On 10 November, Steve Harris of Cardiff was accepted as a Staff Evangelist with OAC Ministries (Open Air Campaigners). His qualification was the culmination of serving as a trainee evangelist beginning in 2009.

Some people viewed his new career as a change in direction for this qualified barrister with IT management experience.

Yet Steve insists, "This was the right route for me. I can see that God was equipping me for my work as an evangelist. Now I see myself moving forward, still wanting to learn, but in the same direction."

During his training, Steve spent time under the instruction of OAC evangelists throughout Britain. It was very much a hands-on experience as different approaches were used in various settings.

Steve’s interests centre on open air preaching, schools work and other youth work such as camps. He opted for a multi-media module which covers a broad range of technological approaches such as computer graphics, film and projection.

As he noted, "I chose the multimedia option to draw on some of my previous experience as an IT manager."

Also, Steve chose a module dealing with creative object lessons. Recently he was able to use this while taking a school assembly. He had students participate as he cut a rope in pieces, telling them that the Old and New Testaments of the Bible contain many different books and accounts. Then he restored it to one rope again, explaining that Jesus provides the unifying theme throughout the Bible.

"There are many gifted people in the world – artists, musicians, athletes, to name a few, but all these peoples’ gifts are honed and polished by training," comments Geoff Beckingham, OAC Training Director. "And it is the same with the evangelist; the God given gift must be cultivated and fanned into flame by good training."

As OAC works in co-operation with local churches, trainee evangelists participate in mission events. Some like Steve choose to participate in activities which correspond to their own gifts such as children’s holiday clubs. He also took part in an evangelistic mission in Avignon, France.

"The Avignon Festival is somewhat like the Edinburgh Festival," explained Steve. "It was the ideal time for a mission outreach because people tended to view us as part of the street entertainment.

"Also, my not being fluent in French proved to be an advantage. People were drawn to us as English speaking foreigners and then heard the translated Gospel message from French members of the team."