Preaching: In your book Creating Messages that Connect, you talk about baiting the hook — about the beginning, the first three minutes of the message. Why is that so important?

Nelson: The very first thing you have to do today to communicate is answer the question: “Why should I listen to you?” and baiting the hook is related to that. You’ve got to bait the hook to day for a variety of reasons. Today’s audience is a very demanding audience, partly because they’re not as interested — or we can’t assume that they’re as interested — in biblical themes as perhaps the former church crowd. That is especially true if we are interested in reaching the un-churched as our church is. They don’t buy into the fundamentals that many of us have over the years.

Another reason is because they have such a short attention span — because of media, because of the internet, because of the business of our life and information overload. They’re sort of saying, “Why should I listen to you? If you don’t get my attention in the first 90 seconds, I’m probably not going to listen to you the next 30 minutes.” So baiting the hook is not necessarily an issue of relevance. Baiting the hook really happens as a matter of getting attention.

Its almost like talking to a group of preschoolers. You know you have to click your fingers and say, “Hey, hey, hey everyone’s attention up here!” because they’re thinking about their schedules and everything else. One of the biggest sins I think preachers have today is assuming that because they’re there physically, they’re there emotionally. And we can not (assume that). We can almost assume the opposite today — that even if they are there physically they are not there emotionally — so we have to sort of get their attention.

Preaching: What are some creative ways to bait the hook?

Nelson: In the book I talk about a variety of ways. I think anything from a story — an engaging story not just a story. Look at Jay Leno’s Tonight Show — it’s really a talk show but they do the stand up comedy to get peoples’ attention initially. So a well-placed joke. Obviously a media clip or a drama that establishes a reason to listen as opposed to a solution. Some traditional church dramas give you the solution in the drama and then there’s really no reason to listen to the message after that. You really want to say here’s the dilemma — here’s the problem. That’s why sometimes even secular songs are far better for stating a problem. Christian songs are much better at stating a solution. So we commonly use the secular song.