Having said all that, I shall probably be arrested next time I go out, but I hope and pray not. Ideally, I shall go on learning to preach Christ to those who either have never heard of him or who have no accurate idea of who he is and what he has done. I shall seek to proclaim Christ as crucified within and without the walls of the church building by all legitimate means that I can discern and employ, in accordance with my gifts and calling. I shall attempt to do so winsomely, accurately and courageously, to the honour and glory of God. If I must suffer for doing so, I hope that the Lord will give me grace to bear it well and respond to it righteously. 

In recent weeks there has been a spate of arrests of Christian brothers in the UK involved in street preaching and other open-air witness. As someone who preaches in this way fairly regularly, this is obviously a matter of interest and concern, and that on a number of fronts. For the record, I do this because I think that it is a legitimate and potentially profitable way – one of many – of going outside the walls of our building to reach men and women, boys and girls, who have no appetite at present to come inside to hear the Word of God being proclaimed. I think we need to make a distinction between what we do in trying to gather a crowd to hear that gospel and what happened in, say, the Scriptures, when Christ had a crowd gathered with an appetite to hear him, or in the days of men like Whitefield when they were – initially – forced outside, and then had ready-made congregations. I also think we need to accept that, unlike somewhere such as the Areopagus, public discourse is no longer, in the culture of most in the modern West, an accepted mode of discussing and pursuing truth.

Street preaching is not necessarily the place to learn the art of preaching in its entirety, but it is a fine place to hone it, for it demands a liveliness and a vigour that you can get away with lacking in a pulpit where – generally speaking – most people are under sufficient cultural constraint to wait until the end of the sermon before they leave, however dry and dull you are. On the street (which must be distinguished from merely preaching to an attentive congregation outdoors) you have a moving congregation, and you must win and keep their attention, for the sake of their souls. With that in mind, here are some thoughts on street preaching. I do not pretend to be an expert, but an observer and practitioner, wishing to improve myself as well as help others.

Rights and liberties. Be aware of them, but don’t make a song and dance about them, and don’t go out determined to make an issue of and defend them. A hyper-defensive mindset is a good way to start a fight. In the UK there are helpful documents, drawn up by well-instructed Christians after careful research, that set out for your benefit, and – if need be – for the benefit of others, what you are entitled to do. Knowing this, and being able to respond intelligently if challenged, can be helpful.

Appearance. Clothing should be discreet and appropriate to the occasion. I am far from saying that an open-air preacher should always be in a suit and tie (indeed, given the appetite of certain cults for that kind of ‘uniform,’ it might be positively unhelpful). However, the open-air preacher should be, in essence, neat and neutral, neither shabby nor power-dressed, deliberately avoiding either extravagant or unintended statements by virtue of his dress. I say this because I think of one brother, a fairly energetic and loud preacher, who I have seen on more than one occasion preaching wearing a hoodie drawn up about his head, with the drawstrings pulled quite tight, and his hands thrust deep into his pockets, dragging the whole garment further down over his face. In most of the environments in which I saw him preach, that outfit gave him the appearance of little more than bellowing thuggishness in the eyes of most passers-by, and probably didn’t endear him to anyone else wearing a hoodie either. Other men look, quite frankly, as if they have been dragged through a hedge backward. Appearing to belong in the ranks of the local odd-bods is not necessarily the greatest start to winning the ear of the man in the street. And if you stand up dressed like an Edwardian dandy or some other fop then you deserve everything that gets thrown at you, and I hope that you will soon stand down and let some sensible bloke get on with the business.

Voice. One of the great qualifications for street preaching is to be able to be heard, but that should not be confused with mere volume. After all, if you are bawling from the off, you have nowhere to go when you need to emphasise something. The great things to aim at are projection and penetration, with clarity and distinctness of speech at a premium. Extreme and sustained volume will make the most earnest pleading sound to some ears like little more than a harangue. Personally, I would avoid amplification: it tends to deaden the nuance of the voice, is difficult to judge, can be objectionable in itself, and is – in some instances – easily challenged as to its legality or appropriateness.

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