Evangelism is a take and give, give and take relationship.

In Evangelism today we do not seek to bring God to the other,but to find God in the other. Put in other words evangelism is really a two way street. We enter the other's world because we really believe that we are enriched by the interactions between their story and our story. Thus we celebrate and acknowledge the existence of good and beauty where ever we find it.Jesus often found faith outside his own religious tribe and praised it(Matt 8: 10; 15:28).The gospel is the story of Jesus being saddened by the lack of faith among his own people.
It is important that in Evangelism we get to know people, their stories of what God has been doing before we got there and learn alongside. Evangelism is a take and give, give and take love relationship in which no story, culture or mythology is better than the other. We initiate a relationship because we believe that there is a treasure in the other that we can not miss.We should be prepared to trade stories.
This treasure is stored in the people's individual and communal stories and is expressed through their myths and metaphors. They have pictures of God as well as images and metaphors from their daily lives which express this understanding of God. Evangelism should tape these as a starting point to establish a relationship and a common language.The people's stories and images have the most powerful hold over their imaginations.Without tapping into the stories, pictures and metaphors of any people christian words and syntax would be indistinguishable from gibberish.

"Reading is loosing to watching because viewing requires less mental processing".

There are two major challenges for the church that I intend to highlight here. The first is how to communicate effectively within and without its walls given its tradition of word based communication.This becomes a challenge given that the environment in which the church is operating has shifted to a vision based communication framework. The young people have rebelled against all forms of institutionalism and associate words with (a)old ways and forms of communicating (b)the stigma of the old ways of establishing social order and power structures and(c)lacking fascination,simplicity and quickness of understanding necessary for a fast- lane type of society.
The second challenge is how to shift to a vision based communication structure and still be relevant to those of "us" who were taught how to read stories(words) but never taught how to read images. Amongst these people are also those who are sceptical about the use of pictures in church.This problem becomes more intense when one realises that any visual communication process requires a two way path between its producer and the receiver.
In brief I would therefore suggest three things significant for congregations. First we are now living in a visual world shaped by television, computers, magazines billboards and movies. We just have to incorporate visual aids in all our church communications.Secondly pictures by themselves are not very meaningful and can even be misleading.Try a communication way in which words and pictures are given equal significance and used in a balanced and complimentary role.Lastly avoid using images in an offensive or simply sensational ways.Images that carry weight and are remembered are those that combine aesthetically pleasing design elements(beauty) with content and relevancy to words.

Messages Come Alive- With Video Illustrations.

Illustrations used in a sermon have the impact of making the message come alive. They also tend to stay in the thoughts of the listeners.Illustrations come in a variety of types.It can be a bit of historical information,a humorous story,drama or a personal testimony. These all help to bring your message home to the audience. In this brief i will give an illustration of how a video can help make a message come alive.
I recently wrote about how Adam Hamilton preached on the passage in John 10:27 where Jesus is stating that His sheep hear and know his voice. Adam realised that in his congregation there were very few if any who had any personal contact with sheep or could actually relate to the fact that they are domestic animals that develop relationship with their caretaker or shepherd.So Adam found a rancher that had a large flock of sheep,took some people with a few cameras down to his ranch and interviewed him on the ranch.
Adam asked the rancher to explain the nature of sheep and their faith in the shepherd. The rancher was willing to share a few interesting facts about sheep as they relate to the illustrations used in the scriptures. Adam then asked the rancher to explain his method of calling sheep into the pens at night and asked if he could give it a try.
The rancher was willing and so the video shifts to the two gentlemen walking out to the gates of the sheep pen where Adam gives a shout to the sheep so as to lure them to the pens. He uses the same words in the exact manner in which the rancher had demonstrated but to no avail.The cameramen did a good job with close-ups of the sheep looking up from the field in the direction of Adam, but not a single one moved to the pen
So after a bit of a laugh Adam asks the farmer to show how its really done. The rancher then proceeded to shout the same calls Adam had tried earlier, only this time the sheep came running from all directions, all heading to the rancher and the safety of the pens. When the video clip ended and the preacher stood up once more, the congregation broke out in applause. He had succeeded in giving them an opportunity to experience the very point Jesus was making in the scriptures.. It was powerful, had the desired effect and all who attended would never fail to replay the scenes they had just witnessed in their minds each time the same scripture is read. Such short videos can be used in place of the personal story. It is amazing that to produce such a vivid illustration is maybe 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.

Personal Stories in Sermons Present Challenges.

In a sermon, personal stories serve to express one's humanity.The issue is; one of the difficulties inherent in preaching is the "othrworldliness" of the message. It is a challenge to have the message perceived as real or "thisworldly". As I see it the personal story serves as a contemporary example and as a tangible evidence of the human-divine interactions this side of heaven.
However, the preacher who tells a personal story in a sermon runs the risk of either looking too good or of looking too bad.In the first case, the preacher can appear arrogant and self serving. Thus loosing the trust of the listeners. In the second case the preacher risks the negation of either his point or his authority thereby loosing the confidence of the listeners. In both cases, the preacher draws attention to himself at the expense of the gospel text and message.Such is the risk of personal stories in sermons. As such personal stories should be used with skill and care. True "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God"(Rom 3: 23, and true the message is always borne on feet of clay; but certainly the wise preacher must limit the exposure of personal foibles in his life stories so as not to tax the listeners' sense of forgiveness.
To put it in short personal stories can bring into the pictures some of the negatives of the human preacher. There are three of these negatives that I need show here. First stories can compete with the message for attention and greatness. Human egos are good at it. Secondly the story of the preacher can lead to misinterpretation of the text.Thirdly the personal story can tarnish the message by the reality of the way the preacher is living.
We need to ensure that the story is not the point but clarifies the point-the message. As such it must be short, clear and precise. Its basic function is to help the listener realize the message, reckon with the message and endorse the message as realistic.
I will conclude by giving a few things we can do to ensure that our personal story do not become part of the three sins above. First a story is great. It provides context and relevance to the listener but you do not have to be the people's hero always. If you are the hero of every story you tell that will get old real fast. Secondly preachers with integrity must be honest and admit the limits of their wisdom.Preachers do not come from some exalted place of knowledge. They come from the pews. Their stories must be close to the stories of others. In fact stories must be real but not so real the people may want to take your job away from you.Thirdly involve other people in story telling. In this way you are not always under pressure to come up with or to concoct a story. Lastly spice up the personal story with a little bit of humour.The old adage- humour is the best way to make the unbearable bearable- may be true.

We need to be more experiential.

Preaching has lost its sting because of its monologue's nature.If we are to give it its sting back we just have to find a way of making a form of dialogue out of the sermon. We have to bear in mind that what is important is the message communicated not how it is communicated.
According to Albert Einsten, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and again and expecting different results".There is need to unfreeze the audience and get them to creatively and thoughtfully engage not only in the hearing but the formation of the sermon as well. Recently I discovered that the Methodist Church in New Zealand have come up with what they call, "Ten Minutes on Tuesday".The essence of this project is that a group of experts in different fields such as homiletics, theology,art,technology, morality or sociopolitical issues get together and put up a sermon. A person from the Resources Department coordinates these experts. The sermon has a list of possible illustrations, dramas,songs and children's stories. On Tuesday each week and up to three weeks in advance they post the sermon on the website as well as e-mail it to all ministers and lay preachers. The churches and all its congregants can then be free to look at the sermon, make their on comments or additions and modifications or use as it is.
The benefit of it is that the whole church can interact with the preacher from an informed perspective. Every person has an expectation of which illustrations has been used or left out and can follow the progress of the sermon.With modern communication technology these sermons are made available to all.Some congregations that I have visited use these sermons for bible study and others have lively sermon discussions having provided electronic copies and hard copies to all their members before the service.
May be this is one way of unfreezing the listeners in church.We have to be experiential in the way we communicate the gospel because times have changed. People need to be involved or they get bored and go some where else.

There's Gotta Be More to Preaching: Be Creative.

Be Creative:
I am one of those who believe that instead of preaching less, we must be preaching more than ever before. The only thing we need to do is to be more creative in the way we communicate or deliver the sermon
My beef is that we must try and make use of several things to enrich our sermons and make them less boring.We can use illustrations, videos or radio dramas for instance. It is becoming common nowadays to use short video clips from popular movies; and there are many great illustrations to be found in today's movies. In the past one could have used a segment from a popular book to make a point. Today grabbing a short clip from a movie can have the same effect but receives better attention.And the more popular the movie, the better the reaction from the listeners. People love to share a common experience or emotion and if there is a scene from a movie that evokes a moment of grace,mercy anger, love or some other emotion then its perfect for use as an illustration-especially if it helps to connect that point of the sermon to the clip and binds it to a common experience.With videos there are just many ways to make your sermon come alive.
One Video that i saw recently used as a sermon illustration involved "man-on-the street" interviews. They asked people on the street what they thought about Jesus. The preacher did not tell the audience what people on the street think of Christ , the audience saw a clip of the responses. The bottom line is we may consider making our own videos for sermon illustration.
I remember in my home country in Africa a preacher who was preaching on the passage in John 10:27.He soon realised that those of his audience had no contact with sheep, and many could not even appreciate them as domestic animals that can develop relationship with the Shepherd.The preacher visited a farmer with a large herd of sheep and brought to service a video clip of his interview with the farmer in the sheep shed.He then used the exact words of the farmer to relate to the words of Jesus and the audience rose in applause.Preachers must give the audience an opportunity to experience the very point of the biblical passage instead of just saying it in words and expecting them to take it as fact. We live in exciting times. Let us make sermons equally as exciting by using modern technological forms of communication in our sermons.

The Grapevine. It works.

I take the grapevine to be the informal transmission of information,gossip or rumor from person to person. In church it is the informal and unsanctioned information network within the church structure.At church it starts in the car park as people arrive,exchange greetings and talk to each other before the formal communication issues of the main service begins.It even continues during the service as people turn in the pews exchange glances and other forms of body language and looks forward to the end of formalities so they can go out and revisit the proceedings in twos or threes. The grapevine reaches its zenith over the coffee machine but continues throughout the week over the telephone, Internet or times spent together over dinner or at work.
Grapevine communication is great in so far as it serves the need for faster communication, transmits useful information to those formal communication channels just does not appeal and serves as outlet for imagination and apprehension. It has the potential to build teamwork and ministry identity as it is normally a horizontal channel of communication. Ordinary church members are freer and more influential on other church members than lay leaders and pastors.
It is a fact that formal channels of communication are highly documented and offers little chance of change. Nearly all information within the grapevine is undocumented and open to change and free to interpretation.This freedom offers people chance to make more sense of their world and faith and to provide release from stress as they can make light jokes out of even very serious issues.People are free to share their stories and weird ideas on an informal level. It is less threatening.
My experience says that there are two types of grapevine communication; spontaneous and premeditated. Spontaneous rumors are spread when people are stressed or in an untrustworthy environment. Premeditated rumors spread within a highly competitive environment. Churches need to create an environment where information is made available and fast. Different forms of communication must be used so that there is no room for speculation. Messages sent out must be clear and objective.