Christians with bullhorns?

Over the weekend, I went with some friends to a sporting event. Typically, prior to the start of the game there's a fun, family-friendly celebration a few blocks away, complete with marching bands, fight songs, and cheering. Then the crowd marches to the stadium, singing the fight songs and waving their flags and banners. It's a lot of fun and like I said, it's generally family friendly.

At the main entrance to the stadium, there were about 2-3 groups of Christians holding signs with things like "Jesus Saves", "Repent", "All Unsaved are in Danger of Hellfire", etc. Now, I've seen this sort of thing many times before, but this weekend I saw something kinda new to me. There were two people who had bullhorns and were standing and shouting about Jesus, and there was one guy who had a HUGE speaker strapped to his shoulders and waist, and he used an attached mic to absolutely BLAST his words over the area. I mean, this guy's speaker was so loud, you couldn't talk to the person next to you without shouting. He kept marching up and down in front of the stadium the whole time the pre-game celebration was going on.

Not only that, but the effect of that many people shouting through bullhorns and speakers was to turn it all into unintelligible noise. Basically, they were shouting over each other so much, you couldn't really tell what they were saying, other than "Jesus", "Christ", "Hell", and a few other words.

And you know what the effect of all this was? It really, really ticked everyone off. I watched the faces of people in the area, and everyone was shooting dirty looks at the bullhorn/speaker people. Some people tried to yell back at them, but you could barely hear them. Kids were putting their hands over their ears!!

As our group got a little farther away, it seemed every group around us was talking about the bullhorn/speaker people. I heard a lot of "Why don't they just shut up?", "We just want to watch a game!", "Why do they have to do that?", and whooooooooooooooole bunch of really nasty things about Jesus and Christians. One of my friends and I tried to say something to a person about how not all Christians are like that, but everyone was at such a high level of irritation and stress from the shouting, no one was open to what we wanted to say.

So the overall result of the bullhorn/speaker Christians? IMO, they turned a lot of people off to Christianity, including I'd bet a bunch of kids who now think of "jerks with bullhorns" when they hear the word "Christian".

Anyone else ever see anything like this? Anyone here ever been one of the bullhorn people?

I'm still a little stunned by the whole thing.

So sports are evil, eh?

williemac said:

Good question. But I fear that our friend has missed the more important thing. We are called to go into all the world. His opinion is that it was a waste of time, as the people rejected the message. But here is the point of the OP. It was not the message that was offensive, even though the turn or burn theme is not what really we are called to present. What was offensive to them was the method. In my observation I have seen people turn away from God, not because of the rejection of His love, but because they are experiencing anything but. As Paul put it, without love, some things are nothing but a loud noise.

Click to expand...

Very well put!

Suhar said:

What are the things that are useless, mindless, pointless, waste time and money and make people obsess over latest "star", "celebrity athlete" and latest score? You tell me.

Click to expand...

In my experience, sports are anything but useless, pointless, or a waste of time and money. It's a way to stay fit, make friends, have fun, and even share the Gospel, especially with kids.

Mr.Bride said:

Hey River, you said everyone. That's a lie. Everyone wasn't ticked off and shooting dirty looks.
By the way; you guys start some weird topics.

Click to expand...

Everyone I saw was clearly irritated (except those actually doing the yelling). I deliberately watched as many people as I could to see their reactions to the bullhorn Christians. Not only that, you should have heard the comments people were making as they escaped the shouting zone and could finally talk among themselves. Let's just say most of them I can't post here. Sadly, many were along the lines of "Christians are such idiots".

aspen said:

yeah, seems antisocial to me rather than loving. it is almost as if these preachers purposely invite rejection as a justification for their message.

Click to expand...

That's a good point. It's like what we talked about earlier, where I think some Christians take scriptures about being hated/persecuted to mean that if people don't hate them, they aren't doing enough, so they strap loudspeakers to themselves and irritate as many people as they can. Then at the end of the day they say to themselves, "Boy, there was a lot of hate at me today! I must be doing it right!"

You know, it wasn't so much their turn or burn message that I had a problem with (although I don't really agree with that approach either). As I said to my friend, "They could have been shouting about how wonderful cookies and puppies are, and people would still come away hating them". It was the volume and the lack of respect for the people around them that was the problem.

KingJ said:

Something has to be missing that River is not sharing. No sane Christian would be unreasonable and intentionally disrupt you enjoying a sporting event. You telling me nobody could go up to them and politely ask them to keep quiet? Sure, pull the next finger.

Click to expand...

Oh great, KingJ shows up to basically accuse me of lying. What a shock.

A lot of people were trying to get them to shut up, in a lot of different ways. I saw a couple of men go up to them and say something to them (no one could hear what they said over the noise of the bullhorn/speakers), but the bullhorn Christians ignored them and kept shouting. The men turned to their group, threw up their hands, and walked away. So it looked to me like they were trying to say something along the lines of "will you please shut up".

But as the celebration group started marching towards the stadium, the guy with the enormous speaker started walking towards them/with them. When he started doing that, a couple of younger guys started following him, making obscene gestures behind him. The speaker Christian ignored him and kept going, until finally one guy just got in his face and started screaming f-bombs at him. The police had to get the two of them apart and the loudspeaker Christian just turned and walked the other way, still shouting.

I saw moms and dads with kids yelling at the bullhorn Christians, but I'm sure they couldn't hear them over their own noise.

Overall, it was ridiculously clear to anyone who was there that the consensus mood of the crowd was "we don't like these people and want them to shut up". So there was no need to "ask them to be quiet"....that much was already obvious.

This is nothing more then a lame attempt at discrediting Christians from public speaking.

Click to expand...

:wacko: You are one bizarre dude KingJ.

If what Rivers says is true...well then lets see what the consequences are....to a Christian....'what would be going through my mind is...well these guys are loud, but boy oh boy, what a good bunch of people who care about me. Taking time-out from their busy life to share with me'. I would tolerate the noise and approach them in peace.

Click to expand...

Everyone's different I guess.

An unsaved person would not discern beyond their nose and exaggerate the event. Any preaching would be a noise.

Click to expand...

Well, you seem to not be paying attention to what I'm saying and are just looking for something to argue with me about.

Christianity is known to make people sane, calm and peacefull. Their zeal / appearance of noise is grabbing attention in love for our soul....IOW they WOULD keep quiet if you thought they were being too loud!!!!!...unless you are a liar / being pedantic about the noise because you saw some people shake their heads at Christians.

Even Freddy would move out the way and give you a chance to watch a sporting event. I bet against River's full disclosure.

Click to expand...

You crack me up KingJ. Sometimes I wonder what's happened to you to turn you into this sort of person.