Communicating the good news of Jesus in the West in 2020 is challenging. Christianity is often portrayed as irrelevant, out-of-touch, even unjust and toxic. And like it or not, that’s got to shape how we communicate the Christian faith.

In light of this, I’ve been exploring some different imagery for ‘connecting and confronting’ with the good news of Jesus in our cultural moment. In part, it flows from the ‘rubber hitting the road’ in everyday conversations. In part, it flows from working on a Mission & Apologetics module I teach locally.

You could think of these as like five different tools on a Swiss army knife – five approaches for beginning to help people consider the relevance and goodness of the gospel and the Christian worldview. They’re certainly not everything, but they’re perhaps useful ‘ways in’ as we consider our gospel communication in 2020 and beyond…

1. Putting a Stone in the Shoe

At the time, there’s nothing worse than a stone in the shoe! Yes, you can try to keep on walking, probably because you can’t be bothered to stop, but it’s not going to be comfortable if you do. Ultimately, you have to do something about it.

As evangelists we want to provoke in such a way that people can’t carry on the same as a result. I’m pretty sure I got this phrase from Dan Strange – and I’ve found it very helpful to consider – particularly in settings where we’re more limited in what the context might deem to be appropriate. For example, if you’re writing a newspaper column or giving a segment on the local radio, where anything too overt is going beyond your invitation. So it’s helpful to think: what one thought can I leave people with that will surprise – and cause an eyebrow to be raised?

I say this because often when we’re sharing the gospel we can feel a great pressure to say ‘everything’. And yet how often in the book of Acts do we hear of people demanding to hear more from the apostles? Let’s speak words of truth and grace that awaken a hunger in people, as when you begin to smell the satisfying wafts of a hearty feast and can’t wait to tuck in! Or to put it another way, put a stone in someone’s shoe!

2. Opening the Curtains 

There’s so many unhelpful stereotypes out there about Christianity, which means we need to help people to see what the Christian life is actually like. What difference does it make to believe in Jesus? When the pressure is on. When life is hard. In a sense, this is answering the question, ‘why would I bother becoming a Christian?’

As such, I find it useful to think of part of the evangelist’s job as ‘opening the curtains’ onto the Christian life. We need to show it’s about more than going to church and believing certain propositions. It’s not quiche, cold tea and mumbling to a few dirges. This is a whole new life, a whole new way of thinking, feeling, living. It’s faith, hope and love. It’s ‘Christ in me, the hope of glory’. Open the curtains, let the sunshine in and show people the new reality.

But in doing this, make sure it’s connected into real life. Not a pious unrelatable vision of life, but rather completely earthed in the nitty-gritty. A case-study, personal quote or testimony may help to do this.

3. Draining the Bath

Sometimes when I’m giving my kids a bath, there’s that horror moment when I’ve drained the water and you see all the muck that’s left at the bottom.

Tom Holland’s latest book, Dominion, has powerfully shown the way in which the culture of the West is indebted to the Christian gospel. We wouldn’t be where we are – whether it’s art, law, human rights, etc – if it wasn’t for Christianity. So let’s not be ashamed of that.

Draining the bath means showing people how empty life without God is. When we strip everything back, what are our values built on? For example, one of the big themes throughout lockdown has been that of hope. But where can hope be found? And what about dignity or peace? Or satisfaction and forgiveness? Often our experiences show us that the places we look for these things leave us disappointed. And yet it’s amazing how short-term our memories are. The evangelist can join the dots – and therefore drain the bath of a life without God.

4. Tracing the Sunbeam

Augustine is famous for saying that part of the nature of sin is to worship God’s gifts rather than the divine Giver. We take the good things that God has made and we treat them as ‘god things’, idols, ignoring the One who made them.

The language of idolatry is a powerful diagnostic tool to help people see the ways in which we’re all worshippers. But it’s also helpful to then trace the ‘goodness’ of those good things back to the Giver himself. Every sunbeam that bursts into our lives and brings truth, beauty and goodness, comes from a God who is True, Beautiful and Good.

And so, rather than simply expose the ugly folly of idolatry, we can also acknowledge that our desire to value these things comes in part from a recognition that they have goodness in them. But rather than treat those good things as ends in themselves, as if they would truly satisfy, we’re to help people trace the sunbeam back to the Sun, to their Triune Creator, the One who alone is worthy of all worship.

5. Capturing the Longing

Whether it’s the longing for justice or for relationship or for something beyond death, I believe part of being made in the image of God means we all have in-built longings. This is innate to being human. These desires reflect the divine purposes for which we were made.

We’re not just molecules, bones and blood, on some evolutionary journey – and I think people deep-down both recognise this – and want to hear this. Longings aren’t simply a way of ensuring the survival of the fittest. Does that really fit with what we feel so deeply? For example, why do we care so much about injustice, when it rarely benefits ourselves?

And so as an evangelist, surely part of our calling is to articulate those longings, so that people can identify that within themselves – and show how the Christian gospel makes sense of them and fulfils them. It’s almost like we’re holding a mirror up, and saying, ‘You know those feelings you have – that deep desire for something more… well, here’s why’.

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I’ve found these helpful to keep in the back of my mind in various contexts and situations. Do you have similar ‘tools’ you pull out when seeking to ‘take every thought captive’ for Christ?

A Truth Universally Acknowledged?

“It’s a truth universally acknowledged that young ministers are often notoriously bad at application in their sermons…”

Ouch.

Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration. It’s certainly a generalisation. But it’s pretty close to what I heard an older, wiser pastor once say. And actually, you know what, it’s pretty close to how I’d evaluate my own preaching.

By the way, here I’m using application to mean the ‘what-difference-does-this-make?’ element of our sermons. In other words, what impact will the Bible have on my life? When we’re bleary-eyed first thing on a Monday morning, or when we feel like we’re treading water and weary on a Wednesday night, when Sunday seems light years ago, what difference will that sermon make?

And I’m realising that’s where I could probably do a whole lot better.

Where Am I Spending My Prep Time?

Of course, first things first, with any sermon I want to prayerfully grapple with the particular Bible passage I’ve been tasked with opening up. I definitely don’t want to dilute my prep energy here. So I dig into the passage and try and consider what the original author meant and why they wrote it; what were they trying to achieve through these Spirit-breathed words? And that means seeing it in the wider context of the particular Bible book as well as the whole of the Bible’s big story.

But when I’ve done that, when I’ve distilled the passage down to a fairly concise purpose statement/aim & theme sentence/melodic line (delete as appropriate to your own schooling), what do I do then? What’s the next move in my prep time?

I’m realising that maybe as much as 90% of the rest of my prep time goes on working out how I can help someone understand the Bible passage – basically working out how I can take someone through the ‘text journey’ that I’ve just been on.

And more often than not, that then translates to about the same 90% of the actual sermon content. 

Don’t Neglect to Prep Your Application

But what I think the seasoned minister cited above was getting at is that sometimes we’re so focused on showing people how to understand the text, so driven to explain what the passage means (and what it means in context), that we just don’t leave time for good application. And maybe that’s because we haven’t given ourselves time to do that in our prep.

Of course the Bible challenges our whole perspective on life. So it’s important to see that application is much more than just a ‘to do’ list of actions. God’s word is to engage our hearts before it engages our hands. And I think there’s been a healthy emphasis recently on showing how God’s word does call us to change our heart attitudes and our affections/desires.

But as a preacher I still need to join the dots between the text and ‘where the rubber hits the road’. Michael Lawrence put it like this in a 9Marks Journal on preaching:

Based on my own best intentions as a sermon-listener, I think it’s fair to say that chances are if the jots have not been joined in someone’s mind during the sermon itself (or during a set-aside time of reflection in the service), then they’re not going to be joined at all. (Perhaps the exception to this is if you have small groups or prayer triplets which intentionally pick up on Sunday’s sermon.)

Learning from the Copy-Writers

I read something recently that nudged me on this. And it wasn’t from a talk on ministry or a hefty new preaching tome. It came from a guy called Mike Kim, who is a copy-writer (i.e. he writes stuff, often for sales).

Mike explained that he’s started preparing his copy by crafting his ‘Call To Action’ first.

(A CTA is just business-speak for the big ‘take-home’ challenge or summons that a sales-pitch will end with. It’s the ‘buy this product’ or ‘enrol on this course’ or ‘consider this perspective’ punchline.)

In other words, Mike has realised this is arguably the most important part of any piece of sales writing. Without a decent Call To Action, then the chances are there will be no ‘Action’. In other words, the copy will fail to do what it is ultimately meant to achieve.

If you’re interested, his prompt was something Stephen Covey says in his legendary 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which is “to begin with the end in mind”.

So when did you last write a sermon by crafting your application first? When did you last begin with the end – the goal of spiritual transformation – in mind?

Sermon Prep That Begins With the End in Mind

Ok, so there should probably be some caveats here about how email sales-copy is very different to preaching. Sure, a preacher is not a sales-person. We don’t manipulate or deceive or coerce (although I’m sure most sales-people would say that really effective sales don’t do these either).

But we are undoubtedly both communicators. Communicating God’s word in the power of the Spirit is the ‘means of grace’ that preachers have been entrusted with. And we are looking, hoping, praying for action. Change in attitude, desire, life, perspective, time-use. This is the business of spiritual transformation.

Maybe some of us love our ‘text work’ and this takes up most of our prep: highlighting chiasms and repetition and cross-references. Or maybe some of us love to pour hours into the communication side of things: finding the best illustrations, phrases, attention-grabbing devices.

But here’s the question I’m left pondering: how much time do I give to preparing application in my sermon preparation? Or is that I’ve not really considered the end in mind, let alone begun with it?

I’ve just finished devouring Saving Eutychus by Gary Millar and Phil Campbell. It’s probably one of the most useful books on preaching that I’ve read (as well as public speaking generally), although the proof of that is in the pudding I guess.

I’d like to put together a few more thoughts on what I’ve found most helpful about the book, but before that Andy Naselli has kindly captured 10 of Phil & Gary’s top tips for preaching and communicating more clearly (which is part of one particular chapter): Top 10 Tips for Being Clearer | Andy Naselli.