The Laborers' Podcast- Street Preaching and Open Air Evangelism

Welcome to the laborers podcast tonight. We are going to be talking about Street preaching and open-air evangelism. We hope you will stick around and join us.

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Now, let's join our laborers for tonight's broadcast.

Street Preaching, Open-Air Evangelism, and the Question of Context

Welcome to the laborers podcast. We've got Jesse that you kind of knocks with us tonight. Bible theory podcast. Go check him out. We've got Tyler. Got Tyler better the word podcast with us tonight. How you doing Tyler?

I can't hear you, buddy. Oh. That's my fault that's my fault got you. How you doing Matt. We got brother Matt with us tonight. I'm doing well.

It's good to finally be back with you all for a change.

Got oh, we are glad to have you back. We are super glad to have you with us and Everybody that can join when they can join. We really appreciate it. Matt, Tennessee Tyler, South Carolina and Jesse in.

Colorado middle earth.

You can find him in Middle Earth. Nice with the comment sections are open. Leave us a comment. Just say hello. We'd love to know that you're watching. Ask us ask us a question doesn't have to be about tonight's topic either.

We'll try to answer those questions. Tonight, like I said, we'll be talking about street preaching and open-air evangelism and this isn't as maybe we'll get better at this. I know this is not my forte.

You guys can take the reins on this about being spontaneous and having some comedic relief. We were talking about memes street preaching means and we don't want to offend anybody but you know memes are.

I Don't know what the true intention of memes are. Some of them are funny. Some of them are offensive. Some of them get points across. That's the that's the wrong one. Let me try to let me try to find the right screen here.

Share screen. Find some. Nope. There we go. There we go. All right. What's your response to some of these means? If street preaching really were not a really we're not effective. The devil would not try so hard to drown them out.

I guess you really wouldn't know about that. Unless you were you were there. Like we could we could pass that off. Oh sure, you know. The devil's not really bothering you with you guys, I mean if you were against street preaching then.

You know, you would kind of brush that one aside. But you know, I've noticed and Matt, I'm probably I'm sure you've seen folks. Try to drown you out. That's those that are in opposition of you. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I think a lot of it I mean in my experience depends on Where it's being done, I know back when the abortion clinic was open here in Knoxville the one that we would go to you would definitely See it there with people yelling people Crank up the radios in their car things like that.

But you also seen it recently in our downtown area, especially Shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned. There was a lot of Like a small protest here in Knoxville, and there was usually about every night a group Running around chanting and screaming down there where we usually go.

So we saw it there too. So it's definitely Definitely something you get to deal with on occasion.

Matt do you know Saints Edified?

Not that I'm aware of. Okay. Okay. Yo, we're going on our total. It is my homie our brother in the Lord. His name is our poodle okay, and I gave him the link to come join and Come check our network out sweet.

There you go, there you go brother Matt.

You know one time I went to Knoxville and I flew in and I had to drive to North Carolina actually and it was in the. And bro, I think I was not in Knoxville for that long. But um, I drove and I drove all the way down to the back back roads to North Carolina and It was one of the most beautiful drives I ever done man.

Like I seen all kinds of like rolling hills and it was covered with like I don't know like different colored trees and stuff. Like these are red and orange and you know purple whatever and I was like, dude, that's a pretty drive.

So I remember that drive.

It is nice. I Love it. I really do. This guy must be.

The water in Tennessee tastes sweeter. I Don't know if that's true or not. I was like I drink the water down there to eliminate. I was like, oh.

Lemonade down here is a lot sweeter down here, man. What's going on? Hey, we load that stuff up with sugar around this part.

Makes sense.

Which which kind of water from Tennessee are you talking about?

I probably some places. It'd be pretty bad.

Here's here's a meme from Tennessee. Should I go fishing for men or for fish. Forget it I'll dress for both.

Hey, I got somebody. I got somebody that comes to mind with that one, but I won't say I.

Have never. I've not done like tons of straight preaching, but I have never Been out street preaching and somebody was wearing like fishing waders. That's a new one on me.

You know what? That best is probably for all his tracks. He's got all those pockets.

Hey, you know like like the cargo shorts for your your track.

You just like have them filled with gospel tracks and you're like, man, bust him up. Pam ready to go.

Like big wallets now you can put tracks in that are like big folders.

Yeah, I've not seen the fishing waders either, but I have seen the wintertime Carhartt overalls, so.

You you probably need them up there in the mountain.

I'll rock you top. No, man, like I live next to Next like y 'all seen The Hobbit so like Here's Lonely Mountain. You know Pikes Pikes Peak. It's like Lonely Mountain, bro. And then like my house is like way over here.

Here's a mic drop. I was street preaching and police officer approached me and said do you have a permit to do this? He said I do. It's the Constitution of the United States.

Nice one, you know in Afghanistan if they catch you evangelizing in the street They will fine you. I think $5 ,000 or like 15 between five or fifteen thousand dollars and you get to spend five years in jail.

Either or or both. Oh.

Wow, yeah.

We just you know my first time going out street preaching. But with arrest by a police officer and I hadn't even done any preaching it. I had just pulled in.

But I there goes the next preacher right there. You need a red.

Cut them off before they even get started.

Do I look like I need Jesus?

Yes I look like I need Jesus to.

Absolutely Come back Tyler.

He's just trying to be a theological.

That's a go and preach the word even if it's just for one so amen. True, you know, you gotta preach man. Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use a bull horn. He's a bull.

Times bull horns are just not that great of a quality.

I.

Don't know. Maybe that was the method in the 60s and the 50s, but I never use a bull horn, man.

Why do you preach with a bull horn so you don't have to yeah.

Oh, yeah, that's that's a common complaint. Y 'all are just yelling and screaming. Yeah.

I'm like, what are you doing right now?

Exactly. You're yelling back at me.

Defining Street Preaching and Open-Air Evangelism by Context

So, let's go ahead and Ask the question What is street preaching? What is what? Let me let me before we do that before we ask that question. I thought about this as we were approaching the podcast tonight.

I Think context has a lot to do with it. So we want to get to what is street preaching? What is open-air evangelism? You know, are they the same thing are we pointing in the right or pointing at the same direction, but I think context plays a role in perception.

How we define these terms? So let me give you my context and then you guys give me your context. So I'm rural. I live in a rural area so when I when I think street preaching which most of us probably do we we think of Ray Comfort who's in Huntington Beach where there's tons of people walking by or you think of a big city with tall buildings and Tons of people are walking by.

I'm I'm rural and so in my context, I'm thinking about.

The.

Time that people most often get together where there's where there's a larger crowd it's gonna be a holiday a parade a festival or something like that where people meet around the city square or on Main Street or whatever.

And then you have your one two or handful of evangelists or street preachers and. Then whatever those street preachers. Which is going to be, you know, very few. Whatever their tone is whatever their presentation is that's going to be.

That's going to be the the perception of of all street preachers all the way around the world for us folks who live in this in this rural area, so that's my context of the subject. Street preaching and open-air evangelism.

And I'm of course, I'm not speaking for everybody that lives in my rural area. It's just based on my experience and my perception of what happens here. So what what's you guys's? Context.

To help you understand street preaching in my neck of the woods slightly south of Robert. We're a little more a little more urban not like New York City, but probably halfway between rural and urban. That that General City, so you have like they'll have like the farm areas and then you'll have like downtown which is pretty uppity.

Mm-hmm. And so what it often looks like here is. You have people preaching in the streets, you know with bullhorns and things like that. And then other times you have people that will just take like gospel tracks and they'll just hand them out to people.

They'll give out Bibles on the corner or things like that. That you have a somewhat of a variety of methodology. That's I wouldn't lean more towards the term open-air evangelism just because I think it encompasses a little bit more than.

Just preaching on the street corner. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I would agree. I was gonna say I think for me personally, I would kind of put street preaching under that umbrella of open-air evangelism and in my case the context I I live about 20 minutes outside of downtown Knoxville and minutes again, nothing like New York City, but it's it's a good-sized city and we we have a major College campus right downtown the University of Tennessee.

So we have an area it's called Market Square. It's literally a square in downtown surrounded by restaurants theaters other shops, so in the Years, I've been involved there's been times where I actually go down to a street corner do some preaching.

There's tons of foot traffic. Generally now we're more in the square area. It's a little quieter. You don't have the traffic noise and Generally there were more we occasionally we have some guys preach a little bit but it's more trying to get those one-on-one conversations going by handing out tracks just Approaching people but yeah, I think like you said Rob it's gonna depend on really where you live I think like you said just kind of doing your best to Whatever your context is go on to where the people are.

How close are you to Gatlinburg?

I'm.

Our hour and a half from Gatlinburg.

Okay. Well, the reason why I ask is because it seems like Gatlinburg at least on my feed on tick-tock was popular here recently because you. On one thread you saw Michael Myers of Decatur, Georgia, I think it's.

I think that's what he calls himself. Dresses up like Michael Myers and he goes around his town and his wife. I think I've seen that guy. Him and his family I guess go on vacation to to Gatlinburg and so he brings his costume with him and then the other.

The other spectrum of things going on in Gatlinburg. You had a street preacher and evangelist there and the police were called like he was. They were saying he was disturbing the police or whatever. So Gatlinburg was on my mind about.

I've never been up there to I've never done evangelism up there myself, but I do know some guys that have been up there on occasion. And yeah, it's always Crowded up there. So good number of people to to reach up there.

I.

Don't know much about it, but I've heard that there are. I don't know how for me you get. You guys are with us like the Southern Baptist Convention and their ministry branches evangelism branches missions branches.

But there's some organizations that have like resort Ministries where they'll send you to resort areas just for those type of ministries. Yes, Gatlinburg would make maybe one of those places. Jesse what what's your context like?

Well, I live in Colorado Springs. So one of the most populated areas in color in Colorado, you know outside of Denver is actually the most populated and it's definitely populated with the Multidiversity, you know, you got everybody here.

You got people from Nepal. You got people from Mexico. You got you know native Coloradans here. You got a bunch of refugees from California Migrating illegally to Colorado. You got all kinds of people coming over.

You know, so you got a lot of different types of population demographics, but it's very city. It's very city. You got a lot of buildings. You got a lot of houses a lot of urban houses and it's surrounded by you know.

We're not well not surrounded by mountains, but one side it's around it's covered with mountains. Um, so you got the mountains, you know, you got some rural areas on the east. Definitely is what I call Kansas is where you know a few a few Blocks away from me.

That's where Kansas officially starts for me. Other than that you have dense dense population and then you have tons of military presence. So in my in my area you have I think You have a high military presence like you ever seen the movie war games in the 80s.

Yeah, yeah, yeah so remember when he goes in the mountains into that military base and Into the mountain and plays a war game and then the military thinks is a real is a real threat from Russia. It's just a kid.

That actually exists. It's called NORAD and NORAD is like not that far from me. It's like maybe like a 20-minute drive. You know, I mean I could drive up to the gate and then they'll tell me you know, it's hit the road so I'm surrounded by like Like if doomsday ever came in terms of nuclear bombs Colorado Springs would be nuked like immediately.

Wow. Yeah, because we have NORAD we have the Which is the underground Pentagon. So we have you know, like Space Force on the ground stuff here. We have like like we have the Academy which is the Air Force Academy.

Top gun. I did not know that was in Colorado.

Yeah, so if you want to be a top gun, you know, I mean like a Tom Cruise and like you want to fly. Anything in the Air Force anything you got to come to Colorado and get trained you know, I mean so.

So.

But if there's such a strong military presence, um, you think that alters the way that you do open-air ministry there.

Um, you know what I haven't done much open-air Ministry here in Colorado Springs. I have more experience in downtown. I mean, yeah in downtown Denver. I Have more because Denver is more more like LA so imagine imagine if you get LA and put it in the middle of like Mountains in front of a mountain range instead of a beachfront right.

So that's that's uh, that's Denver. Denver is very like LA. Except, you know, you don't have that much traffic, but you do have very very heavy. Urban, you know urban urban you got the newest airport in the United States is in Denver you have.

You know, you have a lot a lot a lot of people there and. So Colorado Springs is like that but less way laid-back. It's undecided, you know, you you get Colorado Springs where you're. Like, you know we can't really make up our mind if we want to stay in the 80s or Jump in the millennium.

It's like the infrastructure. Come on make up your mind 80s 2022 guys.

Well, you know you. What do you describe make for a really good conversation and maybe we can get into it a little bit later. But I mean you were you were describing just a wide range of People different kinds of people.

You you've got military food. You got soldiers. With folks boots on the ground, but also within the military, you know complex there. You've got engineers and people who think differently. You of course, you've got doctors and lawyers and nurses everywhere, but you you've got the folks there in Colorado.

You know, Colorado's gonna has the reputation of the cannabis.

Smoking. Yeah, we have we have two things. We have Dumb and Dumber. And we have smoky weed. I'm not even sure if that's great. We made it. Yeah, we made it.

Well and all the other people that you mentioned that live there from different New Paul, Mexico Coloradans all kinds of places and so it makes me think about the question What's what's my approach? Is my approach the same?

Is it different? Do I need to you know chain? What do I need to change? That I think there's a very good conversation to have.

The Need for a Balanced Message of Law and Gospel

Well, if I could yeah a little bit yeah, I've had the opportunity to do open-air ministry in South Carolina here and Several years ago. I went on a week-long mission trip to Kenya and while we were there we did open-air ministry a couple days and Open-air evangelism in Kenya is very different from South Carolina on the city.

We were in Embu it's estimated that it's about 95 Christian and You know there's that other 5 and you we can debate whether or not the numbers are like all of the people in the book of life, but It was it's a such a different culture there that if the church is open people are gonna show up that as a whole they genuinely want to hear from God and so if there is a church that's open if They hear that someone's gonna preach the gospel here people will find a way to show up people will walk hours from out of town To come to this.

What it looked like for us to do open-air ministry during those days is we just walk down the streets And talk to people about Jesus. You know walk up to some guy. Hey, what do you think about Jesus?

You talk a little bit and you say well we're gonna head on down to this market and then we're gonna worship God and we're gonna hear the gospel and You're welcome to join us and spend some time with us.

Now my my homie, uh, our doodle seems edified. He put on he's from Cali to he's from Bakersfield so he's more inland then than I was but he said back in Bakersfield a buddy. Would get a permit to play Paul Washer sermon jam on a projector for a few hours.

Wow.

That is creative.

That is creative. Okay, Wow. Permit, so first of all, yeah. Yep. You had to go to the local legal magistrate. Get a permit. Maybe 15 bucks 10 bucks 20 bucks, whatever. Right make that investment. Too you have to have the technology you have to have the projector you gotta have the sermon jam and then you gotta have the The white screen right and the tripod so there's a little bit involved there, right?

Yeah.

Then you got to play it over and over again. So you just so yeah, I guess that's one way I never thought about going up somewhere and just playing sermons or playing like a sermon jam or I Guess that's what people do in the hood all day by playing music out loud.

I Never thought of it like that. That's what they're advertising their music to me like what's up with that?

Hey, there you go.

So, why not play some John MacArthur or Paul Washer back back at them.

If you got the permits and it's it's gonna be allowed. Hey, why not. Yeah, I Mean, we know how much we know how much all those sermons have touched us.

Yeah, it's so interesting to me how some of the creativity comes out in this particular field. I would never thought to get a permit and put sermons up on the side of a building. But somebody did.

That would that be dope to play it downtown where everybody's at like projected like Just play it. I'm sure there'll be people out there like complaining like if you're gonna play Paul Washer sermon You're gonna get the devil's reaction pretty hardcore against that.

I think it's The gospel and Paul Washer preaches nothing but the gospel.

Could you imagine people walking down the street and a Paul Washer sermon off to the side and all of a sudden he says What are you clapping for? I'm talking about you. Gatlinburg has an ordinance against bull horns.

Yeah, I never been a big fan of horns, I don't know why and that was confirmed to me really really well. When I was in LA last year this year for the Super Bowl and the Super Bowl had Dude, it was it was like a spiritual warfare zone man.

And there was this one guy Driving like two miles an hour and I can 1992 Honda and he I don't know where he got this bullhorn from man. But this guy had a giant bullhorn the size of his door.

Of his car and he put in a big Thunderman or something. Didn't he do?

I don't know what he had. He put in the backseat. It took up all his backseat and this dude was just driving not caring about any relationship or anything. This dude was just like.

Y 'all.

Can he just like read scripture and stuff and I'm just like and he's just driving back like 17 times. I'm like man. Dude, that is so annoying bro. Like that is not that is not edifying at all. Like what you're doing is thinking you're your fist and a hornet's nest and you're you're stirring up the pot.

That's what you're doing. Thank you. That's not edifying at all.

What Is and Is Not Edifying in Open-Air Ministry

Let's let's branch off with what something you just said. Yeah, that's like ways well into number two. Yeah. Yeah, so. So what things would be? Less edifying or not edifying. I mean if you were to give some folks advice.

And Matt, you know, we can go to you if you were to give folks advice. I don't I don't know that we really define street preaching and open-air evangelism. Quite yet. So let's tackle that. Let's let's give us some definition kind of what an idea of what we're talking about.

But but then bleed off into what Jesse was talking about. Um. Advice. What is not edifying? What what should we not be seeing? What is not helpful?

I'd say just as far as just kind of defining their terms for me. It's just simply Taking the proclamation of the gospel Outside of the church just going out in a any public venue. Again, depending on your context that's going to look different just going to where people are And proclaiming the gospel and by various means by preaching handing out tracts conversations just simply going to where people are and Proclaiming the gospel to me.

That's it's kind of the the basics of open-air evangelism and as far as things that I don't think you really want to see it's kind of The way I look at it you want to be Balanced in your message and I think a big reason for some stereotypes against street preachers is you've definitely got those guys out there that are just all law and no gospel no grace and just like you say kind of on the bullhorn or on their Amplifier or whatever they've got just Screaming ranting red-faced and I know there were recently there was I mentioned the The Roe v. Wade protesters we were downtown one night and there was another group of guys.

We didn't know them, but They started preaching and of course the little protesters they kind of surrounded them and one of the guys he just Was just trying to out scream them and was red-faced and sweating and I mean you couldn't You couldn't even hear what the guy was saying it was just The group I was with he's like, okay, let's let's just take a step back.

Let things kind of calm down because Nothing's happening with that guy and he was just trying to out scream the crowd and but I think Anytime you have an unbalanced approach Where again, you're you're all law or even somebody that's all love and all grace.

Neither one of those in my opinion or what you want to see you want to you want to be balanced and present both and To just I mean there's times you need to be bold and be firm and what you say but also, I mean as the name of this network, we want to share the truth and love and Just I think constantly be aware of Hey, where were we at one time before we heard the gospel and I try to keep that in mind myself because when you're out there you can it's easy to look at some of these people and get mad and because they're hateful, but I Think you want to you got a as best as possible.

Stay calm collected Approach people with the truth and love. What about you other guys?

Let's let a fine or advice. I.

Mean I think the abortion scenario is a fantastic example of what to do and what not to do. Simultaneously, what do you. There's a way there's a way that we can do that well. And there's a way that we can get caught up in the emotions and some of what Matt was saying that we just get mad at.

But it is very easy to get lost in. I hate this thing personally and Whether you're intending to or not, it's easy to take it out on people rather and then on the sin itself and direct that to Compelling to the to the gospel by which we were saved.

I.

Think that is really good Tyler. I didn't mean to cut you off, but I think that was really good. 31 and 40 seconds. I need to remember that mark so I could cut it out as a short. That was I mean that that was really insightful.

That was really good. So what you just said was sometimes we can get our Let our hatred of a certain thing Bleed over and into how we treat.

Somebody else right. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree with that when we were doing.

The.

Ministry there at the abortion clinic in Knoxville. I think that was something Pretty much. I didn't go as much as a lot of the other guys did but we always tried to talk about beforehand was as much as we hate this.

Let's again, remember we're here to to share the gospel and Let that be our focus and and reach out to these people and Not present ourselves in a way that we're Hating them, but we're wanting to share the good news with them.

So I think Tyler is exactly right and that is a perfect example of that where it can. There's times I won't lie that you you get out there, especially getting a heated conversation with somebody on the other side of the issue that You're tempted to Go a little too far.

Sometimes you got to kind of pull yourself back a little bit. I.

Think 2nd Peter chapter 1 is incredibly relevant and in some of that Fleshing out of what it should be and what it shouldn't be. In verse 3 it says. God's power has given us everything we need for life and godliness.

So our knowing the one who called us to his own glory and goodness and by these he has given us valuable and superlative great promises. So that through them you might come to share in God's nature and escape the corruption which evil desires have brought into the world.

That's basically the substance of the gospel that we're called into light out of darkness. For this reason Try your hardest to furnish your faith with goodness. In the Greek it says are a tay. Or otherwise translated as virtue this ideal of what of what man should be what he ought to be what he needs to be.

So supplement your faith with what man ought to be and supplement your are a tay with Lost my place. With knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control with perseverance and it goes through basically the fruits of the Spirit.

And this all flows from that faith that was once and for all delivered unto the Saints. That this the starting point is our faith in Christ and so ultimately. What we do when we go out in the public square should flow from that is From supplementing our faith with godly virtue and That godly virtue with the knowledge of God.

Did you have anything to add to that? Jesse the things that are less edifying and what advice would you give people to stay away from?

Yeah, I think staying away, you know staying away from. Forcing the issue forcing it forcing it. You know what I mean? Cuz you can't manipulate the Holy Spirit. You can't force the Holy Spirit on anybody just like the scripture says where Jesus says the Holy Spirit will go wherever he wants to like to win and you can't you know, really control the Holy Spirit, so.

You know the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son right and it's the gift. It's the beautiful down payment that God left on earth for his bride and. It's very generic when people are out there and they're trying to force the Holy Spirit down people's throats.

They're trying to force the spoon feed and force feed people the gospel when. You know what? I think it's just a waste of time. It's like feeding the swine it's like talking to brick walls sometimes and it's like, you know Christian should have some type of maturity and Awareness to say that you know you one if you know your soteriology, you can't just like.

You know snap your fingers and then cause a revival right here right now and then to. You can't force the issue. You can't just force feed all these people and get again. Like you could talk to them too, they're blue in the face.

And then they're still gonna reject Jesus and blaspheme them. So you got to recognize that right? You got to know that and then and then I think the site on another issue is I Think just be yourself. Don't don't be a superstar a rock star.

Don't be trying to be John the Baptist or Elijah call down fire from heaven. And you know try to perform, you know. Do a moonwalk or like man I need to pop balloons or something like that and something out of the ordinary that's like do it just be yourself.

You know and then lastly you don't need to street preach you know, I mean if you want to go out there and Street and participate in evangelism. I think that's great. Every Christian is called to be an evangelist right to preach the gospel where we're commanded to to go, right?

But if you're going and you're like, you know, I'm not sure I don't feel adequate. That's fine but You're there. I always told his one young young guy who who I was discipling a few years ago I was like, you know what showing up is half the battle, bro.

You know what? I mean showing up is half the battle. You know what? I mean, if you're gonna show up show up because that's that's the very important part, bro. Let God figure out the rest you just got to be here you just got to be here.

Okay, like that doesn't mean you need to show up. I mean and perform and preach and pass out a gospel track. Right just simply stretch out your arm. Pass it out. That's all you gotta do a smile. That's it.

If if if if you don't feel like you're adequate or you can't really like open-ear preach. You know, I mean, that's fine. Some people have that ability more than others. That's fine. Well, you could pass out a gospel tracks.

I'm sure your elbows work. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Um, I could. You could pray you could come out with me and you can stand right here and you could just quietly just pray. You know what I mean?

So there's many ways to participate in evangelism. Other than opening your mouth and talking, you know, I mean and that's really edifying and. And you know going out there and saying man I need to I need to preach and it's like I need I need you know carrying that generic approach to say it's up to me to go out there and save people and I need to go up there and Preach Jesus and force-feed it down people's throats somehow.

I think that's not edifying. That's not helpful for the church. It's not helpful for Christianity is not helpful for the gospel is not doing any service for the gospel. It's not doing it's not doing any love for those people walking by you know, and you're only hurting yourself as well because you're doing it in the flesh and not Relying on the Holy Spirit to to do its job to save people right to regenerate sinners.

You make an interesting comment. You're talking about people trying to force the Holy Spirit, you know down somebody's throat or force a conversion or whatever. Do you think that a person's soteriology?