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With Dom Muir
75 Plays3 years ago
Street Evangelism. A phrase conjuring up images of crazy preachers with placards reading "The End is Nigh", one that strikes fear in many Christians. Is it a thing of the past, with no place in our multicultural 21st century cities? Or is it still a means that God can use, even one He still calls us to?
Dominic Muir is an evangelist, teacher, author ('God Hunger: Meditations from a Life of Longing' and ‘Firebrand: Devotions from a Life of Burning’) and revivalist with a passion for street ministry and the priesthood of all believers. Dominic co—leads a ministry vehicle of gospel proclamation and demonstration called ROAR (www.roarthegospel.org) with Evangelist Daniel Chand. Before founding Jesus Fields, Dominic ran an itinerant ministry called Now Believe (www.nowbelieve.com) and is also founder of 'David's Tent', a three day annual Christian worship event in the UK (www.davidstent.net). Dominic and his wife Thea run a movement together that celebrates true identity called I Am So Many Things (www.iamsomanythings.com).
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Transcript
Introductions and Set Up
00:00:09
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to another episode of Pep Talk, the Persuasive Evangelism Podcast. I'm Andy Bannister from the Sola Centre for Public Christianity up in Bony, Scotland, up in Dundee, and I'm joined as ever by my co-host, Partner in Crime, all those titles, Christy Mayer. Christy, how are you doing today down in London?
00:00:29
Speaker
Hey Andy, doing well, thank you very much. I've just moved studies, so while our listeners can't see it, I've got a great blank slate behind me at the moment. So yeah, I'm looking forward to filling in some of these shelves sometimes. Yeah, realizing people don't see the audio for obvious reasons, because you don't. You know, you could have figured that up. You could have said, I've got this new study with miles of shelves and painted this great- Turret. The turret looked like parsley.
Meet the Guest: Dom Muir
00:00:51
Speaker
Anyway, well, I'm in Dundee, you're in London, but our guest today comes to us from a third point of the compass. We can do north, we can do south, we can do west. We're joined today by Dom Muir, who comes today from Somerset. Dom, how are you doing? Well, thank you, Andy. Thank you, Christie. Great to be on the show. And of course, you and I, actually, although you're in Somerset, you and I, I recall we actually met in Scotland, didn't we, back in the summer.
Reminiscing Refuel Festival
00:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, refuel that big, lovely Scottish Worship Festival. Yeah. So lovely, big Scottish Worship Festival when the sun shines and when it rains, it's more like a mud bath. I've only been once and it was glory. It was incredibly hot. I mean, we were all getting sunburned. It was sort of freakish, but yes.
00:01:32
Speaker
That is the Scottish summer, Dom. It does that every year. It does that every year. This show is sponsored by the Scottish Tourism Board.
Dom's Passion and Mission
00:01:40
Speaker
So, Dom, one of the things that I was struck by as a way into the more serious stuff that we want to talk about today, you describe yourself in various ways, right? You're, you know, I mean, actually, why don't you tell us who you are rather than me trying? Because I remember you gave me this great long explanation of the summer, all the different things you're into. So people that don't know Dom Muir in a nutshell, what are you up to? Who are you? Oh, well, OK.
00:02:00
Speaker
I'm trying to be serious. So I am Dom. I'm 45, married with two children, one on the way. And I think, yeah, I mean, I'm passionate about people meeting Jesus. I run a charity called Now Believe, which has an arm called Jesus Fields, which runs events.
00:02:22
Speaker
And I also run a business with my wife Thea, which is called I'm so many things, which is all about true identity who God says we are. And we have books and courses around that and also
00:02:37
Speaker
Sell products, but but yeah, I think my passion at the moment is to see is to see People come to Jesus is just to see the millions in this nation and particularly who don't know the Lord Get saved and to get out on the streets and and preach the gospel I love the gospel and I love to preach it
Inspirations in Evangelism
00:02:57
Speaker
and
00:02:57
Speaker
Now, one of the things that struck me when we met at the Refuel Festival, and I think the thing we're going to dig into a bit today over the next 20 minutes or so, is very soon after we met at Refuel, you began telling me stories about the thing that street evangelism is something that you're passionate about. You love getting out there on the streets and sharing.
00:03:16
Speaker
gospel. What I was struck by was when I was a younger Christian in my teens, street evangelism was everywhere. You could do short term missions in the summer. I remember learning sketchboarding and being taught as a young Christian how to get out there and do it. You don't see so much of it.
00:03:33
Speaker
these days. But before we dig into perhaps why that is, tell us a bit about why you're passionate about taking the gospel into the streets. Maybe perhaps a story of a time that you've done that and God has showed up to give people a flavor of what we're talking about.
Street Preaching in Edinburgh
00:03:48
Speaker
Well, first of all, I would say that it is actually going up again. I think you're right in saying that you used to be a lot more of it. And I think recently there has been a big rise in it. But so for me,
00:04:01
Speaker
I was challenged by the more I fell in love with the Lord and got into his word, I would see scriptures like go to the highways and byways, compel them to come in from Jesus in Luke 14. The great commands and commission of go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. And I just became convicted and
00:04:23
Speaker
and challenged by the word of the Lord really speaking to me and the fact that so much ministry doesn't happen in buildings and religious buildings. I was inspired by the moves of God throughout history, the Wesley's, the Whitfield, the St. Patrick's. A lot of these guys just roamed the land on either walking or on horseback preaching the gospel and ordinary folk would come to the Lord.
00:04:51
Speaker
And I suppose the more I became convinced that actually the power of God to save people is hidden in this gospel message. It's foolishness to the Greek mindset and the intellect, but nevertheless, it is God's means of salvation. The more I got faith for that, the more I thought, you know what, I could just go into a street where there's loads of people, preach this message, and their eternities would be changed.
00:05:19
Speaker
And a family line would be changed. I just got a whiff of the potential of an ordinary day. So not only did it from that place, did I start organizing missions. I had a Soho mission in London in the red light district for seven years on a Thursday night where we had a table and soup and donuts. And we preached the gospel there. We had a big cross we would put up in the middle of the red light district.
00:05:43
Speaker
But you asked for an example, the other day my wife and I were just wandering the streets of Edinburgh, just having ice creams and hanging out. And we walked down the main street that leads to this sort of castle at the bottom, I forget the name of it, but it's sort of the big street in Edinburgh. And we went past what seemed like the main church of that street, must be the cathedral or something.
00:06:06
Speaker
And there was a lady doing fortune telling, sitting at a table right by the gates of this church. And a sort of righteous indignation came over me. I thought, it's fine. Look, if you want to do fortune telling, which, you know, by the way, is spiritually pretty dangerous, at least go, you know, hire a hall or something, but to do it right by the church door.
00:06:31
Speaker
It was a bit much for me in that moment. So I said to her, do you mind? I tried to ask her because you never quite know what's going to happen when you preach the gospel. We had our children with us.
00:06:42
Speaker
And so I started singing Amazing Grace in the street. That's normally my start point. I'm not a great singer, but it's a great song to introduce people to the gospel and sort of soften hearts. And sure enough, some waiters came out of the restaurants and there was a sort of sense of neighborly love as I sang the song. And there was even some applause actually from this particular head waiter.
00:07:10
Speaker
And then I went into the gospel message, which I normally start with John 3 16, in case someone gives me only three seconds. And that went down all right as well. When I after I'd unpacked it, it began to get a little bit more bumpy, because I needed to, you know, talk about the cross, why did Jesus die?
00:07:28
Speaker
And then I brought up words like sin and stuff like that. But I got it out in about three or four minutes and it was great. You get people passing by, you get others stop. I had a sort of Spanish Catholic who stopped and was signing the cross and really encouraging afterwards.
00:07:48
Speaker
For me, it's just remembering about the one, you know, there just could be one person and they might not even stop either. They might wander past, but they know that God was speaking them in that moment. That really excites me. His word never returns void. So there's one example. There are plenty of others. But yeah, that's how I do it.
Advice for New Evangelists
00:08:06
Speaker
Dom, that's incredible. I'm sitting here listening to this story and I think
00:08:10
Speaker
a part of me is elated and another part of me is just terrified. I imagine if you what kind of responses you usually get in that if if you okay how what advice would you give me as someone who's quite happy to do street evangelism to the extent that you know you might have a question on a board and you're inviting people into that space rather than
00:08:36
Speaker
wonderfully. It sounds very beautifully as well. Singing Amazing Grace just spontaneously. What kind of advice would you give someone who's starting out on more of the, that's quite a, I'm moving into your space rather than inviting somebody to move into mine. How would you, what top tips do you have to get started? I mean, I wouldn't even know where to begin. I think I'd feel a bit embarrassed just singing in the street.
00:09:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question, Kristy. I think, you know, I remember when I first did a street mission just like the one you were explaining and I was on the Kings Road in London and I stood by McDonald's with my hand out with a tract in it and I was terrified. And I think a lot of it is like you've just got to start somewhere and bit by bit die. I mean, when I take people out on the streets,
00:09:28
Speaker
I say that, you know, I try and say that love, gospel love looks like two things. It looks like showing up, a lot of the time you just got to get out there and that's 80% of the battle. You got off your sofa, whatever, you turned up and you were there. And then the last 20% or if percentage is the right way of putting it is just dying to the flesh, dying to yourself. There's a guy who really inspires me called Baxter of Kidderminster.
00:09:57
Speaker
He might have heard of him. He was a revivalist, a kind of circuit rider a couple of centuries back. And he would say, I preached as though never sure to preach again and as a dying man to dying men.
00:10:09
Speaker
And I try and remind myself that today is a gift and if this was the last day we were on the planet, how would you really live and would you really care what people thought? And so some of it just is a death to self and reputation and just encouraging people, be a fool for Christ. Remember, take on the fear of God and not the fear of man and just embrace these things, hold them to your chest.
00:10:35
Speaker
And bit by bit, step out. So for me, I remember when I first preached, it was in Soho, London, I'd avoided it for four years, because I'd know I knew I was called these God has been speaking to me about these old revivalists, he'd been speaking to me about the unction and the anointing to preach, which he'd given me. But I just I just thought street preaching is just, it's just embarrassing. And I had in my mind, I had this picture of the slightly unhinged
00:11:04
Speaker
Christians who dress badly and put people off God and the church kind of hates them. Not only have I lost a lot of my hedonist friends when I got saved, now I'm going to lose my Christian friends. I'll end up with no friends.
00:11:20
Speaker
And so, you know, that was my rather narrow-minded understanding of street preaching in the 20th, 21st century. But one night a girl, we were in a bar and I was with some Christian friends. She just said, look, Dom, do it. And I just knew it was God speaking through this particular person. And so the next day I got up in Soho and I preached. And it was a bit of a mess, but I got some stuff out there. God loves you. Jesus is real. And bit by bit, you grow.
00:11:50
Speaker
I would encourage people to take a scripture, take a John 3.16. You don't have to go on a ladder, you don't have to on a stepladder or a soapbox. You could start, and all the time I'll be on a bus, I'll be on the top deck of a bus and I'll just say, excuse me everyone, sorry to bother, a bit strange, but I feel like someone needs to hear this verse from the Word of God.
00:12:14
Speaker
and you know, one person will look up, one person will look at their shoes, someone else will, you'll get a whole mix of reactions but just hold on to the fact that most of the time everyone's listening and I'll give them the verse, I might tag on my testimony.
Societal Challenges for Evangelists
00:12:27
Speaker
I try and tag on my testimony a lot because
00:12:30
Speaker
There's something about telling your story that everyone really, really listens to. And also it makes you vulnerable. When you talk about your own journey and your own brokenness and sin and what Jesus has done for you, it's very hard for someone to look at you in that moment and go, well, you're holier than thou, you're judging me. You're actually coming alongside. And that's a great way of building bridges. And so on some level, there are some keys. I mean, another thing I've got for people who are a bit more radical,
00:13:00
Speaker
I have a pickup truck. It's like a standard farm yard pickup truck, which I've actually done up now.
00:13:08
Speaker
I'll drive that into somewhere or into a marketplace or a high street and you can stand off the back of that and tell stories, read poetry, whatever. I saw someone the other day, I was preaching actually in London yesterday and he just had his speaker out and he had someone reading the Bible. He didn't say anything, he just had the word of God being read out and actually it was quite,
00:13:34
Speaker
effective. So there's all sorts of ways to start and I think the best thing to do is just start. I love the just starting thing actually because it's interesting before we recorded the podcast I was on a call with
00:13:50
Speaker
quite well known evangelist called J. John. We hope to get J. John onto the, he's promised to come onto the podcast at some point. I know, I know. There's a story he told me. He told me that one of the things he loves to do is to give people their first opportunity. He was telling me the story of someone, I won't mention the name, but someone who is now quite a well-known
00:14:09
Speaker
evangelist and he and because J. John's been going for years and he said you know they were doing university mission and he come across this this this person he said I thought they needed to be preaching the gospel so I just walked up to them and said you're doing lunch lunchtime talk tomorrow and this guy was like you gotta be kidding I can't do that and John's yeah you can yeah you can give it a go and he said it was a bit rough and then after that I went to him and said that was really good you could improve a few things improve them you're doing tomorrow
00:14:31
Speaker
Now, that guy who would have never, up till that point, stepped onto a podium is now, you know, being used by, is being used, you know, every day to do amazing things for Christ. I love your points about sometimes we just need to step up. But, Dom, I want to press into that a little bit. Why, why is it, have we become afraid? Because there was more of this. I cut my teeth at speaker's corner on a ladder
00:14:52
Speaker
in the late 1990s, it was totally terrifying when I first did it. I don't think it actually got much easier, actually. It was always every time I got up was fear and trembling, lots of prayer. But we do seem to become much more sort of on the back foot. Is there some deeper reasons going on there around lack of confidence, do you think?
00:15:13
Speaker
I think absolutely there are deeper reasons. I think we're in a time spiritually, socially, politically as a nation where we have moved beyond Christendom. We no longer live in a kind of quote unquote Christian country. So things that would actually have gone over quite well or certainly been harmless like preaching the gospel 20 years ago are now more polemic and incendiary and
00:15:43
Speaker
you know, we have a whole kind of work, we have things like the woke movement, you have progressivism, and you have all sorts of activism like LGBTQ, which puts genuine pressure on Christians. And there's a there's a lot of intimidation out there to actually speak the
00:16:04
Speaker
the message of the gospel or biblical language can get you in trouble. That's the day we're living in. You wear a cross, you might get fired from being a nurse, and you hear these stories, and that will put people off. Well, it's certainly the enemy wants to put us off, wants to silence us, wants to muzzle the proclamation of the gospel.
00:16:26
Speaker
And so I think that that's definitely played a role. You know, you actually you even see it in church buildings. People and people who run churches are worried about how they how they present the gospel. Should they update words? What can they say? And things like the message of repentance being watered down. But the fact remains is that actually this isn't anything new. I mean, it's been going on like a roller coaster throughout history, really.
00:16:54
Speaker
And so my encouragement to people is now more than ever, does the church need to be bold? Does the church need to return to the word of God and the fear of God? And actually really takes stock of the fact that that fear of man, that man pleasing spirit that has crept in, that's not only crept into the church, but it's a general, the political correctness is all formed, it's all built on the fear of man.
00:17:23
Speaker
And so we need to shun that, we need to throw it off, we need to put it under our feet and actually really embrace the fear of God, the privilege and the responsibility of preaching the gospel. Come what may, whether it lands us in trouble, whether the police get involved, whether we get called a bigot, whatever it is, we really need to do stock in our own lives and die. You know, Paul said, I don't mean physically die, but be prepared to do that. You know, Paul said, I've been crucified with Christ.
00:17:50
Speaker
Jesus said, whoever desires to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross. If you try and find your life, you'll lose it. If you lose your life, you'll find it.
The Church's Role in Society
00:17:58
Speaker
And I believe it's our finest hour. I really do. I believe that all that is going on now, the swirl in society, even with COVID and the lockdown, I really believe it's almost like the table is being laid for those who really know the way, the truth and the life, who really have the true God.
00:18:19
Speaker
Forgive me, I don't mean to sound offensive, but not the NHS, not COVID, not the government, they aren't Lord. And actually we have the Lord and actually the church needs to step forward in this hour, in the power of God, in trusting that He has gone before us and lead the way.
00:18:45
Speaker
I just, I love your sense of preaching here. You can hear it in your tone and your voice right now, Dom. Thank you so much. What a passion you have for this. I, yeah, Andy cut his teeth at Speakers Corner. I was in Birmingham for 13 years and this, you can't help but walk down New Street and you'll see kind of Muslim friends over here and there'll be a live reading of the Quran perhaps over a loudspeaker and then they'd usually be kind of,
00:19:12
Speaker
Some Christians over here, some of them would be having a sign held up that said, you know, the end is nigh. And it's this real mishmash of these street evangelists. And to the point that actually I think I felt quite overwhelmed by it in the way that I just thought, gosh, is this actually achieving anything? It's just people shouting really loudly.
00:19:33
Speaker
when everyone else is trying to go about their day. You're intruding on my space. What I'd love to hear Dom is, is there an abiding encouragement or a story where you've seen God just move really powerfully and beautifully as you've
00:19:51
Speaker
It sounds like you've been very gentle and very wise in the way in which you've engaged with others. Is there an abiding encouragement that continues to sit on your heart as to how God spoke to someone or reached them through your public proclamation of the Gospel?
Effective Evangelism Strategies
00:20:07
Speaker
Good question. I totally hear what you're saying, Christie, about the sort of minefield of messaging that's going on. There's so much out there right now. There's so many people with a message that it's almost like, well, I can't add another one, surely. And I think that's a real, I think that, I think again, the enemy would use that to put us off going out there. For those who are listening right now, who really feel that grace of God on you to go out and preach, you know,
00:20:35
Speaker
Don't let it, don't let anything stop you. I really mean that from the bottom of my heart. There are some of you who are called and God has graced you and the enemy wants to stifle that and just start. But to speak to your question, Chrissy, or yeah, I would say that...
00:20:51
Speaker
You know, love never fails. I say to people, love never fails. And if you, Ephesians 4.15 is a big verse for me, preaching, we grow up, we mature by learning to preach the truth in love. And those two things together, taking the gospel and if your heart is in love. And so I say to people, have a healthy relationship with God and with people and with your church before, if you're going to do this.
00:21:19
Speaker
because you are going to, there will be a bit of pushback, but there are a lot of people who can, whether they're Christians or not, they can smell love. They can smell whether you've loved them. So, you know, sounding gong and, you know, you're out there with a sign or trying to outbeat the Muslims, whatever that, that's not a good start. It's not a good look. Find a different place or just keep your love on, you know, get to that place where
00:21:46
Speaker
You're out there because you really are in a loving intimate relationship with the Lord. My secret place has to be really strong for me to be... I hope I'm not making this confusing. Have the first commandment first. Have a healthy first love relationship with God and then the second commandment always flows well out of that.
00:22:08
Speaker
And so you could speak for 15 seconds and out speak every other person on that high street if you speak the truth in love. I would say another thing is a tool that I use is I have this sign which says ask any question. Now that, you know, that takes a bit of courage because some people will want to try and trip you up and prove you wrong. But it's a way of holding your hands open and saying,
00:22:34
Speaker
I'm willing to have you ask questions and actually some of you don't want to just be spoken to. You want to ask something and this is a two-way thing and I'm inviting you into a conversation here. So that's another thing you can do. But the main thing I would say to people is
00:22:55
Speaker
Don't be tripped up on some of the off-putting phrases like, people don't want to be preached at. I get that there's a truth in that, but when I go out there, I'm not preaching at people. I'm making sure I'm
00:23:16
Speaker
coming from a place of love, and I'm simply speaking the truth, and I'm allowing God to do what only He can do. It's not for me to try and prove anyone wrong or save people. I can't do that. And that's really important for the evangelists to remember. It's the Lord who convicts, it's the Lord who saves, and He does so using this means of preaching the gospel.
00:23:38
Speaker
Don, thank you. What a beautiful note to finish on. Keep your love on. Thank you so much. It's been a joy speaking with you these past 20 minutes. Andy is ever wonderful joining you. I'm afraid we're going to have to bring it to an end now. So listeners, thank you so much for listening. We look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks' time. But until then, thank you, Don. Thanks again, Andy. And we'll see you soon. Thanks, Kristy.