, I must say too, if you're in a church, because I've talked to people like this, you're in a church, and like, man,

I wish my elders were street preaching, a couple things I'd say, one, I definitely, like before you get mad, talk to them about it, and another thing

I would say is to also, you have to understand, and I try to preach this and teach this, the

Lord sometimes brings things in our lives providentially, that we get really fired up about and passionate about, and that we should do, but we can't necessarily look at other people and say, well, because you're not doing this exactly the way

I'm doing it, then you're wrong, and I'm right, like sometimes elders depend on their season a lot, like they can be really extremely busy, you know, as far, and I'm talking about,

I'm, it's not that I'm saying, oh, they're neglecting evangelism, but depending on their season, it's like they might, they might be caring for the flock, they might be have young kids at home, they might, there could be any number of reasons that we could think about that I've just,

I would caution you to be careful to casting harsh judgment on an elder, because he's not out there street preaching with you, you know, so like, talk to him about it, and you know, work through those things, and be willing to say, okay, this is something

I can do, and I'm okay, I can still do it, even if every time I'm out here, the elders of the church are out here with me, but I know that they support me, is it, you know, does that make sense what

I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, and I think, I think, I mean, elders should be pushed, I mean, they should, yeah,

I do think elders should, but I'm just trying to draw a balance, a balance, well, and I think, just like we would look back at, say, the reformers, you know,

Zwingli, Calvin, Luther, and we would say, man, we're thankful for what

God did in them, and then at the same time, we would say, they didn't reform enough, yeah, right, they were still baptizing the babies, you know, there was, there, there, there was, they weren't baptizing them,

Eddie, they weren't baptizing them, yeah, they're sprinkling them, but the, but the, the point is, we would still say they needed to reform more, but we would judge them as men of their time, yeah, right, and we're thankful for what

God did, and I'll say, when we look around at our brothers, genuine brothers, pastoring churches around us, who wouldn't hold the same view of this, we have to remember, well, they're kind of men of their time as well, right, and that doesn't mean we give them a pass, but it also means, let's, let's not, we don't want to define

Christianity so slimly as only those who agree with us on all of the reformed faith, all of the confessions, and as we see them, or street preaching, or something like that, then they're not even believers, right, we want to be careful that we don't, we don't swing the pendulum so far that there's not another church in your county.

There's some pastors that are so busy actually training men, training Christians, you know, and training that they can't really feasibly add that to their time, but what's happened, what they're doing, what they wind up doing, is they're training these people, and these people are going out, you know, these men are going out, and so anyway, you know,

I just, I just want to be cautious, because I've, I've ran into multiple different situations, you know, where someone's just ready to condemn their pastor, or elder, or whatever, and I was,

I would say on one hand, yes, you should be cautious about that, and, and talk with them. On the other hand, I would,

I would say, I saw this guy the other day, and it really shocked me, but he was like, you're a pastor? This was Saturday, and they were from another church out there preaching, he's like, you're a pastor?

I was like, yes sir, and he was like, I can count on one hand how many times I've come to these events, and I've met other pastors.

I was like, oh really? I didn't know, because he was just saying like, a lot of times, it's not a pastoral thing, it's other guys, you know, and so we probably can do both, you know, on one hand, encourage pastors to be out there doing it, another hand, also understand that unless you've been an elder, you don't understand the weight, and the time, and the things of doing,

I'm not saying you're neglecting evangelism, I'm just saying there's, there's a lot that goes into it, you know, especially if a brother's like, bi -vocational, you know, and he's got a family, and it's like, you know, we're not saying, okay, if he's sitting around on Friday nights playing

Xbox, you know, till two in the morning, okay, that's a problem, right? He should be out, he's got some time to evangelize, but like street preaching,

I'm talking about, right, right, and then also, but let me also say this, pastors need to take the lead in this, too, because as we lead in it, you're, you're not going to cultivate a culture of evangelism in your church without, without evangelism, being involved, right, and I'd also like to say, like, you know, with, in regards to, like, if people are discouraged that their elders aren't involved in that, is, you know, a lot of people have a bad taste in their mouth from people who've done open air preaching wrongly, yeah, and, and so it's hard for some people to get over that, and that just takes,

I think, some patience, and some time, there's some great resources on there to show, like, this, this is biblical, that, that there is a way to do open air preaching biblically, that isn't like Westboro Baptist preaching, or anything like that, that, so that,

I think, sometimes it just takes some patience, and some conversations like that, to come with it, and, you know,

I think when we're, when we're being obedient to the things that God has instructed us in Scripture, to the things that Christ, as the head of the church, has given us in Scripture, it may not, it won't look practical, it won't look practical, like, like, oh,

I can see exactly why you're doing this, you get this, it's this, it's for this reason, it won't look practical, but it will be beneficial to your local church, and so I'll use something else, the

Lord's Supper, the right administration Lord's Supper, let's say a higher frequency of taking the

Lord's Supper, people are going to say, why do you think we got to take it more often, even maybe weekly, why do you think we should do that, why wouldn't you want to, and so, and so let's apply that to taking the gospel out, and proclaiming it to our communities, why wouldn't you want to, don't you want to proclaim the excellencies of Christ, I mean, why would we want to do that?

And he's worthy to receive the reward of his suffering. That's right. There's another thing I want to add to, it's been long, but another thing

I want to add is, because, so this is the Rural Church Podcast, one thing that's going to be different about preaching for, like, even for us, like,

Saturday, Alex won't have this problem, Gunnar and I will, it's not a problem, but Gunnar and I will, and that is, your people, you know them,

I'm going to be preaching to people I know, like, I'm not, like, you know, I'm saying, like, it's not going to be, like, open air preaching, let's say you go, you're like, man,

I'm going to go preach in the city square, well, there's one level of nervousness just because you're preaching open air, but, but, like, you're not going to know people, right, it's just preach, you know, but, like, at these events, and when you try to do events in your home, small town, you're going to inevitably know people, but here's the deal, here's, here's the thing, think about your reputation in the community, and people can think you're crazy for all they want, but at least they can hear, at least they can be, like, well, that guy really believes, that guy really believes the gospel,

I mean, he really believes, I may disagree, but, like, he really believes, I think there's a story with Robert Murray McShane or something, but he, like, passed by two drunkards, and one drunkard kind of reviled him, and another started weeping, and the one that reviled him, he, like, looked at the guy weeping, he was, like, why are you weeping, you know, and he's, like, because I know that man really cares for my soul, and he had that reputation in his community, and that's the kind of reputation

I want, and I'll be honest, there's sometimes I've, my reputation has been, like, oh, there's, you know, there's

Quattro, like, whatever, he cares about the Razorbacks or whatever, and, but the reputation

I want is, like, man, he cares about Christ and the church, and we may disagree, but that's, that's who he is.

I think we probably should talk about ministry in your hometown, but I think that's a podcast for another day.

Any concluding thoughts? I've just been really encouraged by this conversation. Alex, so good to meet you, brother.

Can't wait to meet you in person, and come Saturday, you could really meet him.

I'm gonna try to come. I want to try to come. I think that'll be, that'll be awesome. Hey, before we end, let me just, two quick things.

One, involve your family in your street preaching ministry. Like your wife preaching, or?

No, let me finish. Okay. Like, for instance, last Saturday, I didn't bring my wife. I thought it'd be a hostile environment just to protect her.

I left her home. On Saturday, she'll be out there. She'll be passing out tracts.

My kids will be passing out tracts. I'll be preaching. It is encouraging that your, your family is on board with you, is encouraging you that your wife is praying for you.

Second of all, it is a horrible strategy. We see a street preacher goes out, preaches the gospel, doesn't point him to a local church.

You ought to share the gospel. If you see people converted, hey, you got to be in a church.

You can't just do this Christianity on your own. So those are just some two quick.

Even if, even if they're not converted. Yeah, right. Even if you're right, even if they're not, this is the local church that if the

Lord gets a hold of you a week from now, this is where you need to go. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We need to be. Amen. All right.

So I was going to say people could pray for us, but by the time this episode comes out next week, this will have happened.

We might, we might be next. This might be a couple week episode, because next week we might be talking about the pros and cons, like what we did good.

We might be killed. We might be here. Retrospectively pray for us. Yeah. There you go. All right.

So well, God knows whether or not you're praying for us. Hey, yeah.

You should be praying for Eddie and Alan's evangelism regularly anyway.

So thanks for joining us on this week of the Rural Church Podcast. Say goodbye, Eddie. See you guys next week.