Taking the gospel on to the streets

It may feel outdated, but open-air preaching has a vital place in the modern church, argues Steve Harris

INTRO By Mark Greenwood, Director of Elim Evangelism
It was three days before my 18th birthday. I jumped in my pale blue Ford Fiesta and headed down to Bristol into an adventure that would transform the direction of my life. I didn’t know a lot about OAC ministries, and I wasn’t fully sure of what I was doing, but I thought it was what God wanted me to do.

Want to get more effective at street work? Well, OAC ministries are here to help you do just that. I started out my ministry with OAC and I love their dedication to taking the gospel into the places that it might not otherwise reach. I like the creative ways they seek to reach people and the fruitful ministry they have, as week by week they take the gospel to the streets.

Thousands of people came to faith through the open-air preaching of John Wesley and George Whitefield, writes Steve Harris, National Director of OAC Ministries. However, many today feel that open-air preaching is out of date. But is there still a place for it in the modern church in the UK? Is it possible for us to use street evangelism once again so that the church can be really good news in our city centres?

At OAC Ministries we believe that we can be, and we feel that we are making an impact on people’s lives every time we share the good news out on the streets. Just recently a lady thanked one of our teams because we had helped to transform her life.

She met us on the day she planned to commit suicide but after hearing the really good news of the gospel from us she changed her mind. She was able to get help for her addiction problems and started to explore more about Christianity. Two years on she is now born again, recently baptised and is working to help others with the addiction issues that she once had. If we had not been there, being really good news in that city centre that day, her life might have ended in a very different and tragic way.

Elim’s Director of Elim Evangelism, Mark Greenwood, was trained by OAC Ministries and today still uses many of the practices he learned during his time with OAC.

Many have negative views of street preaching, but OAC tries to adopt an attractional model in all that we do. We work on five principles from Deuteronomy 31:12 – to draw people’s attention, to gain their interest, to then let them know about the gospel, before applying it to their lives, and to call for a response.

In order to do this, we use creative methods of evangelism that attract people so that we can be really good news as we share the gospel.

OAC is most well-known for the sketchboard, where we paint as we preach in order to attract people to what we are doing and gain their interest to then share the gospel with them. However, we also use other creative methods including magic and escapology! Seeing someone chained up and locked in a bag in the middle of a city centre always draws a crowd, but it’s also a great way of sharing how Jesus can set us free from the chains of sin and death.

OAC’s aim is always to present the gospel clearly and completely but to do so in a winsome way. We love seeing people come to Christ but are also encouraged by those who, after hearing the message, respond with something like, “I didn’t agree with anything you said but I loved the way you said it.” This ensures that even with those completely opposed to Christianity we have still engaged them and left the door open for a further conversation, rather than them just dismissing the message and walking away.

There is still a place for street evangelism in the modern church, and if done well then churches are able to be really good news and reach many people in our city centres right across the UK.

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.