How to save souls
The Reverend Gerald Ambulance's Guide to Street Preaching
'Evangelism' is a word from Greek roots: 'ev', meaning good; 'angel', meaning 'news'; and 'ism', meaning ministry. And that's what evangelism is: trying to persuade people that Christianity is good news, rather than depressing, made up and hypocritical. Why such a simple task should be so uncannily like banging your head against a brick wall, I just don't understand. Spiritual warfare, I suppose. Anyhow, there are many ways to do it, but let me guide you through one of them.
Street preaching
This method of sowing the holy seed has one huge advantage: you don't have to persuade anyone to come to a meeting or even read something. They can't escape it. They come down town to pop into Argos and the Nationwide, and they go home having had the word of truth opened up to them inescapably by a terrified church worker.
Warm up
Start off by singing some popular hymns to gather a crowd or at least take the edge off your nerves. Steer clear of anything too lengthy, negative or theologically abstruse. 'Amazing Grace' works well; my own judgmentological classic 'The 144 Storeys of Hell' has proved to be better suited to other work. And anything about crushing God's enemies should definitely be avoided, unless things go really badly.
The assault
Once the ice is broken, the anointed evangelist takes the megaphone. Use your own words of course (or His own words, I should say!), but any anointed soul-saving sermon should cover all these points:
Hell
All bad people go to hell. All people are bad. So you're going to hell.
However good you are, you're still bad.
Hell is worse than the worst thing that you can possibly imagine. You might think the Shopping Channel is bad, but that's paradise compared to hell.
God
God loves us all more than you can possibly imagine. But still everyone whom he creates cannot fail to be condemned to hell. This is not God's fault, it's just life. (Explain the reasons for this in your own words.)
Heaven
Heaven is better than the best thing you can possibly imagine. Picture countless rows of pews stretching from one end of infinity to the other, with myriad blessed souls mumbling 'Lord I Lift Your Name on High' for the 11 trillionth time, some banging their heads on the pew in front in their enthusiasm, and reflecting that there are no fewer days to sing God's praise than when they'd first begun - and even that doesn't match it.
Salvation
You can't get to heaven by being good, so you can cut out that nonsense for a start. Salvation is an absolutely free gift from God. All you have to do to receive it is to believe the correct version of Christianity, join a theologically sound church, get baptised, and commit yourself to a lifetime of church attendance, prayer, Bible reading and tithing. And be predestined from before all eternity, of course.
Lay back up
Few people in your church will have the gifting to say anything life-changing, soul-saving, or even remotely coherent when placed behind a microphone. Still, they have an important role to play, in their own way. While I streetpreach, I have a couple of church members posted on street corners looking out for the police, while others ram Bibles down the throats of passersby. Many have questioned the value of this Bible ramming ministry, but Sibling Maureen knows of a man in her cousin's church who was converted by orally inserted Scripture, so I rest my case.
I also have several of the flock dressed as unbelievers to infiltrate the crowd of listeners, saying 'What do you think of this guy?', 'Hmm, that's a good point, isn't it?', and 'Well, he's convinced me. Shall we fall to our knees together in the Repentant Sinner's Prayer?' More often than not, to tell you the truth, these undercover workers are the crowd, and end up trying to force each other to their knees, but it's certainly better than evangelising an empty precinct.
Results
Ideally, you will end up with a crowd of thousands weeping from conviction of sin and the joy of redemption. As often as not though you will have to look elsewhere for signs of success. When, instead of asking how they can be saved most passersby head into BHS, out the back, across the short stay car park, and then back onto the street via Boots just to avoid walking past you, it can be easy to get discouraged. But I can truly say that wherever we go the police almost always move us on after an hour or two - and why would the Devil bother to attack us like that if we weren't doing some good?
Read more of Rev.Gerald's wisdom in his new book 'My Ministry Manual', published by SPCK and available in Good and other Christian bookshops or from SPCK Online.
Gerald's Testimony and one of his Evangelistic poems are also available to read here on the Wibsite.