'As well as in the marketplace'

I'm preaching soon on Acts 17:16-33, Paul in Athens, the cultural centre of the world in those days (a bit like Hull today...?) And I've been really struck on how Paul gets the message about Jesus to people - in v17, we're told 'He reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the market-place day by day with those who happened to be there.' To bring that up to date, we could say 'he reasoned in the church with religious people, as well as in the pub/street/school/party/football team with those who happened to be there.'
Paul understood something that is so obvious, but so often ignored. He knew that there would be some religious people who'd go to a religious building and who were interested in religious things - so he was happy to go there and tell them about Jesus. But he also knew that there would be lots of people who didn't take religion seriously, and who didn't go to a religious building - and so if he was going to tell them about Jesus, he'd have to go to where they were at. In Athens, it was the market-place - so he went there and told 'those who happened to be there' about Jesus.
In our non-Christian society today we need to learn from Paul. It's easy to think that evangelism is only for church on Sunday mornings; that we should just organise events there, or at church youth group, and wait for people to flood in. But they won't; most people under 30 in this country have never been to church voluntarily, and they won't start just because we put some posters up.
Just like Paul, we have to go to where they are at. We each have a marketplace; it might be a classroom, or a pub, or a football team, or a street corner. That's where we need to stand up for Jesus, and tell people about Jesus; that's where we need to spend a decent amount of our time. Paul could just have spent time with and spoken to those nice, safe religious people (you can picture them, they wore cardigans and sandals I expect) - but he didn't - he spoke to them but also to random people in the places he found himself.
This is something we desperately need to learn, because 'church' is something that the vast majority of young people in this country have nothing to do with. If we want to see Jesus' name honoured in our nation, we need to get out of church and into pubs and clubs and parties and schools and tell people there. That's risky and it's hard; but it's in the marketplaces of life that our evangelism must be done.