Hampton Beach is a GREAT place to put into practice reaching out to the Lost with compassion, urgency and love.
The town of Hampton has a fireworks show most Wednesday nights in the summer, so lots of people gather for that. The fireworks start at 9:30PM, and that gives a good two+ hours (7-9:30pm) of ministry time.
The Beach is a very easy place to get started in Evangelism. People tend to be friendly and open at the beach, though there are sometimes exceptions.
Days and Leaders:
There will be a Team, Lord willing, every night on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. 7-9pm.
Leader: Tuesdays and Thursdays…
Chip Davis
603-396-4152
Leader: Wednesdays and Fridays…
Chris McKinley
603-820-2714
The Leader needs at least one person to help with the equipment to and from their car and to watch the equipment should someone need to use the restrooms. So please let the Leader know you’re coming ahead of time so he doesn’t cancel.
Your Job:
Whatever you’re comfortable with! You can watch. You can pray silently. You can hand out gospel tracts. You might even start up a Gospel conversation!
Where:
226 Ocean Blvd, Hampton, NH
To see the location on Google Maps, click here: https://goo.gl/maps/S74HJGqSTKJ2
Give yourself plenty of extra time for parking!!!
Directions:
Here’s the "Bandstand" you’ll drive past. You’re ALMOST there!!!
- Drive 101 East all the way to the beach.
- Turn Right onto Route 1A/Ocean Blvd.
(The idea now is to turn around on Ocean BLVD to go North.)
- One way is to turn Left on D Street and then Left on Ocean BLVD, but there are many streets you can turn left onto to turn left onto Ocean BLVD.
- Once driving North on Ocean BLVD, drive past bandstand on the right. There might be a band playing there.
- I setup right across the street from the “JB’s Seafood” Restaurant. If you see JB’s on your left, then look to your right because I’ll be there. I setup my sketch board on the sidewalk on the right side so my back is facing the ocean and I’m looking at the Seafood restaurant. Sometimes we setup on the JB’s side of the street, near Sal’s Pizza and Blinkie’s Fried Dough.
Parking:
This is the spot where we setup!
It is $2/hour to park on the street, but very hard to find spots. Parking on the streets is by credit card only.
Perhaps the best place to park is the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom for a $10 flat fee (cash only). On busy nights, it can go up to $20 or even $30 (crazy, I know, but so so worth it!)
There is plenty of parking there and it’s very close to where we meet!
The address is:
169 Ocean Blvd, Hampton, NH.
(https://goo.gl/maps/sX6XH)
What The Leader Will Do:
Since this is a spot where there are lots of people walking by, we have found it very effective over the years to use our paint board to draw a crowd to listen to a gospel message.
Also effective is when we put up a riddle on the board and wait for people to stop and try to solve the riddle. We walk them through the riddle, and at the end it leads well into God’s plan of salvation.
As you can see, a large crowd often gathers to listen.
What You Do:
It’s not uncommon for many great one-on-one conversations to happen after the preaching!
Whatever you think God is asking you to do. If you just want to pray silently, that’s great! Your prayers are needed and watching will encourage you!
The first step would be to hand out gospel tracts. It’s that easy. Just pass them out with a smile as people walk by. You’ll get rejections, but you’ll get A LOT of people to take them and even thank you! If you’re not sure about gospel tracts, please read this post I made about them here: https://luke-15.org/tracts/Okay, so you gave out gospel tracts and didn’t die. So let’s go for the next step. You listen to the Open Air Preaching, and when it’s done, you say to the stranger next to you in the crowd, “Hi, I’m with him (the guy speaking.) What did you think about what he had to say? What do you think happens when you die?” And then you’re off on a Divinely-appointed Christ-centered conversation, where Jesus Himself is using you as an Ambassador for Jesus Christ!
If you want to ask people about the riddle and share the Gospel of Christ, that’s great too. No pressure. But you will be blessed to be there and you’ll be a blessing to the team too.
Be open to what the Holy Spirit can accomplish through you. I’ve seen a number of people who thought they’d never initiate a conversation with a stranger end up sharing Christ eloquently and lovingly once they saw the people!
The Pre-Evangelism Riddle:
Our large glow-in-the-dark riddle, painted with fluorescent paint, can be very effective to get into a Gospel conversation.
We’ve found that a glow-in-the-dark painting with riddles on it is an EASY WAY to get into a conversation with strangers.
As people walk by, they often slow down and even stop in front of the paint board and stare at the painting.
All we need to do is ask them, “So, can you figure it out?”
Sometimes they ask “how much does this cost?” We always tell them it is absolutely free.
Sometimes they ask what they’ll win if they get it right. I typically tell them I’ll give them a million dollars (and I show them one of my Million Dollar Bill gospel tracts.)
Please remember that the point is to transition to a Gospel conversation, not to make someone feel stupid! So if someone is struggling to get the right answer, don’t wait long to offer to help them. If they get it wrong, don’t shame them. Tell them lots of people get them wrong (which is true). The idea is that the person should have fun with this.
To help someone through the Pre-evangelistic Riddle, just say something like the following:
- Want to solve these riddles? Just figure out what comes next on each line.
- First we start out really easy. The first line, the red one, 1, 2, 3, what comes next? They say “4” and you congratulate them.
- Next line, a little harder, what comes next on the yellow line? Often people get this wrong by saying “0.” That’s a common mistake. If they say that, just kindly say, “not 0, a lot of people say that. What’s one half of 2?”
- Third line, a bit harder. What comes next on green? People often get stuck here. You might ask them, “Have you ever heard of the Fibonacci Sequence? It’s a mathematical pattern that nerdy people know about.” If they don’t get it quickly, point out (and use your finger to point at the numbers) “1 plus 1 is 2. 1 plus 2 is 3. 2 plus 3 is five. Soooooo, what’s 3 plus 5?”
- Now for the purple line. What comes next on that one? (You know what’s funny? I’ve found that older folks get this right away, but younger ones don’t. I have a theory that it’s because younger kids don’t use a paper calendar as much. Anyhow, it’s days of the week and the answer is W for Wednesday.)
- You’re doing great. What comes next on the next line? The answer is “Earth” but some people have a hard time coming up with that. They’ll guess Pluto, Mars, all kinds of answers. One hint I often give is, “I’ll give you a hint. You’re STANDING on the answer.” If they still can’t get it, just tell them “Earth.”
- This last one is the most important. Life, Death, What comes next? (And this gets us into the Gospel conversation. Plainly ask them, “What do YOU think happens after we die?”)
After hearing them out, you can ask something like, “So, how do we know for sure? Can you know? Can I know?” They’ll usually say that we can guess but we can’t know. Then I ask, “But what if God came down and told us himself. Then can we know?” And that’s why the painting of the cross and empty tomb is there. Point out that Jesus is God and he came to earth to reveal the Truth of God to us so we can know. Ask them, “Have you ever STUDIED the Bible? Would you like a copy?” And you’re in a great conversation…
You’ve got this! Jesus will help you and be with you!!!
What To Avoid:
- A crowd attracts a crowd, but too large a crowd gets you in trouble with the police, so let’s not all crowd too close to the sketch board. We should spread out to allow plenty of room for pedestrians to pass along, and allow room for non-Christians to get close to the board so they can listen to the preaching, or try to solve the riddle.
- Avoid giving out gospel tracts to people walking towards the preaching (because they’ll read the tracts instead of listening to the Word.) But please DO give tracts to those leaving or to anyone when no preaching is happening.
- Please avoid wearing overtly Christian t-shirts. It’ll look like an invasion if there are a ton of people around wearing Christian shirts!!! The idea is to blend in and look like everyone else.
Note: On Wednesday Nights there are fireworks afterwards, so you can plan to stay to watch them if you’d like. We joke that the town of Hampton is so happy that we’re out sharing the Gospel of Christ that they put on a fireworks show for us every Wednesday night to help us draw a crowd! 🙂
And please pray pray pray leading up to the outreach!!!
Want Some Encouragement???
I’m REALLY excited about Beach Evangelism because God has opened up this fantastic Mission Field at the beach and God will use us to reach the lost!
Jesus said that His mission was “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). What an honor for us to be a part of that!!!
To be encouraged by how God has used this tremendous Mission Field in the recent past, please check out some blog posts about Beach Evangelism at: https://luke-15.org/category/beach/.
Any questions? Feel free to contact me!
I love your outreach! I would be willing to do similar in my area! I will pray for you and maybe we will show up on the 16th on our way home from Connecticut to see Joni Earickson Tada. It would be out of our way but I feel like I should make the effort! Or maybe a Wednesday after school is out.