James Chittenden

Open-Air Mission

‘Holding fast the faithful word...’
(Titus 1:9)

Registered as a Charity: No. 215409

Home

About

News

The Team

Literature

Gallery

Resources

‘Holding forth the word of life...’
(Philippians 2:16)

James Chittenden

Part-Time Evangelist

Open-air opportunities in Crawley, Horsham and Redhill

Click here to read

James’ Testimony

THE HOME TOWN

Redhill in Surrey is one of my regular towns for open-airs. It is situated about 20 miles south of Central London. Redhill is merged with Reigate and they have a combined population of about 60,000. In 2007 there were 1,241 deaths, equating to 3 souls entering eternity per day. A few years ago planning permission was requested for a 10,000 seater Mosque, which was turned down by the local Council. There remains though a growing Muslim population.

There is a market every Thursday which, combined with businessmen and women milling around having lunch, makes it quite busy. A number of people from my home Church come out to support me, some of them even using their lunch breaks to come and hand out tracts. Despite the general busyness, it can be quite hard to get people to stop to listen to the preaching, although many will happily take a tract and even stop and talk for a short time. As I grew up in Redhill I often meet school and college friends, but sadly they often ignore me now!

An elderly Muslim gentleman recently was quite taken aback when I offered him a tract. After pondering the question on the front of it he told me he was more Christian than me because he was a Muslim! I then explained what it was to be a Christian and he was less than impressed, telling me that I was in the wrong.

There are often groups of young people walking through the town and they are usually the most willing to talk. A few weeks ago I was talking to a group of 16-year olds after they had stood listening to some of the preaching. They told me that they didn’t believe in God because of Evolution. How common it is to be met by this response! We spent some time discussing this and by the end of the conversation 2 of them said that they could now see that it made sense to believe that God made the world. This was such an encouragement!