Open Air Campaigners evangelist, Keith Phillips, stands on a platform of his van as he conducted devotions yesterday at the Cockburn Gardens Junior High in Kingston. Behind Mr. Phillips is a sketchboard on which he illustrates his message. - Contributed FOR 20 years Keith Phillips has been an open air evangelist. But he uses not just his mouth to get attention. He uses also a sketchboard.
Keith Phillips, 65, is head of the local chapter of Open Air Campaigners, an international inter-denominational missionary organisation which began in Australia in 1892 and which is now in more than 20 countries.
The prime goal of Open Air Campaigners is to preach the gospel using sketchboards. In this method, the preacher is both orator and artist. The preacher tells the gospel story by painting his key points or illustrating with the artist's expertise the salient episodes and characters of the message. As a matter of policy, Open Air Campaigners does not collect an offering in the schools or the other places where they do ministry.
The 20th anniversary celebration of the work of Open Air Campaigners is scheduled for May 18, at the Hope Gospel Assembly, Liguanea, beginning at 5 p.m.
Originally conceived of as a streetside ministry, Open Air Campaigners led largely by Jamaica, is increasingly doing more ministry in schools. For, says visiting international head, David Wilson, "that's where the greatest harvest is - in the schools. Out on the streets when we have people on drugs, alcohol and so on, they could have been reached in the schools when they were young and save all this heartache. In the schools, they are so responsive and that's where the biggest harvest in Jamaica lies."
Mr. Phillips received his theological education from Prairie Bible College in Canada. While there members of Open Air Campaigners International visited the institution and demonstrated this novel way of presenting the gospel using a sketchboard. Mr. Phillips immediately said to himself, "this thing could work in Jamaica." He immediately signed up to do the course with the intention of taking the gospel to the highways and byways on his return to Jamaica. "I did not come with the intention to work in schools. The intention was to do streetside evangelism. Now my main ministry is in the school. I am majoring in the schools, not because I don't have any other ministry but because there is a very real demand for devotions in the schools especially led by male figures. The teachers keep saying, 'We need men. We need male figures.'
Mr. Wilson estimates that in the 20 years that Open Air Campaigners has been working in Jamaica, about a million children have been exposed to that ministry.
Open Air Campaigners is constantly sought by principals and other teachers to conduct devotions in schools. In any year both Phillips and his associate in ministry, Ivan Hall, who operates in the Portmore area, each visit at least 100 schools doing devotions and related Christian service. These days, Open Air Campaigners has widened its scope of services to show films offering a Christian perspective on love, sex and drugs.
"I never do a devotion without giving an invitation. I don't ask them to come forward or the kids will stampede to get to the front. I lead them in a prayer and then say 'If you said the prayer and meant it then tell someone, a Christian teacher, an ISCF group (Inter-Schools Christian Fellowship).' I especially urge them to tell their parents and if they are attending a church, I urge them to tell their pastor," Mr. Phillips said.
Increasingly, Open Air Campaigners is turning to the primary schools to do ministry as they are finding that age group to be more receptive than their high school counterparts. Before too long, the team, Phillips said, hopes to turn attention to basic schools for similar ministry.
BIG PLUS
One of the big plusses of sketchboard evangelism is that it aids memory. Mr. Phillips, or 'Uncle Keith' as he is known all over the island, proudly tells the story of doing devotions in schools and returning there after more than a year and asking the children what was the lesson about the last time he visited. Invariably, the children answer correctly - remembering several details that they otherwise would not if the story was not told with visual effects, Mr. Phillips said.
The demand for his work in the schools is such that neither he nor his associate, Ivan Hall can handle it. There is, he stressed, a big opportunity in schools for Christian persons to do devotions there. "But the harvest is plenteous but the labourers are few."
- Mark Dawes
