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SHIRLEY REID: You need to turn from your wicked ways. And you need to seek the Lord with all your heart. Or you're going to end up perishing in the lake of fire. And you know what? That's not an intelligent choice.

STEPHEN SMITH: Shirley Reid is stalking back and forth along the sidewalk in front of the Cabooze bar in Minneapolis. The crowd listening is a mix of cotton skirt yuppies and heavy leather bikers.

[MOTORCYCLE ENGINE REVVING]

Seven young men are also standing on the sidewalk, waving Bibles in the air, exhorting the bar goers to repent their sins and their godless ways. These street preachers are a group of friends who regularly hold forth on sidewalks and in bars, warning their listeners of a fiery future if they don't repent. Shirley Reid.

SHIRLEY REID: I believe that we are commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ to compel the lost to come in. And I believe that we are to be out here and to warn the wicked that if they don't repent, they'll perish.

STEPHEN SMITH: Shirley Reid is 34 years old, the mother of three, and a Plymouth homemaker. She wears a pink and white sweater and a lavender skirt. Her fingernails are lacquered red. Shirley's husband, an auto body repair man, is also preaching here tonight. Members of the group say they don't belong to a single church, most are Pentecostalists. They normally preach on the streets. But lately, they've been visiting bars where they preach inside, until they get kicked out. Shirley Reid explains that before she was saved at age 26, she knew all about wicked living.

SHIRLEY REID: Before I became a Christian, I lived a real selfish life. I was a pleasure seeker, was a bar hopper, and got into drugs. And I was looking for life. And I had a void in my heart. And because it's not fulfilling, things cannot ever fulfill you, that I turned to the Lord.

STEPHEN SMITH: Very few of the people leaving the Cabooze tonight take these earnest young preachers seriously. It's raining, and some just hurry away. But others smirk and taunt the evangelists. And some, like this man, get angry.

SPEAKER 3: What makes you better than me?

SHIRLEY REID: You are living for yourself, I'm living for God.

SPEAKER 3: I'm not?

SHIRLEY REID: No.

SPEAKER 3: Who the [BLEEP] are you to say I'm not? You don't even know me.

SHIRLEY REID: You just swore.

SPEAKER 3: Oh, I swore, so I'm going to hell, huh?

SHIRLEY REID: Your heart is showing.

SPEAKER 3: You know what, I feel sorry for you. Because you're judging people you don't even [BLEEP] know.

SHIRLEY REID: I'm warning you, sir.

SPEAKER 3: You're judging people you don't even know. I'm warning you.

SHIRLEY REID: That Jesus wants you to repent.

SPEAKER 3: Jesus is pissed at you, I'll tell you that. If he could hear you right now, and I know he can.

SHIRLEY REID: He can hear.

SPEAKER 3: You're God damn right, he can.

SHIRLEY REID: He loves you.

SPEAKER 3: If you think you're someone, you think you're better than us.

SHIRLEY REID: No, I'm saying I was wicked, and I repented. And you're wicked, and you need to repent. And you know what, Jesus loves you.

STEPHEN SMITH: At one point tonight, several men in a battered pickup stop and flick a cigarette butt at one of the preachers, then they threaten him. Moments later, an angry, drunk woman starts slapping the preacher to see if he'll hit back. He doesn't. Then she threatens to go get a gun.

SPEAKER 4: Get the hell out of here, you're going to die. Yeah, I am. And you're sick. You don't have to preach His word around here.

SPEAKER 5: You're in the wrong bar. You're at the wrong bar, buddy.

SPEAKER 4: Oh, give me a break.

STEPHEN SMITH: After the band stops playing, the crowd on the sidewalk grows even larger. It's still raining. The bar goers treat the street preachers like odd creatures from another planet, like freaks. One couple stood under an awning and simply watched the show.

SPEAKER 6: He has a right to be here. If people don't want to listen, they can walk away. It's great. You can sit here and listen to him or you can take off. What are you gonna do?

SPEAKER 7: He's selecting his audience by coming out in front of a bar where people are coming out. Obviously, no one is leaving here that isn't somewhat inebriated, very few. So to me, that's a selective kind of process that he's going through.

STEPHEN SMITH: These people want to save souls. Do you think they're going to go about doing it this way?

SPEAKER 6: I think they're picking the wrong place and the wrong time, very much so.

STEPHEN SMITH: Why?

SPEAKER 7: Because if you truly want to get that message across, you approach people when they're in their most straight, open, receptive state. This is not a good time to save souls.

STEPHEN SMITH: These people are too drunk to be saved in here?

SPEAKER 7: It's too late.

STEPHEN SMITH: This crowd will linger outside the Cabooze until well past closing time, shouting and bickering with the eight young evangelists. The bar manager threatens to call the police, but the police never appear. A few people will stop to talk to the preachers. Some are truly interested, but most aren't.

When the preachers go back to their homes tonight in Plymouth and Coon Rapids, they'll have no way of knowing if they've even turned one soul to their brand of religion. Some admit privately that preaching outside this bar was a depressing experience. But most of them clearly liked it. And Shirley Reed points out that in any case, this work is what the Bible tells them to do.

SHIRLEY REID: It says it's blessed to give than to receive. And so when I receive of God, I love to give out what God has given me. And truth sets them free. It says, and you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free. So even if these people aren't willing to turn from their ways tonight, we still are putting seeds of righteousness in their heart to think that there's a choice.

SPEAKER 8: You're either living for God or you're living for the devil. You're either living for his happiness or you're living for your own selfish-- you're in luck.

STEPHEN SMITH: Outside the Cabooze bar in Minneapolis, this is Stephen Smith reporting.

[CROWD CHATTER]