Be tactful with those who are not Christians....Talk to them agreeably and with a flavor of wit, and try to fit your answers to the needs of each one.

(Colossians 4:5-6)

Speak only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

(Ephesians 4:29)

When I started Saddleback, I had about ten years of sermons stockpiled from my previous ministry as an evangelist. I could have coasted the first few years, doing little sermon preparation, by using messages I'd already written. But once I surveyed the unchurched in my community I quickly dropped that idea.

When I discovered that the greatest complaint of the unchurched in my area was "boring, irrelevant sermons," I decided I'd better seriously reexamine my preaching. I reviewed ten years' worth of sermons asking one question: Would this message make sense to a totally unchurched person?

It didn't matter if I liked the message or not. Neither was it enough for a sermon to be doctrinally correct and homiletically sound. If I was going to start a church by attracting hard-core pagans, it would have to be a message to which they could relate. I ended up throwing out every sermon I'd written in the previous ten years, except two.

Starting over from scratch, I had to develop a whole new set of preaching skills.

Adapt Your Style to Your Audience

The style of preaching that I use in our seeker service is very different than the style I use to teach believers. The style of communication that most church members are used to is counterproductive in reaching most of the unchurched.

When preaching to believers I like to teach through books of the Bible, verse-by-verse. In fact, at one point in Saddleback's growth, I took two and a half years teaching verse-by-verse through Romans at our believers' service. Verse-by-verse, or book, exposition builds up the body of Christ. It works great when you're speaking to believers who accept the authority of God's Word and are motivated to learn the Scriptures. But what about unbelievers who are not yet motivated to study Scripture? I don't believe verse-by-verse teaching through the books of the Bible is the most effective way to evangelize the unchurched. Instead, you must start on common ground, just as Paul did with his pagan audience at the Areopagus in Athens. Instead of beginning with an Old Testament text, he quoted one of their own poets to get their attention and establish common ground.

Our English word communication comes from the Latin word communis, which means "common." You can't communicate with people until you find something you have in common with them. With the unchurched, you will not establish common ground by saying, "Let's open our Bibles to Isaiah, chapter 14, as we continue in our study of this wonderful book."

The ground we have in common with unbelievers is not the Bible, but our common needs, hurts, and interests as human beings. You cannot start with a text, expecting the unchurched to be fascinated by it. You must first capture their attention, and then move them to the truth of God's Word. By starting with a topic that interests the unchurched and then showing what the Bible says about it, you can grab their attention, disarm prejudices, and create an interest in the Bible that wasn't there before.