Passion for Street Evangelism Drives Ministry

Scott A. Hinkle, once a heroin addict from the New Jersey Shore, has been an advocate for, and organizer of, street evangelism efforts since he met the Lord during the Jesus Movement. Perhaps his signature event has been the annual outreach to New Orleans during Mardi Gras week, which he and wife Nancy J. Hinkle have been leading for 44 years.

“In 1982, God spoke to me to take a team to Mardi Gras,” recalls Hinkle, adding that the commission seemed unusual since he is not from Louisiana and was not even familiar with the culture of New Orleans. Nevertheless, “I felt burdened because Mardi Gras is a moral embarrassment to the U.S.,” the AG evangelist says. “It’s been an assignment the Lord gave me, so we’ve continued.”

The first team of nine traveled there in a borrowed van in 1982. Since then, around 100 volunteer evangelists from churches and Bible schools participate yearly.

The Hinkles train and lead volunteers into the streets to talk with people who have come to Bourbon Street and its environs for reasons other than to hear the gospel message. In February 2025, the team engaged and prayed with nearly 2,000 people for salvation, healing, and other needs. Their campaign culminated with a large outdoor rally which was “packed with people worshiping God in the middle of all the craziness,” Hinkle says. He spoke about Jesus Christ and led listeners in a prayer of salvation.

Hinkle’s passion to reach lost souls began the day he — then a 19-year-old crime-entangled high schooler who was finishing his fifth year of school in Kansas because he’d agreed in court to leave New Jersey — heard the gospel presented at a school assembly. Within hours of giving his life to the Lord, he was sharing the gospel, hinting at his eventual lifelong ministry.

“That was the day the Lord drafted me,” he says.

As he began sharing his story of salvation, doors opened to public ministry, and after participating in street ministry in Denver during the height of the Jesus Movement, Scott met Nancy at a ministry in Pennsylvania where he was speaking. As part of a team, the two began traveling to minister in churches.

The Hinkles’ journey later took them to the streets of Hollywood where they helped pioneer a still-operating ministry to down-and-outers, then to Dallas, near where they live now.

In 1984, Hinkle and a team of like-minded evangelists created a conference to promote street evangelism in America. For 23 years, the conference met annually and featured well-known speakers, break-out sessions, and attendance of as many as 1,000.

“We launched thousands into street evangelism,” he says of those events.

One of them was Hinkle’s son-in-law, Danny Delgado, 44, who now co-leads Dream City Church AG, Arlington, Texas, (formerly Dayspring Church AG) with his wife, Stephanie. Danny has participated in the New Orleans outreach with the Hinkles for 24 years.

“Scott became my mentor, someone who showed me what ministry looked like,” Delgado says. “Scott is a true evangelist. His heart burns for souls and for the next generation to know what it is to be a witness.”

The Delgados’ multi-ethnic Arlington church sits within minutes of the two stadia where the Dallas Cowboys football team and the Texas Rangers baseball team play. Across the street from their building are a mosque and a smoke shop, and as an “outreach-driven” church, they draw more than 100 people per Sunday, most of them new to the faith, Delgado says.

“For us, it’s about, how will we serve our community? That comes from the time I’ve spent with Scott,” he says.

Today, the Hinkles’ annual Mardi Gras outreach is giving a new generation the opportunity to share God’s love on the frontiers of culture.

“One thing I love is that now we’re taking Bible school students and infusing them with passion for evangelism,” says Hinkle.

Some have served on the trip for decades, arriving Friday night, hitting the streets Saturday through Monday, and returning home on Tuesday.

“They see that Jesus can use them in the worst kinds of situation, and their faith just explodes,” Hinkle says.

Just as important is how the effort energizes local churches to reach people in their vicinities year-round, he says.

“I realize not every church will go to Bourbon Street or Hollywood Boulevard,” Hinkle says. “I try to move people to minister where they are. That’s the way we’ll take back America: one life, one family, one neighborhood at a time.”

Hinkle observes an unusual receptivity to the gospel now, similar to how it was 50 years ago.

“We came out of the Jesus Movement and know God can sweep this country again,” he says. “This year at the Mardi Gras outreach, people were as hungry and open as ever. God’s raising up a surprise generation again, kids like me who certainly had no church background but were swept into the kingdom of God. We’re seeing that more and more.”