Open-air preaching

Open-air preaching, street preaching, or public preaching is the act of publicly proselytizing a religious message to crowds of people in open places. It is an ancient method of communicating a religious or social message and has been used by many cultures and religious traditions, but today it is usually associated with Evangelical Protestant Christianity. Early Methodist preachers John Wesley and George Whitefield preached in the open air, which allowed them to attract crowds larger than most buildings could accommodate. Motives for open-air preaching include to glorify God and to fulfill the command to preach and make God's Word known. Biblical examples include Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount that of the prophet Jonah, who reluctantly obeys the command of God to go to the city of Nineveh and preach "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!". Others include Paul's speech to the Athenians in Acts 17. The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry lists the "many examples of street preaching in the Bible" as including Noah, Solomon, Ezra, Jeremiah, Jonah, John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, Peter, Paul, Phillip and Apollos. Martin Luther wrote that "Unauthorized men preaching on the street corners are a sure sign of the devil", believing that only those who were officially ordained could preach to people. This the same charge clergy from the Church of England were leveling at the Wesleys in their own time. Some notable modern street preachers are Jesse Morell, Jed Smock, Ruben Israel, Ross Maroney, Seth Dixon and Caleb Pegues