Video Transcript: Session 33 Building Bridges

Welcome back to this class on preacher preparation presentation, a class on  making and preaching sermons. This is session 33. And as I said last time,  we're just talking about some practical considerations in message, in your  messages and in preaching, and don't necessarily relate to all the stuff that goes into that process of preparing yourself preparing a message, developing the  sermon, and then presenting it. But there are some practical things that I want  you to know. Today, you'll notice the title is building bridges. Bridges are  interesting things, bridges are made to connect people from one place to  another, right. In fact, one of the most famous bridges is this is the London  Bridge is not the Tower Bridge, which you can still see in London. But it is what  was known as the London Bridge. It was made back in the early 1800s. And that worked just fine for many, many decades. In fact, over 100 years, that bridge  functioned in connecting people to one another. But it was easy to do that this  was the kind of traffic it had foot traffic. Very liked. You know, you'll see if you  can look carefully at that picture, you'll see carts going through horse drawn  carts, etc. That's what they did back in the 1800s. Now, unfortunately, as  happens with all kinds of construction, by the time this bridge got into the middle 1900s It was starting to fall apart. And in fact, you know, there was an old little  ditty, which made me some of you in English world learned as children. London  Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down London Bridge is falling down,  my fair lady, it was starting to deteriorate. People pieces were falling off. And so  the City of London decided that it had to be replaced. But what do you do with  this old bridge? Well, what you could do is you could tear it down, I guess. They  decided to auction it off. They had this auction. And the guy who won the auction wanted to buy this bridge was a guy named Robert Murdock. And he bought it  because he wondered as an investment. He lived in Lake Havasu City, Arizona,  which had nothing to commend it to people coming. They're moving. They're  living, they're visiting there, except it had this lake, but it's a place that's terribly  hot. And so he thought if he could bring the London bridge there, it might serve  as kind of a tourist attraction. And so he bought the bridge, he won the auction  for $2.7 million, and for $7 million, moved it to Arizona, Lake Havasu City, there's a picture of it, you can get on a postcard. So people might want to come and  walk across the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. But what was  interesting about the building of this bridge is that you'll notice that here's while it was being built picture out of an airplane, it was connecting nothing to nothing,  there was nothing there. Lake Havasu City is mostly desert. And so when they  started building, there wasn't even a water under it. So you really don't need a  bridge. There's the lake there Lake Havasu, but there's no place that needs a  bridge. So they had to create one, they just built the bridge. And then they dug a canal and ran the water underneath it. But you'll notice there's nothing around  there. But the purchaser idea of moving it there and rebuilding it was that people would come if there was something to see, the people would come if they were 

connected to what was happening in Lake Havasu City. And here's a more  modern picture of the London Bridge, and that he very shortly recouped his  entire investment in the London Bridge. Because people came, people came to  see it, people came because they somehow want to be connected to the  London Bridge. So my point today is I want it to be a metaphor for us on what it  means to build bridges with people. Now, one of the people you're here is, in  particular your congregation, whether you're a traveling speaker who speaks a  one week here and one week there, or whether you're somebody who's  regularly in a congregation, there are a variety of ways that you need to connect  with your people in order for them to hear your message. Now, one of the  people who's written about this pretty effectively is a man named Dave Snyder.  In his book, The laws of communication for preaching, one of his laws is this  law. He calls it the law of the bridge. Communication is earned through bridge  building is the way he puts it. And he quotes Isaac Newton, we build too many  walls and not enough bridges. But he talked about his experience in this when  he was in college. He was part of a team that would go out and do services  various places. They do them at the veterans homes, funeral homes, hospitals,  parks, national parks, etc. Well, one time they were invited to go for a worship  service to a rodeo. Dave Snyder had no experience with rodeos. He didn't know  anything about being a cowboy. But he only tagged along with the team. And  they're there as the typical Midwest, a well educated kinds of people. And he  writes about this experience, said, first of all, he met people who didn't ever  expect to meet like the Nitty Gritty Dirt band. You know, people doing western  music, and he had no experience with Western music, never listened to Western music. Everybody's dressed in the same kind of jeans, same kind of shirt, same  kind of hats. And all of a sudden he realizes he doesn't fit in. And this is what he  said, What stands out in my memory the most was after the event. The chaplain  came chaplains for a cowboy church is what it's called, who was running the  event, but had invited the team to come there. The chaplain came and spoke to  our team. He scolded us for not looking like cowboys. That was because we  weren't. Most of the team looked like me, no boots, no cowboy hat, no cowboy  hat and a small belt buckle. He asked us a simple question. How are you going  to minister to people if you're not willing to relate to them? The Rodeo is a  subculture with its own way of dress, showing up to a rodeo without a hat was  like going to church without a shirt. He was right. I felt naked on my head. So  rebuke was hard to hear, especially since I wasn't even planning on being at a  rodeo ever. But that rodeo chaplain was teaching us a law, I call it the law of the  bridge. It says you must earn the right to speak to people by building bridges  into their lives. What I want to talk about is how you build a bridge into people's  lives, people are going to listen to your message, they are going to receive it  more effectively, if you have made a connection with who they are. Now you've  got there are challenges with this, you've got to know this now. The next section,

I'm going to next session, I'm going to be talking about the role of the Holy Spirit. So don't think I'm talking about preaching only as kind of this mechanical event  that if you do this kind of introduction, and this kind of body and organize it this  way, in this kind of conclusion, boom, you've got an effective sermon, I  recognize that sermons are effective, primarily because of the power of the Holy  Spirit at work. So So I do want to say that, but your connection with people is  one of the ways I believe that the Holy Spirit makes that connection to flow  powerfully through you. And you've got a challenge. The Institute for Advanced  preaching once did a survey of why what people don't like about sermons here  are the top three reasons. One, they found the content irrelevant to them. In  other words, didn't make any sense to them whatsoever. They felt like in  sermons, there was too much analysis, and too little answer. And so I mean, too  many questions that came up. And there weren't answers for those questions or  just information being passed on. And number three, that was too impersonal  and too propositional. In other words, it didn't relate to my life. That's close to  being irrelevant. But but the practical application of my life, my situation. Now, if  you're going to be somebody who's going to overcome those top complaints  about sermons, that means you got to know what's relevant to people. You got  to know what relates to their life. You got to know what are the answers that they need or the questions they need answers to. Now Haddon Robinson somebody  I've quoted to you before, reflected on this, this report from this group, and he  wrote this. He said, most sermons resemble Hummer hovercrafts, skimming  over the water on blast of hot air, never landing anywhere. Wow. What an  incredible statement about preaching. So how do you build a bridge to people?  How do you connect from here to these folks, that you're preaching to whether  you're a traveling preacher, or whether you're in a church consistently, or  whether you preach occasionally in a church, you have to build a bridge there so that they will listen to you and so that you understand what material is going to  be relevant and is going to be appropriate for this group of people. So how do  you do this? Well, you've got to analyze your audience. Who are they? Are they  young? Are they old? Now, in most churches today, although a growing number  are becoming age segmented, most churches are intergenerational, But the  reality is that there will be a dominant group or there's a group, particularly that  you're trying to reach within your community, and you've got to preach in a way  that's relevant to them. And age wise, there's a whole different language that is  needed to reach younger people than older. And there are different illustrations  and stories. You know, I, when I tell a story, and I'd say something about while  he went into a phone booth, most of my younger members of my group, my  congregation that I preach to have never seen a phone booth. They don't know  what it is, all of a sudden they realize he's talking. He's just talking way out of my understanding. I don't, I don't know what he's talking about. So how you choose  your illustrations, the language that you choose, is very, very different. Larry 

Osborne is a pastor in North San Diego County, in California, and a pastor of the church. He said, My churches that I've pastored, the same church for 25 years,  but in his blog posts, recently, he said, but during that 25 years, ithe church has  not stayed the same, he said, it's changed. It was that small group of an  overgrown Bible study. Now it's 1000s of people in many different places and  venues that are getting the messages, he said. So I've had to look at how my  preaching has changed in order to reach now a new generation, because I  preached himself was probably in the 60s at this point, a certain way. And he's  got a preaching team of a variety of age groups. So he said, If I'm going to be  relevant to the younger congregation, I realized I've had to change my preaching style. Why? Because before, in people who are older, my congregation my age,  they recognize certain stories and references, but the next generation tends to  think in terms of small bits, he says, so I found that coming up with a catchy  phrase is very important for hitting millennials, which is a certain age group of  people born from Baby Boomers like me. And so what age are they? Are they  educated? Or are they not educated? On the first church, I served as a blue  collar church, and I grew up blue collar, my father was a factory worker for  General Motors worked in the factory for 32 years. And so I understood the  language of blue collar people, I understood the households that they lived in,  we were rather poor because my father and mother chose to have a big family.  And so I understood that. And so when I went to my first church, where they  were people who worked in paper mills, and they were were farmers. And they  were people who had bosses who told them what to do. I understood that to a  certain extent. But I had, for a period of time, outgrown them. That's a terrible  way to put it. But I had gone to college, and I had gone to seminary, and I had all this wonderful theological language that had characterized my life for seven  years. And so I began to use that on this congregation, which didn't have the  education to understand it. And I realized I had to get back to my roots, and talk  to them about the things that were relevant to them and expect things of them.  What are they? Who's in your congregation? Are they? Are they ethnic  minorities, to know something about their experience? is going to be important  for you to connect? Are they rural based? Or are they urban based, it's a  different language. If you're talking to somebody, a group of people who are  largely come off farms and largely have an agriculture, there's some wonderful  things you can do with the visual images you create, and the word language,  word pictures you develop. If you're in a rural congregation, or if you're an urban one, you've got to use different ones. So who are they who's out there?  Secondly, you ask, what do they believe? Now sometimes, what do they believe  is answered doctrinally? You know, they're part of this particular denomination.  And I know that denomination has this set of beliefs. Now, that tends to be a  falling apart these days, at least where I am. Other, the denominational  distinctives, that we used to refer to them are starting to fall away. And you 

know, when people left my church, they didn't necessarily go to a church of the  same denomination as they might have done, done a generation or two ago.  Instead, they go to church and they don't really care about the denominational  connection anymore, but generally speaking, what do they believe, doctrinally?  What's important to these people? Now, sometimes, you know, that's extreme  when you're going to preach. I was once when I was in seminary, invited by my  brother to come and preach in his church. He was a pastor of a church about 40 miles from where I live. And so I eagerly accepted that invitation but talk to my  brother about, okay, who's in your congregation. Now, one of the things I knew  about my brother is that he's a Baptist. I tend to be a reformed Christian  reformed is the name of my denomination. Which meant, I'm part of a group that baptizes children. Now, I would have made no impression on those people  whatsoever except anger if I had come and preached about why you should  baptize your children that that doctrinal belief was something I had to be aware  of, in order to not cut off the bridge. And so what do they believe? What are their convictions? You know, and that convictions might mean that this, what are they  passionate about in this church, the more I can connect to their passions, the  more they will receive me? What level of Bible knowledge do they have, that will affect how I make references to Scripture stories. Recently, I preached in a  church where there was a bunch of young adults, and found out as I talked to  one of their teachers that had had them in middle school and high school, and  found out that they didn't know much of anything. And that's pretty characteristic  of the younger generation in the United States today, probably is where you are,  too. So then I've got a watch that I don't make obscure biblical references. I've  got to keep it alive. I gotta keep to this particular passage at this time. So what  do they believe? What do they know about God? Now, today, that will probably  be answered by saying almost nothing. People generally speaking in the and,  yet, there's some residual kind of knowledge about God. I remember reading a  book recently in which there was a comparison given that when Mount St.  Helen's volcano blew up in Washington here in the United States, that the the  topography around there was just devastated. But they began to notice, in the  very short time that there were some areas that began to grow flowers and  vegetation again, and they would be in the shape of animals that had been  vaporized. But there was the shadow, a recognition yet that there was, had been an animal there, because that's where they were able to get enough nutrition.  Well, in my culture, maybe in yours, too. It's post Christian. But there are the  shadows of knowing some things about God. It's amazing to me how often in my culture, I hear the same statement, everything happens for a reason. Now, they  don't understand anything about that. And what a stupid statement if you don't  believe there's a sovereign God, who's ruler over everything in life. So this  model is kind of residual things that I can connect to them. And what do they  know about God? And I put in that statement there preaching can be too 

preachy? In other words, I'm not going to come down with them on the judgment of God when they don't know God. So what do they know about God? And then  the question, How can I help them come to terms with who they are? Where  they are? So how do you determine the culture where you're going to try to build a bridge? Do advanced research, you know, websites, City Hall demographics,  can learn a great deal from the demographics of the city. When I'm going to  preach somewhere, I will just do a brief questioning about what what is that  area? Like? What do they believe what, what kinds of things exist there, what  restaurants are popular there? Then a second thing to do is understand what  their felt needs are. Ask the questions of people within that community. And you  know, what, what is it that's going to allow me to connect to you? Now, there's a  difference between felt need, and real need. But sometimes I've got to get the  felt need out of the way. So people have a felt need maybe about learning more  about parenting, or marriage or about, you know, where's God when disaster  happens, but they've got a felt need to meet Jesus Christ. So I've got to keep  those two needs in mind. But when I'm building a bridge, I want to know what  are they? What are they thinking, what, what stirs their heart, meet them at the  door means, you know, when you're preaching in a place, you're gonna build a  bridge, if you're not hiding somewhere in a back room as the people come to  worship, that you're greeting them. You're meeting them, you're saying, Hey, I'm  so and so I just preached. I know, for you introverts this is going to be a  challenge. But it's worthwhile to go and say, guy, I'm new here, tell me who are  you? What's your name? What do you do to just help build that bridge of hey, he wants to connect me with me. And then l get to know them. If you're going to be  there long term, get to know them by hearing their stories by spending the time  necessary to get to know them. And you know, and then as much as you can try  to cross a cultural gap church I served in California when I went there, there's a  whole group of dairyman. Now when you think dairyman, you think as I did  growing up in Michigan, and that is a dairy farm where somebody goes out and  milks 25, 30, 50 cows, but the dairyman there were were part of large  organizations that were milking 1500, 2000, 3000 cows, they were  businessmen. And yet they wore cowboy boots, I bought a pair of cowboy boots, when I was going to social events, just so that people could look and say, well  he's trying to fit in, even though that's not me. And then listen to the listeners,  listen to the people that you're going to preach to. Now before the message, you can listen to them by getting group sermon prep group. You know, I shared  before that I did that for a while that I would get a group together and look over  the passages that I was going to preach on. And would get their input because  they're connected in ways that I'm not a practice preach to someone, oh, excuse me. Practice preach to someone, John Wesley used to practice preach to a  servant girl. And he would say now, if I say anything you don't understand, stop  me. Because he was trying to build a bridge to the people to whom he was 

preaching. Now, often we preach, preach to our wives, or our dogs. But find  someone that you can maybe run your sermon by, or a Bible study. One guy  know has people that he's not present, but people study the Bible passage that  he's going to preach on this coming Sunday. And then the leader gives him  feedback. Listen, after the message, do a random evaluation. I did that for a  while where our sermon preparation team would hand out in a random way to  people arriving on Sunday morning, would you please do this and drop it at the  information booth, just as sort of summary of what you reacted to in the  message or a sermon reflection group afterwards, that would be able to do that.  Now, I put down the partners in preaching by Reuel Howe, and these are the  questions he has in his sermon reflection group. Now he is not there. When he  when they talk about this, the leader tells him but you know, people are asking,  what did the sermon say to you? What difference do you think the sermon will  make in your life? How did the preachers method language illustrations of  delivery help or hinder your hearing of the message? And do you agree with any of it? What would you have said about the subject, etc. So those kinds of  questions will help you build the bridge so that people are more ready to receive what you have to say, build bridges, and it's going to make you more effective in  your preaching. Thank you. Next time we're going to talk about the place of the  Holy Spirit in preaching