By Heather Tomlinson, Catholic Herald.
Street evangelism often conjures up negative images: shouty people with microphones, sandwich boards declaring “the end is nigh”.
Also, as with one lone fellow in the East Riding of Yorkshire city of Hull, on a sunny Saturday in March, more than a little eccentricity. His proffered leaflet in the city centre informed me: “All of us sin and deserve to be punished” with some added information about microchips, the “mark of the Beast” and its associations with the World Economic Forum.
Such street evangelists are known (and often infamous) for this interest in the “End Times”, the prophesied end of the world; indeed some seem to almost look forward to it, and their obsession and warnings about sin may just be dismissed as cranky by many Christians.
But having known many evangelists in my time, they have a worthy retort to their critics: Well, what are you doing to warn people of their eternal destiny?
Today, even students in a Catholic school may not be given clear instruction on these unfashionable subjects, to say nothing of the many who have almost no contact with any kind of church or Christian teaching at all. More than once I’ve heard an anecdote of a young person pointing at a crucifix outside a church and asking: “Who’s that?”
So, before any of us deign to criticise a street preacher for their message, manner or fondness for conspiracy theories, we might ask ourselves, Well, what I am doing to help people find faith in Christ, including those in our own society who have barely heard His name except as a swear word?
Street evangelism can help people come to faith. Once I met someone who was converted to Christian belief almost on the spot – from atheism – after merely listening to someone reading from the Bible on the street.