Open-Air Preaching Posts

August 2021

Ten years ago I took my blog readers on a journey through my thinking and the thinking of others, modern and long dead, on open-air preaching. It’s a topic I’ve been interested in since my conversion in 1994. I’ve written papers on it in seminary. I think we need to think about it again. I’ve gone back and corralled my posts to make them easy to navigate through. It’s my hope and prayer that some young and old preachers might feel the pull toward this neglected biblical form of evangelism.

KEY POSTS

• The Gospel in the Open-Air Again

• Guidelines for Open-Air Preaching

• Open-Air Preaching is Optional?

• Missional Open-Air Preaching

• Steps Toward Open-Air Preaching

• Open-Air Preaching, Gospel Power, & Interruption

• Preaching Has Great Power

• The Future of the Evangelist

• A Different Style of Evangelist: Laborers on the Loose

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

• Standing Where Whitefield Stood - MLJ

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 its 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.