Newquay Evangelism: Crowds Hear the Gospel!
Today, was one of those days where I really didn’t want to go out evangelising. It has been a very busy week, and I know that the Lord’s Day will be busy tomorrow, so if I had my way I would have happily stayed home and relaxed. Yet, even though that is what I desired, I knew that it was important to make the most of the opportunities that we currently have to share the good news. I share all that to say that I went to this outreach dragging my heels, but that isn’t how I came home. I came home with a spring in my step, as the Lord worked mightily in Newquay.
Seven of us gathered at the chapel at 1pm for a time of prayer, and then we walked down to the town centre. Due to the decent weather, the town was full of people. After finding a good spot to set up for the preaching, the team began to hand out tracts and look for conversations. It was around this time that I thought it’d be good to preach, so I set up my soapbox and then stood up.
The message began by introducing myself and mentioning the church I am from. I then launched into a message which spoke about the reality of death, and how one day all of us will be called into eternity. Before I could progress much further a heckler stepped forward carrying a ukulele. He took issue with me preaching, so after he set down his can of lager, he set about yelling at me. His heckles didn’t make much sense, but the Lord used him to draw in a good size crowd. The challenge with dealing with hecklers like him is that they make it difficult to get a word in, so a bit of back and forth took place. But hecklers beget hecklers, and before too long a few other people were raising questions.
One young man brought up the question of God’s existence. I used some basic apologetic arguments on him, but it was clear that his presupposition was set against God’s existence. I pushed back on his arguments, but no matter what was said he kept ignoring it. The crowd, however, could see the argument, and soon a lady was heckling the heckler (even though she believed we came from fish). By now the crowd was engaged, so I made sure to keep circling back to the gospel. I am a firm believer that we should engage in apologetics, but we must keep bringing everything back to Christ crucified and risen again. My pattern in dealing with hecklers is quite simple, I will engage their question, then go to the gospel, then I will go back to their question, and then back to the gospel. This tactic allows for the answering of questions, and the calling of people to repent and believe.
The open-air went for about 20 – 30 minutes (a video clip is posted below); when I finished preaching, a couple of the hecklers came up to chat. They seemed to have enjoyed our discussion, so we were able to tell them of Jesus once again.
After about ten minutes, James decided it was time to preach again, so he stood up on the box and began to preach from Genesis 1. Before too long a crowd formed, and a heckler decided to ask questions. Hecklers are a wonderful blessing to the open-air preacher as they bring more people under the sound of God’s Word.
The heckler was clearly drunk, but still, the Lord used him to gather people. James answered his questions and proclaimed the gospel to the crowd. After the message, the heckler stayed around to chat. He claimed to be a man of science, but there wasn’t much science in his discussions.
At around 3pm, we headed back to the chapel to pray. Upon arrival at the chapel, we noticed that the lady who heckled the heckler (the one who believed we came from fish) was taking a gospel book from our free literature stand on the church gate.
Praise God for a wonderful day of ministry. Christians reported being encouraged, and the lost heard the good news of salvation. May the Father draw many to the Lord Jesus!
SDG!
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