A friend of mine recently relayed this story to me:
A lunch hour prayer
Two people, in their mid-twenties, whom I had never seen before asked, “Hello there, do you have anything that you want us to pray about for you?” I was approached while sitting in a park, minding my own business, during a short relaxing lunch break in what was otherwise a very busy and stressful day.
I looked up to see Mark and Julie, well dressed and pleasant, an innocent look in both their eyes. “Any family, work, social, environment, world issues that you have that could do with God’s help?” I was dumbfounded. No one these days says “g’day” when they walk past you, or acknowledges your presence when passing you in a hallway, yet here were two people seeking some input for a social prayer for just the three of us. What could I request? What had I prayed about that morning? That lunch time? Were there any issues that I was really concerned about?
“I believe in the Bible and I try to do what God wants me to,” I started. “I would love to pray together about a few issues such as the local and international political leaders, the environmental crisis of global warming, oil spills, earthquakes, poverty, sickness…” I could see the young man concentrating on the list I was rattling off, and I was becoming more and more confident with each phrase. “Most of all could you ask for God to send His Son, Jesus, back to the earth, to set up the Kingdom of God here?” I felt great, I was preaching!
The young man took the young woman’s right hand in his left and offered me his right hand, motioning for me to close the circle by holding the young woman’s other hand. They both bowed their heads and he prayed for a number of things that I had listed, as well as a few other things obviously important to them. Upon the group offering a hearty “Amen!”, we discussed the topics as prayed for, and then they were on their way. I went back to my work for that afternoon and I felt on top of the world!
Here is a preaching technique that I had never heard of before. This was obviously not the first time that these young people had approached a total stranger, and it very likely wouldn’t be the last. They genuinely believed in what they talked about, and my friend was refreshed to have them interrupt the lunch break. I am not sure that I could do this!
We have been gifted with the Truth and we are privileged to understand the purpose of God through His Word. We have received an amazing treasure and we need to be out sharing it with more people. This story reveals one way that we could do this. The rest of this article will highlight a few other ways. Some of these ways are ‘tried and true’, others maybe, have not been as popular amongst us.
Taking personal responsibility
When we think about preaching today, sometimes we can think that it is all about overseas mission work, or the formal, combined efforts that we have once a year at the Sydney Town Hall or the Adelaide University. A lot of the time we leave it up to the gospel committee in our ecclesia, with an excuse for our non-preaching efforts that we are “too busy in other ecclesial activities to be preaching”. We leave it up to others to do the preaching work. I want to challenge this belief during this short article, as I believe we are all responsible for preaching the Word in season and out of season, that is, whether convenient for us or not (2 Tim 4:2).
In addi t ion to our Sunday morning self‑examination, we need to have a fresh look at our lives and take stock of who or what or where we are, reflecting on our response to God and the wonderful grace and mercy He has provided us with. We have heard about the good news concerning God’s Kingdom and the saving purpose of His son, Jesus Christ. This gospel made us fully aware of the need to ‘do something about our lives’ and so we keenly got baptized, rising from the baptismal waters to walk in newness of life. This act in itself probably spurred us early on to tell a few non-believers how we had changed our life and the reasons for this life-changing experience.
Now, months or years down the track, the power of the gospel may have waxed and waned to be just a theoretical doctrine in our life, lacking the earlier power or zeal. We need to regenerate this keenness, share our hope with others, and preach to others who have no hope.
One way is to look for ‘an apostle Paul’, someone that seems to create opportunities to preach the Word, and try to learn some of their preaching techniques, so you can use them in your daily life. This way, should you feel scared, or inadequate, or both, the time you spend with this ‘known preacher’ will encourage and help you.
The witness of consistent Godly habits
When we talk about preaching the Word and spreading the Gospel, it’s amazing the different ways that believers do this, sometimes without even saying a word! A number of older brethren and sisters are great examples of this, sharing the gospel message and their hope of a future age to come, by regularly attending every meeting. Not only are the young people encouraged within the meeting, neighbours are often aware of our regular, consistent attendance ‘at church’. This can be a great introduction to conversations about our beliefs and a springboard to inviting them along to a preaching activity. I know of a few examples of people coming to the Truth because of the consistent, faithful way of life of a believer. God has used the life of one of His dedicated and faithful children to confirm to non-believers that there is more to this life.
There are some specific characteristics that will make a preacher stand out as being different at university or within the workplace. These include not getting involved in office politics, being helpful to everybody, having a cheerful disposition, a ‘can do’ attitude and being a hard, honest worker. You can be a silent witness for Christ too, by walking away when a crude joke is told. You don’t always have to condemn them out loud; they will get the message by your non-involvement. Not only will people notice that we are different, but when we later preach to our colleagues, our words will hold weight because they know that we practise what we preach.
Opportunities in the domestic sphere
For those not in the work force, there are so many ways you can preach the gospel. For example, you have a captive audience for 20 minutes every time you get a hair cut. Also, a number of opportunities present themselves at the shops around Christmas and Easter times as every checkout operator will enquire if you have done your Christmas shopping or if you are going away for Easter. Both of these questions are an excellent way to share the hope that you have in Christ and the Kingdom to come.
For mothers of young children who attend kindy, you can strike up a conversation with the teacher or other mothers when dropping off or picking up your child. Comments along the lines of instilling Godly values, said in a genuine way, may provide an opportunity for the listener to seek more information about the Godly life you lead.
Preparing answers
One ‘classic’ way of getting into a preaching way of life is to prepare. Organise a standard response or answer to some of the more regular topics of conversation at work, at the shops, the library, wherever you spend time. What do you say when someone says, “What a sad world we live in?” Do you have to think about it for a while, or have you got something that you can immediately respond with, to turn the conversation around to God? “I know”, you confidently answer, “but when I read the Bible, I read that Jesus Christ is going to return to earth to fix up all the world’s issues and I can’t wait.” You can be God’s witness whenever and wherever. People will be more inclined to turn to God with this bright and positive answer, rather than an answer like “yeah, I know, aren’t all politicians a bunch of liars and greedy so and so’s – they do nothing to help us at all.”
What do you say if these questions come up in conversation?
- Why are there so many wars these days?
- If there was really a God, why would He allow innocent people to suffer, like in that earthquake/tsunami …?
- What is this world coming to?
- The so-called religious churches are the cause of most of the problems around the world these days, aren’t they?
- Why don’t Israel and the Palestinians just get over it?
- It doesn’t matter what you believe, God loves everyone just the same, don’t you think?
- You’re religious aren’t you; is that why you don’t vote?
One really good way to be ready for these sorts of questions is to write down the questions that you think you could struggle with and do some role plays with a good friend or family member. This way, when the time comes, you will be ready for any Mark 16 experience!
Personal contact is best
When you look back through the history of the Truth the majority of people have come to the Truth through the personal contact of someone already in the Truth (leaving aside baptisms of a long term Sunday school scholar with family in the Truth). Personal preaching is the least costly from a monetary point of view (no leaflets to print, no halls to hire, no adverts to prepare and place with newspapers, etc). Not only does it cost less, the personal preacher often has more ‘success’ as they build up rapport and can deal with specific issues and queries that come up.
In my own preaching efforts with our ecclesia, both formal and informal, there are times where the ever increasing time, money and resources put towards a special lecture on a topic of social interest has ‘no result’. “What a waste of time!” we conclude at our post-lecture analysis gospel meeting. “We could have done…”, “should have done…”, “next time we will do…” etc. That is a crazy way of looking at it! Just because there are no interested friends sitting in the chairs in the Scout Hall that you hired, it’s not a failure. God works in very wonderful ways, and surely He will be pleased that there are now 1 000, 5 000 or 10,000 homes that have a topical leaflet in their letter box; also, another ten or twenty times that number have seen an ad, driven past the Hall and seen the signs out the front or heard about the lecture through personal contact. Our efforts, we need to remember, allow God to bring the increase (1 Cor 3:6,7). We plant and water, and then need to be patient.
Be doing!
The ideas we have raised in the previous paragraphs will mirror many believers’ experiences, and hopefully will give us a fresh look at preaching today. However, don’t think some theory in a Lampstand article will be OK….
“Go into all the world and preach the Gospel!”