30 minutes of quiet open air street preaching–and one interested person at the end who might meet us for house church! Praise God! At 25:35, this Gospel fisherman got a bite!

Mark 16:15, NKJV: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.”

Luke 14:23, NKJV: “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.”

Mark 1:17, NKJV: “‘Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.'”

It’s a Lot Like Going Fishing

On this last note, it is worth considering, that when you go fishing, you need to cast your hook, line, and sinker into a patch of foliage where the schools of fish group together. It is the same with this style of evangelism. Find groups of people. Imagine they are a school of fish. Then, cast your line in their general vicinity. Perhaps someone will bite your bait and get hooked on Jesus! Don’t think that the people weren’t listening or hearing me. The lady at 25:35 got up from the far end of the group of people, because she saw me preaching, and she approached us conversationally! I’m convinced that this is the way the apostles preached the Gospel, mostly. It is also worth considering, that when you go fishing, if you make too much noise, you will scare the fish away! LOUD, SCREAMING, OLD TESTAMENT STREET PREACHING WILL PROBABLY SCARE THE PEOPLE AWAY, mostly. Unless, of course, they are hecklers, and just want to incite a riot, and discredit Christians.

John Wesley, the Greatest Open Air Preacher Ever, Preached This Way

John Wesley’s “Open-Air Preaching” from (Ray Comfort’s World’s Greatest Preachers): “It must be the Gospel, and it must be preached in a manner worth the hearing, for mere noisemaking is an evil rather than a benefit…I know a family almost driven out of their senses by the hideous shouting of monotonous exhortations…It will be very desirable to speak so as to be heard, but there is no use in incessant yelling.”

I would like to add that most of Charles Spurgeon’s remarks on “Open-Air Preaching” in Lectures to My Students, are a very long quote from what John Wesley had to say on the subject.

Things I Would Change – 11/30/11

1. Bring “business cards” with me that had our ministry, contact info, phone number, and email on it. So, if we ever get a “bite” again from interested listeners, we can give them our info, so they can go to church with us if they want.

2. Pray for the sick. We need to preach the Gospel and heal the sick with signs following. For advice on this, I would consult John Wimber’s Power Evangelism and Power Healing, Faith Cure books, and Gordon Lindsay’s The Voice of Healing magazines.

3. Read Revivalist Gospel Sermons Before Street Preaching. This kind of meditating on Gospel doctrines from revivalists of the past can stir up the gift of evangelism from the Holy Spirit. I would, at least at this point, turn to Albert Outler’s John Wesley’s Sermons, Kenneth Kinghorn’s John Wesley on Christian Beliefs, and Charles Finney’s Sermons on Important Subjects.