This week we’re out and about in different locations in Brighton looking for opportunities to share the good news about Jesus. On Wednesday we were in the city centre close to the Theatre Royal.

Who helped?

Josh Williamson, an OAM evangelist helped us, along  with Tony Dancer and Julian Sheppherd from Grace Church Guildford. Simon, Julian and I from Grace Church Brighton floated around with flyers, chatting to folk and observing how they went about open air preaching. If it’s a good fit for Brighton we might well do more

What did we do?

After a recce a few weeks ago we decided to set up on New Road by the Theatre Royal. It’s a pedestrianised street and has a good footfall on route from North Laine to the Lanes and Sea front

The team set up a blue board that the speaker would use for visual aids during the talks and on the opposite side of the road was a book stall with free BIbles, tracts etc. 

Josh and Tony took turns giving short gospel messages. Those not speaking either made up the crowd or chatted to folk who stopped to listen.

How did we get on?

There was no Bible thumping or shouting! – just good, engaging, and brief gospel messages. And people stopped to listen. Some asked questions and joined in dialogue with the speaker.

Meanwhile all the time people were coming up to the unmanned book table, taking Bibles and other items. 

It was very moving to see this.

Here are a few of the personal conversations I was able to have:

A grandma wanted help because her 13 year grandson was asking how to become a Christian. She didn’t know what to do.

A group of lads from Hungary were over for a week and took a John’s gospel and information about church on Sunday

A local man was on a journey rediscovering the Christian faith and was delighted to learn about Grace Church

Another man said that he had become a Chrisitan recently from reading the Bible but hadn’t yet managed to find a church in Brighton that keeps to the BIble’s message.

After talking to another man, I gave him a Matthew’s gospel. It turns out his name was Matthew!

This is just a snippet of an excellent 2 hours on a sunny day in central Brighton. You can read Josh’ write up here.

Next steps

I have tended to dismiss this sort of street evangelism in the past. We can easily point to unhelpful caricatures. But what I realised on Wednesday was that the speakers really cared for those who were listening and that they saw them only the draw. It was the personal conversations taking place all around that were just as if not more important than the man up the front.

We’re exploring doing this every month. I might volunteer to speak as well … if they let me!