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Practical points on Open-Air Preaching and Witnessing
- Maintain proper and genuine emotion
Avoid fake, overly
emotional tirades and preaching styles. Also avoid the other extreme;
monotone and bland preaching. Speak from the heart in a genuine way that
properly communicates the seriousness of the content and the concern you
have for your hearers. We should be passionate in proclaiming this
message, but our passion should be sincere and not a put on.
This also becomes
important as you learn to project your voice and maintain good volume
without a) looking like a crazy person, or b) being so soft that no one
can hear you.
- Listen
“Be swift to hear and
slow to speak” (James 1:19).
People are much more apt to listen to you and consider what you are saying
if you show a genuine willingness to do the same for them. Plus this helps
you to understand them and avoids unnecessary confusion and
miscommunication.
- Use reason as well as simply proclaiming things
To simply declare something
to be true is fine. But the human mind works in such a way as to desire a
reason as to why “such and such” is true. When we are
setting forth things that are not obvious truths then we owe it to those
listening to “give a reason” (I
Peter 3:15), If we don’t make sense then our message is worthy of
rejection just as we would reject someone who made a presentation to us
but couldn’t back up their claims with sound fact and reason. (ex. A
Mormon knocking on your door, a telemarketer on the phone, etc…)
This entails that you
study, exercise your mind, learn what you believe and why so that
you are able to “convince the gainsayers”
(Titus 1:9) and to “reason and persuade”
(Acts 18:4, 19:8,) as is our
Biblical example.
- Answer questions honestly, answer them well
It is very important to be
honest, don’t make stuff up or twist the facts to gain advantage in an
argument. First, it is simply bad moral character and secondly, even if
done from good intentions it can be a stumblingblock to hearers if it is
exposed. Sometimes you may simply need to say, “I don’t know”. Remember,
no one likes a “know it all” attitude anyway.
- Establish common ground, relate to hearers
Paul in Acts 17 used a
religious monument and a poem of the Greeks to relate to them,
establishing common ground whereby he could then communicate the gospel to
them. This opens people up to you and establishes communication,
something that is very difficult but very important to do for the open air
preacher. I often times will use something on someone’s T-Shirt; a sports
team or a music band, to connect with them. People want to know that we
are real people with real life experiences and emotions. Phoniness or
pretentiousness is very destructive to an effective witness.
- Ask questions, frame the debate
Many times Jesus responded
to a question with a question. Using questions does several things. One;
it engages people personally, two; it gets people thinking, three; it
helps to frame a subject or discussion.
Many unbelievers will
ask loaded questions that cannot be answered with a yes or no answer. The
Pharisees often did this to Jesus. He had the wisdom to respond with a
question to reframe the discussion. For example when asked should we pay
taxes to Caesar, Christ responded by asking for a coin and then asked
whose image was on the coin, thus reframing the debate. Another example I
use is when someone says, “Prove to me God exists?” I often will
ask them in response, “What do you mean by prove”? Can you define proof
for me? People will often ask for the type of proof for God that they
don’t demand for lots other things they believe, thus exposing a bias in
the way they evaluate the evidence for God’s existence and the
truthfulness of the Gospel.
- Maintain a humble, gentle, and patient
disposition
Your demeanor is very
important. Even if you don’t think that you are being cocky or impatient,
or overly aggressive it is important to understand how you are being
perceived. Public preachers are already stereotyped as “condescending” and
“ignorant”. We have to work extra hard to overcome this. Not that we
should be putting too much stock in what others think of us either, that
can be equally as harmful. To simply desire that “all men speak well of
you” (Luke 6:26) is not to
follow in the path of our Savior either. We should be sure that we are
going the extra mile to effectively communicate. We can’t let our personal
disposition be a stumblingblock to our message. Avoid becoming (or even
looking, as much as is possible) defensive, or arrogant.
Anger is not always
bad. Jesus flipped the tables over and whipped the Pharisees out of the
temple, but this was not His general disposition. Paul in Acts 13 harshly
rebuked a man and cursed him with blindness, but this wasn’t an everyday
thing. These men were balanced. “The servant of the Lord must…be
gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who
are in opposition...” II Timothy 2:24
- Use hecklers properly, work to control the
crowd
A heckler is your friend.
Ray Comfort has some great material on this. I will add a few of my own
thoughts. When someone engages you, use them to attract others into your
discussion. Let the heckler ask questions that others probably have but
don’t have the courage to publicly ask you. It’s like batting practice in
baseball. You don’t have to answer every question, especially when you
have five or six people asking questions at once. Wait for the question
you want and take the discussion where you want. This is a vital part of
controlling a crowd.
When a crowd gets to
be a bit wild you can use some tactics to calm things down. I often will
ignore the hecklers who are just trying to be disruptive (there can be
bad hecklers). If they don’t leave then I try to shame them publicly
by saying things like “Man, I am here to have an honest discussion about
important things, are you not mature enough to do that or what?” This many
times will get an irrational person to calm down and when done to a whole
crowd can calm a whole crowd down. If they are only getting irate and
argumentative then you are not going to be able to effectively communicate
with them, work to calm things down, control the crowd, work for a
dialogue, an exchange of ideas and thoughts (this also means that you
have to be willing to listen too).
Another
important thing is to not let yourself get bogged down with one person in
a crowd. If you have twenty or thirty people standing in front of you
listening, and one person gets real close up to you and wants to have a
“personal” conversation then you will need to let them know that you are
interacting with a large crowd, they can either join in, talk to someone
else in your group who may be doing one-on-one stuff, or simply ask them
to wait until you are done, offering them your email or something. Here
you have to use discernment too. There have been times where I have
preached for a while and the crowds are thinning out (or never built up in
the first place) and a sincere person comes up and wants to talk,
Sometimes it may be that you need to stop preaching and talk to this
person. There have been times where I have preached it seems just for one
person who was drawn in and I was able to really minister to them on a
personal level. Don’t be afraid to stop preaching in these instances.
- Be prayed up
Be in prayer as a way of
life, but especially while engaged in open air preaching and witnessing.
There are many times I have gone out ministering “in the flesh” and my
preaching is off, my spirit is bad, and I simply need to recognize it,
shut up and get my heart right with the Lord. Pride or irritability can do
more harm than good.
Don’t think that
simple fear is an excuse in this instance though to not preach. Work
through your fear. NEVER let fear hold you back from being obedient. Every
time I go out, despite fear, I get greatly blessed as a result (as do
others whom I come into contact with)
- Define terms, clarify points, be careful to
communicate effectively
Many times we fall into
using Christian “lingo” that non-Christians don’t understand. “You must
be born again!” shouts a zealous young preacher. Okay, what does born
again mean? Your average young person in America doesn’t know what that
term means. It requires some explanation. If we are going to say it, then
we need to at the same time DEFINE IT. I have found that about 90% of
confusion and miscommunication in witnessing is a result of people using a
word when the hearer has a different definition in their mind. Another
example of this is when someone might say in regards to homosexuality,
“What’s wrong with two men loving each other?” My response is,
“Nothing, two men should love each other, I love lot’s of men!” Then I
will clarify the definition of the term love, “Lust, or
sex, is not love. “Two men should love each other, they should
not have sex with each other.”
- Use the Law, touch the conscience, speak to the
heart.
If you have never heard
“Hell’s Best Kept Secret” I would encourage you to listen to it. The Law
of God, written on every man’s heart, is evidence of right and wrong and
is also evidence for God’s existence and authority. The Holy Spirit came
into the world “to convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of
judgment to come.” John 16:8. We are not helping anyone by tickling
ears and telling them what they want to hear. A sinner who thinks all his
problems will go away if he becomes a Christian is not coming to Christ
for the right reason and when he finds out that his problems don’t go away
but may even get harder he will most likely fall away. The law is the “schoolmaster
that brings us to Christ”, (Galatians
3:24). Men must come to Christ through the cross, broken over
their sin and ready to submit to the rightful authority of their Creator.
This does not mean we
don’t use reason and appeal to the mind as well. As Charles Finney would
say, you go through the head and into the heart; you must make sense to
the person for the conscience to be struck. Thus God’s Law, when presented
properly, brings genuine conviction of sin. A man must see the shame of
his sin before he’ll see the need for a savior and before he will
appreciate what Christ did for him. The deeper the conviction of sin,
the deeper the repentance; the deeper the repentance the deeper the
Christian life that will be produced.
- Avoid deliberately offensive rhetoric
Too many Open Air preachers
use rhetoric designed at getting a crowd, not realizing that they often
times greatly compromise their credibility. As we said earlier, be
sincere, be genuine. There is nothing wrong with humor, or with well timed
one-liners to make a point. But be careful that your motive is right and
that what you say to get people to listen won’t damage your credibility or
cause reproach to those who happen to be passing by and only hear a short
snippet of what you’re saying.
13. Engage your
audience, don’t’ just preach at people, preach to people
Many open air preachers
fail to realize that open air ministry in the New Testament is more like a
public debate than just public “preaching”. Paul engaged in lively
public debates. So did Jesus. They didn’t just stand up and quote
Scripture. They engaged their audience. I often see street or campus
preachers who preach and preach and preach, with people just walking past.
They never engage and connect with their hearers. When
someone walking past yells something at you, rather than try to ignore him
and keep your focus on “preaching”, engage the person. Respond to their
comment. Use their remarks as material to speak on, address them
personally, drawing them (and others) into your public debate.
It is
important to stay in touch with people who are impacted by the preaching
or conversation. I have found that most people whom I give my info to
don’t contact me. I instead will get there info, then I can contact them
and work towards building a relationship with the person.
14. Never lose sight of
individuals
This is my most important
point. I have a tendency to lose focus on the individuals that are in
front of me. I either get so focused on a debate that the debate becomes
the issue and not the person or I get focused on the “numbers”, the
“crowd”.
People will often use
“arguments” as a smoke screen. Answering questions is important, but you
must be able to discern the sincerity of the question. If someone asks you
a question and doesn’t even listen to you as you’re responding, they are
insincere and the question is a smokescreen. It there are others who may
have the same question who are listening I will often times answer it for
their sake, but I will not get wrapped up in “answering a fool
according to his folly, lest I be found just like him” (Proverbs
24:5).
In the same passage
in Proverbs it says to “answer a fool according to his folly, lest he
becomes wise in his own conceit” The difference between the two, I
believe, is sincerity. An insincere fool doesn’t care about the
answer; he is not reasonable nor is he really seeking truth. Don’t answer
him. But a sincere fool, someone who has bad ideas, but will listen if
they can be shown through reason, that what they believe is wrong; This
fool ANSWER, labor with him, work with him, go the extra mile with him,
because he can be won! Don’t lose sight of these people in a big crowd.
Don’t get focused on numbers, or arguments, or whatever. Keep your focus
on individuals, for whom Christ died, and may you see many come to know
the Lord and His great redeeming power as He anoints your efforts.
“What man of you,
having a hundred sheep, if he loses one, does not leave the
ninety-nine…and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when
he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing…I say to you
likewise that there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who
repents than over ninety nine just persons who need no repentance.”
Luke 15:4-7 |
