[A.W. Bowman]

Generally, it is not effective. For several reasons.

First, it is a shotgun approach. Unlike with the apparent N.T. approach, street corner preaching does not have a context of a relationship from which one can share a common reference. This usually requires sometime to develope.

Second, people seldom just "hang out" on a street corner, they are moving from one place to another location for a purpose and there is usually a time frame for their trip to be accomplished.

Yet, if just one soul can be reached through a street ministry, is the effort and thousands of disappointments not worth it? Look at all of the people Jesus has lost in His ministry over the years! If we lived to be a thousand, we could not match His failures. However, even in our own failures, what if you should reach that one individual whom God has called and ordained to actually evangelize a great segment of the world? Would not your ministry then be classified as a success? Perhaps this is why we are usually not given to know the results of our ministries, so we don't become spiritually complacent or simply live on our former accomplishments (becoming prideful).