HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, November 19, 2024 – We are blessed beyond measure to have Jesus as our example. Over the three years of his ministry, he showed us how to do everything we’ll have to do during our time on Earth. Still, many Christians ignore Jesus’ example when it comes to preaching the Word. I’m talking here mainly about megaphone street preaching and public transit preaching, the latter which unfortunately appears to be a growing trend. These preachers are like the proverbial bull in the China shop spiritually, causing destruction and chaos wherever they show up. The Word cannot be sown in such an environment.

Based on what I’ve seen, I’d say it’s mostly ego and frustration that drives these preachers to yell at strangers. The only other people I see yelling in public spaces are the sleep-deprived homeless, strung-out addicts, and the deranged, all of whom at least have a valid excuse for their outbursts. As you know if you’ve spent any time here at all on this blog, I am a fully committed born-again follower of Jesus, but whenever any of these preachers come at me screeching Jesus’ name and accusing everyone within earshot of being sinners, all I want is for them to shut up. They sound possessed with a devil rather than filled with God’s Holy Spirit.

You cannot force-feed the Word. If people aren’t hungry for the Truth, they won’t swallow it, not one bite. It doesn’t matter how eloquent (or loud) you are or how true your words: Only the hungry will want to feed, and so only the hungry should be fed. That is a spiritual fact of life that even God won’t override.

Some priests and ministers guilt their parishioners into “reaching out” to people who reject God. Based on the Gospels, we’re not meant to reach out – we’re meant to stand in God’s Truth: Those who want the Truth will eventually reach out to us, and we’ll be there for them. We need to let them know that we’re there for them, but we also need to let them come to God and Jesus in their own time and in their own way. If we force the matter – if we try to force-feed them God and Jesus – we may win some reluctant half-believers, but these will be weak in their faith and will fall away at the first test or trial.

The gospels give us numerous examples of how and where Jesus preached. Under no circumstance did he force himself on others; he always waited for people to come to him. Equally importantly, he ‘read the room’, whether indoors or outdoors, and adjusted his message accordingly. Everyone who came to him did so with a unique need, and Jesus tailored his message to satisfy it spiritually. For instance, the Pharisees came to him dismissively and arrogantly, needing to be warned about their pride and hypocrisy, whereas the adulteress came to him in tears, needing to be comforted but also warned not to sin again. These two very different messages were delivered entirely differently, as they were meant to satisfy two very different needs.

Along with waiting for people to come to him and tailoring his message to the listener, Jesus was careful to leave people with a sense of hope. The Good News is, after all, the most joyful of all messages, so any preachers of the Word who leave their listeners with a feeling of shame or despair rather than an upwelling of hope are doing the Gospel a disservice. Even if you believe that someone who came to you is about as close to being beyond hope as any person can be, you still feed that person hope. No-one who comes to us in earnest is fully beyond hope, no matter how hopeless it may appear to us on the surface. Again, no-one who comes to us in earnest – not in anger or abusively, not feignedly or with evil intent – no-one who comes to us earnestly seeking to be fed God’s Word is beyond hope, or God’s Spirit wouldn’t have sent them to us.

You can see from the above that megaphone and public transit preaching doesn’t align with the preaching examples given to us by Jesus, which means the people who do this type of preaching are following a wayward spirit rather than God’s Holy Spirit. Certainly, fashions change and with them circumstances and technologies, but if Jesus consistently modeled one way of preaching and people today choose an entirely different way, they can’t expect their efforts to be successful. To me, megaphone street preachers and public transit preachers are less like Jesus and more like the demon-possessed woman who followed Peter and Silas around, constantly shouting that they were from God and were showing the way of salvation. Certainly, she spoke the Truth (devils often do), but she was an irritant and did not help anyone by her constant interruptions. The last thing we want to be when we’re delivering God’s Word is an irritating, unhelpful, interruption.

Preach as Jesus preached; don’t be ego- or devil-driven. Let the hungry know you’re there, but let them come to you; and when they do come, feed each of them according to their expressed and unexpressed needs.

Read the room.

Tailor your message.

And always end with hope.