Street preaching: Is it a useful means of evangelism?

Even when I was a believer I was not keen on the street preacher. I think a large part of that was that I was raised as a catholic and the street preachers in my area of Norn Iron were venomous and nasty protestant preacher who would actively harass and abuse passers by.

Now that I am an atheist I probably have an even lower opinion of them. They always seem to have an air of desperation about them.

As a tool for recruitment / conversion does it actually work? I would have thought that something more personal and less in your face would be more effective.

The Alpha Course, for example, seems to be reasonably successful, though I happen to think that is quite insidious.

MrP

I think there's a big difference between a chugger and a street preacher.

I don't think they have much of an effect to be honest. I mean, when I see one, my first reaction is, "Oh, God, not another deluded idiot" - and I see myself more of a panthiest than an athiest. And this is before I've even listend to what they have to say.

The porblem is that we live in more cinical and better-informed times where people have better access to information and can check things up for themselves. For that reason, anyone promoting a religion really has to knwo their stuff and come accross as well-informed and intelligent. Standing on a box at the corner of a street and preaching is not going to give you that impression.

From my limited knowledge of them, street preachers seem to be obsessed with the negative, with sin, eternal damnation, fear.
Whereas the only teachers I read or listen to are obsessed with the positive aspects of Christianity. The positive types are normally part of a larger society or organisation and have little trouble working as well as preaching.
While the negative fear mongering types seem to be lonely and strange.
could be wrong though.....

Edit: I just noticed that you said it better lmaopml

One thing we have to Understand about St.Paul is that this was just the beginning of Christianity and it had to be preached no matter what.

That said I do think that street preaching can be effective in as much as it presents God to each individual. The methods used by preachers in New York such as ''Repent for the day of the Lord is at hand'' can be useless. But I remember being in the city before I was converted and this guy just had leaflets and a table of them set up, he would just invite people who passed to take one and that was that. I think that is a good idea as although it didnt convert me right away ( mind you I believed there was a God ) it did get me thinking about God and started the ball rolling and now here I am.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI said that we must present the Gospel to everyone no matter the consequences, we must present Jesus to the people both in word and deed. It is then up to each individual to accept or reject that invitation. We may think it's useless and yet if just one soul amongst the crowd is listening it is better than nothing at all as each soul to Christ is worth more than we think.

So yes it is effective when done properly but as Zombrex said some just do it to satisfy their ego but even if that is the case God always draws the good out of a bad intention and convert someone even through the man who only does it to satisfy his ego.

I wonder if it isn't counter-productive - at least when you are dealing with the firebrand type preachers.

I voted wrong! Lol! I meant to vote number three! Of course explaining what Christianity is is a good thing! Through any written or spoken word or action is fine providing the Christianity is one true to the New testament. Good News not relatively bad news. I know it's only a little poll on an Internet site but change my vote!

....this is why I didn't vote on that other poll, that one went nowhere fast....

Street preaching tends to get on my nerves. It's often hard to follow, verging on incoherent ramblings. As someone said earlier on the thread, I think it's done more for the benefit of the preacher than the passers-by. They must get some kick out if it. There are a couple I see around Dublin city centre and I can't see any real success coming from it. However I do thing there is room for getting some interaction and discussion going with people on the street.

Personally I think some of the Christian street preachers could put down the megaphone and learn a thing or two from the young men who man the Islam information table outside the GPO. The passers-by approach them if they want to talk about something/learn something about Islam, it's a lot better IMO than having a garbled semi-message shouted into their ears as they keep walking. This approach seems to be more common on the continent too for Christian communities (less street preaching more distribution of leaflets/invitations to coffee evenings etc)