Andrew Rappaport Speaks at Manti June 2018

I'm with striving for Turing ministries and we're deciding ministry so there's some resources in the back I'll mention maybe later but you know I have one of the more controversial topics in the book sharing the good news of Mormons so let me start it this way and I check what it should do startling my own clock because yeah sure so uh you know I I recently saw a video I don't know if you guys have if any of you saw this it was it was I was amazing I watched adult men grab and young children by the feet grabbing some by their arms swinging them around knocking them down and I you know if you're like me think man how could it grow them into at the infant like two three four year old kids to all of a sudden you realize then you can go search on this I was gonna play but they're really too long go search dads saving the day and you see a father grabbing a child that's falling out of a tree by its own where its leg immediately we think when I first described your going how can an adult man do that to a child and yet the reality is to save that child's life it's only a good thing isn't it suddenly what we might think how that didn't sound so good well the child could have you know there's one where you actually see the father's you know running down a hill after it there in the little car and then it's like grabs the baby right out of the way it's fun to watch those so but if I put that video up here you'd be totally distracted watching that but you know I have a chapter on open-air evangelism now in there I say it's not open-air preaching it's not street preaching have any of you seen street preachers what do you think of them okay hold you hold your tongues I agree with you most of the people that I see on the streets do a horrible job representing Jesus Christ and I'm saying this as a well-known street preacher okay I don't like the way I do it in New York City okay so I get to deal with a lot of great entertainment while preaching I get to guys and do tutus dancing in front of me it's entertaining but the reality is is that when we do this it has a very very negative effect the reason I call it open-air evangelism is because I want to distinguish myself it's actually the term that I came up with in 84 before it really became or 94 before it became popular and I actually thought when we first came up with this book and and Eric mentioned yesterday you know that I was really pushing to get this published by publisher and get it to a broader audience and then also he sends out this letter we got a publisher and we just want some of you guys know that the editors the publishers take over and your chapter could become and I went I'm doing open air evasion there's no way my chapters making it I had I had Sean McDowell on my podcast you guys probably all listen to the rap report right that pod kid look I don't know if you have to listen to the rap report podcast to go to heaven but why take the chance I'm just saying and so I had Sean I was like I thought for sure you guys are gonna like be like cut this one like this is the most controversial topic and you know it is one that you end up seeing a lot of controversy over but the thing is I can reach more people in one hour of open-air preaching open-air evangelism then I can handing out tracts or doing one-to-one conversations if you get a good crowd you can reach a lot more people but here's the thing and you've already heard this if you if you were here last week and you heard you know Rob's of Oka's message if you've heard that the beforehand they're saying you know the great thing of open-air preaching open-air evangelism is not the guy that's usually up there standing on a box it's the gathering of the crowd for you guys to be able to share the gospel what I want to do is is give some practical things today there are some people that should not be doing open-air evangelism okay if you want to win a debate please don't open air if you want to show that you're prideful and you know more than someone else please find a different way like just hand out tracts and don't say anything okay because the reality is that we see those guys and they don't represent Christ well my goal is that we would be ambassadors of Christ before we win debates or were anything that we're gonna end up doing on the streets and so we we have to realize that we are representing Jesus Christ when we stand out on a street corner or you know here at Manti and we're gonna lift up our voice and proclaim the Word of God well we have to do is make sure work proclaiming the Word of God and not the words of us there's plenty of people that you see out there that want to be known I've seen the guys that are giving out their YouTube channel when they're doing open air and they want to make sure they get the hits to their YouTube channel where all they're doing is doing the open air I don't care if anyone remembers my name on the street I do care if they know Jesus Christ that's important so I want to give some some practical things now you heard earlier today the mentioning of the fact that it's how do we get into good conversations what I want to do with you and we will do this live and they'll be a lot of fun I am known for doing something that I do it at conferences we run or on my podcast and I have been doing this for thirty years so I'm just saying if I if I happen to do well it's only because I have a lot of experience okay if I do bad it's because well I'm gonna do better I'm gonna ask any one of you to give me something so first person that hasn't something you think I cannot transition to the gospel some object some something a topic and I'm gonna stand in front of you and try to transition from whatever you give me to the gospel Seraphim she had her hand up pen Oh a toothbrush okay so here's the and the reason to do is I want you guys realize that would practice you can transition from anything even a toothbrush to the gospel so I've seen someone with the toothbrush how am I going to get to the gospel from a toothbrush well you know it's actually it's kind of easy because the reality is why do we use a toothbrush to clean your teeth but why because if the case we have decay happening every single night in her mouth don't that's why the first thing people want to do is brush their teeth to get rid of the odor that's there why is that because that is the effect of decay in the world and there's a reason we have decay in the world the reason we have decay in the world is because our federal head Adam chose to disobey God and because of that all of us have a sin nature we sit under god's judgment and we will be judged by God as appointed unto man wants to die and then the judgment do you think you're good enough to go to heaven from a toothbrush okay this is the thing we can all we can all do this with pride by the way for youth groups I do this in my church with the youth group and the thing is you and defining everyone else has their own way of transitioning but the where does that really help this is a practical thing when I do open-air I don't know what's gonna happen in front of me whether it's two guys in tutus or if it's gonna be as what happened at UConn and you just go look for a video you come professor goes ape you'll see convinced detainees what's input but I had I ended up having three guys doing a Jewish dance and I didn't hear it until I actually saw a video that they were trying to do it a dance and one guy says hey is there any other Jewish people out here what these guys didn't know is that the preacher was Jewish I knew the dance so I grabbed the ringleader and just started doing the dance with him it's a Russian dance where you kind of get down the proper way you get down real low and you keep your legs out if you've ever seen it but but I use that I don't work you know I have people that will do the most craziest things but I'm gonna take whatever they give me and transition it to the gospel and keep coming back to it and that's my goal over and over is not to you know the thing with open-air is to have a crowd okay and there's an effective way to get a crowd in an ineffective way in New York we used to have this guy his name's Greg and this is how he would start his open-air he get up and say hi my name is Greg I used to be a homosexual pig like you dogs now did he get a crowd oh yeah and you know what the guy that was had the permit you know he used to do my job was to follow him to calm the crowd down great that's really what I want to do but the reality is is that there's a different way of doing you don't they actually planned a riot because of him I say they planned it because the police were already there and and actually this one guy Robert who practices homosexuality actually grabbed me and dragged me away once Greg got up and I'm like dude what's up and he goes that and I look over my shoulder there was a whole mob scene I realized here isn't a guy who hates the Christian preachers yet he dragged me away and I said why he said I didn't want you to get hurt you see there was a thing of going to the same place year after you have been doing you Square in New York City going on 14 years now if any of you guys know some have been to Union Square and know what that's like you get every spiritual thing out there everyone's spiritual out there and the reality is is that what you end up saying is people who hate the gospel and yet by going year after year after year those people I've gotten to know and they will protect me why because the way that we conduct ourselves makes a difference you've heard it if you've got the book sharing the good with Mormons you're gonna see this over and over asking questions ok it's gonna be in my chapter whichever number it isn't forget but the thing you're gonna end up seeing is the power of questions is essential especially if you're going to do open air when you have someone that gives you a challenge I had a guy in New York that said there is no God because there's evil in the world now as a Christian do we have the answer to that does he have an answer to that you see he never thought about that so you know what I did I said excuse me but can you tell me how you can have evil without God I asked the question he goes well what's evil I said I didn't say it exists you did where am I putting all the burden on the guy that made the claim I said can you explain to me how you can have evil without God he's like well I don't know tell me what evil is I said ok evil is the opposite of good and good is defined by the nature of God so how can you have evil without God and he threw up his hands and walked out you know what he never had to deal with it because he just threw out the challenges but the question reversed the burden of proof and it made him actually have to think about things now want to do some things practical because when you do see a good open-air evangelist out there there's some things you can actually do to help I know some folks saw when when Aaron was was started doing some open air last night you know one of the best things you could do as Christians is not stand behind him but stand in front of him facing him you know why a crowd creates a crowd ok so if he's out there doing that tonight go and stand in front of them even take video of them that's fine cuz that gets people curious and what happens is then there it becomes a crowd and then you know what you do you just kind of work your way out of the crowd and get to the back of the crowd let them get closer there and what you do is one thing you don't want to do is if there's a person standing here and you want to ask them hey what do you think about what that guy is saying don't turn this way never turn where your back is to the preacher or your side it's the person up there you know why it ends up dividing the crowd but stand just turn your head and just say and the best part of someone that's doing open-air evangelism is that it makes it easy for you to transition because guess what who's never up there already did it for you and they don't even have to know that you're with them you could sit there I was I would have one time where we sat there and talking to this Muslim guy and I said what do you think about that guy saying he's telling me he's a Muslim why he's disagreeing and I start talking to him and we're having a whole conversation and then all of a sudden my buddy Candice says Andrew you're right I mean that's one of the nice things you don't even have to pretend I mean during that that show that you're in agreeance with the guy that's doing the the proclamation you're just gathering that information and sharing the gospel and often you just go why I think what he sayings Remy's quote in the Bible there you hope he's quoting the Bible is right I mean it gives you where you're just you're just starting that conversation one of the things I always tell people is that evangelism is a conversation not a presentation the person you're speaking to will figure out which one you're doing very quickly okay if you're just there to give a presentation I got my points you know you'll see they have their eyes starting away like how do I get out of here quickly right they don't want to be there you know it's always amazing as I had one person who once that he's so I really got to go because I got my my girlfriend's waiting for me 45 minutes later I'm like you know you girlfriend's gonna be yelling at you later right why an enjoyable conversation you know the thing we want to do is let the gospel be the offense and not us we should be doing everything we can to get ourselves out of the way of being an offense and and I use humor to do that now I have an advantage over you guys one of the things I found is that making fun of yourself really does ease their their defensive this and it somehow dilutes people into thinking that you're a very humble person now I have that advantage over most of you because I have a lot of material on stupid things I do and therefore I have lots to draw from you guys don't have as much I understand but but the thing is you want to use humor you want to keep the conversation light hearted you know I'll sit there and I'll have a person say I'll ask them have you ever stolen something and they'll say yeah so what does that make you and they'll say a stealer that's a football team in Pittsburgh right you know so you can you can use things like that now I have told that joke probably a thousand times you know they've heard at once so you know we want it we want to realize when we do stuff like this as a crowd we want to be sensitive to the person who's up there now if I'm up there and as we said earlier in the intent of the guidelines for amantha is you know not to interrupt not to steal someone away don't interrupt someone else's conversation you really don't want to do that with me because I play dumb it comes natural I'm very skilled at it but I play dumb if you get great vocals book tactics he'll talk about the Columbo tactic it's it's butylated is the most fun because you can play dumb and pretend like you don't know anything and let them be the teacher and just ask question after question after question you get them I there was a guy in Montclair State University he's like well see a problem is the Bible was edited in the 1500s and they replace it took all the Bibles they collected him everywhere in the world and they collected them and they place them with an edited copy no no I may not be the smartest guy but I'm not sure how exactly that works look let's look at I think is school newspaper for an example it turns out he was the photographer the paper great eleven hundred copies get produced that morning at 11 o'clock I said we were to collect all of the copies of the school paper where would we go he was blown right there in the pile so where else you know he's like whoa dorm rooms where else people's cars where else I kept going until he finally said the trash cuz oppression of the greatest place to find me all right someone edit it guess what happens they don't they're not gonna edit the ones that he put in the trash right so we're going through a nice okay if I wanted to do this I'm gonna take these wouldn't I have to collect all of these and then replace them with an edited copy I said how could I do that because we you couldn't do that I said but this was just produced at eleven o'clock today I mean you're talking about a Bible that they supposedly edited fifteen hundred years later where we have you know just in the Greek six or seven thousand copies actually nowadays that the newer number is about eight thousand manuscripts from all over the world how could that have happened he goes you know this isn't making much sense to me I said you know it wasn't making sense to me I'm glad we have brain and I could play dumb and so I will do that because you know the reality is is that when you're up there doing open air that helps keep a crowd there keeps them entertained it there is an element for the crowd that they are not there to learn about where they're gonna spend eternity they're there to be entertained okay don't do entertainment for entertainment sake we're not there to entertain them but we do use that there's there's things that you'll have where people will do things that you can't wait a guy who and you can transcend what the there's a YouTube video that we have the demon-possessed heckler is what it's called and there's a guy will and he said where there's a will there's a will and he said where there's a will there's a way that's how he's gonna get to heaven you know will was he was strange I'll just leave it that told me afterwards news demon-possessed had five demons in him God the Father Jesus the Holy Spirit Muhammad and Allah okay so yeah so he he was just erratic but you know what every time I just go hey hey hey where there's a will there's way you'd see him calm down cuz that silly little humor you want to use things like that some things to help with open air if you're gonna do it is elevate okay you want to elevate yourself there's a couple reasons one it actually acts as protection okay now sometimes you'll get the claim someone will say well here just sleep you're above us okay when I get that claim I say no I just I just want to be heard I said you're probably and it says to all to feel a long time you may be a far more moral person than me but it's not my morality that gets me heaven I'm not above you morally I'm not above you but we don't get to heaven we get a right state with God from our morals and so elevating helps it helps to get your voice heard one of the other things that helps is well sit-ups help anyone's been in the military running while having to do Cadence's helps because whether you end up do is you want to you want to speak from your diaphragm now your voice right now speaking from my voice I'm gonna step back from the mic I hope not to blow his mic but now I'm gonna speak from my diaphragm I'm a lot louder or night I've actually had the police called on me for amplifying officer comes over you have to stop everything sir I can't sir I have a lung inator I just can't take it out you know repres University we had it we had the police officer was out there and and they we had an off-duty officer who went over to talk to these on duty officer and the call actually came in look we know he's amplifying they're hearing him three buildings away no he's looking right out and he has no amplification he's just that lab Brown University a friend of mine Scott Smith was he was running he doesn't outreach to all the Ivy League's each year and I was with them and the police tell us we had to stop amplifying and Scott says well officer can we get as loud as we want as long as we don't amplify he goes short so Scott calls me over Andrew Europe we want you get as loud as you can get and I'm like looking at those like yeah you're getting me in trouble right you're trying to set me up to get arrested today is that it so I'm like officer I can't get as loud as I want you go short so I start preaching the officer actually admitted that I was louder than the amplification but he figured I was the only one that could get that laugh oh you know what practice you can I mean you got a mirror I do this on a weekly basis so I build up the muscles to do that preaching from the diaphragm helps being able to speak where you're pushing the air up you can actually go the longest I have done open air is three and a half straight hours the only reason I could go that long is because I was preaching from the diaphragm if I'm speaking for my voice I probably last about maybe an hour maybe because it starts getting dry you start and then you're all hoarse it the next day so learning how to speak and and you know where you're pushing the air up is gonna help hate this way but yes it ups do help with that helps build your diaphragm muscles one of the things also I really want to encourage if anyone does want to try this is you need to be respectful to the and one of the most important ways to be respectful is to answer the questions now I can answer any question that you have about God in the Bible I can because I think I don't know is a perfectly good answer and I say it all I don't know you didn't answer my question sure I did I just answer it I don't know but I'll try to find the answer for you give me your email address oh don't you want the answer to your question you know when you do that people are so like they also now the crowd realizes oh wait he's really just challenging that guy he doesn't really have questions for that guy okay I have two goals when I do open air and okay I'll admit this I'm gonna get myself in trouble is it being recorded the editors kind of softening it I understand I have two goals one I want to proclaim the gospel unadulterated I don't want to water it down in any way but I have a second goal I want to get one professing atheist to tell another professing atheist to shut up that wasn't worded that way in the book they soften the last part but that's my goal I want to get someone who hates the message of the gospel to tell another person to shut up why because I want to show so much respect to the people you know one of the things I do to manage your crowd and show respect at the same time you'll get several people shouting at you and I'll usually turn to whoever was you know asked the question first if it sees me can you she asked the question first show some respect right what am i doing masking him to show respect to her but mostly I've seen the whole crowd to do that and what someone else will shout out can you wait your turn this person is asking a question he's he was here first or he was waiting and I'm just taking the morning-time you know it keeps it from having everyone shouting at you but it also shows respect and gets the crowd to see it you're trying to show respect to them you're trying to answer their questions so that's a really important thing to do you never want to interrupt Hepler if someone if you have one person that is heckling the preacher let the preacher deal with it if you have an experienced preacher if you're trying this and you don't know how to handle the heckler the easiest thing to do is this is why you always want to have multiple people with you okay the easiest thing to do is I had a friend of mine Robert he didn't want to have to deal on a college campus with the issue of homosexuality publicly okay so what did he do he just turned so it said what do you think about homosexuality he goes hey my friend and Rober he'd love to talk to you about it I did not want to love to talk about but hey he'll talk to you what do you do just push that guy right off now I'm in a one-on-one conversation it's not there for you know for everyone now that the preacher who's up there on the back he doesn't have to deal with it right and so that's something you can do but there's times where you want to have a heckler there are some hecklers that by ignoring them they build a crowd they were they're there to be heard I was just that in Cleveland and we had this it just happened to be after we planned it anyway it wasn't because they had a guy gay pride parade but they had a gay pride parade when we're doing our event and so we're out there okay there was one gentleman that by ignoring him man he got louder and louder and louder and built the crowd bigger and bigger and bigger and then I finally answered his questions okay he really didn't have a very intelligent question he didn't actually know the material that he was going over you want to talk about the gospel of Mary Magdalene he didn't realize that I actually studied somewhat that and so he didn't quite realize I knew more than him which wasn't so good for me but the thing is is that one of the advantages of being able to learn some of these practical things with doing this is you'll be able to gather people to listen to the proclamation of gospel you make it easier for the people who are with you to share the gospel one-on-one or hand out tracts now you don't want if there's a big crowd you don't want to enter Jack and cut someone off there are some people who will listen to someone proclaiming God's Word but we'll never have a one-on-one conversation with you and will not take a gospel tract so be sensitive to that I watched in New York one gentleman for three hours who is watching each of the different guys get up and do the open-air evangelism and soon as the first person went to give the guy a gospel tract the guy left so there are going to be people like that so what you do is you kind of stay on the outside and look for the people that and you can watch if you like people watching you'll love doing open-air evangelism it's great so what you do is you just watch it you'll see the people that start peeling off look for the person that's just about to leave the crowd and go to that person then get go hand them a tract because they're already getting ready to leave ok so those would be some things that I wanted to give you guys just some practical things that are not in the book because I expect that all of you got the book sharing the good news with Mormons ok let me try that again so you're all going to go in the back and buy from a Mormon research ministry today the book sharing the good news and warrens you read my chapter you if you listen to the message that was that Rob did last week he covered some of this as well I want to I want to leave you with a couple of resources so you have them tomorrow tomorrow you really want to make sure you're here because you know Sandra Tanner speaking yeah don't worry because Mac slick speaking so you're gonna get an app ok everyone bring their pillows anyone who done has not seen Maude and I together when we get together you'll understand actually just tell Matt I said that and you'll it'll be fun but but he needs two bells by the way just saying the but here he's gonna talk on biblical reliability okay I have a book in the back it'd be more updated information than anything Matt's gonna have he's just gonna start off and then just wander around on different topics so I have a book back there what do they what do we believe it is a Christian systematic theology great for people who don't want the really thick books on systematic theology and basic 'its it's not just a starter but also for reference for people but I really think the second chapter and that on biblical reliability is one of the most important ones because of the fact that this is a topic we're dealing with whether were you dealing with Mormons atheists almost anybody it doesn't believe that the Bible can be trusted today and the other book I have back there is what would they believe which is a systematic theology of the major Western religions it's going to go over Judaism my background it'll do with Catholicism Islam Mormonism Jehovah Witness Christianity it's going to look at six doctrines from their resources it's gonna look at what's their view of their authority the view of God's Trinity dd-do Christ man's sinfulness salvation and then where it's the eternal State and so the reason I put that one together is because most people misrepresent other people's views I didn't want that so what did I do I actually wrote these books I went to Imams I went to different people and said am i accurate and what you believe okay so the Mormon personally I gave it to said what we really we don't really save this but isn't what you actually believe well we don't like people to know that yeah it's staying in the buckets okay so if you have questions about doing open-air evangelism if you know I encourage you not to go on youtube for examples they're probably wrong but you could you could contact me or you could go to livingwaters.com and they have a ray it does a great job along with his team and get bring a good example to have it there so thanks for your time [Applause] you

Channel: Eric Johnson

Views: 270

Rating: 4.3333335 out of 5

Keywords: sharing the good news with mormons, andrew rappaport, open air evangelism

Id: ucJx7MSbdCE

Length: 30min 47sec (1847 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 07 2018