A few weeks ago I had the privilege of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ on the street in San Francisco, near Ghiradelli Square by Fisherman’s Wharf, where one of the cable car lines ends. (Perhaps by the time this post goes live I will have done it again.) I had wanted to start engaging in open-air preaching for a while. We had prayed for wisdom about where to go, and this spot by Ghiradelli Square seemed like a good one. I had a significant audience of people who could not really go away because they were waiting for the cable car, as well as a goodly amount of foot traffic. Also, there are fewer crazies by Ghiradelli Square then there are on the other side of the cable car line on Market Street, so people might not instinctively assume that someone who was speaking loudly was nuts or high on drugs. My wife was distributing gospel tracts and testimony tracts while I was preaching, and we got to have a good conversation with a man and his family afterwards. Many people got to hear the glorious truth about God’s Son and the salvation that is in Him.
I have wanted to start preaching on the street (again) for a number of reasons. First, we now live in a city where there are good locations to do it. It does not make sense to preach on the street if one is in a rural or suburban area where there is no foot traffic. In a large city there are good places where open air gospel proclamation can take place. Second, street preaching is extremely Biblical. The Lord Jesus Christ preached in the open air, as did His Apostles, John the Baptist, and many first-century Christians. The Old Testament is also full of open air preaching. Third, street preaching shows love for the lost. People who will not take a gospel tract are confronted with orally proclaimed truth. Fourth, street preaching is good for the Christian who does it. It helps him to trust in the Lord and do something that the world is going to strongly dislike. It helps him to grow in humble trust in Christ and holy boldness in His cause. It is unpleasant to the flesh but a great blessing to the spirit. I think it is good for “preacher boys” to preach on the street. It is good practice. If someone is afraid to tell the truth to total strangers who 99.9% of the time are going to have no impact on one’s life other than, perhaps, some insults or disrespect, how will he have the boldness to tell unpopular truth to a congregation of people who have the ability to remove him from his spiritual office? Has the Lord given you a strong desire (1 Timothy 3:1) to preach His gospel? Don’t think that you can’t preach unless you have an invitation from a pulpit. Go out into the highways and hedges and preach to the sinners there.
I recorded the message both so that I could post it online afterwards, so more people could hear the gospel, because it could encourage God’s people, and because I think that having a recording is a wise safety precaution. You can watch how things went here:
I also have the video on Rumble and on YouTube.
Nobody bothered us except for a street musician who did not like that I was there and wanted me to stop preaching. I gave him a soft answer (Proverbs 15:1) and that was the end of that. There were numbers of people who were paying attention to the preaching, including some who were paying attention but were trying to pretend that they were not paying attention. Sometimes I have seen people preach on the street and just ramble on. Some others do not actually preach the gospel but just repeat a few bullet points over and over again. Other people seem to just want to make people angry and show no compassion, while others can sound like wimps (although usually true wimps don’t preach the gospel on the street). While someone who is not preaching anything to anyone should be careful before finding fault with ramblers, bullet-point people, crowd-whipper-uppers, and wimpy-sounders, it looks clear to me from the examples of Christ and the apostles and prophets that it is most Biblical to actually preach a coherent message, namely, the gospel. I addressed the listeners as “friends” because we see the repeated “men and brethren” in Acts–a respectful address to those listening. If someone is going to be offended by the gospel I am preaching, that is fine–if the Spirit pricks their hearts or cuts them to the heart, that is something good that we want. I want to be bold and unashamed as I proclaim my King and Father’s message as His servant and son. However, if people are offended because I am just being rude and nasty, that does not help anything. So that is why I sought to preach the gospel in the way that I did it.
Lord willing, we will make this a regular event. I want to preach the gospel on the street at least once a month in addition to our weekly house-to-house evangelism. Writing it like this on the blog will help me to be encouraged to keep it up. I would like you to also to be encouraged to start following the example of Christ and His Apostles by preaching on the street, or if you are already doing it, to keep it up!
If you are an experienced street preacher and you have any thoughts on it, feel free to share them. I have done some street preaching in the past–it was a blast to go to large conventions of the Watchtower Society in our area which that cult holds around the country and offer Christ to thousands of members of that false religion–but it has been a while (if they have conventions in your area, and you can find a “free speech zone” or other place near where they are meeting where you can preach without getting kicked out, I would encourage you to do that). I am much more interested in hearing comments from people who are members of Biblical Baptist churches than I am in hearing from people who are part of strange false religions that go street preaching. One thing I already know I want to to do is get a sign with church information and a website. There were people who were listening to the preaching but did not come by and take a tract, and I want them to know how to find out more when they are not in a situation where, because of peer pressure or for other reasons, they are not willing to come up and take gospel literature with contact information from one of the Lord’s churches. I am thankful for those who pray for us and pray for the gospel to get out in the very needy San Francisco Bay Area. Thank you!
–TDR
Brother Ross, thank you for sharing. Praise the Lord you were able to go and preach in public again. It is excellent to see Churches go into large cities that really need the Gospel and boldly proclaim it. I will pray for you and your wife. Hopefully more Churches will see the example and follow suit.
Thanks, Bro Ben!
Brother Ross,
I greatly appreciate you writing this article on street/open air preaching. You pointed out some very important things and helpful information about this. I especially like how you mentioned some of the counter-productive ways that people do street preaching many times. I always cringe when I see these videos of professing Christians street preaching and just being outright offensive to the people that they are preaching to, and then because they are verbally called names by the people that they are preaching to, or physically assaulted due to their spirit, they count that as them being persecuted for the cause of Christ. I often wonder how many people are hardened to the gospel even further due to the manner and spirit that many carry forth their street preaching. When Whitfield would preach in the open air due to the established churches closing their doors to him because of his new birth message, it was said that the people would weep because they saw how broken-hearted he was for their salvation. He wasn’t hurling insights and seeking persecution in order to get more YouTube subscribers.
I found it interesting, and a blessing that you did not have the camera focused on you as you were doing the preaching. That said to me that it wasn’t some kind of production focused upon you, but rather upon the proclamation of God’s word. I don’t know if that was purposeful on your part or not, but again, I appreciated it.
My family and I are called by God to be Independent Baptist church planting missionaries to the people of Philadelphia, PA, with a special emphasis upon starting Independent Baptist Spanish speaking churches. We will no doubt be involving much street preaching in the area where we will be.
As I have alluded to in my preaching on this subject, I think that it is important to remember that most of the people doing street preaching are doing it through parachurch groups or through so-called churches that cannot be classified as biblical churches.
Most are not under any true biblical authority by not being members of a true Independent Baptist church, so they are operating according to their own authority, not having been officially sent (Romans 10:15) by the only institution that the Lord sends people forth to preach his word: the local Baptist church.
Consequently, the Great Commission very rarely gets carried out, or even focused upon in most street preaching endeavors. People are generally led in a prayer, given a false assurance, and left to go their own way thinking that they are truly born again, when in most instances they haven’t been.
So I appreciate you mentioning the need to emphasize that street preaching should be done under the authority of a true Independent Baptist church.
I have only watched part of your video, but I plan to watch/listen to the rest of it as I have time.
Jason
Meant to say “insults” and not “insights” at the end of the first paragraph. Lol
Jason
Dear Bro Jason,
Thanks for that comment, I appreciate it.
Are you fluent in Spanish? We are trying to make sure we have an excellent Spanish translation of the gospel tract here:
https://faithsaves.net/salvation/
and I would not mind having any feedback from a fluent Spanish speaker on it. A brother has already translated it, but my Spanish is not good enough for me to know if the translation is good. There are lots and lots of people who only speak Spanish in the Bay Area. If this is something you think you could do, please reach out to me here:
https://faithsaves.net/contact-us/
and I can send you the tract in Spanish.
Gracias!
We went back again yesterday to do some more street preaching at the same spot, where the cable cars end by Ghiradelli Square. It was a good opportunity to get out the Word of God. There is always a street musician there when we get there, and he usually is not very happy that we are there. This last time he turned up his speaker to blast stuff to make it so that fewer people could hear the preaching. Afterwards he said that he would call the police for the public park and have me thrown in jail or at least cited for not having a license. I am not especially worried about that, as I think it is an empty threat (though I plan to double check with a religious liberty lawyer I know). But I would like your thoughts on what is below, if you have any. Plenty of people could still hear the preaching, but not as many because he maxed out his speaker to blast his music. Now sometimes hecklers or opposition can actually generate sympathy for preaching. For example, my wife told me that one person she heard about wanted to hear the preaching and was not happy that he was not able to hear as well because of the guy blasting his stuff.
Here are some thoughts.
1.) It is a public area, so he really has nothing he can do if we want to be there.
2.) On the other hand, there is a sort of “street agreement” it seems, where there is only one person there at a time. There are rarely to never two street musicians at the same place playing for the crowds waiting to get on the cable car.
3.) Even if he is not playing godly music, at least he is doing something instead of begging, and it is possible that people will give him less money if we are there preaching.
4.) Paul cast out the demon possessed lady following him when that was distracting from his message in Acts. It is good to not have distractions.
5.) There are times to take a stand and fight, and times when it is better to compromise and not fight if it is not necessary.
I am wondering if it would be good to overcome evil with good by doing something like saying to the street musician, “Good afternoon, we are planning to have some preaching here for a while. We appreciate that you are working for a living. We made a lunch for you and are wondering if you would be so kind as to take a bit of a break from playing your music, enjoy the food we made for you, and let us do some street preaching without distractions. We would love for you to stay and listen to the preaching, but whatever you want to do with that. Thank you.”
If he doesn’t agree, we can still just preach anyway. But if he does, it could be helpful.
I thought about doing something like giving him $10 to go buy his own food or give him a gift card for In and Out Burger instead, but the problem is these street musicians may themselves have drug or alcohol problems or who knows what, and I don’t want to fund their habits. There is likely a reason they are not working a regular job but are doing this instead.
If he refuses to leave even if we offer to get him lunch, we could always go somewhere else, but that would mean we would never have that great spot where people are stuck waiting in line for the cable car, because there will basically always be a street musician there, I suspect. I want to be both friendly and offering kindness, while also being firm and not backing down.
Anyway, any thoughts you have on this would be appreciated.