Bessemer man’s sidewalk ministry stretches overseas

The title “street preacher” evokes images that range from sandwich-board signs and megaphones to a quiet word of testimony shared on a park bench. Today’s sidewalk witnesses — always ready with an engaging word, a helping hand or a gospel tract — hearken back to the earliest evangelists who were preaching about Jesus in the public square and door to door (Acts 5:42) long before there were any pulpits.  Though the methods are various and the terms imprecise, street preaching is simply sharing the gospel with real people out in the real world, and it is precisely what Tommy Littleton does.
   
Littleton, a member at Southcrest Baptist Church in Bessemer, has spent more than two decades ministering on sidewalks around the world at his own expense.  He’s preached to the down-and-out and the up-and-in of New York City (Littleton tells of preaching to Calvin Klein and to a homeless man on the same street in the same half hour) and to the frenzied crowds of Dublin, Ireland, on St. Patrick’s Day. His ministry has taken him to gathering places such as New Orleans and Daytona Beach and to remote corners of the world such as Honduras and Croatia. It has always taken him to the crossroads where lost people pass in droves.  
    
Littleton came to Christ at age 17 after years of radical rebellion. “During my high school years there was not a day that I was not drunk or stoned,” he recalled. The preaching of his older brother, a brush with death and the convicting power of the Spirit brought Littleton’s life into focus, and upon his conversion he set out to serve the Lord wholeheartedly. Littleton devoured books on discipleship and ministry by Leonard Ravenhill (author of the classic “Why Revival Tarries”) and Arthur Blessitt (known for carrying a cross around the world) and soon began to correspond with the two men who would become close friends and mentors.
   
“Since the early ’90s I’ve been focused on Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, during the summer,” Littleton said. “There are 60,000 teenagers there every week during senior weeks. I work with local churches and friends who come alongside me to share the ministry. It’s usually one-on-one, but crowds do gather. Occasionally I’ll be sharing with a guy in a McDonald’s and I’ll realize that I’m preaching to the whole restaurant.”
   
Committed to multiplying his ministry, Littleton has a vision for training street preachers.  “I long to see Jesus’ one prayer request fulfilled as workers go out into the fields that are ready for harvest.”