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Episode 5: Street Preaching with Austin from The Holy Nope
339 Plays11 months ago
Tune in as Austin from The Holy Nope and I talk about the ups and downs of Street Preaching.
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Transcript
Embracing Reactions in Evangelism
00:00:02
Speaker
I would rather experience negative responses from people than apathy and indifference. I would rather encounter hostility than apathy. If someone is enraged by the gospel, that just inspires me more to proclaim good news to them, to proclaim grace, to call them to repent and believe the gospel.
00:00:32
Speaker
It demonstrates that the preaching is having an immediate effect upon them. Their conscience is pricked. It demonstrates that they're hearing me.
Introduction to Austin and 'The Holy Nope'
00:00:45
Speaker
Hey, well, welcome to the office theology podcast with Austin from the holy nope, where we're going to talk about the hot take of street preaching. And so if you do not know who Austin is, he runs the account, the holy nope on Instagram and other platforms as well, I'm sure. Uh, but it's wild. I find it highly entertaining. I find it highly educational. It's everything in between. Um, yeah. So how about you tell us a little more about who you are and how you got started with all of this?
00:01:16
Speaker
Yeah, I'm Austin Keeler. I live here in Kentucky helping pastor a church here in Kentucky and I do run the Holy NOPE account and I got started doing that thing because I was making other content and it really started with
00:01:39
Speaker
me needing a filler style video for when I didn't have anything else to post, you know, something fast, something funny, and something that was relatively easy to do. And so I came up with the Holy Nope and people, people loved it. I realized that people love the Holy Nope and it started blowing eventually. I made, you know, the Holy Nope,
00:02:07
Speaker
channel and it has turned into something much more than I ever expected it to and I was recently at a conference in Atlanta and was able to meet a whole bunch of people who who follow the holy note on on its different platforms and especially those who have come out of the spiritually abusive environments that I highlight in my content
00:02:35
Speaker
who appreciate the content, who've been helped by the content, were using the content to administer to people they know who are still trapped in some of these environments. And so that really impacted me and made me realize on a new level that the Lord's blessing this and using it for His glory, for which I am super grateful.
Growth of Projects Beyond Expectations
00:03:00
Speaker
So yeah, that's wild, I think.
00:03:02
Speaker
It's funny that you said you started this account and it turned into something that you never thought it was going to turn into because that's kind of my story as well. Like I really like the office. I like the Bible looked on Instagram. Nobody was making a Bible in office collapse. I'm like, why not? You know, that's right. That's right. This burden that I'm carrying is just so great to advance the gospel forward. But
00:03:33
Speaker
Well, I wanted to ask you brother, how do you, obviously you're an Office fan. You're still putting out, you know, your memes, your videos.
00:03:43
Speaker
which I find incredibly entertaining. I don't think I ever watch one and don't smile. Are you perpetually watching through the office, like with your wife? Is that like your- Well, the funny thing is, I feel like I've watched it so many times in my life. I have like a catalog in my brain of where it's at. And so it's like, I'll read a Bible story or someone will send in a scene. I'm like, yeah, just give me a second, you know?
00:04:12
Speaker
Um, but I definitely do watch enjoy watching it. We still watch it weekly at our house. Um, but it's not like I need to like, I need to watch for content. I've been watching it for over a decade. The content is already here.
00:04:28
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Awesome. I think, I think my wife and I have watched it through, I think three times since we've been married. I think about every couple of years we just binge through the entire. Here's the real question people want to know. Do you go past when Michael leaves or do you stop? We go all the way. We go all the way. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. There's, there's gold after Michael leaves. You just have to deal with the tears from when he does leave and then move on.
00:05:00
Speaker
But yeah, and the tears the tears are special we could do a whole nother we could do a whole nother episode back
00:05:06
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Yeah. And how, how beautiful of a show it actually is. Um, yes. So that's good. That's cool.
Challenging Accepted Beliefs
00:05:14
Speaker
Um, so we're going to jump into this topic of, of street preaching. Um, if you haven't seen, um, head over to Austin's Instagram at the underscore holy underscore. Nope. Um, and check out some of his videos as well as there's, there's videos on there of you street preaching as well. Um,
00:05:35
Speaker
And we went through this a little while ago on my page, the hot takes that we do. You probably know Austin, but I'll just explain it to people listening if they don't know. So being a pastor for the last 13 plus years, I like the office, I like memes, and I'll continue to do that. But I'm far more interested in
00:05:57
Speaker
wondering why people believe what they do. And there's something that I've learned by having a captive audience, which maybe you've learned this as well, is I realized a lot of people believe things because they've been told to, they've never really
00:06:13
Speaker
done the work themselves to understand why they believe what they do. And so hot takes that I started came from that curiosity. I wonder if people actually know why they believe what they do. If I'm honest, what I found out is a lot of people don't know. You know, I don't know if you found that to be true on your page.
00:06:34
Speaker
No, I absolutely have found that to be true and sometimes I intentionally stir the pot on topics that seem to be just generally accepted by the wide range of modern American Christianity that I don't think people have
00:06:58
Speaker
have thought through and theological topics that really have become cliches that people have accepted as true. One of the recent ones that I addressed was, and it was by a heretical teacher, but what he was saying was still
00:07:17
Speaker
accepted by people who, you know, I wouldn't consider heretics, but it's just one of those things that you hear, you accept, and you believe without much critical thought following, and that is that we don't go for sin, we go to hell for unbelief. From Mike Todd, as if unbelief isn't a sin, as if... And there are there are secondary implications following that regarding your understanding of soteriology. But things like that,
00:07:45
Speaker
Um, that, uh, yeah, I, I get pushback on those things that I address regularly. Yeah. And sometimes it's, uh, it's, it's hard. I don't know if you've experienced this because you said you helped pastor church as well. Right.
00:08:00
Speaker
Um, yes, sir. Sometimes I feel like I was telling my wife this the other day, I get sometimes overwhelmed by the, uh, the, the lack of understanding sometimes that I'm confronted with on Instagram that I, that I feel like that's the most pressing battle for me at the moment. And to really train my heart and like, no, there's.
Understanding and Communication in Faith
00:08:23
Speaker
Hundreds of people right in my circle and in my flock that I am called to Shepherd and called to help grow So I find that sometimes a difficult thing for me to manage as well But like I was saying with this whole thing of the hot hot takes is I wanted to challenge people kind of the same way that you do I'll make a meme about something and people will just lose it
00:08:46
Speaker
absolutely lose it. I made one like it just a Calvinist joke and even though it was purely just like meme and and it's still cruising like people are still arguing 700 comments later and then then I look at that I'm like there's there's probably bigger fish to fry than argue with people on Instagram but I don't know anyway so I started go ahead sorry yeah
00:09:12
Speaker
No, yeah, I definitely relate to the tension that you're feeling with that. I think it's, you know, as the people who provide that kind of content, who put that kind of content out there, it's definitely tempting to be sucked into that. And I feel the tension within myself, you know, like, I don't want to, I don't, my life isn't Instagram comments.
00:09:42
Speaker
Like you said, there's actual people. There's a flock to help shepherd. There's people to proclaim the gospel to. We have wives. We have kids. And I think I've even exhorted my audience in a recent video that you're
00:10:07
Speaker
your interactions in the comment sections of my videos ought to exemplify Christian virtue. And it needs to be said over and over again that we need to act like Christians in the comment sections and we think that we have this excuse or liberty to deride each other, to insult each other, to be proud and arrogant, to bite and devour one another
00:10:36
Speaker
And the reality is that we need frequently to be reminded that we're going to give an account for every word. Oh, absolutely. We're typing comment sections. And so it's healthy, I think, to engage in profitable discussion in comment section on social media. You know, social media can be extremely helpful. You know, the platform that it provides for these conversations to take place.
00:11:08
Speaker
you know, if someone was spending hours a day in my comment section, arguing with people, I would tell them, stop watching, stop, get out of here, stop watching my videos, go and do something else. Don't spend all your time. Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's good to have those conversations and start and to challenge people's thoughts and ideas, because I honestly think that's where we grow the most is when what we say we believe is challenged the most. And so it really causes people to dig. I think
00:11:29
Speaker
but it can also be extremely detrimental.
00:11:36
Speaker
What can happen is people, um, you hit, you strike a chord that's a little too close to home and then you see the defensiveness rise up and that's where you see kind of the arguments. But I digress. Um, but that's the purpose of these, these conversations is to help people expand, uh, what they know and to challenge what they know and hopefully come out the other side better. Um, so let's talk about street preaching. Uh, how often do you street preach?
Street Preaching Experiences
00:12:04
Speaker
Personally, a few to several times a week right now is when I go into a public area and proclaim the gospel. I currently live in what I consider to... I'm from Atlanta originally, and now I'm in Kentucky, you know, about 30 minutes outside Louisville, so I consider it to be a small town. So it's not like Atlanta where
00:12:33
Speaker
You could go to any corner and have an audience of hundreds passing by you or whatever. So we have a couple of spots, a few spots here in my town, which I frequent, including our local Kroger and gas stations. Yeah.
00:12:58
Speaker
Okay. That's awesome. Um, how did you get into it? Like when was the first time? Like, how did you even decide? I feel like this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Um, well, part of what you're doing, that's not all you do. Right. Yeah. After I was, after I was, uh, saved, I just had a burden to preach and to study the word. And so I spent a lot of time in prayer, asking the Lord to let me preach.
00:13:26
Speaker
and it's been faithful to answer that prayer. The first time that the open air preached was on a beach, actually, in North Carolina, and I was with my side of the family for a family reunion, the Outer Banks, and I was up in prayer the night before, you know, and I hadn't preached in the open air before, but I knew that I wanted to
00:13:52
Speaker
and I had been on YouTube seeing other men preach in the open air, and most of the men that I saw preaching, you know, at college campuses and festivals and other venues, I saw bad examples of it. I saw men, you know, who were Pelagian in their theology, who, you know, had the signs
00:14:17
Speaker
that just listed, you know, everyone who's not going to heaven, you know, whose gospel was stop sinning, turn or burn, right? Which is no gospel at all, really. You know, just law and condemnation. Now, a lot of people see that and decide street preaching isn't a good thing. You know, by God's grace, I saw that and thought, you know,
00:14:42
Speaker
by the grace of God, I wanna preach the gospel. I wanna preach the law and the gospel. I wanna present the gospel to sinners. And so in the other banks in North Carolina, I was up the night before praying and then the next day on the beach, I saw a crowd of young adults who were a people who I used to be before the Lord saved me, you know. How old were you when you got saved? 20.
00:15:13
Speaker
So I was 21 now, I think. And so I lived a pretty debaucherous life before I was saved. And so I saw this group of people on the beach doing what they were doing. And that was who I used to be, just indulging the flesh. And so the Lord burdened me to preach to them. And so I didn't just run up without any hesitation.
00:15:42
Speaker
and proclaim the gospel without any fear. Actually, I sat down and wrestled with whether or not I'm actually going to do this for like half an hour. But eventually, I worked up the nerve and proclaimed the scriptures to this group of people right there on the beach. And they threw things at me and pushed me and all kinds of things.
00:16:13
Speaker
There were also several in this crowd of people and then others around who were listening, who were clearly engaging with what I was saying. And yeah, that was the first time. And was that the wisest approach? That's debatable. But afterwards, I knew that I wanted to do that again.
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah. And how old are you now? 30. Nice. Okay. So it was almost a full decade ago that you started this. Yeah. Um, I love, I love your heart. I feel like I can, I can hear it in it and even see it. Um, just the desire for, um, desire when you saw those group of people and it's not just, Hey, look at you doing wrong things. You identified that used to be me. Yeah.
00:17:13
Speaker
Basically, you know, and I and I and I love that because I think a lot of the times you even reference it a little bit earlier, you've seen a lot of street preaching done wrong.
00:17:24
Speaker
you go to even around where I live in the Pacific Northwest, you see people just trying to scare tactic people into faith. And I love that, granted, I don't know their heart or why they took the approach that they did, but it's awesome to hear where you started from was I see you, I used to be you, I know how empty and void and how,
00:17:54
Speaker
how misleading that lifestyle actually is, and you have the answer to what is a fulfilling lifestyle that they're trying to achieve by that lifestyle. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but listening to you tell this story and watching you tell this story, I'm like,
00:18:11
Speaker
It wasn't just I'm mad at the world and I want to tell them. It's, oh, I've experienced grace, so can you. I've experienced freedom and so can you. Yeah. Yeah. And because of the stigma that is often associated with street preaching, something that I and the other men that I know in the street preacher circle that I run in, we strive to make it clear.
00:18:38
Speaker
to the people to whom we're proclaiming the gospel that we're not up here because we hate you. You know, we're not standing on the box with this ladder. We're not on the speaker because we think we're better than you. We are recipients of grace. You know, we are beggars telling other beggars where to find bread and Jesus is the bread of life and you need it. So I think that's very important. Yeah. Yeah. And that's...
00:19:09
Speaker
And man, it's hard because I don't know if I've ever seen a good example in the, I got saved shortly after high school. So I lived a full high schooler lifestyle of just whatever I wanted to do. And a lot of the same passion that you have for people is why I went into vocational ministry is like, I see myself in all that you're doing and I found how empty and how dry that well.
00:19:38
Speaker
really is um and so thinking about that uh what are what are some stories that you have from doing this you know good bad ugly whatever whatever ones that stick out to you tell us some of your experiences well um there there you know if you if you engage in this activity regularly you're going to have a lot of stories to tell uh and so
00:20:03
Speaker
You know the good I've seen I've seen you know, it's always encouraging To see people respond positively to the gospel, you know and that happens regularly I've seen people literally drop to their knees in
00:20:21
Speaker
in response to gospel preaching. We returned, when I was in Georgia, we returned regularly to a specific college campus. And I remember one young man who we saw, he wasn't a believer, we proclaimed the gospel to him for a couple weeks. Next time we saw him, he was like, yeah, I believe now I've been baptized and I'm becoming a member in a local church, you know.
00:20:50
Speaker
Oh, wow. Things like that are always, of course, urging. Just a couple weeks ago, preaching in our own community, I met a man who was broken, convicted of sin, who came up for prayer and conversations, spoke with him. He came to our church and is incredibly encouraged by the
00:21:18
Speaker
the fellowship he experienced.
Impact and Purpose of Preaching
00:21:20
Speaker
So there are many, many good things the Lord does from the public proclamation of the gospel. So lots of good things. There's... Yeah, and even... No, no, you can go ahead.
00:21:37
Speaker
Well, I was saying like, and that's just the fruit that you see, you know, Scrooper tells us some plant, some water, others reap, you know, and so you're not even seeing the fruit of what those moments have done to certain individuals. So I think it's cool that you get to see some, but I would probably argue that there's a lot more that you don't see than you do get to see. Yeah, I'd say, you know, the vast majority of the fruit from
00:22:07
Speaker
from the efforts of public evangelism aren't going to be seen by the evangelist. They'll be discovered in eternity, but I think there are ripple effects from the proclamation of the gospel that the open air preacher will never be aware of in this life. But I also know because of the promises of God's Word, you know, that His Word will never
00:22:34
Speaker
return void, that the open air preacher can never go and herald the gospel and then go home that day and say, no good was done today just because he didn't see any fruit. You know, good was done today. And the effects of open air preaching, of preaching God's word in public are more than countable conversions.
00:23:01
Speaker
So we proclaim the gospel to glorify God. We proclaim the gospel to call His people. We proclaim the gospel. And one of the effects of it that people don't often think about is hardening the reprobate, hardening the hearts of those who are hardening their hearts against the Lord God. And it's not an effect that we desire, but it is a true effect of the proclamation of the gospel. People are going to hear
00:23:30
Speaker
and they're going to harden their hearts against it. But it's still all for God's glory. We proclaim the gospel to expose evil in society, especially proclaiming the law of God exposes evil in society. And so when we preach, it's our responsibility to
00:23:49
Speaker
to speak against the social evils of our day and that actually in time I believe will restrain evil in society. Oh man, I just read a fantastic quote about comparison between, you know, if there were street preachers on every corner, the police would be a lot less busy or something like that.
00:24:17
Speaker
and
00:24:30
Speaker
And so is this something that you do?
Community Involvement in Evangelism
00:24:32
Speaker
I'm gonna jump a little bit, but is this something you do like with your church regularly? Is it like, who do you do this with? So I do this by myself sometimes. I do it with other brothers who have also been called to open air preaching. And then I will engage in this activity with our local church, with members from our local church. So we teach corporate evangelism.
00:24:41
Speaker
a
00:25:01
Speaker
that is the public proclamation of the gospel by the local church as a whole. So we do not believe that only those who are called or gifted to speak the gospel should be going out, but that there is a role for the whole body of Christ to play in the public proclamation of the gospel. So something that we do
00:25:30
Speaker
is every Friday we go to our local Kroger and We've got a really good situation because adjacent to our And there's really no better place in in our community to preach to so we've got the entire Kroger parking lot And then adjacent to that is an elevated sidewalk about five feet off the ground
00:25:54
Speaker
We put our speakers up and we've got the entire Kroger parking lot. Then we've got a Rural King parking lot behind that. And we've got the Kroger gas station and we've got the reserved parking. And so we've got a big audience. And so we go there every Friday, but there's not only open air preaching, we also have signage.
00:26:17
Speaker
Prayer station signs, we have signs set up in an A-frame that say, you know, can we pray for you? And so people are able to on this side road that we're set up on where this elevated sidewalk is to pull over and ask questions or ask for prayer. And then we have corners on the exits of the parking lot that we set up to pass out tracks. And so what's happening is that there's not only open air preaching going on, but there is
00:26:44
Speaker
There is a prayer station, there is conversation happening, and we have other signs that others can hold, which we include as the public proclamation of the gospel.
00:26:57
Speaker
And those signs, they don't have insults on them. They're just scripture. We just have Bible verses on signs. Christ came into the world to save sinners. It's on a four foot tall sign. And so anyone can hold a sign. You don't have to be fearless, bold.
00:27:18
Speaker
warrior for Christ, anyone can engage in this. And so we encourage the local church to engage in the public proclamation of the gospel together on a regular basis and believe that it should be incorporated into the rhythm of life of the local church and that it's as important as the prayer meeting.
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's cool. So it's not just like a, let me go set up shop and then just leave. It's a full way to get multiple people involved, to have people a chance to respond and get prayer and like, yeah, I love it. So it's not just like a, let me just tell you something. It's like an invitation in like, hear what I'm saying, then come talk with us, come pray with us. Like, uh, yeah, I love that. That's cool.
00:28:07
Speaker
Yeah. What are some other stories I've stuck out to you over the years?
Handling Hostility and Critiques
00:28:11
Speaker
Well, I gave you some good stories. Let me give you a bad one.
00:28:17
Speaker
Okay. I mean, everybody's like, oh, that's, everybody's like, oh, those good stories. Good. Tell me a bad one. Well, it's just, um, so or intense maybe we, uh, so we're outside of Louisville and there was this, this advertisement for a pride festival at a walking bridge in Louisville at the bridge that connects, you know, the two sides of the river here.
00:28:46
Speaker
And so we're like, okay, we'll go and preach at this pride festival. And so we, you know, this wasn't our finest moment, but we, so we showed up and there's no festival going on, but there is like a massive crowd of like teenagers. And so we were with a group and we split up and half of us went up to the bridge and the other half stayed down at the bottom. We were both just, you know, just preaching the gospel.
00:29:16
Speaker
And then we're, so I'm up on the bridge with a couple of other brothers handing out tracks and preaching and stuff. And we get a text message from a guy down on the ground and it says, help.
00:29:28
Speaker
That's all it says. And we rush down there and there is about a crowd of a hundred teenagers have surrounded these few brothers and one of them comes up to me and he says, I never thought I was going to die before.
00:29:52
Speaker
You had come up and kicked one of the signs and these teenagers We stayed there and preached because we all got together and they were there. They were an audience. They were hostile And because we thought it was a pride festival that there was like a legit thing going on We assumed that there would be police presence. There wasn't any a crowd of unmonitored
00:30:16
Speaker
teenagers that we are preaching to. Long story short, body cameras got ripped off and thrown. Glasses got swiped off of faces and signs got broken.
00:30:34
Speaker
One of my brothers almost got pepper sprayed by one of the girls, but I pulled up my phone and started recording. She saw me recording, so I saved my brother from being pepper sprayed. Though if he was going to get pepper sprayed, I definitely wanted that on camera. That would have been called Larry. Yeah, absolutely. So maybe that wasn't the wisest of us.
00:30:59
Speaker
You know, you go out and not everything is going to work out perfectly. No, not at all. So that was an interesting evening.
00:31:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And kind of based off, we said earlier, you know, the word got never returns void. Number one. And number two, a bonus is you got a story out of it. So best, best case scenario, the word doesn't come back void worst case scenario. You got a story out of it of, of an experience. That's that's wild. Um, so how do you, uh, how do you cope with negative responses?
00:31:45
Speaker
that people have maybe copes the wrong word, but how do you deal with that? Um, like, like, uh, in person when we're preaching. Yeah, we'll do in person since we're kind of on street preaching. Um, I would rather
00:32:06
Speaker
experience negative responses from people than apathy and indifference. I would rather encounter hostility than apathy. If someone is enraged by the gospel, that just inspires me more to proclaim good news to them, to proclaim grace, to call them to repent and believe the gospel. And it demonstrates that
00:32:37
Speaker
the preaching is having an immediate effect upon them. Their conscience is pricked. It demonstrates that they're hearing me and they don't like what I'm saying, but the word of God is having an effect on them. It's convicting them. And because they're unregenerate and they hate God, they're responding in a hostile way. But I would rather, I would take that any day, as opposed to just
00:33:06
Speaker
indifference and apathy. So I'm not discouraged by negative responses at all.
00:33:16
Speaker
Well, that's, that's great news because I think maybe a lot of people would think that it'd be hard to hear those negative things, but I love that you kind of flip that on the head. You're like, no, the apathetic is actually more disheartening than the someone who actually has a response to the gospel being proclaimed. Yeah. Hmm. That's cool. I love that. Um, this is a fun question. Um, what's a holy nope of street preaching? If you had to make one, what would it be?
00:33:47
Speaker
I would note anyone who goes out with either a Pelagian theology or who goes out just to condemn people. I used to, when I was down in Georgia, frequent Georgia State University. One time we showed up there and a popular
00:34:15
Speaker
YouTube street preacher got there for us and was preaching and because of the offensive nature of his Proclamation he had drawn quite a crowd Because when you have a sign that says turn or burn and just a list of insults on it
00:34:38
Speaker
and you're just calling people's names and telling them to stop sinning, they're gonna be offended. But they're not offended for the right reason. They're offended because you're being a jerk. They're not offended because of the cross. And so that kind of preaching is absolutely a holy nove. And we didn't end up preaching that day because we didn't want to be associated with that guy.
00:35:07
Speaker
Yeah. So yeah, I would definitely note that kind of thing. Yeah. You're like, the gospel already calls people sinners. There's no reason for you to be a jerk at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man. Those are some good notes, that's for sure. Message wise, do you have the same message each time or is that something that you pray about? How do you work through that?
00:35:32
Speaker
Well, essentially, the message is the same. We're preaching the gospel. We're preaching 1 Corinthians 15. Christ died for sins according to the Scriptures. He was raised according to the Scriptures. We try to practice expository preaching, even in the open air, where we're preaching texts. And then also, depending on the occasion, the venue, you're going to tailor your message
00:36:01
Speaker
If we're outside of an abortion mill, our message is going to be different than a pride parade or our local Kroger. I preach a lot different at a pride parade downtown or at a drag queen show or something like that than I am to my local community at the Kroger.
00:36:24
Speaker
I'm super gentle and impatient, but when there's evil going on, evil being celebrated in the streets, the Okaner preachers have a more urgent tone and a more cutting message that he's bringing, so it varies.
00:36:46
Speaker
Yeah. When you say, um, urgent and cutting, what, what would you give? Can you give me an example of what that would look like? Yeah. So, you know, I think it involves the specific, uh, address of certain evils. And so, you know,
00:37:05
Speaker
Yeah, whether that's an abortion clinic or like a pride parade, different urgency. Right. So let's take an abortion meal as an example. There are some believers who would tell us, and I've been told this many times, that you shouldn't use the word murder when you're talking to women who are going in there to murder their children because it's just too strong of a word or because maybe they don't think it's murder. So you shouldn't... Well, the problem is murder is a law word.
00:37:35
Speaker
murder is a biblical work. And so to compromise on the reality of what's taking place in order to appeal to the sensibilities, not only of other Christians, but the unconverted God-hitting sinner who's doing this wicked evil is something that simply can be done. And so the message is going to be cutting in urgent, especially in that sense, by using the language that is
00:38:06
Speaker
uncomfortable. Because it is so time sensitive because of where they're headed. Of course, urgency in context is going to be. So you're saying like for the love of that baby and the mother,
00:38:25
Speaker
I'm going to use sharper language to grab their attention at a chance that may take on a chance and a hope and a prayer that that they will feel convicted and keep the baby keep that baby from being murdered as you would say. That doesn't mean that we don't preach grace also in these these.
00:38:43
Speaker
settings, but the law prepares us for Christ. The law convicts us up and shows us our need. It prepares hearts to apprehend the mercy of God in Christ, and we don't want to confuse the law with gospel, but there is a place for the preaching of the law.
00:39:06
Speaker
Yeah, I kind of have a I have a question of it's more going to be more of a I guess broad question is why do you think people have a hard time with really I want to say this right.
00:39:22
Speaker
people typically that I've seen have a really tough time hearing absolutes nowadays. And why do you think that is? Well, I think that people are more affected than they realize by pragmatism, by the concept of
00:39:49
Speaker
you know, what you might call winsomeness. And I think people are convinced that you kill with kindness, right? That's a saying, isn't it? You know, these colorful be kind signs in their front yards and base their whole standing before God on the kindness that they think exists within their own hearts.
00:40:19
Speaker
the church has become much like the world in this way.
00:40:27
Speaker
If you are calling out sin, you're not being loving, Christians believe this, and so I think that the people who oppose, in my experience, the people who oppose us the most, when they hear us talking about sin, or mentioning hell, or even not mentioning those things, but we are opposed most often by professing Christians.
Valuing Effective Street Preaching
00:40:56
Speaker
Um, which I, you know, I think is one of the hardest things about being an open air preacher is that people who profess Christ, who profess to be your own brothers and sisters will come and say, you know, your, your.
00:41:13
Speaker
you shouldn't be doing this, you're doing it wrong. And so the professing Christian, quote unquote, concern for the effectiveness of the open air method, because that's always a concern. Like, is street preaching really effective? Does it actually work?
00:41:31
Speaker
and how the effectiveness is perceived by the unregenerate audiences is most often just a thin masquerade for a sinful fear of man and an unbelief in the scriptures. Do you believe the word of God or don't you? Do you fear God or do you fear man? When you fear man, you're going to be afraid to offend man.
00:41:58
Speaker
Um, if we fear God, um, then, uh, we're willing to, we're willing to offend men for men's sake. Yeah. Oh man. I feel like that, that whole portion there could be a conversation within itself, but yeah, that's, that's super good. And I spot on, it's, it's interesting because I was asking my wife prior to this conversation, what her thoughts were.
00:42:25
Speaker
And she did She did a missions trip when she was like 19 she was in Thailand and they did open air preaching there as well and she has nothing but like
00:42:41
Speaker
just wild stories of people responding to the gospel and how beautiful it can be and it's kind of this this conversation of like street preaching or open-air preaching reminds me of a little bit of what we were talking about prior to even recording
00:42:57
Speaker
Where it's like where I say like I would wave the Pentecostal flag because I refuse to give it to the people that your account makes fun of a lot, right? I refuse to let let them have that flag and like what it feels like for you and like talking with you is like
00:43:14
Speaker
You refused, even the start of how you got into this is you refused to see people do this poorly and let them have the entire sin, what street preaching is like. So you came and said, no, I'm going to stick true to what I think it should look like and not let them win. Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. He's raising up more street preachers. There are definitely more preachers on corners than there were 10 years ago.
00:43:44
Speaker
when I started. Yeah, that's cool. That's fun. So just a couple kind of to finish this out, there's a few questions that some of my broadcast people wanted to
Admiration and Personal Joys
00:44:00
Speaker
ask you. The first is like, who do you look up to pastorally?
00:44:04
Speaker
Well, I look up to my fellow pastors at my church primarily. I'm one of six pastors. People sometimes hear six pastors and think we have a very large church. We don't, but we have six pastors. And I look up to the other
00:44:24
Speaker
those other five men, as men of whom this world is not worthy, who I esteem highly. So that's what I would say. And I think it should be standard for people not to look up to internet preachers first, over and above their own local church pastors.
00:44:49
Speaker
Yeah. Amen. Yes. Yeah. That's, and I love that answer so much because I think maybe this can like, well, is he like a big John MacArthur fan? Is that who he looks up to this, that, or the other? But I love that it's who you look up to pastorally to pastorally means relationally.
00:45:09
Speaker
And a lot of people on the internet, like even our accounts, they may find our content intriguing, but there is no pastoring happening. You know, they're in a sense of knowing one another and walking through life with one another and helping.
00:45:26
Speaker
be formed into the image of Christ. Like there's none of that happening through an office meme account. That's not gonna happen. I can give you good thoughts to think about, but I pray that you take those thoughts to your pastor and people in your life that are discipling you. Who are some street preachers that you've seen do it well? It's a good question.
00:45:55
Speaker
There are a couple of men that I really enjoy preaching with, that I really enjoy listening to. One is David Day. David Day, he's got an account here on Instagram. We've labored together on several occasions. We went to London together last year and preached in London. We preached at the Super Bowl together. And no one knows his name.
00:46:25
Speaker
He's not like some famous guy or anything like that, but to me he's one who I have learned a lot from in terms of just the genuineness and the gentleness and the zeal that I see him exemplify in his pleading with the lost and his faithfulness to engage in the work.
00:46:51
Speaker
And then on another end of the spectrum is a man named Daniel Steven Kearney, who I've had the pleasure of laboring with on a number of occasions, who is a missionary in Nepal, who's labored much in New York, who is a fiery, loud, faithful preacher who gets into a lot of trouble. And he definitely
00:47:21
Speaker
an example to the flock on the other end of the spectrum in terms of how to, you know, be a godly troublemaker for the glory of God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard those names because when I brought this topic up, a handful of people sent me their YouTube videos or different videos of them to watch. Yeah. Specifically the first one. I haven't heard the second one very much. But Daniel Day is the first guy. Yeah, David Day. Yeah.
00:47:51
Speaker
David Day. Yeah. So yeah, someone sent me that a couple of their videos, his videos. Awesome. That's cool. Yeah, go follow David Day. If you're watching this, support him. Okay. Perfect. All right. So to end this conversation, we would love to hear some holy yeps. What are some holy yeps in your life? I love the one you did the other day of your,
00:48:19
Speaker
of your two-year-old saying, dad, I just prayed for you. That's a holy yep. That's for sure. But what are some holy yeps that you have in your life? Some holy yeps they have in my life. Well, I think that one is a big one. I think leading a family to Christ and the ways of Christ
00:48:48
Speaker
training children to love God's Word, to understand the Scriptures, catechizing them. You know, that's another holy yep there. I mean, yeah, I was so precious when my two-year-old, I opened the door and he said, you know, Papa, I just prayed for you. That's amazing. Hearing them recite their catechism questions, you know, who made you? God made me. What else did God make? God made all things, you know, and just
00:49:18
Speaker
going through that, you know, so raising them in the fear of the Lord is a holy yep that we as fathers can experience on a daily basis. You know, I'm grateful for my local church. A holy yep every week is that, you know, preaching verse by verse through books of the Bible. That's a holy, holy yep. You know, we... Dude, that's how we do it too. I'll never go back. Yeah.
00:49:48
Speaker
Yeah. You know, just getting, getting fed God's word faithfully and never having to wonder, is that, is that really true? Is that actually God's word teaches because they're just reading, explaining and applying the word of God. Um, so yeah, family, local church, uh, the fellowship and hospitality that takes place, uh, within the body of our local church. Those are, those are the Holy Yips in my life.
00:50:19
Speaker
Love it, dude. Well, that's great. Those are wonderful holy yips and things that keep us going for sure. And so, yeah, well, I want to appreciate you for, and thank you for taking your time out of your day to spend time on this podcast. And, um, yeah, if you do not follow Austin on the Holy Notebook,
00:50:40
Speaker
Make sure you go do that. It is quite the follow and you will not regret it. So make sure you head on over to do that. And yeah, so thank you for tuning in to this episode of Office Theology Podcast.