If you’ve every tried ballroom dancing, you’ve learned a simple rule — someone always needs to lead.
In our evangelism strategies, we generally make ourselves the leader in the gospel dance. We ask people to follow us in our reasoning, our words, and our illustrations. What happens if we reversed the roles and allowed the hearer to lead? What if evangelism started from the listener’s point of view?
I love the insight of Proverbs 27:14, “If a man loudly blesses his neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse.” Picture this. A friend crashes through your front door at 5 am, barges into your bedroom, and shouts some good news! How would you feel?
No matter the message, you would at first be irritated. You might even curse him or her for waking you up. Why? A good message was shared in an inappropriate way and at an inappropriate time. The message was delivered but not received.
Effective communication delivers messages in ways that are received and understood by the hearers. To do this in evangelism, we sometimes need to reverse the roles in our gospel dance. Reversing the roles is what insiders do.
How we receive and understand God’s message is important to Him. He employs everything from invitations — “Come now, let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18) — and questions. His first recorded exchange with Adam and Eve were all questions (Genesis 3:9, 11, 13). Since He knew the answers, why did God ask questions? Could He be inviting Adam and Eve into a thoughtful conversation with Him?
Our Lord’s ultimate form of communication is found in the incarnation — God becomes a man so that humans can clearly understand His message. Our Lord will go to any extreme to communicate his message so that it’s understood by us.
Mission specialist Charles Kraft writes that God “is careful to bend every effort to meet his [listeners] where they are. He will choose topics that relate to the felt needs of the [hearers] . . . He will use language that is maximally intelligible to them.” For communication to happen, the message must connect with the hearer. Here’s an example of how a message does not connect.
My friend Dean told me how an unchurched co-worker came to the realization that “Jesus was into banking. “ As a believer, Dean, had never considered this side of Jesus’ life.
“What do you mean by that?” Dean politely asked.
“I saw a billboard while driving to work that said ‘Jesus saves.’”
This is a true story — not a punch line to a joke. A message was sent on a billboard but not received.
What seems ridiculous to us makes perfect sense to Dean’s co-worker – saving is about money! The billboard’s gospel message failed because it didn’t connect with the receiver; a message was delivered but not received.
How does this discussion on communication connect with evangelism? Take some words that we cherish, such as “sin,” “salvation,” or “righteousness.” Do you think they make sense to an unchurched neighbor or coworker? Are there current words you could substitute? Is there a word-picture or analogy you could create to communicate their meanings — an analogy or word-picture that is more relatable?
We don’t want to compromise the truth but communicate the truth in ways and words that connect with the hearer. We’re letting the listener take the lead not in the truth of the message but in the manner of communication.
In the final analysis, we believe that the Holy Spirit gives understanding (John 16:8; Ephesians 1:17, 18). But this doesn’t let us off the hook. When we live as insiders, we’re always asking, “Is my message making sense from another’s point of view?” We must move beyond just delivering the gospel message but thinking about how to communicate the message in ways that are understandable. After all, the good seed in Jesus’ parable of the sower is the one who “hears and understands” (Matthew 13:23).
God invites us into a conversation with Him and He uses a variety of means to make His message understood. We must learn from His example as we engage people with the gospel.
We don’t want to be like the noisy neighbor who shares a blessing but in an inappropriate way and at an inappropriate time. Perhaps we should let the receiver of the message take the lead in this dance of communication. Let’s trust the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom in our evangelism so that God’s message is understood and received by our friends, neighbors, and coworkers.
Time to Reflect
- How does the incarnation — Jesus becoming man — demonstrate God starting from the hearer’s point of view?
- What are some ways we communicate the good news that may not make sense to others?
- When can our efforts to be understandable cross over into compromising the gospel?
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