A Guaranteed Way to Reach the Lost!
Preach to Them!
We often reach for a magic solution for impacting the unconverted. There is a solution. It is not magic, but this solution has worked for several millennia. Preach to the lost in front of us!
As a young, itinerant and dumb evangelist, on occasion I found myself thinking, “I’d preach to the lost if there were more lost people here.” Most of my years of evangelizing would have been in churches of average size or less. In an audience of 75, there might be one lost person or two. It took becoming a pastor, then thinking about what other effective pastors were doing before it dawned on me that Jesus taught to focus on the one lost sheep. We had no finances for a grand financial effort. Something practical was needed. The premise of reaching for one changed my preaching and made my life more effective. Since that discovery, I’ve used the premise Sunday is for Sinners! Few Sunday mornings find me preaching to the already converted.
Evangelism is to bring good news to people who desperately need an answer. Think about your preaching from the perspective of one who does not regularly attend church:
- Did your message simply point out a problem or did it offer a solution? To condemn without a remedy is not evangelism.
- Was hell preached hot and eternal? If so, did you declare an escape route?
- Did you speak within the comforts of your “church” culture or did you preach a resurrected Christ who is relevant to the realities of the culture in which we now live? This particular question is a real challenge for many people.
Evangelistic preaching at the local church level works. I’ve been part of several churches that reached a point of baptizing newcomers weekly. It would seem this is a goal. My challenge to you – learn to preach to the lost people. One of my books, Masterful Preaching, focused on my journey from spending too much time informing saints to becoming effective at reaching for the lost. As we work to reach the lost – don’t forget to preach to the ONE lost person Jesus sends your way.
It is not necessary to read Masterful Preaching to learn to be more effective with the lost. Of course, it might help. My process involved much reaching and observation. It was quite a journey. Learning to preach to the lost consistently seems to be a lesson needed more often than not.
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