The Gentile Church was practically birthed on the streets. It was birthed as obedient men and women went outside of the walls of their synagogues and preached the gospel in homes, in pagan temple courts, and on the streets of Roman cities. It was birthed with riots, stonings, miracles and signs following the proclamation of their message. It was birthed through an abandoned group of men and women who cared nothing for their own lives or reputations, but who were consumed with the desire for Jesus to be known by all. In a small way, that night in Las Vegas reminded me again of the passion of the early church. They went to the spiritually needy and demonstrated, with signs following, the truth of their message. 
           
In North America, the search for spirituality is paramount. Psychic shops, psychic bookstores, psychic television channels, psychic talk shows on the radio, and a plethora of New Age variations of spirituality and healing surround us at every turn. What are Christians to do about this onslaught? Should we just ignore it and hope that they will all go away? Or should we be sensitive to the fact that unbelievers everywhere are seeking for God? All over North America we see this hunger for spirituality. And we have the answer to their hunger! We have the Holy Spirit living inside us, we have spiritual gifts to demonstrate His reality (see I Cor. 2:4), and we have spiritual words that are packed with power (I Cor. 2:13; Heb. 4:12).

Of all the evangelism I have ever done – from surveys, to door to door, to street preaching, to church dinners, to friendship evangelism – prophetic evangelism is by far the most effective form of evangelism I have ever engaged in. The first time I personally observed its effects was from a man I met in a church in Australia. He told me that he had just become a Christian six months ago. So I asked him how that happened. His answer shocked me. “Oh,” he said, “I became a Christian at a psychic fair.” I thought I had better unpackage that a bit, so I said, “Really? Why don’t you tell me more about that?”  The man went on to say something that forever changed the way I thought about psychics and those who visit them. “I was looking for God,” he said, “and I  heard that a psychic fair was going to be held in our city.” Inside I thought, “If you were looking for God, why did you think He would be at a psychic fair?” Yet the reality is that millions of people are flocking to psychic fairs, tuning into psychic talk shows, and paying money to clairvoyants and they are doing these things because they are searching for a touch of the supernatural.

 So the ‘man-looking-for-God’ decided to go to the psychic fair. Unbeknownst to him, the church he was now ushering at had also heard the psychic fair was coming to town. Instead of praying against it, they decided that the best defense would be a strong offense. Months ahead of time, they began sending intercessors to the place where the fair was to be held to pray for a spiritual breakthrough and for people to be won to Jesus. They also trained up prophetic teams and rented a booth in the middle of the psychic fair. When the time for the fair came, the prophetic teams set up their booth, while the intercessors surrounded the facility and prayed non-stop essentially for “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the one true God” to be revealed right in the midst of the psychic fair. Within a short time, the lines at the booths of the psychics grew smaller and smaller. The psychics began to complain that they were experiencing interference in the spirit, and because of it they had no power. Meanwhile, the line at the Christian prophetic booth got longer and longer. When this man was prophesied over at the Christian booth, he began to weep. “They told me so much about my life and gave me hope and invited me to church. So the next Sunday I went to their church. Within the month, I brought my family. Three months later, our whole family was saved! And now I am an usher in this church.” Needless to say, I was impacted. And immediately, I heard the Spirit of God say to me, “I want you to do that.”  In obedience to that call, I eventually ended up on the streets of Las Vegas.

But I have been involved in numerous prophetic evangelism outreaches since that day. One of them was in the city of Stratford, Ontario last summer. I had been in the city a year earlier and prophesied that God was going to use the church to reach many homosexuals. Several months later this church led a homosexual to Christ. He was zealous and anxious to bring his friends to God. So a year later when I returned to the city to teach at a School of the Prophets, we took a bunch of students, including this young man down onto the streets and set up a free prophetic booth in front of a coffee shop. It was awesome. Many friends of the young man came for prophecy and prayer because they had seen the radical change in his life. There were prostitutes, transvestites, lesbians, Goths, young people who were living together – all kinds of people – who wanted to know what God had to say about them. Many cried. Others were impressed that God knew them so well, and I was moved with compassion at the brokenness of the lost. Our cities are full of people just like them, who don’t know that God knows them and cares about them. They may even be looking for God, but they never darken the door of a church. So we have to go seek them out – just like Jesus does.
  
I challenge you to look around. Everywhere we see that the search for spirituality is a great felt need in our culture. If our neighbors were poor, we would give them food. If our neighbors were grieving, we would give them comfort. Across North America our neighbors are poor and grieving spiritually  – we need to give them what they are searching for.  Now is the time to leave our churches and share the spiritual gifts that God has given us with our neighbors, our cities – with the nations. Be sensitive to the needs around you. And go out into the highways and byways for His sake – so His banqueting table will be full.