Preaching For Life Change: It’s All In Learning To Preach Like Jesus
It settles our past, assures our future, and gives meaning to today. We have the best news in the world.
Crowds always flock to Good News. These days, particularly after September 11th, there is plenty of bad news in the world. The last thing people need is to hear more bad news in church. They’re looking for hope, help and encouragement. Jesus understood this. That’s why he felt so compassionate toward them. He knew that the crowds were “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
By beginning with people’s needs when you preach, you immediately gain the attention of your audience. Practically every communicator understands and uses this principle except pastors! Wise teachers know to start with the student’s interests and move them toward the lesson. Effective salesmen know you always start with the customer, not the product. Smart managers know to begin with the employee’s complaint, not their own agenda. You start where people are and move them to where you want them to be.
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Pick up any textbook on the brain and you’ll learn that at the base of your brain stem is a filter called the Reticular Activating System. God graciously put this filter in our minds so we don’t have to consciously respond to the millions of stimuli that we’re bombarded with on a daily basis. It continuously sifts and sorts the things you see, hear, and smell—forwarding only a few of those stimuli on to your consciousness. This way you’re not overloaded and overwhelmed. If you had to consciously respond to every stimuli your senses pick up, you’d go crazy! Your Reticular Activating System determines what gets your attention.
Now, what does get people’s attention? Three things always make it past your reticular activating system: things you value; things that are unique; and things that threaten you. This has profound implications for the way pastors preach and teach. If you want to capture the attention of an uninterested group of people you must tie your message to one of these three attention-getters.
While sharing the Good News in a unique or threatening way can get attention of unbelievers, I believe showing its value to people is most consistent with how Christ taught. Jesus taught in a way that people understood the value and benefit of what he was saying. He didn’t try to threaten unbelievers into the kingdom of God. In fact, his only threats were to religious people! As the cliché goes, he comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable.
Because preachers are called to communicate truth, we often mistakenly assume that unbelievers are eager to hear the truth. They aren’t! Unbelievers aren’t that interested in truth these days. In fact, surveys show that the majority of Americans reject the idea of absolute truth.