The Ethics of Open-Air Evangelism

by John Duncan

"Let all things be done decently and in order." 1 Corinthians 14:40  
 

It is truly an honor to be called and involved in the ministry of street preaching.  In talking to Attorney Nate Kellum with the Alliance Defense Fund, we asked, "why have you given yourself to defend free speech?"  To this he replied, "Because when the Word of God goes forth, it can change lives."

There are many called into one of the five-fold offices: apostle, prophet, evangelist (travel from church to church), pastor, and teacher. Unfortunately, few get out to the highways and hedges and many have unconsciously about given up all evangelistic efforts except for what happens within the four walls of the church.  To be numbered with the great preachers of the Bible times right up to the present, is a great honor.

However, many open-air preachers have caused dishonor to be associated with this calling for a lack of ethics and accountability when preaching.

Flesh-Drawn Crowd vs. Spirit-Drawn Crowd

Many times we are associated with other campus or street preachers who have truly exceeded the boundaries of our comfort for ethical preaching. We pray God blesses them and deals with their consciences. 

There are techniques used to draw crowds that we do not engage in. Preaching with graphic sexual references, detailed descriptions of sinful acts or human anatomy are not condoned by us in any way.  These methods arouse the crowd's emotions and sinful appetites and will draw an audience that is, for the most part, not sober minded and contemplative of eternal things. 

These "Flesh-Drawn Crowds" usually come to be entertained and must continue to be entertained to remain there. These crowds grow very large, and very quickly. If you draw them by having explicit sexual content in your message, they will remain there as long as you continue to provide them with this "quail."  Today this is also true with many modern churches: if you have to entertain them to get them, you must keep entertaining them to keep them! Meetings like these tend to be rowdy, unruly, obnoxious, and perverse. 

In contrast, "Spirit-Drawn Crowds" usually take longer to form. They may also be smaller in size (though our crowds are still plenty big). However, the overall mood of the crowd will be more sober minded and the questions from the crowd will generally have a more sincere tone to them.  Many times a window of opportunity is opened by the Holy Spirit and we are able to preach the Gospel unhindered while a large number of listeners stand disarmed and quiet for long periods of time!  This is our favorite time of the meeting and often this is where an appeal is given for souls to come in repentance and surrendering their lives to Christ.

Hell and Heaven

When ministering out in the streets or campuses, we try to keep our preaching to the basics: things that affect one's eternal destiny.

We have heard preachers who preach their own personal convictions on as an issue of Heaven or Hell.  Those convictions can not be backed by the Word of God when it comes to using them in order to eternally justify or condemn someone else.  From length of hair to outward dress standards to involvement in sports, dietary preferences, or secondary doctrines... We only address issues like these if we are asked and try to quickly bring the conversation back to the basics: repentance, faith... the Gospel.

Name Calling

Calling people names is not unbiblical.  In the New Testament, Jesus Himself and the apostles called people names. Vipers (Matt 3:7), Evil, Adulterous (Matt 12:39), Wicked (Matt 12:45), Dog (Matt 15:22), Hypocrites, Child of Hell, Fools, Blind (Mat 23, Lk 11), Fox (Lk13:32), Children of the Devil (John 8:44), Stiffnecked, Uncircumcised in Heart, Betrayers, Murderers (Acts 7:51-52), Child of the Devil (Acts 13:10).  These are just a few examples involving Jesus and the early church. The truth is, most churches today are too "soft" to endure His preaching!

We do not indiscriminately name-call or single people out of the crowd. Often we ask the crowd, "how many here are getting drunk?" To which many students proudly cheer and throw their hands up in the air, thus singling THEMSELVES out.  From that point on and with that knowledge about that individual, we may identify them by what they have confessed to doing.  This is done with the motivation of bringing the person to repentance, to help a person realize his true state and then hopefully repent.  We do not use the word "whore" during our outreaches.

When someone comes to realize that "If I lie, I'm a LIAR," and that the Bible says that liars must repent of their sin or be thrown in the Lake of Fire (Rev. 21:8), they now see that their sin personally affects them. We have personally seen this deeply affect people and bring them to true repentance.

However, there is an unethical way to do this and we have seen it done. Randomly accusing individuals without prior knowledge of that individual or their sin, either by their own admission or by behavior displayed during the meeting is not only unseemly, (I Cor. 13:5), but it can be illegal.

 

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