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Evangelism Tips from the St. Patrick’s Day Parade

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We tried something new at our local St. Patrick’s Day parade—and it was highly effective: Hand out tracts and preach to the people who will be marching in the parade before it starts! At most small town parades people don’t arrive until about 15 minutes beforehand. So, you may as well do something constructive with your evangelism team while you wait…

…like preach to the beer ad marchers. That’s what “Mad Mike” Stockwell did (at my urging).

As you can see they were held in rapt attention, barely able to stand upright before dropping to their knees in repentance.

You can also climb aboard the ubiquitous double-decker bus that is in every parade—and hand out tracts to the riders (like “Mad Mike” Stockwell did—on his own initiative.

You can also do more creative things, like these…

Give Gospel tracts to funny looking guys with green hair!

…even hand a tract to Bud Man!

Ridiculous you say? Is the hope of a happy eternity foolishness? All these people have to do is read about their desperate condition before God. (It doesn’t matter if they believe the good news at the time you deliver it. Remember, you are there to plant seeds and water seeds; it’s God’s job to save.) They may eventually repent of their sin and put their hope in Jesus Christ.

At the very least, they may just put your tract on their parade vehicle—for others to read and believe!

R. A. Torrey (1856-1928)wrote this a hundred or so years ago in his excellent article “The Use of Tracts” : A tract will often succeed in winning a man to Christ where a sermon or a personal conversation has failed. There are a great many people who, if you try to talk with them, will put you off; but if you put a tract in their hands and ask God to bless it, after they go away and are alone they will read the tract and God will carry it home to their hearts by the power of the Holy Ghost.

One of our students wrote me in great joy of how he had at last succeeded in winning a whole family for Christ. He had been working for that family for a long time but could not touch them. One day he left a tract with them,and God used that tract for the conversion of four or five members of the family.

Another student held a cottage meeting at a home, and by mistake left his Bible there. There was a tract in the Bible. When he had gone, the woman of the house saw the Bible, picked it up, opened it, saw the tract and read it. The Spirit of God carried it home to her heart, and when he went back after the Bible she told him she wanted to find the Lord Jesus Christ. The tract had done what he could not do in personal work.

I once received a letter from a man saying, “There is a man in this place whom I tried for a long time to reach but could not. One day I handed him a tract, and I think it was to the salvation of his whole family.

Read my article
“The 12 Step Program for Parade Preaching”
to get more tips on how to effectively
evangelize your local parade by clicking here!

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