Ed Setzer from A Lifeway Research Blog
Ed: When you’re preaching and when you’re communicating, what is the goal that you have for the listener? What do you want them do, be, act, or change as you communicate with them?
Andy: Well, actually I think the list that you just gave me is the goal and I think it depends on the kind of sermon. And so, I think every communicator needs to step up to wherever he or she’s communicating with a specific goal, and sometimes it is “I want them to know something,” sometimes it is “I want them to do something,” sometimes it is “I want them to change something.” So, in 35 or 40 minutes of a lot of words coming out of my mouth, in my mind, there’s always a specific goal. This past Sunday for us was Easter and I wanted our congregation to understand something. It wasn’t an application sermon. It wasn’t even a “here’s something you’ve never thought of before” sermon. It was a “I want you to understand something.” But I think that’s going to shift with the topic and shift with whatever series a communicator’s in. That’s a good question.
Ed: You and Layne Jones coauthored the book, Communicating for a Change, and many people have found it very helpful. What do you think are some elements that pastors and communicators who are doing messages, what do they need to bring to the message so that people can experience or be motivated to experience that change?
Andy: I think a big part of it is passion. And I coach our communicators. Every week I’m in some sort of coaching environment with our communicators on staff, and one of the things I say to them frequently is I say, “Look, you’ve gotta imagine there’s a 21-year-old guy that’s sittin’ two/thirds of the way back and he’s givin’ church one more shot. What, where in your message is the passion to reach out and grab that guy by the throat and say, ‘You can’t leave here without hearing or doing or understanding.’” And so, when it comes to change, I think it’s one thing to look at our outlines and our, whatever script we have in front of us.
That’s one thing, but I think we have to step up there with somebody in mind or a type of person in mind because, for me, that’s what I think fuels me to communicate for change or to communicate for a life change or to communicate to understand something that’s never been understood before. And in my world - and you’ve been around me enough to know - every once in a while, I pull my stool out to the front of the stage and just it on it as close to the edge of the stage I can and lean as far as I can into the audience, and that’s sorta my visual way of saying, “Okay, look, if you forget everything else you’ve heard today, you got to know this one thing, you gotta hear this one thing.” And I think from the stage, that’s the compelling change part. Here’s what’s gotta change.




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