Open Air Campaigners

Are you searching for new church members? Then get a better understanding about the importance and advantages of open air preaching.

Open air preaching, also called public preaching or street preaching can be described as the action of publicly declaring any religious message to a large group of people within an open area. This is actually an ancient means of communicating a social or religious message and it had been utilized by several countries and religious customs. But, nowadays this is generally affiliated with Christian evangelicalism or fundamentalism.

History and motives
In earlier times George Whitefield and John Wesley who were Methodist preachers used to have sermons on open air platforms, which made it possible for them to appeal to larger crowds than what most buildings can possible accommodate.

As a matter fact, street preaching has been in practice from the early days of prophets mentioned in the Old Testament. Additionally, the New Testament scriptures showed where Jesus Christ state his message publicly in the open air setting, communicating clearly with the common people. In the Book of Acts, you can find recordings of the earlier Church observing the commands of the Savior which is telling to the prophets to go in all nations and preach.

The history of the church also reveals that our ancestors and forefathers delivered the gospel to people outside of the physical churches. Some of the Biblical illustrations also incorporate message from Jonah, who was a prophet who hesitantly obeys God’s commands to preach the gospel in the city of Nineveh. Some others include sermons preached by Paul to the Athenians written in Acts 17 and by Jesus on the Mount, which is found in Matthew 5-7. Therefore, it’s not surprising to see these biblical practices being carried out these days.
The motives cited for this practice is said to:
Worship God and carry out the commands to make the word of God known through preaching

Is it important for pastors to have open air meetings and what are the advantages?
To begin with, these meetings are generally mobile or portable; it is possible to have them just about anywhere. It is impossible to carry a mission or church building around, but you will have no difficulties where open air preaching is concern. Therefore, you have the option of having your sermons in any area of the country that you desire.

During the hot summer months the open air is a lot more appealing than the hot churches or halls. When you are preaching in hot spaces, this is one of the fastest times to have a crowd of sleeping people on your hands. If is combined with a long sermon, then it’s nearly impossible for anyone to keep awake at all. A good suggestion would be to move onto the lawn of your church and find a shaded area that would be much cooler for church services. You will be amazed of the large crowd that you will attract this way and could even have them coming from miles away.

As mentioned before, the open airs can accommodate huge crowds. Most church buildings, particularly in the country areas will only have capacity for possible not more than a thousand people. Needless to say if this is the capacity for largest the church building compared to an open air space, which can easily accommodate 15,000 individuals, then it would make more sense to have your sermons on the outside.

It is more economical to have open air meetings, because there is no cost for rental or to hire janitors. While, there is no need to pay for anything whatsoever if you are having open air preaching. Remember that God himself provides the buildings and will take care of it just the same. Therefore, you really don’t need to have money in hand to keep your meetings, because the outdoors is absolutely free.

Most times it’s hard to get males to visit the church, but they will feel more comfortable listening to open air preaching. There are many instances when pastors report that after men who visits mission or church for many years and were unreachable did not put up much resistance at open air meetings. Some of the persons who have been converted as a result of these sermons included drunkards, thieves, gamblers, murders, saloon-keepers, homeless women, doctors, lawyers, society people and theatrical people; believe it or not you can get people from every category in life.

These meetings can bring a lot recruits to missions and churches. Perhaps the best way to have a packed church would be to send missionaries into the streets to keep meetings prior to a church service or even better, you the pastor should go out. As soon as the meeting ends, then you can easily invite individuals to the mission or church. This is actually the means appointed by the biblical teachings for you to reach out to men who you are not able reach in other ways. Luke 14:21, all Christians need to listen to the teachings of Christ and continually hear the buzzing in their ears, so “Go quickly to the lanes and streets in the city and then bring in the poor”.

Where is the best place to keep an open air preaching?
Even though these meetings can be held in a number of places, it’s important to choose location where you will have a better chance of reaching out to more people. Here are a several suggestions which might prove useful.

Find locations where crowds of people pass.
Look for the main thoroughfare which has a number people passing at various hours. But, keep in mind that it’s not possible to keep your meeting exactly at that spot, because the police won’t allow this, but it’s possible to have it slightly to one area and still be able to reach the crowds when they are passing by.

Keep meetings in close proximity to populated public houses
By doing so, it is possible to preach the gospel to people living in the apartment buildings and also in the street. Even if the residents don’t come on the outside, they definitely will open up their windows in order to listen closely. From time to time the listeners which you are unable to look at could be as huge as the ones in front of you. You may well be speaking to thousands of individuals within the building, you never know. For this reason, it’s important to possess a voice that is good and powerful enough for preaching in the open air, for then you can certainly preach to everyone in the apartments within 3 or 4 streets.

Hold gatherings close to baseball games, circuses and any other locations where a large crowd of people congregate. I have seen pastors having their meetings on the outside of stadiums just to the back section of the grand stand, since most people are not able to see inside they basically listen to the preaching and singing. Keep meetings in and around parks or any other public areas

Basically all cities have recreational places where individuals head to on Sunday afternoons. Since people are not going into the church, then why not bring the church to them. Remember that in some cases authorization must be given from the relevant authorities in order to keep meetings in the parks.

In the groves
If you have a church in the country area a good place to have meetings will be in groves. Whenever it’s possible to take the church outdoors, you might be surprised at the large number of individuals who will show up from near and far.

In front of churches
You might be wondering what the difference is if it’s inside or outside of the church, but a number of pastors could tell you how their empty churches were filled to capacity, simply by preaching in the open air. In fact, the service could be taking place inside the church and you would be surprised of the hundreds of people who would prefer to stay on the outside.

A helpful suggestion:
Pay attention to small details when choosing your location. For instance, if the day is extremely hot its best to find a shaded area, while on the cooler days you can opt for the sunny spots. Ensure that your audience is comfortable at all times. Under no circumstances should your audience be asked to stand with the sun shining on them. In addition, you should preach along with the wind flow and never against it. It is best to position yourself slightly above the section of the crowd closest to you, on a chair, curbstone, platform, a little mountain or any object that you can find to make you stand tall above the crowd to ensure that your voice can reach everyone.

What is needed for this type of meeting?
First, you need to completely understand your connection between God and yourself, meaning are you being called to do open air preaching and are you prepared to carry out this work through his grace regardless of the cost.

Perhaps, this will be the most important aspects to take into consideration before engaging in open air meetings. In the event that you get started without this understanding, then you are bound to fail. Open air meetings comes with discouragements, difficulties and nearly impossible hurdles, so you have to start off with the knowledge that God in fact called you for this work and you are fully prepared to get this done without giving up.

Next, get authorization from the relevant authorities. Try not to get in conflicts with the police, always avoid this.
In most instances it is fairly easy to obtain permission when you go about this in an intelligent and courteous way. Research the laws within your city regarding this type of event and ensure that you abide by them. Meet with the head of the police station and inform this person that you intend to keep an open air meeting, this way he or she will understand that you are not just a prankster who is out to disturb the peace. A number of would-be preachers find themselves on the wrong side of the law because they lack common sense and decency.

After that, find a good spot for your meeting. It is best to avoid making random selection, so ensure that you examine the different grounds.
Put your plan together, study the field, choose the very best spots to keep meetings and then review the area carefully. Keep in mind that there will be a number of things to consider and all should be treated as important. You should not choose somewhere that would be easy for a disgruntled person to toss a huge pan of water on you or anyone in your audience. The small details might seem insignificant, but any unpleasant issue that you can think of should be given some thought.

Next, ensure that you have a large number of reputable Christian women and men to attend the meetings.
Remember that crowds will draw crowds and you will have greater power with huge numbers. It would not make sense for one person to stand in the streets alone to keep meeting. It’s important to point out here that the key phrase is “reputable Christian women and men.” If you don’t know the person and you are meeting him or her for the first time, don’t take them to open air preaching as somebody in the crowd might be knowledgeable about this person lifestyle and could just shout this out. In addition, if a man is well known for making a mockery of himself you’ll want to leave this person behind, as he might end up disrupting your entire gathering. One of the worst moves that you could make is to allow a complete stranger to speak, even though this person might seem to be in their right mind. Naturally, your followers should be people with established standing and well-balanced lifestyle.

One of the key things needed for open air preaching is good music. Get yourself a comet and a baby organ, plus complement with some good singers if possible. In the event that you are unable to get excellent singing, then poor singing will have to do, because at times even poor singers can be good for open air meetings.

I heard a story once about a woman who was attempting to sing at an open air gathering and she was not really singer, however God in his amazing mercy gifted this woman to sing that night through the spirit. Many people started to breakdown in the street with tears rolling down their face and some persons got converted immediately after the singing. Even though the hymn was sang in a dismal way when you are looking at as a musical person, God worked through the Spirit and convert this woman’s singing into something wonderful.

Ensure that you have the attention of crowd right away. Whenever you are preaching inside a church, individuals will stay most of the time even when they are not necessarily intrigued. But if you don’t have the attention of the crowd from the start on the outside, then a couple of things can happen. You will realize that the crowd will slowly leave or they might start get restless and form small groups. Therefore, it’s important to include attention grabber in your first couple of sentences to get everyone hooked on what you are saying.

Finally, find some good excellent tracts. At all times have tracts on hand when you are keeping open air meetings. These can help to make a permanent impression while you are trying to get the truth across to everyone. Get workers to hand out as many tracts as possible in the large crowd at appropriate time.

Here are some things that you must not do:
1. Try not to become angry. Regardless of the circumstance, it’s never wise to lose your temper, especially when you are speaking to a large group of people. There is no doubt that you will have numerous temptations that could cause you to become angry, but always fight the urge. It is extremely difficult to strike a person if he is peaceful and when you maintain your peacefulness, then it’s almost guaranteed that you are going to get away unhurt. Perhaps even if a strong person hits you, it will be hard for him to do this a second time when you continue to be calm. Peacefulness is actually your best shield.

2. Never unnecessarily get into confrontations with your audience. Some years ago a pastor was addressing a group of people at an open air meeting, which was filled with mostly Roman Catholic and he kept throwing words at the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. As you can see, this clearly will make much sense. Nothing could be more uncomfortable than to have a massive crowd of people angry with you, so avoid this at all times.

3. Avoid dull sermons. Try to include humor in your sermons, because dullness can easily ruin an open air preaching and eventually drive the entire crowd away. A good way to avoid becoming boring is to give short sermons with a significant amount of dazzling illustrations. One of the worst mistakes is to fall asleep while preaching outdoors, so ensure that you are awake and this will keep your audience sharp. Always be full of energy and talk with a lot of strength so that individuals can hear from miles away.

4. Never get frightened. You may well be flanked by an audience of rowdy hoodlums, however there’s a chance that you will never get hurt unless of course the Lord wishes this to happen.

5. Never read your sermon. Regardless of what might be stated in defense for the reading of essays on the pulpit, this definitely will not work for open air meetings. You’ll be able to use notes of some sort, but the shorter the better. However, if you are able to talk freely this would be ideal.

6. Remove words such as can’t from your vocabulary. Make use of terms which individuals are familiar with, however avoid use any form of vulgar dialect. A few individuals believe it is necessary to utilize slangs, but these are never acceptable.

7. You shouldn’t be too soft. If you are one of those nice, sentimental or weak persons this will definitely not stand during an open-air preaching. The actual temptation to toss a spoil fruit or even a brick at a preacher who is soft spoken will be totally irresistible to a large crowd.

The following things are absolutely essential if you want to have a successful open air preaching:
Always depend on God, because there is absolutely nothing that could teach you about reliance and diligence faster than keeping open air meetings. When you are at these meetings it is impossible to tell what will really take place. You are unable to lay definite plans to follow, because you will not know when someone can stand up and ask a few aggravating question. Just about all that you can do in these circumstances is to depend on God to see you through.

When you are unquestionably loyal to the word of God and you are knowledgeable about it and continuously use it, then you can be successful with open air preaching. God oftentimes uses a text which is cited and employs this as the salvation for some listeners. From time to time, illustrations and arguments will be forgotten, however the text message stays and will help to convert people.

You should be filled with the Holy Spirit at all times. When anyone wants to benefit from the freedom of clean Spirit this can happen at an open air gathering. Spiritual influence is actually the greatest secret for success when it comes to doing any form of Christian duties.

Finally, it is best to have only men and women who are consecrated on your team for open air meetings, as this will be vital to your success. In the event that you are unable to find these people, you should give up any idea that you have for keeping these types of meetings. Hopefully, the information provided above will help you to have excellent meetings outside of your church building. If you need help in writing short sermons with humor, you can find additional resources on the website.