Evangelism Interview with Brady Brewer: Profile

This is part of a series of interviews of Christians experienced in evangelism. I hope this is an encouragement to others and spurs on more ideas and action in individuals and churches engaged in the Great Commission.

Me: This is Jon Neifert and I’m talking today with Brady Brewer who is an evangelist and pastor that I met at a Reformed Evangelism conference in Texas a few years ago. The first question for you Brady is to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about your background with evangelism maybe what you do and how you got started.

Brady: My name is Brady Brewer, I’ve been saved since 1997. I felt an immediate call to preach after my conversion but didn’t really know what that was all about. I pursued seminary and Bible school back then but through God’s providence and many circumstances it didn’t work out. I always had a desire to preach as I think any Christian has a desire to share the gospel witness. That desire was always there over the next several years.

Probably about 2000 to 2007 I really began to be convicted to be more intentional about sharing the gospel. My conversion in large part was due to reading a gospel tract. So, my conversion plays into my evangelism and how I go about it. I really began to have a burden to be more intentional in sharing the gospel and began to hand out tracts. I work for FedEx and I’ve been with them for 23 years. I began to be more intentional in what I could on the job because that’s where my mind was at.

In 2008, I had some minor surgery so I was off work for a few days, sitting in my recliner, reading, watching some TV and had it on the heretical network, TBN. That’s when I discovered Way of the Master. A lot of guys get started through Way of the Master. I had seen it before but really didn’t pay much attention. This time it really caught my attention because evangelism was on my mind. I thought, “I’m going to watch this and just see what it’s about.” It was an episode where Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron were role playing. It was very simple, they just talked about using the law in evangelism. It just stuck out to me that this is really simple and truly biblical. That heightened my desire to evangelize. I ordered some of the resources including their 800-page book on biblical evangelism. Through that book, I came across two or three chapters on open air preaching which I didn’t know even existed. I had no idea there was such a thing.

As soon as I began reading it, I just screamed out, “this is it!” to my wife, who was sitting in the same room. That’s the call that I believe God put on my life years ago. I love sharing the gospel with one person, but if it was a bigger group I loved it even more. I started preparing for that kind of ministry back in 2008. I started memorizing a lot of scripture and similar things.

It was probably nine months later I began to go downtown Oklahoma City to preach. Through God’s grace and his providence, I met a couple other guys locally and we have been doing this together. I’ve seen guys come and go over the years, but really open-air preaching was really where my heart was. I think God had wired me for it.  That’s just the passion that I have; that particular type of evangelism, not that it’s the only type, but that’s what I believe God called me to do.

I started that in the summer of 2009, preaching downtown and handing out a lot of tracts, ordering hundreds and thousands of tracts. As far as the consistent ministry that I’ve been involved in, it started in 2009, and trying to be faithful in everyday evangelism. I’ve struggled with everyday evangelism more than anything, because of the nature of my job, it’s so fast paced.

I started preaching in 2009 and I’ve had a lot of great time doing that in downtown Oklahoma City, although I’ve preached in a lot of different places. I began preaching at the bus station in about 2014, where I do most of my preaching now. I like the way it’s set up. A lot of your street preaching situations have people just walking by and that’s fine. I trust the power of God’s word. The bus station is set up well, it covers almost a square block and it has benches all around the perimeter, even up against terminal. You can preach and there’s always people sitting outside waiting on their bus and others just hanging out. There are always people that can hear, people sit and listen. I usually set up bibles on my table, also tracts, DVDs and other resources. I don’t pass out bibles, I just set them on the table and people come to get them on their own. Over the last six years I’ve distributed between 1500 and 2000 bibles.

It’s really amazing! it’s just a half mile away from other places where we preach in the restaurant and bar district. It’s just really amazing at the bus station, you’re dealing from a different range of economic status coming through the bus terminal.  Probably the poor population,  obviously they’re not they’re not driving around. It’s amazing the respect for the preaching of God’s word is with them. That’s what has kept me going back, seeing all the fruit. They started calling me pastor down there within the first year and I would tell them, “I’m not a pastor.” I brought my pastor at the time and he came out a few times. He told me, “to them, you are pastor.” I have many individual stories but that’s really where I try to go on a weekly basis. 

That’s how I got started in intentional evangelism.

Me: One thing I’ve seen a lot in evangelism is that you are doing ministry of the word. People are struggling with things and you can take them to the word to bring comfort and even challenge when needed.

Brady: yeah.

Me: You mentioned struggling with everyday evangelism yet at the same time you’re going out on weekly basis. That seems to be a common struggle. It’s one thing to go out to an event where the gospel is your sole purpose and you can focus on that. It’s another to take that home after the event into a regular thing you’re doing every day with business or other situations. Can you talk about that struggle and how you deal with it?

Brady: In my personal life, my job is so fast paced that it’s hard. I got in trouble for giving tracts to customers years ago. Early on I realized I shouldn’t be doing that; you want to honor your employer. On my job I feel continually frustrated because I don’t have time to tell anybody about anything. In church I hear brothers at a Wednesday night Bible study bring up a prayer request from one of their co-workers and they got to share the gospel with them that day. That is a great thing but my job doesn’t give me that opportunity. I praise God and tell them that’s what I miss about working where you are with others and you see those opportunities.

One thing I do on my breaks is to go to a convenience store, heat up my lunch, and hand some tracts out while I’m off the clock. It can lead to some great conversations.

Me: That’s a good idea and a tip that’s easy. It is just as simple as handing out a tract.

Brady: I’ve handed out hundreds of tracts that way on my lunch break, just a few here and a few there. I’ve had some really good conversations in 7-11. You have 5 or 10 minutes, do what you can.

Me: You said that you spend a lot of time memorizing scripture. Tell me about that, what things do you focus on when you’re when you’re memorizing? Are there any particular approaches you take?

Brady: I have a stack of index cards in my car two or three inches thick. It’s a lot of verses, I’ve never counted them. I still go over them about once a week. When I realized that the Lord was calling me to open-air preach, I started to memorize for about nine months. I would just write them down on an index card, just any verse that I thought was good for evangelism and evangelistic preaching. Whether it be those about grace, justification by faith, or those about judgment.

I would just read my Bible and think, “Wow, that’s really good”, such as Hebrews 9:27, “It’s been appointed for man once to die.” That was one of the early ones, also verses on repentance, verses on justification by grace through faith and I am the way, the truth, and the life. Just any verse that would lend itself towards evangelism, preaching the gospel, and warning people. I would just write one down on an index card and just go over it. I don’t think I had the radio on much for those nine months. During that nine months I was just asking myself, “are you really going to do this?”

I didn’t know many guys that were doing this, it wasn’t a popularity thing for me. I didn’t know anyone doing this other than Ray Comfort. I’m not that smart of a guy to just stand out there and tell a bunch of stories, nor did I think that was Biblical. If I’m going to preach on the streets, I need to have a lot of scripture memorized, have it in my mind and in my heart. That really is how I saw it, I would just start with one verse, then add another verse. By the time nine months came around, I had hundreds of verses memorized. Now, I will preach out of a text more than I used to, especially at the bus station. Still all of those verses that I have memorized over the years are really the foundation of my open air preaching.

Any part of theology that I think somebody might have a question on, I would try to find those verses and memorize them. Try to cover a lot of different doctrines, memorize at least two or three verses like for the doctrine of original sin, go to Romans 5:12 and 19. Boom! There you go. “Just as through one man, sin came into the world, death through sin that spread to all men, because all sinned.” You’ve covered original sin, without even having to open the Bible.

We all have different personalities, some of us are more conversational in our preaching but has to be the word of God, that’s my preaching.

Me: The word of God is powerful. That’s where we get our power and our authority is through the Word.

You mentioned not really knowing any others, open-air preaching and actually that was my experience as well. The first time I ever saw it was on a trip to Texas, we went to the Alamo in San Antonio. We walked through and as I came out into an open area there was a guy, handing out tracts. Then he just jumped up on the bench and started to preach. That was somewhere around the same time. I’ve seen more and more public evangelism, I think we’re seeing a growth in evangelism here in America.

Part 1: Profile
Part 2: Bus Station Ministry
Part 3: Evangelism Centered Church
Part 4: Closing Thoughts and Encouragement