Tim Keller: Dispersed Ministry

From Dr. Keller's latest blog post "Lloyd-Jones on the Practice of Real Preaching"...

I would argue that in a post-Christian culture, preaching will not be effective in the gathered assembly if Christians are not also highly effective in their scattered state. In our times, people will be indifferent or hostile to the idea of attending church services without positive contact with Christians living out their lives in love and service. Therefore the incarnational "dispersed" ministry of the church is extremely vital and necessary.

Romans: Commentaries & Books

I started preaching through Paul's letter to the Romans a couple of weeks ago. Thought it would be helpful to list resources/commentaries I'm using. I listed them roughly in the order of how much time I give each volume. I'm not even coming close to reading everything listed, of course. Some only get a brief glance as I need another opinion. But here's what I have and what I'll use during this series.

Most essential...

• Romans | Thomas Schreiner (BECNT)
• Teaching Romans Vol 1 & Vol 2 | Christopher Ash (Proclamation Trust Media)
• The Message of Romans | John Stott (Bible Speaks Today)
• Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Romans 
• Paul, Apostle of God's Glory in Christ | Thomas Schreiner
• New Testament Theology: Magnifying God in Christ | Thomas Schreiner
• Paul: An Outline of His Theology | Herman Ridderbos

As needed and occasional...

• The Epistle to the Romans | Douglas Moo (NICNT)
• The Epistle to the Romans | Leon Morris (PNTC)
• The Epistle to the Romans | John Murray
• Romans: Righteousness from Heaven | Kent Hughes (Preaching the Word)
• Romans | Charles Hodge (Banner | Geneva Series)
• Romans | FF Bruce (TNTC)
• Romans | Robert Mounce (NAC)

Devotional...

• A Passion for God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans | Raymond Ortlund, Jr

When applicable...

• The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23 | John Piper
• Truly the Community: Romans 12 and How to Be the Church | Marva Dawn

Keller | Lloyd-Jones on the Efficacy of Preaching Today

Tim Keller has a new blog post on Lloyd-Jones on the Efficacy of Preaching. A blurb...

...if you make preaching central to your ministry, you are indeed expecting that the public ministry of the Word will be attractive and draw people in. At this point the Doctor takes the main objection—"they won't come"—head on. He says bluntly, "The answer is that they will come, and that they do come…" Now the Doctor was speaking of his own ministry at Westminster Chapel in central London after World War II. Church attendance throughout Europe plunged after the war, for a mixture of reasons. In that situation, he began preaching his long, theological, expositional sermons, and slowly the huge auditorium filled. His evening services were twice the size of the morning services, since people from all over London came to bring their non-Christian friends. I dare say that something similar happened to us in New York City over the past two decades, and in an analogous context. (emphasis mine)

Read the whole post: Lloyd-Jones on the Efficacy of Preaching

Keller | Lloyd-Jones on the Primacy of Preaching

Here's a snippit from Tim Keller's blog post today: Lloyd-Jones on the Primacy of Preaching...

Dr. Lloyd-Jones effectively dismantles the idea that watching a video or listening to an audio of a sermon is as good as coming physically into an assembly and listening to a sermon with a body of people. It is obviously a good thing if a person who never hears or reads the Bible listens to the recording of a good gospel message and is helped by it. But the Doctor argues that people experience the sermon in a radically different way if they hear it together with a body of listeners and if they see the preacher. Watching on a screen or listening as you walk detaches you and the sermon becomes mere information, not a whole experience. There is a power and impact that the media cannot convey.

Read Dr. Keller's entire post.

Doug Wilson on Street Preaching

Some excellent, brief advice on open-air preaching from Doug Wilson. First, he's for it. Second, he's wise to recommend it in the context of a "commission" through your local church and leadership. More...

The Ultimatum of God

In the first place preach, and in the second place preach, and in the third place preach.

Believe in preaching the love of Christ, believe in preaching the atoning sacrifice, believe in preaching the new birth, believe in preaching the whole council of God. The old hammer of the gospel will still break the rock in pieces; the ancient fire of Pentecost will still burn among the multitude. Try nothing new, but go on with preaching, and if we all preach with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, the results of preaching will astound us.

[...]

Have great hope yet, brothers, have great hope yet, despite yon shameless midnight streets, despite yon flaming gin-palaces at the corner of every street, despite the wickedness of the rich, despite the ignorance of the poor. Go on; go on; go on; in God's name go on, for if the preaching of the gospel does not save men, nothing will. If the Lord's own way of mercy fails, then hang the skies in mourning, and blot out the sun in everlasting midnight, for there remaineth nothing before our race but the blackness of darkness. Salvation by the sacrifice of Jesus is the ultimatum of God. Rejoice that it cannot fail. Let us believe without reserve, and then go straight ahead with the preaching of the Word.

The Soul Winner | Charles Spurgeon | p179

Preaching Has Great POWER

Preachers, we talk big about the power of the Gospel and the power of preaching. But for most of us, our Gospel preaching is limited. It stays in our buildings at announced times to mostly our people. (I understand that one-on-one witnessing is a kind of preaching, but I'm talking to preachers and about our calling.)

My question is this: If preaching has power, God-designed and Spirit-delivered power, why are we not taking it everywhere, to the most people we can, with urgency? Why are we not preaching on the street corners, in public parks, in places of commerce and theater and government? It seems to me we believe Gospel preaching has power as long as it's in a pulpit, but out of the pulpit our language changes. Now the audience has power. Now they determine whether or not we preach to them. Their ears and wills and tastes and distastes become sovereign. Our the bad examples of bad public preachers tells us that approach isn't viable or helpful anymore.

We have excuses for it all from our demographics, city designs, lack of public dialogue, etc. And so the Gospel that comes with power is left in the sheath. We try to convince people to visit our church where it's taken out of the sheath. Where the power will be on display. Or we start emphasizing the power of other things, like our good examples and righteous living. 

But the truth is, the Gospel proclaimed is POWERFUL. It's like Ezekiel prophesying to the dry bones and then to the breath resulting in an army rising from the deadest of the dead. Preaching to bones is silly. Bones don't listen. Bones don't want your preaching. Bones aren't an attentive audience. But if the Gospel is preached, the worst audience and least conducive situations will be places of spiritual birth! Of salvation! Of army creation! The audience changes nothing about whether or not we preach. The audience only changes some of the bridges we use in preaching, like Paul in Acts 17.

How can we any longer fail to preach to everyone, everywhere? How can we have such a powerful Gospel and fail to unleash it? 

Let's make it public again.

Open-Air Preaching, Gospel Power, & Interruption

I think we need to regain a healthy, biblical view of interruption.

Interruption can be good or bad. When I'm hurt and a doctor tells me I need to go to the emergency room, that's a good interruption. When I'm leading family worship and I get a recorded phone call from a politician, it's a bad interruption. Much open-air preaching is bad interruption. Sometimes very judgmental. Even cruel. Good open-air preaching, humble and loving preaching, would be the best interruption we could ever have. 

God has called us to the mission of good interruption. We don't need permission. We don't need to find an invitation to speak. We speak. We declare. We preach. We have been given the command to interrupt the world before they face the judgment of God. We are physicians crying out to a sick world to get life-saving medicine. We are ambassadors of another Kingdom warning that the current Kingdom will be destroyed and the only rescue is to join the Kingdom of the Good King. That's what the Gospel does. It forces the issue. It interrupts.

Praise God, the Gospel interrupts with power. The Bible tells us we have the power of the Gospel for salvation, the power of the Holy Spirit to be witnesses. We have the Word that is fire and a hammer that shatters the rock and won't return empty but accomplishes what God's purpose for it. We have a sword that separates joints from marrow, the sword of the Spirit. God doesn't give us an ineffective Word, but an effective one. It saves. 

If we have this power at our fingertips as preachers, and given God's permission to interrupt the lives of everyone around us, how can we not preach to everyone? How can we be content to confine our preaching to those who show up? 

(Check out all my posts & resources on open-air preaching)

Open-Air Preaching: Posts, Quotes, Resources

Everything I've written and will write on open-air preaching I've consolidated for easy reference: Open-Air Preaching. It's available on the side-bar under "Compass." It includes open-air preaching posts, posts on relevant topics and open-air quotes, and a small, but hopefully growing list of resources beyond my blog. These are the resources I feel are worth recommending.

Open-Air Preaching

Here's my growing list of open-air preaching posts, quotes, and as I find ones worth recommending, resources. I'm only going to link the resources I like best, and there's a lot of stuff I don't like. For future reference, this page can be found under "Compass" on the right side-bar.

MY POSTS

1. *The Gospel in the Open-Air Again | start here
2. Guidelines for Open-Air Preaching
3. Open-Air Preaching is Optional?
4. Missional Open-Air Preaching
5. Steps Toward Open-Air Preaching
6. Open-Air Preaching, Gospel Power, & Interruption
7. Preaching Has Great POWER
8. The Future of the Evangelist

QUOTES

• The Dismissal of Open-Air Preaching | Spurgeon
• Open-Air Preaching and Revival | Richard Owen Roberts
• What Is Preaching? | John Frame
• Need for Hundreds of His Noble Order | Spurgeon on Flockhart
• The Great Benefit of Open-Air Preaching | Spurgeon
• Beyond the Walls of your Meeting House | Spurgeon
• Faces Set Like Flints | Spurgeon
• The Ultimatum of God | Spurgeon

MY RELATED POSTS

First three are precursors to the open-air series above. I didn't know they were going to spark so much on the blog. 

1. The Public Square and the Open-Air 
2. The Kids Downtown
3. Know Your City - Remember the Poor

• Why Jesus Taught In Parables: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 - these written with open-air in mind
• 10 Commandments for Reluctant Evangelists

RESOURCES

Charles Spurgeon

Lectures To My Students | Two chapters on open-air preaching. Easily the most helpful stuff I've read on the subject. I believe he shows the best grasp of the goodness of and need for open-air preaching. His teaching on the how, where, when is just as relevant today as ever. Principles stay the same.

Open-Air Preaching: A sketch of it's history and remarks thereon | Not sure how much of this is from Spurgeon's book or elsewhere. 

Michael Green

Evangelism in the Early Church | One of the key sources I've used to think about open-air preaching as seen in the Bible.

Thirty Years That Changed The World: The Book of Acts for Today | There's a small section in which Green talks about Acts preaching and then proposes some ways to do open-air today. I don't love all his suggestions, but it's worth checking out.

Standing Where Whitefield Stood

A very interesting introduction to George Whitefield by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, especially concerning open-air preaching (via Dane Ortlund)

The Dismissal of Open-Air Preaching

I FEAR that in some of our less enlightened country churches there are conservative individuals who almost believe that to preach anywhere except in the chapel would be a shocking innovation, a sure token of heretical tendencies, and a mark of zeal without knowledge. Any young brother who studies his comfort among them must not suggest anything so irregular as a sermon outside the walls of their Zion. In the olden times we are told "Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets, she crieth in the chief places of concourse, in the openings of the gates"; but the wise men of orthodoxy would have wisdom gagged except beneath the roof of a licensed building. These people believe in a New Testament which says, "Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in," and yet they dislike a literal obedience to the command. 

Lectures to My Students (pdf) | Charles Spurgeon

All posts in this Open-Air Preaching series.

Open-Air Preaching & Revival

Several weeks ago I had the privilege of sitting down with Richard Owen Roberts to discuss revival. He was interim at my church before I cam seven years ago and I've been able to sit with him from time to time and pick his brain. If you don't know, Mr. Roberts is a bookseller in Wheaton, IL, an author/editor, and a well-known expert and preacher on the issue of revival.

Toward the end of the conversation I asked him about open-air preaching. This was well before I wrote the five main posts on open-air preaching (as well as posting several quotes on Reformissionary and Twitter on the subject). I specifically asked for his thoughts about the role of open-air preaching and a desire for revival.

He first said that he thinks most open-air preaching is bad. His words were stronger than that, but I don't want to overstate. Then he said this (this isn't a direct quote, but close)...

I can't imagine that we will ever see revival without seeing preaching in the open-air again.

I hope to return to talk to him more about the subject.

Steps Toward Open-Air Preaching

See all posts on Open-Air Preaching.

—————

Jesse Winkler put up a very helpful comment today on my Missional Open-Air Preaching post. Jesse writes...

After I read some stuff and watched the vids you posted I made a short list of things I can do right now as I'm not ready to go stand on the street and start preaching. My list was 1) begin to pray for the right heart, 2) make a solid intentional list of verses and memorize them, 3) find the right spots in my community, 4) compile a list of texts conducive to preaching the gospel in open air.

Great stuff, Jesse. One of the things I've failed to do yet in this series, though I've done some sporadically throughout, is to let people know what I'm doing before I start some form of open-air preaching. I think preparation is crucial to doing it well. Jesse's four points are excellent and are clearly reflective of things I'm doing. Here's what I'm doing to take steps toward open-air preaching...

1. Praying | I'm not spending a lot of time praying for the right heart, as I feel like the right heart is what God has been preparing in me to even do this series of posts and head in this direction evangelistically. But Jesse's comment reminds me I need to do this more. I'm praying currently more for revival in our church, for the Spirit to guide me toward the right places, right times, & right means, for the Spirit to be working in the hearts of the lost so the seeds of the Gospel will grow, etc. 

I'm also praying for a handful of guys who have expressed interest, who I've been in contact with privately about it, and for others who I hope will consider open-air preaching because they would be good at it. I think I mentioned that in a previous post, but worth noting here.

Some of the prayer for evangelism and toward the lostness of our neighbors is with my wife and kids. The kids know varying amounts of info about my growing plans (depending on their age and maturity), but they are a part of this for sure. They will know (generally) what I'm doing when I do it.

2. Brainstorming | I'm spending a significant amount of time just brainstorming. Ideas sometimes come out of prayer, and prayer is my response to ideas. Often listening to podcasts helps to spark my thinking (preaching on particular passages, on revival, on evangelism; Jerram Barrs iTunes U evangelism class), drawing stuff on my whiteboard or in my Moleskine workbook, making lists, playing with acrostics for different things I'm doing or want to do, making notes in a personal journal, etc. I can't emphasize how important untethered time has been in thinking this stuff through. 

I could make a whole other point on stuff I'm reading that's a part of my brainstorming, but it's more pieces of things. Much I've found helpful I've tweeted or posted as quotes. But I'll just say I'm reading Scripture, books, stuff out of theology books, evangelism books, etc and so on to help me continue to brainstorm.

I'm also watching videos of people doing open-air preaching. Even the bad stuff is informative on at least what NOT to do. :) I notice a lot of patterns found in nearly all preachers, which helps in brainstorming as well.

3. Bouncing Ideas & Seeking Advice | Molly gets a lot of it. She's pumped, and always has good wifely advice as well as godly advice. Important because of of who she is in my life, and because she needs to be prayed up and prepared for any possible negative consequences. I've been on the phone more the last 3 days than in the last month, just picking brains. Joe Thorn gets plenty of that, but other guys elsewhere are getting some of that. Emails and DM's on Twitter are hopping. I've started sending a list of my posts to some respected guys out there (pastors, authors, missiologists) for their advice, feedback, or whatever. I need people to tell me if/where I'm wrong! I'm thinking it through and I KNOW some guys out there think I'm a nutjob for saying all this, but few are saying it to me. Dear "that guy," please tell me. Help me. Sharpen me. 

4. Canvassing My City (County) | I've done this for a while, but it's ramping up. I'm doing drive-bys and paying visits to places at certain times to gauge people-flow. I somewhat regularly do work at the local community college to see the flow of students to and from campus, to and from the cafeteria, etc. Last night, for example, I left the house and did a drive-by the local bars. How busy are they on a Wednesday night?

I have some workbook notes on specific times and places of things that happen, as well as spaces that might be conducive. Helpful for praying and planning for open-air preaching.

5. Texts for Memorizing/Preaching | Jesse's point here is important. I'm looking particularly to the parables at the moment for preaching. I'm focusing more on gospel Scriptures than apologetics Scriptures, but both have a place. 

I'm also convicted after some discussion with Jim Elliff that I need to spend more time reading Scripture than reading other good things, books, etc. Trying to ramp up that pursuit.

6. Preparing My Local Church | I'm telling my church in sermons what I'm planning (more vaguely). I'm telling my church in community groups and prayer meetings in as much detail as is helpful. They are responding with more prayer, with more focused prayer, prayer for boldness, etc. After worship on Sunday they spontaneously (led by a couple of people) surrounded me, laid their hands on me, and prayed for boldness.

7. Seeking Partners | I've also told my people I need them in the work. Some need to be there to observe, respond relationally and conversationally to follow-up. A few have already stepped forward for that.

----------

Jesse had a second thing he brought up and I'll briefly respond to...

My hang up is, in addition to the qualities you mention that you're calling for in open air preaching, doesn't there have to be an attractional element to gather people? What does that look like other than being in a public place and raising your voice really loud?

I'm going to have more to say about this when I start talking about a particular approach I'm planning on taking. But I'm hoping to take a gradual approach to public preaching, meaning to start preaching out of other things that are occurring. In Acts 2 Peter's preaching is responding to the drunkenness comments of the crowd after tongues are spoken. In Acts 3 Peter's preaching is responding to the lame guy leaping around after healing takes place. Paul (generally speaking) often moves from Synagogue to marketplace to further opportunity (Areopagus, Hall of Tyrannus). Public preaching (of some sort) of Jesus is often in response to his healing, his helping the woman caught in adultery, to the crowds surrounding him because of other things going on. 

Now, we for some reason have taken that to mean we should learn some clever magic tricks and juggling in order to draw a crowd. I think more biblical ways above are better ways.

While I'm probably not going to take a lame guy and make him walk (unless the Lord wills!), I can start small with a conversation with one or two in such a way and in such a place that it leads to others joining in as they either eavesdrop (which we hope for) or because they are invited to join. 

In other words, I'm not planning at this point on being the dude who brings in his ladder and microphone and says my name and starts preaching to a crowd. I'm planning on starting with a few, loudly enough and in a public gathering area in order that others will overhear, and with the hope it draws a crowd and larger-scale open-air preaching is the result. AND, I believe I've found at least one way to do that in my city, though I'm not ready to post that specifically here. I've told a few friends. I'm happy to give a little more info to anyone who desires more. But what I gave should be enough to spark some thought in your context.

Hope that's helpful. Again, thinking it all through. Trying to find a way to do it better. And I'm desperate for negative or positive feedback so I'm not just some blogger out there saying a bunch of stuff that will amount to nothing. What would you add to my list?

What is Preaching?

The kerusso terms [kerysso, keryx, kerygma] represent a more dramatic form of communication, that of a herald, a proclamation.

[...]

Preaching (kerussein) in the NT tends to be used most of for the proclamation of the gospel to a group for the first time, so it is associated with the most basic elements of the gospel. Jesus engaged in preaching, but the NT uses the term most often to refer to the apostolic proclamation, especially that of Paul. The apostles preached Christ to Jews in their synagogues (as Acts 9:20), to Samaritans (8:5), and to Gentiles in their cities (14:1-7).

[...]

We are accustomed to think of preaching as what takes place in our Sunday-morning sermons. But it is perhaps significant that the NT never uses kerusso terminology to refer to anything in the Christian worship service. 

The Doctrine of the Word of God | p 259 | John Frame -- In this section Dr. Frame is comparing preaching to teaching, kerysso to didasko. I mostly pulled, obviously, from the kerysso parts. For context, Dr. Frame says, "The didasko terms seem especially appropriate in a church context" because it broadly refers "to communication of ideas." He sees some overlap, but I felt the "preaching" part was particularly helpful in the open-air/public preaching discussion.

Open-Air Preaching is Optional?

Most of the pastors and preachers I know believe that open-air preaching is optional at best, and some go so far to say it's unhelpful and passé. 

What if it's NOT optional? What if it's expected? What if it should be normal and natural for preachers? 

How would you respond if I said God expects every man called to fill a pulpit is also to fill the open-air, the marketplace, the fields, the empty lots, etc, with the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? (And I don't just mean through personal evangelism, but through public proclamation.) If you think it is optional, can you provide any Scriptural argument for that? I honestly want to know if you disagree and what you base your position on.

Guidelines for Open-Air Preaching

Thanks for the great response to yesterday's post on a call for sane open-air preaching: The Gospel in the Open-Air Again. I believe God is doing something. I really do. Keep commenting as we all need (at least I need) this discussion so we can figure out what this would look like in America today.

After that post, I received a link to some videos from @FrankFusion. Honestly, I'm shocked at how good this is, and how well it explains the practicals of open-air preaching, who should do it, what you shouldn't do, how it fits with local churches, and tons more.

This is exactly what we need to follow up my previous post and figure out how to do this. Would love to know if your reaction to this is as positive as mine.

The first video is a shorter excerpt from the second video on whether you preach apologetically or preach Christ. Really good. It made me want to watch the second. The second video is an hour long and well worth the time. Check the PDF that coincides with the video (found below the video here). You can also download the audio. Under the second video below are the points discussed and the times where they start on the video. Those talking are Kevin Williams and Ryan Skinner.

1. How do I know I am called to street preach? 00:00:44

2. Taping yourself open-air preaching and putting it up on youtube, why? 00:03:40

3. What does bad and good open-air preaching look like? 00:05:43

4. Is “drive by” open-air preaching wrong? How important is a local church? 00:09:00

5. Is it important to be part of a local church and have accountability? 00:12:28

6. How do you respond to the hatred you are met with? 00:13:49

7. How important are one on one conversations? 00:16:15

8. Are you going out in love? 00:17:37

9. Is doing “shock and awe” evangelism biblical? 00:20:12

10. Do people understand the Christian terms that you are using? 00:24:25

11. How important is it to have scripture memorized? 00:25:32

12. Is it important to know the LAWS of the land? 00:26:11

13. Is Christ or Apologetics your Focus in Open-Air Preaching? 00:28:07

14. How do you engage a heckler? 00:33:17

15. Where is a good spot to open-air preach at? 00:36:01

16. Don’t let getting large crowds become an idol. 00:40:56

17. Are there open-air preachers who are lost and not saved themselves? 00:42:45

18. Be careful to not appear self-righteousness while open-air preaching. 00:46:17

19. Advice on answering people’s questions in the open-air. 00:49:35

20. What should the length of my message be? 00:53:56

21. What makes a solid gospel tract? 00:55:03

22. Is it biblical to hand out cartoon gospel tracts that are gimmicky? 00:56:04

The Great Benefit of Open-Air Preaching

The great benefit of open-air preaching is that we get so many newcomers to hear the gospel who otherwise would never hear it. The gospel command is, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," but it is so little obeyed that one would imagine that it ran thus, "Go into your own place of worship and preach the gospel to the few creatures who will come inside."

Lectures to My Students, p 255 | Charles Spurgeon

Beyond the Walls of Your Meeting-House

No sort of defense is needed for preaching out of doors; but it would need very potent arguments to prove that a man had done his duty who has never preached beyond the walls of his meeting-house. A defense is required rather for services within building than for worship outside of them. Apologies are certainly wanted for architects who pile up brick and stone into the skies when there is so much need for preaching rooms among poor sinners down below.

Lectures to My Students, p 254 | Charles Spurgeon

Faces Set Like Flints

It was as blessed day when Methodists and others began to proclaim Jesus in the open air; then were the gates of hell shaken, and the captives of the devil set free by hundreds and by thousands.

Once recommenced, the fruitful agency of field-preaching was not allowed to cease. Amid jeering crowds and showers of rotten eggs and filth, the immediate followers of the two great Methodists [Whitefield & Wesley] continued to storm village after village and town after town. Very varied were their adventures, but their success was generally great. One smiles often when reading incidents in their labours. A string of packhorses is so driven as to break up a congregation, and a fire-engine is brought out and played over the throng to achieve the same purpose. Hand-bells, old kettles, marrow-bones and cleavers, trumpets, drums, and entire bands of music were engaged to drown the preachers' voices. In one case the parish bull was let loose, and in others dogs were set to fight. The preachers needed to have faces set like flints, and so indeed they had. John Furz says: "As soon as I began to preach, a man came straight forward, and presented a gun at my face; swearing that he would blow my brains out, if I spake another word. However, I continued speaking, and he continued swearing, sometimes putting the muzzle of the gun to my mouth, sometimes against my ear. While we were singing the last hymn, he got behind me, fired the gun, and burn off part of my hair." After this, my brethren, we ought never to speak of petty interruptions and annoyances. The proximity of a blunderbuss in the hands of a son of Belial is not very conducive to collected through and clear utterance, but the experience of Furz was probably no worse than that of John Nelson, who coolly says, "But when I was in the middle of my discourse, one at the outside of the congregation threw a stone, which cut me on the head : however, that made the people give greater attention, especially when they saw the blood running down my face; so that all was quiet till I had done, and was singing a hymn."

Lectures to My Students | Charles Spurgeon