Probably the worst form of evangelism is street evangelism. It comes in several forms.
The first type is Bullhorn Evangelism. I know that some people do get saved through these sorts of street preachers, but for every one person who receives eternal life, hundreds more are turned off by such a presentation of Christ and Christianity.
The Evangelism of Red
When I was growing up, there was a street in town with lots of bars on it, and it had a regular patron named Red. And though he was often surrounded by empty beer cans and other assorted trash, he never entered a bar and never had a drink. The bottles and cans were thrown at him by drunk revelers. Why? Because every night he walked up and down the street, waving his Bible in the air and shouting his version of the Gospel through a bullhorn. When people threw bottles and cans at him, Red loved it all the more, because he thought he was enduring persecution for the cause of Christ.
Looking back now, I wonder who was persecuting whom?
During my Junior year in High School, I went with a friend of mine, Jay Bradford, to interview Red on a Saturday night. We asked him why he kept preaching when clearly, people didn’t want to hear his message. He said that he had the message of life, and people needed to hear it whether they wanted to or not. You can’t argue with that.
We asked him how long he’d been preaching. Seventeen years. That’s a long time, we told him.
How many converts had he seen? His answer: Only eternity will tell. You can’t argue with that either.
But how many conversions was he personally aware of within the past year? “One.”
One.
One drunk partier had confessed his sins, asked to receive Christ, and then stumbled off into the night, never to be heard from again.
Nevertheless, Red was convinced that countless thousands of others had also received Jesus as a result of his street preaching.
“Besides,” he said, “it’s my job to preach. It’s God’s job to save.”
You can’t argue with that either…. or can you?
I can. And I will…
But until I get to it, what do you think about Red’s way of evangelism? Is it effective or not? Have you ever seen bullhorn evangelism? What did you think of it?
Nice!
I think the greater problem here is the accepted but not defended definition of “evangelism.” A majority of people equate it with soul winning. Evangelism is simply the proclamation of the gospel. I wonder though if we stick to that definition, if bullhorn “evangelism” becomes valid?
I will make the case later that evangelism is more than proclamation of the gospel. To tip my hand a bit…
Evangelism is not a translation of any Greek word, but is a transliteration. They took the Greek word euangelion, and turned it into evangelism. See the similarity?
So what does evangelism mean? It means “gospelism.” Or “good news ism.” Gospelism is living and proclaiming the gospel through words and actions.
I will defend and explain all this in future posts.
The key here is not whether evangelism is a made up word (Transliterated), but what the word “proclamation”means. I have always said that the Gospel is a message and a person. The God-Man and The God Message. We do injustice if we seek to put asunder what God has joined together. To evangel, is to personally (in person/of person) bring the message. So in essence it is impossible to not live while proclaiming.
It is interesting to see In Revelation 14:6 that euangelion, (Glad Tidings – Gospel) when stands by itself, only means message, but when connected to the word “Proclaim,” has the meaning: “expressing either the persons who receive the good news or the good news itself.”
Looking forward to your next posts.
Why? because ealier
I think I basically agree with you about the Gospel being a message and a person, and accurately sharing the gospel means to live it and to tell it. Future posts should bring some of this out.
Red and Rob Bell’s Bullhorn Guy both learned really effective techniques to keep people away from them. Like fish swimming in a river will go around a whirlpool or an obstacle, so people learn to avoid people like these.
Once I spent several hours talking with a friend near a dock. On one side of the dock a man was trying to spear fish. He spent hours, but never speared any fish. But he was very good at scaring away fish. I asked him how long he’d been at this pursuit. “All summer”, he replied. “And how many have you speared so far?” I asked. “None, but sooner or later I’m bound to get one”, he replied.
The spear fisherman departed, and a little while later another fisherman arrived, and dropped his line with his special bait on the other side of the dock. In less than five minutes he had caught a large fish.
I told him about the spear fisherman, who had caught nothing. The new fisherman said he was aware of the guy. He waited until the spear fisherman had left and the fish had calmed and then went to the other side of the dock where the fish had moved to, and usually caught a fish for dinner.
At best, Red and Bullhorn guy are scaring most people to the other side of the dock. At worst they’re scaring them away permanently. “Get a clue guys! This isn’t the best way to fish. Even if I show you where the fish have gone, you’ll just manage to scare them away from there too.”
Well said! You can’t annoy people into the Kingdom. 😉
I think that most people who experience Christ in this scenario do so in spite of, not because of.
What a great story about fish. Have you been reading my files? I have a series of stories on the subject of fishing…
Hmm….I think my biggest problem with this style is that it is usually devoid of any love or compassion. Often (in my observations) it is more of a way to make one’s self the center of attention and give bragging rights on how many people have had the ‘Good News’ yelled at them….I have very rarely seen anyone do this style with a genuine concern for the people they are ‘trying to reach’. Instead, the ‘lost’ are viewed more as mere numbers on a balance sheet….
Hmm…it kind of has a ‘used car salesman’ feel to it…
Katherine,
Definitely. Used car salesman is exactly how it comes across. And as you point out, love is rarely shown. Instead, just like with salesman, it is usually about meeting a quota or getting another notch on the belt.
Truly hope no one will argue for someone other than Almighty God to do the saving.(?)
Of course, some folks don’t actually need the bullhorn device, but with or without it…
Street preaching is to be a “keep moving” effort; to be moved forward by the Spirit of God. As when “persecuted” in one city, we’re advised to move on to the next town/city. [Matthew 10:22-23]
A stalled street preacher soon becomes ineffectual. Fortunately, most will cover much ground during their sojourn on earth.
Or unfortunately.
Street and marketplace preaching was normal in the Roman Empire. Philosophers did it. So did Emissaries from the Emperor.
But the only people who shout and yell on streets today are street vendors…
Prophets are still shouting in the streets today. God hasn’t changed THAT much.
Both you and I notice the obvious in that many/most of these street preachers today are self-appointed or (worse) propelled by a faulty church system (with its faulty gospel in turn). The word(s) these bring to nearby ears are sparse for revelation & hope. However…
The Acts of the Apostles is rabid with open-air preaching examples, and so throughout “Acts 29”. Reliably, preaching seems like foolishness [I Corinthians 1].
Most philosophers have long since retreated into colleges and behind pulpits, and the Roman style is not the Jesus style. Are we able to discern the difference? Or, are we stereotyping them all as “Red”?
Great questions. I have not yet encountered someone who I think would follow the Jesus style, unless it is some of my friends who go out and serve the poor, the hungry, the needy, and the homeless, while telling them about the love of Jesus at the same time.
possibly we should take another look-see at Jesus; His style? His upsets our expectations, overturns our tables, disturbs our sensibilities. If He had only moved to help the poor and to tell them about love? But, no. He cuts much deeper still.
Heralds were used to proclaim news because most people were illiterate, which changed with the invention of the printing press and the need for more educated citizens.
great, i agree. street preaching is unbiblical. the biblical way is going up and talking TO people and not AT them.
Developing a relationship with people and letting them into our lives in the way to go!
A preacher with a bullhorn is what helped bring me to repentance. And it was while i was watching his youtube video several months after he had preached.
Now it is because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, but if he had not been out there on the beach with a bullhorn, i would have never came to Jesus.
The problem with these street preachers is that they are closer to Pharisees than disciples of Christ because they slander with shallow judgment despite what the numerous passages that condemn such actions such as Matthew 7, Luke 3, John 7:24, John 8, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, Galatians 5, Ephesians 4-5, Colossians 3, Titus 1-3, and 1 Peter 2. We evangelize by living the faith instead of berating others while intentionally ignoring our own sins. Matthew 5 and 7:1-5 as well as Luke 6 and 1 Peter 2 tell us this. Matthew 16 and 23 as well as Luke 11 and 12 tell us to avoid the vain hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who make others twice the children of the devil than themselves.
Sounds like you’re judging him.
If you are approached by a street evangelist, and they promise that if you listen to them and pray their ‘sinner’s prayer’, you will go to Heaven, ask them if that is really what they believe. They will say something like, ‘If you were to die tonight, do you know where you would go?’ The idea being that you would say ‘no’ and they would then try to ‘save’ you so that you can then say ‘Yes! I know where I’d be going!’.
But actually a lot of the time they don’t actually believe that even of themselves. Ask them if they know where *they’d* be going if they died tonight. Ask them if it is possible that, having prayed that prayer, it is still possible for a person not to go to Heaven.
Because if they are honest, chances are that they will say, “Actually, yes, it is possible for you to lose your salvation”, or something like that. Or, ‘No, I’m not sure where I’d go’. This is a sure sign of legalism and ‘bait-and-switch’. If they are selling an assurance of salvation that is based on you keeping to the ‘straight and narrow’, then it is no assurance at all. This is not sure and certain salvation.
In fact this is not good news in any way!
If I were on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg and I had a life boat that could carry as many people as I put in it, what would be the proper approach for me to get that message out. I’ve never used a bullhorn, but I don’t see it as an overreaction. Christians in general don’t seem to get what’s at stake. The one with the bullhorn is doing something that matches the desperation of the Gospel. The encounters that they have are far more memorable, a constant reminder of the reality of eternity.