A pastor told LEADERSHIP recently, “The people I’m preaching to are increasingly secular. I can’t assume they have a Christian world view.” Said another, “I mentioned a Bible reference during my sermon, and after the service, a woman who was visiting asked me, ‘What did you mean when you said those numbers?’ ”
Today, the non-Christian who visits a church may find the Christian message utterly foreign. Even those who attend church these days are often influenced far less by Paul and Barnabas than by Cagney and Lacey. How can pastors effectively communicate the gospel to these un-churched people of the late twentieth century?
For the past thirteen years, Bill Hybels has served as pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago, a ministry structured to reach contemporary un-churched people. In this article, he explains some of the lessons he’s learned about preaching to the secular mind.
Driving home from church the other day, I pulled behind a guy on his Harley-Davidson. I noticed a bumper sticker on the rear fender of his motorcycle, so I pulled closer. It read: SCREW GUILT.
After the shock wore off, I was struck by how different his world was from the one I’d just left-and even from the world a generation ago. In my day, we felt guilty, I thought. Now, it’s not only “I don’t feel guilty,” but “Screw guilt.” I find that the unchurched people today, whom we’re called to reach, are increasingly secular.
There was a time when your word was a guarantee, when marriage was permanent, when ethics were assumed. Not so very long ago, heaven and hell were unquestioned, and caring for the poor was an obvious part of what it meant to be a decent person. Conspicuous consumption was frowned upon because it was conspicuous. The label “self-centered” was to be avoided at all costs, because it said something horrendous about your character.
Today, all of that has changed. Not only is it different, but people can hardly remember what the former days were like.
Why We Need a New Approach
Many churches, however, still operate with the understanding that non-Christians are going to come through the doors, feel pretty much at home, understand the sovereignty of God and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, and in one morning make a complete transition from a secular worldview.
Even twenty years ago, that was a reasonable hope. The secular worldview wasn’t that disconnected from God’s agenda. A guy would hear the claims of Christ and say, “Well, that makes sense. I know I’m a sinner” or “I know I shouldn’t drink so much” or “I really should be faithful to my wife.”
Today, even though we’re asking for the same thing-a commitment to Christ-in the perception of the secular person, we’re asking for far more. The implications of becoming a Christian today are not just sobering; they’re staggering.
Recently I preached on telling the truth, and afterward, a man came up and said, “You don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“What don’t I understand?” I asked him.
“You’re just up there doing what pastors are supposed to do-talk about truth. But my job requires my violating about five of the things you just talked about. It’s part of the job description; I can’t be ‘on the level’ and keep the position. You’re not asking me to adopt some value system; you’re asking me to give up my salary and abandon my career.”
We preachers, I was reminded that day, have our work cut out for us. The topics we choose, the way we present Scripture, the illustrations we use, the responses we ask for, all need to contribute to our goal of effectively presenting Christ to non-Christians.
For the past thirteen years, we’ve geared our ministry at Willow Creek to reach non-Christians, and during that time I’ve learned a lot, sometimes the hard way, about what kind of preaching attracts them, keeps them coming back, and most important, leads them to take the momentous step of following Jesus Christ. Let me share some of those principles.
Developing Sensitivity
If we’re going to speak with integrity to secular men and women, we need to work through two critical areas before we step into the pulpit.
The first is to understand the way they think. For most of us pastors, though, that’s a challenge. The majority of my colleagues went to a Bible school or Christian college and on to seminary, and have worked in the church ever since. As a result, most have never been close friends with a non-Christian. They want to make their preaching connect with unchurched people, but they’ve never been close enough to them to gain an intimate understanding of how their minds work.
If we’re serious about reaching the non-Christian, most of us are going to have to take some giant steps. I have suggested for many years that our pastors at Willow Creek find authentic interest areas in their lives-tennis, golf, jogging, sailing, mechanical work, whatever-and pursue these in a totally secular realm. Instead of joining a church league softball team, why not join a park district team? Instead of working out in the church gym, shoot baskets at the YMCA. On vacation, don’t go to a Bible conference but to some state park where the guy in the next campsite is going to bring over his six-pack and sit at your picnic table.
When I bring this up with fellow ministers, I often sense resistance. It cuts against everything we feel comfortable doing. And yet not knowing how non-Christians think undercuts our attempts to reach them. If we’re going to stand on Sunday and accurately say, “Some of you may be questioning what I’ve just said. I can understand that, because just this week I talked with someone about it,” then on the Tuesday before we’ve got to drive to the Y and lift weights and run with non-Christians. We can’t win them if we don’t know how they think, and we can’t know how they think if we don’t ever enter their world.
The second prerequisite to effective preaching to non-Christians is that we like them. If we don’t, it’s going to bleed through our preaching. Listen closely to sermons on the radio or on television, and often you’ll hear remarks about “those worldly secular people.” Unintentionally, these speakers distance themselves from the non-Christian listener; it’s us against them. I find myself wondering whether these preachers are convinced that lost people matter to God. It’s not a merciful, “Let’s tell them we love them,” but a ticked off, “They’re going to get what’s coming to them.” These preachers forfeit their opportunity to speak to non-Christians, because the unchurched person immediately senses, They don’t like me.
What helps many pastors genuinely like non-Christians is the gift of evangelism. When you have that spiritual gift, it’s easier for you to have a heart for non-Christians. Not every pastor claims evangelism as a gift. But I’ve seen many develop a heartfelt compassion for non-Christians by focusing on their needs. That takes away any intimidation they might feel around non-Christians; it frees them to minister.
When I was in youth ministry in the early seventies, kids wore their emotions on their sleeve. They’d come up crying, or mad, but I could readily recognize their need. When I started ministering to suburban adults, everybody was smooth. Everyone dressed nicely and had a nice-looking spouse, two nice-looking kids, a nice car, a nice home. I thought, What do these people need church for? Everybody’s getting along fine.
The longer I worked with them, though, the more I realized, These people have gaping holes in their lives. That pretty wife hasn’t slept with her husband in three months. Those kids, if you could ever get close to them, are so mad at their dad they’d fill your ears. That home is mortgaged to the hilt, and that job that looks so sweet isn’t all that secure. That guy who looks so confident is scared stiff inside.
That appearance of sufficiency is a thin veneer, and underneath is a boatload of need that we, as pastors and teachers, are equipped and called to address in the power of the Holy Spirit. As we learn the way non-Christians think and develop a genuine love for them, we can speak the words of Christ in a way they’ll hear.
Topics and Titles They’d Choose
Unchurched people today are the ultimate consumers. We may not like it, but for every sermon we preach, they’re asking, Am I interested in that subject or not? If they aren’t, it doesn’t matter how effective our delivery is; their minds will check out.
Five years ago the book Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche came out, and immediately sales took off. Everyone was talking about it. As I was thinking about the amazing success of that book, I decided to preach a series entitled “What Makes a Man a Man? What Makes a Woman a Woman?” Unchurched people heard the titles, and they came; attendance climbed 20 percent in just four weeks. The elders were saying, “This is incredible!”
When that series ended, I began one titled “A Portrait of Jesus.” We lost most of those newcomers. Interestingly, the elders said to me after that series, “Bill, those messages on the person and work of Christ related to unchurched people as well as any messages we’ve heard.” In this case, the problem wasn’t the content; the people who needed to hear this series most didn’t come because of the title.
Since then, I’ve put everything I can into creating effective titles. I’m not particularly clever, so sometimes I’ll work for hours on the title alone. I do it because I know nonchurched people won’t come, or come back, unless they can say, “Now that’s something I want to hear about.” The title can’t be just cute or catchy; it has to touch a genuine need or interest.
Here are some series titles I’ve had good response to:
 “God Has Feelings, Too.” People said, “What? God has emotions?” And they came to find out what and how he feels.
 “Turning Houses into Homes.” When I announced the series (in church the week before it started), I said, “Our area is setting national records for housing starts. As you drive around and see one of the hundreds of houses going up, ask yourself, What’s going to turn this house into a home? That’s what we’re going to talk about in the next four weeks.” I could have used a thousand other titles, but this one seemed to touch a nerve.
 “Telling the Truth to Each Other.”
 “Fanning the Flames of Marriage.”
 “Endangered Character Qualities.”
 “Alternatives to Christianity.” I always begin a new series the Sunday after Christmas and Easter to try to bring back the first-time visitors. Last Christmas Eve we announced, “A lot of people are saying, ‘Christianity is the right way,’ or ‘The New Age Movement is the right way,’ or ‘Something else is the right way.’ We’re going to talk about the alternatives to Christianity, showcase the competition, and let you decide. We’ll make an honest comparison, and if it’s not honest, you tell us.”
That was an A+ title, as long as we dealt fairly with the opposing points of view. I could have called the series “The Danger of the Cults” or “Why Christianity Is the Only Sensible Religion,” but those titles would have attracted only people who were already convinced. From the very first words people hear about our message, we need to communicate, “This is for you. This is something you’ll want to hear.”
Sometimes people who haven’t heard me preach misunderstand this and say, “Yeah, it’s easy to attract people if you tiptoe around tough biblical issues and don’t get prophetic on areas of discipleship.” My experience, though, has been that you can be absolutely prophetic with unchurched people. We all should be like Paul when he said in Acts 20, “I didn’t shrink back from giving you the whole counsel of God. I didn’t shrink back in terms of the content or the intensity.” But to do that with any group, we need to preach in a way they can understand. We need to start where they are and then bring them along.
For example, we have a lot of people attend who can’t conceive of a God who would ever punish anybody. That wouldn’t be loving. They need to understand God’s holiness. So I’ve used the old illustration, “If I backed into the door of your new car out in the parking lot after the service, and we went to court, and the judge said, ‘That’s no problem; Bill didn’t mean it,’ you’d be up in arms. You’d want justice.
“If you went to a Cubs game, and Sutcliffe threw a strike down the middle of the plate, and the ump said, ‘Ball four,’ and walked in a run, you’d be out there killing the ump, because you want justice.”
A person hears that and says, “I guess you’re right. I wouldn’t want a God who wasn’t just.”
Then I can go on to say, “Now before you say, ‘Rah, rah for a just God,’ let me tell you some of the implications. That means he metes out justice to you.”
You can be utterly biblical in every way, but to reach non-Christians, every topic has to start where they are and then bring them to a fuller Christian understanding.
I’ve also found it helpful, as many pastors have, to preach messages in a series. With the non-Christian, you want to break the pattern of absenteeism. Over the course of the series, he or she gets in the habit of coming to church and says, “This isn’t so bad; it only takes an hour.” You’re trying to show him or her that this is not a painful experience; it’s educational and sometimes even a little inspirational. Sometimes it’s convicting, but in a thought-provoking rather than heavy-handed way. Pretty soon, a guy says, “Why don’t I come, bring my wife, and stop for brunch afterward?”
I’ve found I can’t stretch a series longer than four or five weeks, though, before people start saying, “Is there anything else you’re ever thinking about?” And obviously, if I’m going to talk about money or other highly sensitive issues, the series may run only two weeks.
Explaining the Wisdom of the Bible
Unchurched people don’t give the Bible a fraction of the weight we believers do. They look at it as an occasionally useful collection of helpful suggestions, something like the Farmer’s Almanac. They tend to think, The Bible has some neat things to say once in a while, but we all know it’s not the kind of thing I’m going to change my life radically to obey.
If we simply quote the Bible and say, “That settles it. Now obey that,” they’re going to say, “What? I’m supposed to rebuild my life on some book that’s thousands of years old? I don’t do that for any other respected literary work of antiquity.” It just doesn’t make sense to them.
So almost every time I preach, I’m trying to build up the reliability of Scripture and increase their respect for it. I do that by explaining the wisdom of God behind it. When you show them how reasonable God is, that captivates the secular mind.
Most of them have written off Christians as people who believe in floods and angels and strange miracles. My goal is to explain, in a reasonably intelligent fashion, some matters that touch their lives. I hope when they leave they’ll say, “Maybe there is something to the Bible and to the Christian life.”
Consider 2 Corinthians 6:14, the verse that instructs us, “Don’t be unequally yoked.” Some teachers speaking on that passage will say, “The implications are obvious: Don’t marry a nonbeliever. The Bible says it, and we need to obey it.” For the already-convinced person, who puts great value on the inspiration and infallibility of Scripture, that might be enough. I don’t think most church people buy it as much as we hope they will, but let’s say they give us the indication that they do.
The secular guy, on the other hand, sits there and thinks, That is about the most stupid and discriminatory thing I have ever heard. Why should I refuse to marry someone I love simply because her religion is a little different? So one Sunday morning, I started by saying, “I’m going to read to you the most disliked sentence in all of Scripture for single people who are anxious to get married.” Then I read 2 Corinthians 6:14.
“This is that awful verse,” I said, “in which, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul cuts down the field from hundreds of thousands of marriageable candidates to really only a handful. And almost every single person I know, upon first hearing it, hates that verse. What I want to do is spend the next thirty minutes telling you why I think God would write such an outrageous prescription.”
During the rest of that message, I tried to show, using logic and their experience, that this command makes terrific sense. We were in a construction program at the time, so I used this illustration: “What if I went out to the construction site, and I found one contractor, with his fifteen workers, busily constructing our building from one set of plans, and then I went to the other side of the building, and here’s another contractor building his part of the building from a totally different set of blueprints? There’d be total chaos.
“Friends,” I continued, “what happens in a marriage when you’ve got a husband who says, ‘I’m going to build this marriage on this blueprint,’ and a wife who says, ‘I’m going to build it on this blueprint’? They collide, and usually the strongest person wins-for a time. But then there’s destruction.
“God wants his children to build solid, permanent relationships, and he knows it’s going to take a single set of plans. In order to build a solid building or a sound marriage, you need one set of blueprints.”
Over time, I want gradually to increase their respect for Scripture, so that some day they won’t have to ask all the why questions but will be able to say to themselves, Because it’s in the Book; that’s why.
Current Illustrations
I’ve found that the unchurched person thinks most Christians, and especially pastors, are woefully out of touch with reality. They don’t have a clue as to what’s going on in the world, he thinks. An unchurched person who does venture into a church assumes whatever is spoken will not be relevant to his life.
That’s why I select 60 to 70 percent of my illustrations from current events. I read Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, Forbes, and usually, Business Week. Every day I read the Chicago Tribune (USA Today when I travel), watch at least two TV news programs, and listen to an all-news radio station when I’m in the car. Why? Because when I can use a contemporary illustration, I build credibility. The unchurched person says, “He’s in the same world I’m in. He’s aware that Sean Connery and Roger Moore no longer play 007. He’s not talking about something years ago; he’s talking about something I care about today.”
I sometimes joke that one of my goals in ministry is to complete however many years God gives me without ever using a Spurgeon illustration. Non-Christians (even most Christians today) don’t know who Spurgeon was. And once unchurched people find out, they wonder why I’m wasting my time with him. They think, This is 1988, and we’ve got missiles flying in the Persian Gulf, a teetering stock market, and political turmoil, and he’s spending time reading some dead Englishman? If he’s got the time to do that, he’s not living in the same world I am.
The second thing an up-to-date illustration does is put me and the listener on an even footing. He heard the same news report I did; he saw the same show. When I quote Augustine, he feels like I’m not playing in the same ball park. But when I say, “On ‘Nightline’ two nights ago, Ted Koppel was talking with. . .” the guy says to himself, I saw that! I wonder if he felt the same way about that as I did, and he stays with me. An illustration from current events includes the non-Christian listener; it puts him on an equal footing with everyone else in the audience.
I learned this principle from studying the parables of Jesus. I noticed him saying things like, “You all heard about those eighteen people killed in Siloam when the tower fell on them. . .” (Luke 13:4). As I charted Jesus’ parables, I saw quickly that these “illustrations” weren’t quotes from rabbinic authorities but stories of things average people saw every day.
When people feel that somebody’s in their world and has been real with them, that’s powerful. That’s why I’ll continue to use illustrations that are current.
Responses That Give Freedom and Time
When people walk into church these days, often they’re thinking they’ll get the party line again: Pray more, love more, serve more, give more. They just want something more out of me, they think, I wonder what it’ll be today that I’m not doing enough of.
It’s easy for us pastors to unintentionally foster that understanding. One pastor asked me for help with his preaching, and we talked about what responses he was asking for. I suggested, “List the messages you’ve preached in the last year, and write either pray more, love more, serve more, or give more next to any message where that was the main thrust of the sermon.”
He came back and said, “Bill, one of those was the thrust of every single sermon last year.” He recognized the implications. If every time my son comes into the living room, I say, “Do this more; do that more,” pretty soon he won’t want to come in the living room. But if he comes in knowing there is going to be some warmth, acceptance, a little humor, and encouragement, then on the occasions I need to say, “We’ve got to straighten out something here,” he can receive that.
Often the goal of a message can be Understand this reality about God or Enjoy this thing God has done. Recently my Wednesday night message was taken from Romans 12:3-8, a passage about using spiritual gifts. I could have pushed people to serve more, I suppose, but that evening I said, “This is the most serving church I have ever seen. You people are using spiritual gifts beautifully. What Paul is telling the church at Rome to get on the stick and do, you people have gotten on the stick and done.” Then I gave fifteen or twenty illustrations of ways people in the church are serving, selflessly, for God’s glory.
I closed, “I want to say I respect you as a church. You’re an unbelievable group of servants that God is pleased with. Let’s stand for closing prayer.” Parishioners are people, too, and sometimes people need to be commended for what they are doing already. In the case of the non-Christian, we may commend them for honestly considering the claims of Christ, for being willing to listen to what we have to say and not immediately writing it off.
With the unchurched, though, our primary goal has been determined for us: We want them to accept the lordship of Jesus Christ. Let me suggest two key principles in asking non-Christians for a commitment.
1. Give them freedom of choice. I’ve been surprised to learn you really can challenge unchurched people as much as you would anybody else-as long as at the moment of truth you give them absolute freedom of choice. At the end of an evangelistic message, I often say something like: “You’ve got a choice to make. I’m not going to make it for you. I’m not going to tell you that you have to make it in the next thirty seconds. But eventually you’ve got to make some decisions about the things we’ve talked about. As for me and my house, it’s been decided, and we’re glad we’ve made the decision. But you need to make that decision as God leads you.” I’m taking the ball and tossing it in their court. Then it’s theirs to do something with.
During one message recently, I made a strong, biblical case for team leadership. At the end I said, “I know many of you own businesses, and you’re accountable to nobody. I think from what we’ve read in the Scriptures today, you would be the primary beneficiaries of following God’s plan of team leadership so your blind spots don’t cause your downfall.
“But,” I said, “it’s your life; it’s your business; it’s your family; it’s your future. I trust that over time you’ll give this thought and make the right decision. As for me, I’ve got elders, I’ve got board members, I’ve got an accountability group. I feel glad I have a team to accomplish what God has called me to do. Let’s stand for prayer.”
When you give a person complete freedom of choice, he goes away saying, “Doggone it, I wish he would have laid a trip on me, because then I could have gotten mad at him and written off the whole thing. But now I have to deal with it.” Rather than letting people get away, giving them freedom of choice urges them to make that choice.
2. Give them time to make a decision. Suppose a guy came into my office and said, “I have a Mercedes-Benz in the parking lot. I’ll sell it to you for $500 if you write me a check in the next fifteen seconds.” I wouldn’t do it. By most counts, I’d be a fool not to buy a Mercedes-Benz for $500. But if you make me decide in fifteen seconds, I’d refuse because I haven’t had enough time to check it out. I have some natural questions: Is there really one in the lot? Do you have a title to it? Does it have a motor?
But on Sunday we’re tempted to tell people who’ve been living for twenty, thirty, or forty years under a totally secular world view, “You’ve got just a couple minutes at the end of this service to make a decision that’s going to determine your eternity. It’s going to change your life, and you might lose your job, but come on down.” The non-Christian is thinking, Whoa! This is a big decision, and I’ve been thinking about this for only twenty minutes.
When I ask today’s non-Christians for a commitment, I’m trying to persuade them about something that’s going to alter radically everything they are. They say things like, “You mean marriage is permanent? You gotta be kidding-like I have to reconcile with that witch? No way!” or “You mean I have to get serious about child rearing and not just hire somebody to do it?” Everywhere the non-Christian turns, he’s finding I’m asking for far more than he was first interested in. He senses a spiritual need-that’s what brought him to church-but he’s going to need a lot of time to consider the implications.
Most of the conversions that happen at Willow Creek come after people have attended the church for six months or more. The secular person has to attend consistently for half a year and have the person who brought him witness to him the whole time. He needs that much time simply to kick the tires, look at the interior, and check the title before he can finally say, “I’ll buy it.”
It’s interesting: I get criticized for this as much as for anything else in my ministry. People protest, “Bill, you had them in the palm of your hand, and you let them get away!”
I’ve heard this enough times that now I usually respond with some questions. “Do you think people heard the truth while they were here?” I ask.
“Yes, they heard the truth.”
“Do you think the Holy Spirit is alive and well?”
“Of course I believe that.”
“Do you think Bill Hybels ever saved anybody?”
They quickly say, “Oh, no, no.”
I say, “I think we’re okay then. If they heard the truth, and the Holy Spirit is alive and active, God will continue to work in their lives, and Bill Hybels isn’t the only way he can accomplish his will for them.”
Having said that, however, there is a time to close the sale. Not all the time, but sometimes, people need to be challenged. And when I do challenge people, I challenge them hard. Periodically I’ll say, “Some of you are on the outside looking in. You’ve been around here for a long time and have enough information. I’d like to ask you, what is it that’s holding you back from repenting of your sins and trusting Christ right now? Sometimes a delay can be catastrophic. It’s time to deal with this.”
But-and this is critical-when I do that, I always make a qualification for the people who aren’t to that point. I’ll say, “Now for many of you, this is your first time here or you’ve been here only a few weeks. You don’t have enough answers yet, so I’m not talking to you. You’re in an investigation phase, and that’s legitimate and needs to go on until you have the kind of information the rest of the people I’m talking to have already attained.”
Trying to reach non-Christians isn’t easy, and it’s not getting easier. But what keeps me preaching are the times when after many months, I do get through. Not long ago a man said to me, “I came to your church, and nobody knew what really was going on in my life, because I had ’em all fooled. But I knew, and when you started saying that in spite of all my sin I still mattered to God, something clicked in me. I committed myself to Christ, and I tell you, I’m different. My son and I haven’t been getting along at all, but I decided to take two weeks off and take him to a baseball camp out west. He started opening up to me while we were out there. Thanks, Bill, for telling me about Jesus.”
For a preacher, such a joy far surpasses the ongoing challenge.
Leadership Spring 1988 p. 28-34
Copyright © 1988 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
