Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Is This How We Communicate The Gospel?
A while back, my friend Hugh Hewitt discussed how Republicans should be proclaiming their message:
The political example is instructive. Republicans suffer a bit of a "authenticity gap" these days. They have communicated such a simple, brief, sound bite message and they have created an army of people that, when the necessities of reality force them to compromise those sound bite principles, decide they are "phonies."
In doing business this way, the Republicans have gained votes, but they have not gained sophisticated party members - people that understand what it actually means to govern day-to-day and who work hard to do the best possible job of that.
When we reduce the Christian message to such concise sound bites - we get a lot of Amens, but we do not get a lot of people whose lives are genuinely transformed - people who in depth know what it means to be a Christian on a day-to-day basis.
And like the Republicans, they come and they go and many grow disillusioned. We're not in the come-and-go business. We're not even in the numbers business - we're in the lives business.
There may be a place for this type of communication in evangelism, but it must be quickly quickly followed up by the kind of in-depth, heartfelt communication that marks genuine intimacy.
Otherwise, Christs admonitions about those that say "lord, Lord..." may prove their startling reality to us.
Effective communication requires clarity and repetition, enhanced by brevity, energy and good humor.That certainly is the prevailing communication model in this sound bite - TV addled age. But is it the best way to communicate the Christian message?
The political example is instructive. Republicans suffer a bit of a "authenticity gap" these days. They have communicated such a simple, brief, sound bite message and they have created an army of people that, when the necessities of reality force them to compromise those sound bite principles, decide they are "phonies."
In doing business this way, the Republicans have gained votes, but they have not gained sophisticated party members - people that understand what it actually means to govern day-to-day and who work hard to do the best possible job of that.
When we reduce the Christian message to such concise sound bites - we get a lot of Amens, but we do not get a lot of people whose lives are genuinely transformed - people who in depth know what it means to be a Christian on a day-to-day basis.
And like the Republicans, they come and they go and many grow disillusioned. We're not in the come-and-go business. We're not even in the numbers business - we're in the lives business.
There may be a place for this type of communication in evangelism, but it must be quickly quickly followed up by the kind of in-depth, heartfelt communication that marks genuine intimacy.
Otherwise, Christs admonitions about those that say "lord, Lord..." may prove their startling reality to us.
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