Communicating for a Change Part 7

11.

DETERMINE YOUR GOAL.

What are you trying to accomplish?

We've all walked to our cars after a message feeling like we knocked it out of the park. And, we've all slithered out the back door, hoping we didn't have to make eye contact with anybody. There have been many Sundays when I felt like I owed the audience an apology for making them endure whatever it was I did up there for forty minutes. That's one advantage of preaching multiple times on a weekend. I usually get at least one out of three right. Usually.

For the most part, our feelings about how we did are tied to our own judgement of our performance; how well we delivered the ill.u.s.tration, handled the text, remembered our transitions, made our point, and landed the plane. That's normal.

But, regardless of what we say, we care more about what others think. And, if you are like me, you care most in the hour following the delivery of a message. It is during that hour that we regain the much needed perspective that comes with realizing who we are and who we aren't. It is during the drive home that we realize we can't change the world with a good sermon. But neither will all of Christendom collapse because of a bad one.

But during and immediately following a message, we are vulnerable. Our egos are on the line. We are self-conscious. Easily wounded. If you've got something good to say to me about my message, bring it on immediately. If you have a "suggestion," wait until Wednesday. Even if I ask for suggestions, wait until Wednesday. In the meantime, lie if you have to. Tell me it was great. If it wasn't, don't worry, I already know.

Preaching is a performance. Preachers are performers. But unlike the comedian, we are expected to do more than entertain. We are expected to be educational, inspirational, theological, and engaging all at the same time. So there we stand. All alone. All eyes on us. Waiting. Expecting. Hoping. And did I mention that we have to talk to the same audience week after week? Did I mention that all week long they have been driving around in their cars listening to my dad, Chuck Swindoll, Ed Young, and Sean Hannity. Whose idea was this?

It is no wonder that our feelings about how we did are tied to our performance. There's a lot of pressure on us to perform. But in spite of that, the scope of our evaluation must reach beyond our presentation. While we must pay attention to and work to improve our performance on the platform, there is something else to consider as well. Namely, the outcome. What people do as a result of what we say. The audience's willingness to act on what they have heard. Life change.

As long as our feelings about how we did are tied only to our performance in the moment, then the moment won't count for much. If you think about it, your delivery, your style, your humor, your conclusion, your timing is all about a you guessed it a you. At some point we've got to begin caring more for the people in the audience than the person on the platform. When we do, our presentations take on real significance. Until we do, communication is really all about us.

So before we launch in to a discussion about "How," let's spend a few minutes talking about "What." What are you trying to accomplish? What is your goal in communicating? What is the win? What do you want to look back on as a result of your years of preaching and teaching?

This is an extraordinarily important question. Why? Because our approach to communicating should be shaped by our goal in communicating. Most of us inherited our approach to communicating. We grew up listening to preachers who all took basically the same approach. Then we went to schools where we were taught to develop messages along the lines of the style we grew up listening to. Chances are, n.o.body challenged you to think through your goal as a communicator. They just taught you an approach. But if your approach to communicating does not support your goal as a communicator there is a disconnect. You will spend hours preparing messages that are not designed to accomplish what you are pa.s.sionate about accomplishing.

So, what is your goal? Your goal will determine whether or not you like my approach. Because the approach we are about to discuss is driven by a very specific goal.

THREE POSSIBILITIES.

It would not be helpful at this juncture to list all the possible goals for communicating from the Scriptures. It might be helpful, however, to focus on the three that fuel the majority of communicators in our churches. The first one is: Teach the Bible to people. The idea here is to teach the content of the Bible so that interested parties can understand and navigate their way through the Scriptures.

This is usually the goal of the preacher or teacher who methodically and systematically teaches verse by verse through books of the Bible. This is the perfect approach for the communicator whose goal is to simply explain what the Bible means. Wherever we left off last week, we will pick it up again next week. This approach requires no creativity. This approach need not include any application. This approach a.s.sumes a great deal of interest by the audience. And honestly, this approach is easy when compared to other methods of communication.

I saw this approach taken to an extreme on an Easter Sunday in Dallas, Texas. I visited a Bible church with some friends. On the way they explained that their pastor was preaching through the book of Psalms. They were in their forty-third week. Easter would be week forty-four. And sure enough, on Easter Sunday this guy picked up with Psalm 44. He made a reference to Easter at some point along the way. But it was a stretch. In his defense, he was teaching the Bible to people. And his approach matched his goal.

PEOPLE FIRST.

A second possible goal is to teach people the Bible. This goal differs from the first in that the communicator takes his audience into account as he plans his approach. After all, the goal is to teach people. Communicators who have embraced this goal are constantly looking for effective ways to impart biblical truth into the mind and heart of the hearer. This goal was behind the "three points and an application" approach to preaching. The multipoint sermon or teaching outline is a great approach for the communicator whose goal is to teach people the Bible. Outlining makes it easier for the average listener to follow along.

Preachers and teachers who embrace this goal often use alliteration and multiple ill.u.s.trations. After all, alliteration and ill.u.s.trations make it easier for an audience to understand and remember the portions of the text being taught. I worked for a guy once who alliterated the entire book of Jeremiah.

Cool, huh?

Any communication strategy that follows from this second goal requires sensitivity to the audience and therefore some element of creativity. When I was teaching high school students, I developed a rhyme for every chapter in the book of Acts so that they could think their way through the entire book. I'm sure that came in handy on the weekends.

Generally speaking, the primary concern for the communicator whose goal is to teach the Bible to people is: Did I cover the material? The primary concern for the communicator whose goal is to teach people the Bible is: Did my audience understand and will they remember the material? In both cases success is measured in terms of information transfer.

If spiritual maturity were synonymous with information transfer, or more specifically, Bible content transfer, then either of the above options would be fine.

But it's not. And you know that. I know that. Everybody I know knows that. The people that don't know that wouldn't read this book anyway.

You and I know that Bible knowledge can lead to pride; the ant.i.thesis of spiritual maturity.1 It's interesting that the group who knew the Old Testament Scriptures best were the very ones who considered Jesus a blasphemer and arranged for His crucifixion. Knowing isn't enough.

HEARING AND DOING.

A third goal, and the one I subscribe to, is to teach people how to live a life that reflects the values, principles, and truths of the Bible. In short, my goal is change. I want them to do something different instead of just think about it.

When I'm finished preaching, I want people in the audience to know what to do with what they have heard. And I want them to walk away motivated to give it a try. This goal flows from what I understand the Bible to teach regarding spiritual maturity. The way I read it, spiritual maturity is gauged by application not contemplation. James says it best, "Faith without deeds is useless."2 "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."3 Jesus weighed in on the subject as well, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."4 When asked which of the commandments were the greatest He summarized the entire law with two action-oriented imperatives, love G.o.d and love your neighbor.

My friend Randy Pope expressed it this way, "Preaching is not talking to people about the Bible; it is talking to people about themselves from the Bible."5 So here's my point. Preaching for change requires a different approach to communication than either of the previous two goals we discussed. Every communicator I know wants to see lives changed as a result of their preaching and teaching. But too few communicators have developed an approach to communicating that supports their pa.s.sion. They simply adapted the approach handed down to us from a previous generation.

Preaching for life change requires far less information and more application. Less explanation and more inspiration. Less first century and more twenty-first century. While I'm a firm believer that all Scripture is equally inspired, observation tells me that all Scripture is not equally applicable. Consequently, preaching for life change requires that we emphasize some texts over others.

Now before you close this book and write me off as a heretic, consider this. If a preacher spends a year teaching verse by verse through the book of John, would you accuse him of neglecting the other sixty-five books? I don't think so. In fact, you may applaud him for being thorough. My point is, we all pick and choose. None of us give equal time to every pa.s.sage of Scripture.

Preaching for life change involves picking those pa.s.sages that are most appropriate for and applicable to our target audience. This is what Jesus did. This is what the apostle Paul did. They addressed felt needs and supported their teaching with references from the Old Testament. Nowhere in the Scriptures is there an example of, or reference to, anyone teaching through a book of the Old Testament. They knew better.

I find it particularly amusing when I hear of pastors spending months preaching through one of the epistles. Think about it. Each epistle is a carefully written argument addressing the specific issues of a specific church. So what do we do? We carefully exegete a letter written to a first-century church about the issues they were facing while ignoring what's happening right in front of us. If we really want to take our cue from the apostle Paul we should address the specific issues confronting the people in our audience. That's why I weave a message about s.e.xual purity or money into just about every series we do. It's why we program an entire series around family life every spring. Those are three issues that consume the time and attention of the average man and woman. Fortunately for us, the Scripture has a lot to say about all three.

When you commit to preach for life change, your preparation is not complete until you have answered two very important questions: So what? and Now what?6 Our preaching won't make much difference if our people don't understand what difference it is supposed to make. Our audience won't do much with what we've taught until we tell 'em what they ought to do.

With the first goal we discussed the teacher feels successful if he covers the material. A preacher or teacher who embraces the second goal feels successful if the audience is engaged. But if you decide to preach for life change you won't be satisfied until the behavior of your audience is transformed; and you will be willing to do just about anything to see that transpire.

At the end of the day, I want the people in my congregation to trust G.o.d with every arena of their lives: family, finances, career, relationships, everything. That kind of trust is developed when we act on what we know. Acts of obedience allow our faith to intersect with G.o.d's faithfulness. It is at that intersection that we see G.o.d work. And when we see Him work our faith gets bigger.

WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE.

So what's your goal? How do you define success? Which concerns you more, how you did on Sunday or what your people are doing on Monday? And if it is the latter, does your approach to communicating support what you are trying to accomplish? Or does it compete?

You may not embrace my approach. That's fine. But I pray you will embrace this goal. We have enough hearers. The church in America in particular has been listening for generations. We need doers, appliers. That means we need sermons that are loaded with application and preaching that is communicated with inspiration. Will you make it your goal to lead your people to do and not just hear? And would you commit to doing whatever you have to do to bring them to that point, regardless of the changes it requires of you?

Several years ago I was talking to one of our communicators right before he was about to go out and deliver his message. I could tell by his body language that he was trying desperately to keep everything straight in his head. He so badly wanted to get it right, to do a good job. That's always a red flag for me. He was about to walk out and do what we've all done so many times. He was about to step on the platform consumed with how well he would perform. So I called him over to the side and gave him a version of the same talk I give myself when I sense that I've become so concerned with my content that I've forgotten my audience. I said a "How would you communicate this message if your eighteen-year-old son had made up his mind to walk away from everything you have taught him, morally, ethically, and theologically, unless he had a compelling reason not to? What would you say this morning if you knew that was at stake? Because for somebody's son out there this may be his last chance. Now quit worrying about your outline. Go out there and plead your case like your own son's future was at stake."

And he did.

So what's your goal? What are you after when you speak or teach? What is the win? Smarter people? Changed people? People with more confidence in G.o.d? This is a very important question. Because your approach to communicating needs to match your goal. If at the end of the day the win for you is stories of life-change, then perhaps we can help you develop an approach that fits your goal. If you are satisfied with simply teaching the Bible to people or even communicating to people about the Bible, I'm not sure you have the right book. But now that you've gotten this far, you might as well keep reading.

a Our approach to communicating should be shaped by our goal in communicating.

a Our goal should be life change. Specifically, to teach people how to live a life that reflects the values, principles, and truths of the Bible.

a When you commit to preach for life change, your preparation is not complete until you have answered two very important questions: So what? and Now what?6

12.

PICK A POINT.

What are you trying to say?

If you compare public speaking to taking people on a journey, then it follows that the communicator should attempt to pick everyone up at the same station and deliver them to the same destination. The approach we are developing throughout this book a.s.sumes that the communicator has a destination in mind; a single idea they want to communicate; a specific thing he or she hopes to accomplish. And once that point, that idea, that destination is clear, then the goal is to bend everything in the message towards that one thing.

Every journey begins and ends somewhere. The same can be said for every talk. A good journey is planned with the end in mind. The same should be said of every sermon. Unfortunately, what most of us grew up hearing were messages built around several points rather than one clear destination. To make things worse, many of us were actually trained in that model. You know what I'm talking about a "G.o.d wants a man to a I. Love his wife II. Lead his wife III. Learn from his wife a but never ever a IV. Leave his wife A problem with this approach is that by the time you get to your last point, n.o.body remembers the first three. Whatever impact they might have made is washed away by the information and ill.u.s.trations that follow. On a good day, it is that last point that usually sticks. And that's a.s.suming it was stated in a way that made it memorable.

The other problem with preaching points is that it doesn't reflect the world we live in. We don't live our lives by points. We live by our emotions. We respond to what we see, taste, and feel. So there's no compelling reason to remember a list of points. They never come in handy. For anything. Even the preacher giving the points knows this. That's why he or she has to refer to their notes. They haven't even bothered to memorize their own points. How ironic. Our points flow from our notes to the listener's notebooks, a.s.suming they bothered to bring them. In most cases, our allusive, alluring, alliterated points move from our notes to our lips into thin air and then back into our files. Seems a bit pointless.

The point of points is to move people systematically through an outline. And if that's your goal, stick with your points. Good things will come of it. But if life change is your goal, point by point preaching is not the most effective approach.

Now if you are a point by point preacher you may and possibly should take offense at that last statement. The implication is that your point by point preaching has not resulted in life change. And chances are you can point to people in your congregation whose lives have been greatly impacted by your preaching. So who am I to dis your entire approach when there is evidence to the contrary?

Let me say it again, If life change is your goal, point by point preaching is not the most effective approach. All I'm arguing is that there is a better approach, not that point by point preaching is completely ineffective. I grew up in the world of point by point preaching. My dad is the king of points. And through the years hundreds of thousands of people would readily admit that their lives have been changed through his preaching. But here is my observation. It is not the points that resulted in life change. It was the pa.s.sion and the specific call to action with which he ends his messages that move people to live differently and surrender more fully. And I bet the same is true of your preaching. Let's face it, of your three or four points from last week's message, I bet you chose the most powerful one to end with; the one that inspired people to change. In the pages that follow I want to teach you how to build your entire message around a single point.

WHAT'S THE POINT?

When I say point I am referring to one of three things: an application, an insight, or a principle. With this approach, every message should have one central idea, application, insight, or principle that serves as the glue to hold the other parts together. On a more macro level, every message series should as well.

Perhaps an ill.u.s.tration would help. I just completed a series on the three temptations of Jesus ent.i.tled Pause. The point of the series is: Temptation is always a test of your faith, not just your self-control. We came back to that idea throughout the series. But each message within the series was designed to make one specific point as well. They are as follows: a Temptation can steal your future, your family, and your faith.

a Pause before you seek to meet physical needs in irresponsible ways.

a Cooperate with G.o.d, don't attempt to manipulate Him.

a Never trade the immediate for the important.

The big idea for the series, as well as my point for the first message in the series, is an insight. The points for the second two messages are imperatives or applications. Again, the point we are looking for takes one of several forms, but there's always a point, a destination, a bottom line.

TWO THINGS.

The key to this approach is refusing to stand up and speak until you know the answer to two questions: a What is the one thing I want my audience to know?

a What do I want them to do about it?

Those are two frustrating questions. I have pushed back from my computer on many occasions thinking I'm finished with my prep, when it occurs to me I have three pages of outline but I don't have an answer for those two questions.

"But wait," you argue, "What if there are two things I want them to know?" That's great, now you have a two-part series. Seriously, pick one and focus on it.

But let's face it, the average communicator isn't even trying to narrow his talk to two things. The feedback I generally get is more along the lines of, "But what if there are several things I want them to know?" Save it.

There are plenty of Sundays to go around. No doubt you have sat through messages that could have been an entire series. The outline I laid out at the beginning of this chapter is a good example of that. One of my favorite communicators told me that on several occasions his wife has turned to him after a message and said, "I really enjoyed the sermons."

With this approach you pick one idea, principle, application, or insight and build around it. In any one sermon you are going to say a dozen or more helpful, potentially life changing things. And we've all had people tell us how much something we said meant to them and we don't remember saying it. We can't control how and where information lands with our audience. Their life experience forms a grid through which they filter everything they hear. All I'm suggesting is that instead of choosing two or three or four ideas to leave with your audience, just pick one.

THE DISCOVERY.

In the following paragraphs I'm going to lay out everything I know about finding, developing, and building around a single point. But if you have been preaching or teaching for any length of time, my hunch is that your challenge will not be finding the one, but eliminating the three. By the time you have finished preparing your message, you pretty much know where the force of the message is; you know where the "a-ha" moment is. By the time you've finished preparing, you know the part of your message that excites you the most. In other words, you know how to find the main point. You know when you've found the main point. What you need to focus on is building everything around it.

If your reaction to that idea is, "But sometimes I don't know what it is until late in the preparation game," then you are on the right track. I almost never know what it is until very late in the game. And when I finally hit it, or it hits me, I have to go back and clear away all the clutter so that it is the point rather than a point. I reorganize to it, rather than letting it sit in the outline with a lot of extra stuff around it. There have been many a Sat.u.r.day night when I've walked into the kitchen and said to Sandra, "I have no point. Four pages of outline and no point!" Fortunately that's the exception, not the rule.

The process of developing a one point message can be broken down as follows: 1. Dig until you find it.

2. Build everything around it.

3. Make it stick.

Chapter thirteen focuses on the second step, so I'll only touch on it briefly here.

1. Dig until you find it.

The reason the one thing usually comes late in the game is that sermon preparation is a discovery process. Preparation involves discovering what the text says and what it doesn't say, what we wish it would say, what we didn't expect it to say. At the same time message preparation involves holding up the text to the scrutiny of experience. Bridging the cultural divide of first and twenty-first century isn't always easy a but it is always necessary if we are going to communicate for change rather than information transfer.

If our goal is to teach people how to live a life that reflects the values and principles of Scripture, then the one thing should ultimately find its source in the text. But it is possible to develop an entire sermon outline that accurately reflects what a text is teaching and yet still not have one strong unifying idea. I'm afraid too many preachers are content to simply "preach the Word" without taking the time to distill the one thing that needs to be highlighted from the "Word." More on that in a minute.

On rare occasions I know the point before I begin my official preparation. Sometimes it emerges from life rather than from the text. Sometimes I b.u.mp into an idea, principle, or application in the course of life and then go looking for biblical support. That approach was highly discouraged in seminary. And understandably so. Obviously we've got to be careful not to try and force the Scripture to support our ideas and observations. But you never know when and where you might come across something true and helpful. Often someone will share an insight or idea in my home group that serves as an organizing idea for a message. I imagine you've experienced the same thing. Because insight can originate from the text or from life we must be students of both.

When I b.u.mp into an idea that I think might serve as the driving force for a message or series, here are the types of questions I ask: a What, if anything, does the Bible say about this?

a If nothing, why?

a Who, in the Scriptures, faced a situation that forced them to interface with this topic or idea?

a What did they do? What didn't they do that I might have expected them to do?

a Did Jesus ever address this topic directly or indirectly?

At that point I try to take my hands off the wheel and let the text direct me instead of the other way around. Once you discover a text or narrative that addresses your great idea, let the Bible speak. Even if the text contradicts your idea or a.s.sumptions going in, let the text speak. It is in that tension that you will make some of your greatest discoveries. When our minds are made up going in, we unintentionally resist the influence of the Holy Spirit. That's when we run the risk of misusing the text.

The toughest sermon I have ever preached was on the topic of divorce and remarriage. I don't like what Jesus said about remarriage. On the surface it seems to condemn the victim as well as limit their options going forward. It was tempting to skip what He said and dive right into the apostle Paul's more user-friendly approach. But I decided instead to limit the message to what Jesus said on the subject.7 No hedging. No trying to make it fit with other parts of the New Testament. The point for that message was: You can't un-one what G.o.d has made one.

Popular notion.

I told our folks how uncomfortable I was with the whole subject and especially Jesus' ideas. But, what He said, He said for a reason. As I closed in on my one point, I took two gla.s.s pitchers of water, one with red food coloring, the other with green, and poured them together into an empty gla.s.s container. The text as well as the ill.u.s.tration made the one point unmistakably and in some cases painfully clear. You could have heard a pin drop.

When you make an uncomfortable discovery in the text (and there are plenty) the best question to ask is, "Why would a G.o.d who claims to love us and demonstrated His love say such a thing?" Whenever I take the time and make the effort to wrestle that question to the ground I always learn something new. As it turned out, that message turned out to be a tremendous encouragement for divorced and remarried couples. How? Because any time we help people discover where they are and where they aren't they have a clearer understanding of how to get where they need to go.

My point? Let the text speak for itself. When it agrees with your preconceived ideas, great. When it doesn't, dig in and learn something. And keep digging until you unearth the one thing.

We do an event every quarter called "Married Life Live." The purpose of this event is to focus our married couples on one of six marriage essentials. These six essentials are what we believe to be the irreducible minimums for a good marriage. We focus on one each quarter until we cover all six, then start over. But when we start over we change the presentation. So over the course of several years couples will hear several different presentations on each of the essentials.

One of those essentials is "Nurture Romance." A couple of years ago our married life director asked Lane Jones, the coauthor of this book, to do the keynote on that particular essential at our Married Life event. Obviously there is a lot that can be said about nurturing romance in a marriage. But Lane was committed to picking a point.