Street Witnessing & Open Air Preaching

Park Central Square - Springfield, Missouri

October 3, 2008

Overall, there were nine of us that came out to street witness with our group.  We had a couple of Christian bikers from Jericho Riders out with us tonight, Jim Carroll and Kevin Thompson.  We also had Harry Meadows from the Christian Motorcyclists Association out for the second Friday night in a row. 

Michael Borich came out witnessing tonight.  Michael is a good friend I used to street witness with before he went to China for a year.  He is back!  I met up with Greg Marlin, who had a few guys come out with him.  You can visit Greg's website is Here.

We prayed, split off in different directions and began passing out gospel tracts all over downtown Springfield.  Michael and I hit the bus station and passed out tracts and had a couple of conversations.  He video taped me passing out the Million Dollar Bills gospel tracts.

A little after 9:00pm, we all met up at Park Central Square.  We had planned on tag-team open air preaching, but much of the night a band had set up and was playing.  However, at 9:00pm they broke down and stopped.  That was our open door.  I jumped up on the wall in the square area with my microphone and speaker.  There were so many high school and college age young people out tonight, as well as some older. 

Many were very vile, wicked, and God-haters.  You will be able to see this from the videos below.  These young adults were cussing God, screaming obscenities, coming up to us while we were open air preaching, yelling various things to us, one even standing up near me and holding up a vile sign.  Since we had the Christian bikers with us tonight, they ran interference for us and kept many of the people from getting too close to us.  I even had one man, who I didn't know, who was keeping people from getting too close to me.  Praise God. 

Here are three videos of our open air preaching Friday night.

This was probably one of the most intense nights we've had while preaching at the square.  There was one other night worse but we don't have it on video.  Many of the young people of today are so lost.  They are trying so hard to be individuals, to stand out from the crowd, to be noticed.  However, they do not see that they are immoral, all following the same devil and headed for hell.  It is very sad. 

Many of these folks would never see the inside of a church building.  With us out preaching the gospel, the true gospel, including using the law to bring repentance, they learn what repentance truly means.  They learn what believing really means.  There were many who were standing around listening to what we were saying.  We pray that the Holy Spirit will convict their hearts and show them their need for repentance and believing in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. 

After I finished my open air preaching, Greg jumped up for his turn.  The police stopped him and made him turn his microphone off.  They said he could speak, but without amplification.  Greg talked to them later and they said they were just trying to "keep the peace".  With the loud speaker, God's Word was making the sinners even more angry.  They figured if they can cut down our volume, we wouldn't reach as many people.  I will be contacting the City of Springfield.  This was an unlawful request they made by asking us to turn off the speaker.  There are many who blast their music on speakers, including that same night.  They are not asked to turn off their amplification.  I'll keep you informed how this turns out. 

Greg did an excellent job of open air preaching in all the noise going on around him.  He did just about lose his voice.  When Greg finished, Harry jumped up and gave a short message on the cross of Christ.  I thank God for these two brothers who had the boldness to preach in the midst of all the persecution they endured for Christ. 

We thank God for being with us and protecting us tonight.  He convicted the hearts of sinners and even showed some Christians the importance for evangelism.  Our boldness from God while witnessing and preaching shows Christians that it can be done.  I made  contact with a young Christian college man who wants to start coming out street witnessing with us after seeing us open air preaching.

In Christ,

Brad St. Clair