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 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.

In an essay written by the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry on the biblical basis for open-air preaching states, "There are many examples of street preaching in the Bible." The following list of biblical open-air preachers is not stated as exhaustive, but is detailed nonetheless.

Street

A street is a public thoroughfare (usually paved) in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable surface such as concrete, cobblestone or brick. Portions may also be smoothed with asphalt, embedded with rails, or otherwise prepared to accommodate non-pedestrian traffic.

Originally the word "street" simply meant a paved road (Latin: "via strata"). The word "street" is still sometimes used colloquially as a synonym for "road", for example in connection with the ancient Watling Street, but city residents and urban planners draw a crucial modern distinction: a road's main function is transportation, while streets facilitate public interaction. Examples of streets include pedestrian streets, alleys, and city-centre streets too crowded for road vehicles to pass. Conversely, highways and motorways are types of roads, but few would refer to them as streets.