Posted in Christianity, Evangelism, Gospel, open air preaching, Reformed, Theology, Witnessing on June 11, 2016| 18 Comments »
This video is rather intense of a recently evangelism in Jerusalem by American preachers doing open-air preaching.
I am stunned at the spitting going on by the Israeli unbelievers. It is pretty gross. Then there’s the grabbing and the harassing.
It reminds me of what our Lord and Savior faced.
Pray for the salvation of those who were there. I pray that Israel would come to know her Messiah: Jesus Christ.
Posted in Christianity, Evangelism, Michael Coughlin, open air preaching, Reformed on June 12, 2015| 1 Comment »
Note: I am overseas at the moment and will not have any internet. This is a guest post by Michael A. Coughlin. His blog can be found HERE.
Previously, we’ve discussed the open air preacher’s need to be prepared, have correct presuppositions, love people and for earnest prayer. Today we’ll wrap up the series with the very practical concept of projection.
You need a way to project your voice. If no one hears you then you might as well attempt to engage in one on one conversations or hand out tracts (neither of which are bad ways to evangelize). Whether you use amplification or not, know how to get your voice heard over a large radius so more people will hear God’s Word! Some preachers do not like to use amplification. This is OK too. Regardless, the following tips can help.
Be aware of your surroundings. Bus stops are fine, when there are no busses. Residential areas can be tricky as people have some right to sleep without your voice amplified in their ears. This is why so many open air preacher go to college campuses or sports events where there are large gatherings of people in an area where “shouting” is essentially accepted.
Something else to consider is what you sound like when you get louder. Most people sound angry. Learn how to project your voice without sounding like you are just yelling. On the same topic, many people strain to raise their voice and contort their face. Again, the same problem occurs where you may have a look on your face which looks angry! Practice preaching and smiling; or at least practice avoiding the angry look. It will make you more approachable and it will help you distinguish between when you may in fact be preaching in the flesh or not. Because the day you find it harder to keep a kind and friendly face may be the day you realize you are there that day with the wrong heart.
Dear brother, I do hope this list helps you to remember some basic open air preaching practical pointers.
Posted in Christianity, Evangelism, Gospel, Michael Coughlin, open air preaching, Preaching on June 9, 2015| 8 Comments »
Note: I am overseas at the moment and will not have any internet. This is a guest post by Michael A. Coughlin. His blog can be found HERE.
Previously, we looked at our need to presuppose the inerrancy, sufficiency and infallibility of the Bible when we open air preach in order to faithfully proclaim God’s good news. In this post, let’s look at some key areas of preparation.
For each preacher specific preparation may look different. Some folks are more comfortable with a prepared ‘sermon’ to preach in the open air, some preachers may even read the text from a tract, and others cheerfully preach with no notes or sermon. These types of preparations are optional and stylistic, meaning that there is no one size fits all approach.
But EVERY man who aspires to open air preach ought to have certain godly disciplines. The man who is daily in the Word and prayer is the only man qualified to stand (anywhere) on the street and herald for Christ. It doesn’t matter if you have a pre-written manuscript; if you are missing these basic habits of the Christian life, you are not qualified to preach.
What I am saying is this: Unless you are first being a good Christian, you are not prepared to be an open air preacher.
If you are not in the Word and prayer, you are in danger of violating God’s will. We are hypocrites if we stand on the street exhorting people to repent of sin because of the impendingjudgment, yet we ourselves do not love the Lord enough to search His Scriptures daily!Our lives ought to be examples for someone converted under our ministry to imitate.
There is physical preparation too. Have your stuff ready: your amp, your throat lozenges, your soapbox, water bottles, honey and lemon tea, whatever you need. Do voice exercises and bodily exercise to increase your stamina and help you to breathe easily. If you are tired and out of breath after a few minutes of preaching, how will you reach as many as you could by preaching 1 hour? Be wise! Know the local laws concerning amplification and what is public property.
Be prepared, in season and out, to herald the full counsel of God, respond to good questions that teach people, and to handle people in a respectable way.
In the next post we will look at practical pointers for our relationships to people in our open air preaching.
Posted in Christianity, Evangelism, Michael Coughlin, open air preaching, Reformed, Witnessing on June 8, 2015| 10 Comments »
Note: I am overseas at the moment and will not have any internet. This is a guest post by Michael A. Coughlin. His blog can be found HERE.
Introduction
For those who are biblically qualified to open air preach with accountability to a local church, I offer the following open air preaching practical pointers!
This series is planned to span 5 posts. A few items as far as introductions go. These posts were written with certain presuppositions about the reader in mind.
For the sake of alliteration I have created 5 Ps of Open Air Preaching. This list is not comprehensive. In fact, the list and posts have been kept intentionally short to allow for discussion in the comments and to discourage people from “not reading because it was soooooo long.” If you are reading this blog, you likely know that as a presupposition we believe the Word of God to be inerrant, infallible and sufficient: an attribute without which you’ll have no ground to stand upon when preaching.
As far as personal qualifications go, these posts are a mix of my Bible knowledge, reading and personal experience as an open air preacher for 5 years at a number of different venues.
Finally, these posts aren’t meant to be a formula for “making converts,” nor will failure to adhere to my guidelines automatically result in “no one getting saved.” God will save whomsoever He wills in His good timing. The question is – will you act in such a way as to make your preaching usable and your life above reproach?
Enter your questions in the comment boxes if you have any! And finally, please don’t turn this into a women preaching debate as that is for another day. In the next post, we will look at some key factors to being a prepared open air preacher.
Posted in Christianity, Evangelism, open air preaching, Theology, Tony Miano on July 16, 2014| 32 Comments »
In my book Tony Miano is one of the better Open Air Preachers out there. In some ways, he is refreshing to hear especially with his desire to be Biblical and his love for the local church. Apparently a few days ago while he was in Canada he was physically assaulted during one of his open air preaching campaign as the picture indicate (Source of photo).
His facebook page has many comments with some supporting Miano while some were critical of Tony Miano’s method of evangelism. While I think there is room for one to ask how one might engage differently in Tony’s situation, it is hard not to notice a much larger theological problem among some criticizing Miano. I spent a significant amount of time yesterday responding to some of these comments.
Some objections seem to forget who is the victim and who is the one who inflicted harm; my response to such comments was the following:
Don’t you think there’s a certain level of irony in which the man who sinned was a victim and the victim who was physically attacked is the one you put blame on? What makes your kind of logic different from those physically abuse their victims and blame it on them? That is frightening!
Some of the guys who were complaining needed to study the way Jeremiah and Jesus preached in their ministry. Some thought it was wrong to say to someone that they were murderers at heart. But we must remember the Word of Jesus:
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. (Matthew 5:21-22 )
To those who think it is never right to say someone is a murderer in their hearts, we must ask the question: Are you better than your Savior?
We must remember: “Name calling is a horrible display of Christianity” –Things Jesus never said (John 8:44, Matthew 12:34, 23:34)
In general I thought there were comments that were frightening spiritually to read as a Pastor: there were people with an attitude of self-righteousness almost if they were saying, “God, I thank you that you did not make me like that open air preacher! I love so much more than he, and speak more gently and graciously than he did to those who are angry with me.”
The one person I had the longest exchange with is a guy name Sean Gates. The dialogue went as follows:
“Sean Gates Way to go!?!? You pushed that person completely away from Christ. He may never give his heart to the Lord bc you preahing out out hate. Wake people. Ministry is to be done with love.“
My Response: Sean you are pushing Tony Miano away when you approach Tony Miano like that by preaching against him so hatefully. Ministry is to be done with love and because of your tone and what you said I’m afriad now Tony will completely be pushed away from the softer, kinder, gentler, New Evangelicalism Politically Correct, Wierd Animal loving-VBS kind of Christianity.
Sean Gates And then you boast about your “injury” which you could have avoided by not being a moron.
My Response:I imagine you are responding to Tony Miano’s “name-calling,” among other things; don’t you think it’s kind of ironic that you called him a Moron?
My Response:How many came to Christ when Jesus preached Matthew 23?
Sean Gates You never answered my question tho. This day this event how many people were led to the Lord!? I’m starting to think none. So that must mean this style of evangelism doesn’t work and maybe offends people who aren’t saved and getting called a murderer on the street. So maybe this pastor had what was coming him. Bc he is publicly judging people he doesn’t know. So for all this effort was for nothing. But he great news article pastor. Glad you are getting attention
My Response:In logic a question that’s a complex fallacy can’t be answered before the faulty presuppositions are addressed (see Jesus in action in Luke 20:1-8); My question to you that addresses your question still stand: how many came to Christ when Jesus preached at Matthew 23? Or how many came to repentance in Jeremiah’s ministry?
My Response: I also think it’s incredibly ironic Sean Gates that you charge Tony for judging people he doesn’t know; you called Tony a pastor more than once when he’s not one which reveal you don’t know him; yet you judge him for getting attention (something you don’t know from his heart); I’m using your own reasoning here to point out that you’re doing the same thing you are charging Tony of doing.
Sean Gates Look here is my point. Non saved people aren’t getting reached effectively by methods like this. This comes across as aggressive and they won’t even give you time of day. Evangelism its kinda like chess. You have to be strategic and spend time doing it. It’s not just something you stand out in public and yell at people through a mega phone. It’s not just something you check of your daily to do box and day well I told them about the Lord. People don’t trust any more. Spend the time and get to know the people who you are ministering too
My Response: What is “effective”? Before I came to Christ I reacted violently towards His message; but it got to me deep and later I repented; true effective evangelism is FAITHFUL to the Bible’s way of doing evangelism. again, your criticism is problematic when it goes against the ministry that Scripture commend of God’s men such as Jesus, Jeremiah and Noah.
But why would out concern? Question the methods of how you are witnessing! You need to know if you are being effective or not. It concerns me that you guys are ok with this guy who may now never come to the Lord and in his mind this will be something that pushed him further away.
My Response: Again, read my words carefully; I think you are getting so worked up that you are slipping with self-refuting statements and other fallacies (complex questions, ad hominems, etc); I never said I didn’t care about being “effective;” note my comment earlier: ” true effective evangelism is FAITHFUL to the Bible’s way of doing evangelism.” I care about being faithful to the Way God wants us to evangelize; my dispute with you is that your criticism of Tony Miano is Biblically off the mark
Sean Gates You’re right I don’t know him. Neither does he know this murderer. Dude can keep doing this, but you can’t tell me this was effective and that he was right.
Jesus called people murderers in John 8:44 and Matthew 5:21-22; are you going to be Jesus’ evangelism consultant and tell Him it’s not effective or right? I trust you don’t have that much pride and self-righteousness; again, read your Bible.
Sean Gates Not saying God isn’t sovereign. I’m saying you’re method didn’t work. Think about what happened logically. Took called him a murderer trying to minister to him he got offended and hit you bc of what you said. God can change his heart even tho our the events that happened for sure. But you didn’t help him. You did nothing for him
Again, Jesus’ method didn’t work right? He too got rejected after His confrontational preaching in John 6, after Matthew 23 and after Luke 20. This is a great hubris if we are to evaluate evangelism by pragmatism rather than faithfulness to the Bible and the content of the Gospel and confronting sin.
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Posted in Christianity, Evangelism, Gospel, Intolerance, open air preaching, Tony Miano, tagged Tony Miano on January 10, 2014| 10 Comments »
If you have read our blog for any time the name Tony Miano would not be unfamiliar. A former Sheriff Deputy and a Christian evangelist in the Open Air scene, Tony was arrested in Scotland on January 8th, 2014. It seems the charge against him has something to do with the mention of homosexuality as a sin. He was eventually released although he has to go back to Scotland for trial later in April. Declaring homosexuality as sin has become a violation of the blasphemy code of the Left.
Christian Concern has the story:
Christian Legal Centre client, Tony Miano, was arrested this week after a woman complained that he had spoken about sexual sin.
The Christian street evangelist was remanded in custody overnight and later released on bail to appear before Dundee Sheriff’s Court on 22nd April.
Tony, who is a former Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff, was arrested on 8th January on a charge of alleged breach of peace with “homophobic” aggravation.
He was part of a street preaching team holding a week-long mission in Scotland.
He was the second of the street pastors to address lunchtime shoppers in Dundee High Street. He talked about the nature of sin; about the different sins that Jesus had come to save people from when a woman began to shout at him. He was preaching about sin in general and when he mentioned sexual sin including adultery, promiscuity and homosexual practice, the woman shouted that her son was gay.
Mr. Miano’s colleague, Pastor Josh Williamson of the Craigie Reformed Baptist Church in Perth, who was present at the incident explains: “Tony wasn’t focussing just on homosexual practice – it was about all sin. A woman was yelling at him and her friend noticed we were filming the preaching, so she ran up to me and tried to smash my camera.”
He says the first woman then appeared to be calling the police on her mobile just as a council warden came along and said that while we were doing nothing wrong, and had the right to free speech, we should move on.
Mr. Miano finished his preaching in a few minutes and as the street preachers packed up two police officers arrived. At this point Pastor Williamson says the women shouted that they would get the preachers arrested.
“The female officer saw we had a camera and lunged for it and then the male policeman grabbed it and threw it in the police van,” says Pastor Williamson.
He says the male officer interviewed the women and then immediately arrested Mr. Miano, but did not question him or explain why he was being arrested.
“After Tony was put in the police van I asked why he was being arrested and was told it was for a breach of the peace and for using homophobic language,” says Josh Williamson.
Tony appeared before the Sheriff’s Court on 9th January, where he pleaded ‘not guilty’. He has been bailed to appear for trial at Dundee Sheriff’s Court on 22 April but is free to return to his home in the United States
Andrea Minichiello Williams, Chief Executive of the Christian Legal Centre, says the incident raises serious questions about police procedure and understanding of the law in dealing with such incidents.
“This appears to be an overzealous reaction by the police. The incident, adds to the number of arrests of Christian street evangelists for preaching from the Bible. It is indicative of the suppression of the freedom to speak and live out the words of Jesus Christ in public and present the teachings of the Bible,” says Andrea.
She adds that the Christian Legal Centre is ready to serve anyone who is challenged for expressing their Christian beliefs.
“At the Christian Legal Centre we are committed to helping people to continue to preach the Gospel in our nation.”
Tony Miano was arrested in July last year, in London, for alleged ‘homophobic’ comments. The case was dropped.
(Source)
Tony has also told his side of the story on the Janet Mefferd Show which one can listen to online by clicking HERE.
On his facebook page Tony Miano also posted the following account of his time in jail:
“Well, as many of you have heard, after about 28 hours, I’ve been released from jail. Pray for Robert who heard the gospel this morning as we shared a holding cell while we both awaited our court appearances.
Will be on The Janet Mefferd Show in just a bit. Then preaching tonight’s evangelistic service at Craigie Reformed Baptist Church – Perth, Scotland.
Operating on about an hour’s sleep over the last two days. Josh Williamson’s phone has been ringing non-stop for the last 24 hours.
May the Lord use all of this for his glory.
Last night in my cell, I read all of the Book of Acts and Luke 1-17. A verse that really struck me, bringing me to tears, was Luke 17:10.”
We shall see how this story develop.
Posted in Book Review, Christianity, complementarianism, Evangelism, open air preaching, Tony Miano, Woman preacher, tagged Preaching on September 27, 2013| 20 Comments »
The book will be shipped out October 1st, but you can already order it! To order the book, click HERE.
This is a book on whether women can preach and specifically preach in the open air scene. As the author points out, sometimes among some who are theologically conservative, the line is blurred concerning whether women can engage in open air preaching while theologically they won’t allow women to preach at church or be a pastor, etc. This book is calling Complementarians to be consistent. The author, Tony Miano, approaches this topic with great humility and confesses that he use to be among the camp that thought it was appropriate for women to engage in open air evangelism. An open air preacher who has worked with Ray Comfort’s ministry, Tony does not engage in personal attacks of those who disagree but engages the issue with Christian conviction, gentleness and a winsome manner: I was touch to read his apology for misleading people in the past with his former position. I appreciated Miano’s call for the readers not to read with an open mind, but an open Bible; in other words, to be Bereans. The book is divided into two parts, with the first being the presentation of his case for why women should not be engaged in open air preaching. Chapter one takes us back to Adam and Eve with God’s creation and His intended roles for man and woman. He argues that gender roles were existent before the Fall. Chapter five is the meat of the book where Miano does word studies on the Greek word for preaching, woman, etc. Miano also analyzes the counter-arguments. Miano makes it clear that he’s not against women evangelizing and it was helpful that he delineated what women can do for evangelism in chapter eight He also has a moving story of what a man cannot do in evangelism that a woman can (you will have to read it yourself). Part two features various interviews of pastors and preachers on their view of women and whether they can preach. While I don’t want to take away from the main focus of the book, I also wanted to note other things I like about Miano’s work apart from the women preaching issue: I appreciated how the preface was evangelistic which reveal how Tony Miano is a true evangelist, since you can never know if a nonbeliever is reading this book. Miano has a very nuance definition of evangelism as well. As a former Marine radio operator, I also appreciated his analogy of the prayer warrior’s role in evangelism: “The praying saint is the radio operator of a platoon pinned down by enemy fire, calling in air strikes to protect and maybe even save his comrades in arms.” One gets to see what makes Tony tick: He desires to be biblical and raises the par of open air preaching above the stereotype that sadly can be far too typical: He stresses the importance of local church and the par for open air preachers to be raised! This will be the topic for his next book, “Should He preach?” Seeing how helpful this book is, I am already anticipating the next one.
NOTE: This book is provided to me free by Tony Miano without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.
Posted in Christianity, Intolerance, open air preaching on July 5, 2013| 13 Comments »
This occurred on June 30th 2013.
Some stress tolerance so much they end up being intolerant. Ironic isn’t it?
Here’s the Police blog about it HERE where we learned two men were arrested.
Do you think the homosexual community would come out to condemn the assault on Christians freedom of speech and expression? It would be nice to see that.
Posted in Evangelism, Gospel, open air preaching, Tony Miano on February 25, 2013| 11 Comments »
These are tips on Open Air Preaching for Christian evangelism by Tony Miano. Practical wisdom especially the ones concerning law enforcement. Tony Miano should know–he’s a former Sheriff’s Deputy himself.
Posted in Evangelism, Jason Storm, open air preaching on July 13, 2012| 3 Comments »
For those who are interested, here is a three part short series on practical open air preaching by Jason Storm who runs Faithful Soldier School of Evangelism:
Here’s a taste of some of his pointers.
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.
Don’t shy away from rebuking sin
Most people know right from wrong. They know when they do wrong. The issue for most people is motivation to do right not just knowledge of what is right. That being said it is vital that we deal with the issue of sin. Many evangelists shy away from talking about their audiences personal sin. We don’t want to anger or upset anyone out of fear of hurting our witness. I want to stress that the average sinner will respect you more, though they may initially be bothered, when you shoot straight with them about their sin that they themselves know is wrong. The Holy Spirit is working to convict men of their sin, the pressure on their conscience makes people uncomfortable. When we try to comfort them and make them like us we alleviate that conviction and actually work against the Holy Spirit. The conversion of the soul is an uncomfortable process. We cannot short cut that or make it any less painful without doing more harm than good.
Don’t major in the minors
“You are going to hell young man!” shouts a preacher, “How do you know?” responds a young student. “Look at that cigarette hanging out your mouth!” retorts the preacher. This is majoring in the minors. Cigarette smoking is probably one of the least offenses to God in this young mans life. The central issue is the sinners understanding of God and His character, their sinfulness in relationship to such, and the gospel message of Christ and His Kingdom. We must get to the heart of these issues and not let conversations get bogged down in peripheral and secondary issues.
This does not mean that there isn’t an appropriate time to have certain discussions. Sometimes we need to talk about what seems to be peripheral subject that actually turns out be central stumbling block to a persons understanding of the gospel. for example many young people are taught that Christianity is responsible for so much great evil in the world that it cannot be the Truth. A historical discussion on this subject can remove major boulders from the soil of a young persons heart. This requires wisdom, discernment, and listening to your audience.
You should check them out.
Posted in Matt Slick, open air preaching, Presuppositional Apologetics, presuppositionalism, Tony Miano on June 30, 2012| 17 Comments »
Recently on “On The Box,” they had an interview with Matt Slick, the director of Christian Apologetics Research Ministry (CARM). I thought those of you who employ apologetics in the setting of open air preaching might appreciate this:
Over at Triablogue, they posted this youtube clip found on Presuppositional apologetics and open air preaching:
I think all of this study of apologetics for open air preaching must also be balanced by Tony Miano’s recent call for open air preachers to have a greater maturity in their ministry and faith by studying the Scriptures for Open Air found here.
Posted in Christian Ministries, Christianity, Evangelism, Gospel, open air preaching, Ray Comfort, Theology, Tony Miano, Way of the Master on October 1, 2011| 1 Comment »
This took place at Cerritos College.
Sadly, similar things like this happen too often before my eyes in our campus outreaches in Southern California. Shallow Christians present the biggest threat against the gospel work at times.
Posted in Christianity, Cumbria Police, Dale Mcalpine, open air preaching on December 22, 2010| 4 Comments »
This happened in England
The video is fascinating
Praise God that the courts ruled that the preacher’s speech ought to be protected and the cop was wrong
For more about this, read HERE
One interesting note is that a gay rights activist even came out to speak on behalf of the preacher
May law enforcement officers learn from this
Posted in Christianity, open air preaching, Preaching on April 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »
This is a great clip
Open Air Preaching is Biblical!
There is a way of doing this…in a manner and attitude that is Biblical!
This is what we need
The Domain for Truth 