Three Preaching Essentials to Reach Today’s Culture

Preaching is important. The Apostle Paul encourages his young friend Timothy to preach the word, in season and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2). As pastors and Christian leaders, this means we must always be prepared to preach and effectively communicate the transforming power of new life in Christ.

Most pastors aspire to be good preachers and we’ve all heard our share of sermons. Some great, many good, and some not so good. Effective preaching can be tricky. You must discern what God is saying, put it down on paper (or your laptop), and turn it into a sermon. Then you need to deliver that sermon to a crowd of people with different backgrounds, diverse needs and varying levels of spiritual maturity. And, of course, your goal isn’t that people will just hear your message, but that it goes beyond their ears and penetrates their hearts so that their lives, priorities and actions are changed. Every week!

That’s no small task and we deeply rely of God’s help and the Holy Spirit’s anointing to get that accomplished. While our culture and methods change, the word of God does not. And as preachers, we need to take this to heart as we are entrusted with communicating the gospel to the people of our day. Here are three preaching essentials to effectively reach people of today’s culture.

Word
In the first chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus is referred to as the Word (logos, in Greek). Jesus is the central person of the gospels. So, pointing people to Jesus should be one foundational component of our preaching. Whether you preach verse by verse or talk about different Biblical themes or contemporary topics, the basis of the words must be rooted in the truth of scripture and the reality of the person of Jesus. Doing anything less would be a sad disservice to your people.

But we’ve probably all heard sermons that spoke truth but somehow missed the mark at connecting with people. And while the Old Testament prophet Isaiah said that his words will certainly accomplish their purposes (Isaiah 55:11), we can help our listeners connect with our words by using a few, simple techniques.   Continue reading