The gospel is God’s own son providing eternal life’ to mankind. It is the good news of the only begotten son of God coming to die on the cross for the sin of humanity, thereby providing access back to God through repentance and forgiveness of sins (Matt. 1:21; John 3:1). And God has chosen the avenue of preaching to convey this gospel to a sinful and alienated world. 1Cor. 1:17-18. Rom. 10: 13-15.
In a changing scientific and technologically advanced world the gospel is relevant and unchanged. Yet, the majority of people of the world have not heard and accepted the gospel truth simply because our methods of sharing that gospel are now obsolete, irrelevant and achaic. That is why people are no longer responding to the gospel as they should:
A. OLD AND WRONG WAYS OF SHARING THE GOSPEL.
The following are traditional, old and ineffective ways that preachers and churches have used to share the gospel in the last several years:
- Gloom, doom and hell fire style.
- Psychological attack and the guilt inducing
- Argumentative and violent style.
- Watered down and compromised style.
- Complex language and confusing terminologies
- Rambling, disjointed and poor delivery style.
While the pulpit is still crucial in communicating the old gospel truth and bring people to maturity, yet people of today are not willing to listen to trash coming from the pulpit. Most preachers of today are simply preaching, they are not communicating.
B. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PREACHING AND COMMUNICATINGB – 1 Thess. 1:5, 1 Cor. 2: -5.
To preach is to string together and try to draw people’s attention to a subject. While communicating is making them to understand and take action.
Preaching ` Communicating
- Informs the head – Touches the head
- Tickles the ear – Impacts the heart
- Provides information – Transforms the heart and life
- Performance and great show – Simple and practical to the point
- Creates more problems – Provides solution and way out
- Dull, complex and uninspiring – Lively, inspiring and understandable
- Carnal, lifeless and powerless – Spirit-filled and spiritual in impact
- Wisdom of words and motivation – Power of God and faith for action
It is mandatory that we seek to communicate the gospel in a relevant way today. Without the skill to communicate the old gospel in a relevant way today, you might become ineffective and largely fruitless.
Recoommended Reading
The Place And Power Of The Local Church
Top Ten Lessons from the Life of Daniel
10 Guidelines That will Keep You In Minsrtry
C. NEW WAYS OF COMMUNICATING WITH OUR CHANGING WORLD.
- Relevant topic – chose the topic that is relevant and practical to the day to day living of people. Let your topic bring the bible alive and into the daily life of people.
- Sincerity – be open, honest and sincere. People can read through you. people still want to hear the truth, being spoken by a sincere vessel. People hate phoney and flacky preachers.
- Stories – use lots of stories in your message. Stories bring your message home to peoples consciousness long after they might have forgotten your sermon, they will still remember your stories.
- Illustrations – use practical, day to day objects to illustrates your messages. It sticks with people.
- Pictorial – people retain 85% of what they see than what the hear. So, use pictures- slides, projectors, drama, films to drive home to gospel truth.
- Humor and jokes – people love good humor and jokes. They learn best when they are made to smile, laugh and enjoy themselves.
- Audio tapes – provide people with audio recordings of the messages. CD is the main thing today.
- Books – books are also timeless, either in print or audio format. Provide resources for people.
- Persuasion – use logic, systematic thought and good reasoning to convince and win people to the truth.
- Simplicity – be simple, direct, unambiguous and practical.
- Spirit of power – the presence and power of the holy spirit will work in hearts when he can flow through you as a vessel.
- Intensive prayers – soak yourself and your message in powerful prayers before, during and after your message. Prayer is the power for change that your message cannot do without.
It will take skill to master these ways of communicating the gospel today if you are going to be effective, result oriented and fruitful for him. And you cannot do less.