Why Should They Listen to Me?

To stand and drone out a sermon in a kind of articulate snoring to people who are somewhat between awake and asleep must be wretched work.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The apostle Paul wrote, “How can people hear without someone preaching to them?” Tim Timmons wonders, “How do we make them even want to hear?”

No preacher wants to preach to empty pews or vacant stares.

In our day, we cannot assume the sermon will fall upon willing ears. In some circles, sermon is a dirty word. “Don’t preach to me!” is practically the motto of a generation. Gone are the days when the great sermons were broadly read and discussed. Today, preachers must capture the ears of the crowd if they will be heard at all among the cacophony of compact discs and Coke commercials.

Timmons, immersed in the life of Irvine, California — the capital of Southern California chic — has spied out the unpromising land of secular life. At South Coast Community Church, swirling, shifting, unsettled secularity surrounds him. He knows the shuttle buses run to Disneyland and Newport Beach rather than his church. So why would anyone come to hear his preaching?

Timmons has found a method. And people do flock to hear him preach — people who could be polishing their convertibles or jogging under graceful palms or enhancing their year-round tans.

This first chapter tackles a question prior to any convincing the preacher might accomplish: “Why should they listen to me?”

A fellow attended a special evening service at the church but sat near the door. After the speaker had droned on for some forty minutes, the fellow got up and left. On the way out, he met a friend coming in. The man asked, “Am I very late, Zeke? What’s he talking about?”

“Don’t know. He ain’t said yet!”

In every speaking situation, what matters most is this: Did the audience get the speaker’s point?

I know no greater misery than sensing the audience isn’t listening to me. It makes me so nervous I talk faster, pound the pulpit or raise my voice, and seem flooded with perspiration from every pore! In 1971 a friend, Rabbi White, invited me to speak to the national officers of the Jewish Defense League. Now the J.D.L. is no tea-and-crumpets group. They tend to get physical. What’s worse, Rabbi White asked me to speak on “Why I Believe Jesus Is the Messiah!” I can think of at least three million better ideas.

To be honest, nothing worked that day. As I spoke, they seemed to size up my body thinking, One grenade should do it. They had no intention of listening.

After many experiences of saying too much to people who listen too little, I have made it my life’s goal to talk so people will listen. From my experience with secular audiences and Christian congregations, I carved out an approach I call the “AHAAAA! Method of Communication.” (That’s because my aim is to move the audience to an “AHAAAA!” response.) The method has six steps:

Define Your Audience

No speaker is more effective than the one who knows and relates to an audience, yet few things are more difficult. As we emerge from our theological training stuffed with “all the answers,” it’s very easy to preach answers to people not asking those questions. And until I know the questions, the answers don’t matter.

When requested to speak, I ask five basic questions:

First, who is my audience (age, sex, background, prejudices)?

Second, what are their questions (thoughts, feelings, struggles, pains, needs)?

Third, which of those questions shall I address?

Fourth, what is God’s answer to this question?

And fifth, how much time do I have?

These help me relate to my listeners, whether for a series of messages or a one-shot opportunity.

When I first moved to California, I delivered one of my most memorable messages to a community group. I was so impressed with my intellectual prowess. I traced the line of despair à la Schaeffer. I made monkeys out of evolutionists à la Wilder-Smith. I proved humanism inhuman à la Montgomery. I dazzled them with my footwork — dazzled them to sleep. Why? Simply because I was so into my “answers” I forgot to get into their questions.

How does one discover the questions? The most effective way I know is to live with people. I enjoy this most about the pastorate. I live among those I pastor and those I want to reach. For years I stepped all around people to go speak here and there. But for the last ten years I have been living with people in my world. There’s a big difference.

This means thinking with them, reading what they are reading — best sellers, self-help books, insight books, psychological books, magazines, newsletters, and anything else I can get my hands on that will help me understand people. I want to know their struggles and pains — their questions. Once I understand their questions, I can package relevant biblical answers for distribution.

Another helpful activity is to speak frequently in secular situations. If my aim is to reach my community, I can say yes to Rotary, Kiwanis, Exchange Club, Junior League, P.T.A., and many other civic organizations that constantly seek speakers. Taking advantage of these opportunities forces me to think about this kind of audience. It’s a great exercise in analysis.

I must also play with them. Just as Jesus went to the “sinners,” so we must go where people need the Lord — the health club, tennis club, YMCA, racquetball court, or country club. Community soccer, baseball, basketball, and football programs are always in need of volunteers. Coaching soccer and baseball each year gives me close contact with several entire families for a season.

Fourth, I must counsel with them. By this I am not insisting on a line-up of appointments. However, if I talk so people listen, I will stir up more and more questions, and they will seek further help. Here I grapple with people’s pain — their lost-ness. Nothing escorts me into reality more quickly than being eyeball-to-eyeball with a family’s seemingly impossible situation. When I’m standing in the midst of a hemorrhage, my spiritual Band-Aids seem to shrink a bit.

I think of my task this way: If I don’t relate to my world, my world will never relate to my God.

Determine the Handicaps

I’ve found three ongoing handicaps that tend to keep us from talking so people will listen. If we are not aware of these handicaps, we will not work on them. And if we don’t, they will virtually silence our message.

The first is that the world is listening to everything else. There is no such thing as a captive audience. Competition nearly overwhelms people; they suffer from overcommitment and overchoice. In my community, people have almost stopped signing up for things in advance; they just show up — if there is nothing better to do.

Our world also suffers from the greatest religion of all — confusionism. People are confused about right and wrong, relationships, the future as well as the past. They are also confused about identity, the mystery of intimacy, and their struggle with inadequacy. And for the most part, the Bible isn’t recognized as a primary authority. It’s just another voice in the confusion.

To overcome this handicap, we must offer clear, pertinent answers to the world’s greatest needs. The Bible must be demonstrated as a relevant, down-to-earth message of healing.

The second handicap is that the church is talking to itself. We create evangelistic programs and air them on Christian stations. We write evangelistic articles and print them in Christian magazines. We publish evangelistic books and sell them only in Christian bookstores. We have evangelistic meetings and hold them within the four holy walls of the church facility. Then we are shocked when the world doesn’t listen.

We must take this handicap seriously. If we are to be salt and light interrelating with people in our world to bring them to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we must prepare and present our life-changing message for those who need it most. We have been judging the world and talking to ourselves when we really ought to be judging ourselves and talking to the world — in ways they will listen.

The third handicap is that the speaker is in a box. It seems every Christian group has its “holy huddle.” Their whole purpose is to hold on until Jesus returns. They are not interested in talking so people will listen, because they believe no one ever will listen. Such people will embalm our ministry if we let them. We must love them, care for them, and listen to them, but never allow ourselves to be managed by them.

Another box is formed by our influential professors and past mentors. The first few years out of seminary I found myself still speaking, writing, and counseling for my professors. It was as if they were still with me, looking over my shoulder and evaluating me. This blurred my primary audience.

Defeating this handicap means being managed only by God, not the “holy huddle” or past professors. Then we are freed to respond to the real audience.

Direct the Angle

With my audience and handicaps in mind, I next choose my subject matter and aim it appropriately. Jesus always directed what he wanted to say toward his audience. To the woman at the well, the angle was the water of life. To the blind man, it was the light of the world.

In a world riddled with problems, we must not teach the Word of God without angling our teaching toward those desperate problems. Alcoholism, drug abuse, divorce, child molestation, crime, suicide, and disease are all epidemic, and Christians are not sealed in a mayonnaise jar against them. To get the “AHAAAA!” response from our congregations, we must direct the angle of our message toward their problems.

Develop Your Attitude

The more I speak the more I realize that people tune in to my attitude before they listen to anything I have to say. They catch my attitudes about two things: myself and humanity.

If I affect a pious sanctity, they are unable to identify and will not listen. But when my attitude is genuinely down-to-earth, the barriers come down. My vulnerability is vital to getting people to listen. They must be able to trust me.

People won’t miss my attitude toward humanity in general, either. I want my audience to know I care for them no matter what. That’s hard to resist. I want to express this attitude: I’m not OK, you’re not OK, and that’s OK, because there is hope to become OK through a personal relationship with God.

At a tennis club one day nearly two years ago, my scheduled opponent didn’t show up. Another match was arranged for me. We introduced ourselves and moved to our respective back lines to warm up.

Suddenly the man said, “What was your name again?”

“Tim Timmons.”

He dropped his racquet and moved toward the net. I met him there. With a finger pointing into my face, he asked repeatedly, “Do you know who I am?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure!”

Finally he blurted out, “I’m going to tell you: I’m the porno king of Orange County! What do you think of that?”

I could tell he was waiting for me to pull a big, black Bible out of my sports bag and tear into him.

I put my finger up into his face and said, “Let me ask you something. Can you play tennis?”

He gulped and eventually mumbled, “Yes.”

“Then get back there, and let’s play!” I said. We went at it. I prayed in that instance for victory (a Grade A miracle) and surprisingly, my prayers were answered.

When he shook my hand at the net, his first words were “What times are your services Sunday?” He began attending, and in six months, he retired from the pornography business. About eight months later he placed his faith in Jesus. What a thrill to watch all this! Because he bought my attitude toward him and life in general, he was willing to listen to my message.

Deliver Your Appeals

At this point, the audience is ready to listen. Now what will they hear?

We must appeal to them, and our appeal must be dynamic. While the audience is a crucial determinant of what to present, our intended appeal is the pivotal factor in how to deliver a message. The appeals we make are the basic connectors between us and our audience. If executed properly, they enable us to break down the invisible wall between us.

The nature of these appeals makes the difference between true persuasion and shameless propaganda. Persuasion moves people to change on a long-term basis in view of great reward. The shift is genuine. Propaganda moves people to change on a short-term basis, usually producing great regret. It’s the skilled art of the con man hyping his audience for an instant, with no one to fix the wreckage.

Every time I stand up to speak, my listeners ask one foundational question: Why should I listen to you? And within this question are three subquestions:

Can I trust you?

Do you care for me?

Do you know what you are talking about?

Unless I answer all three adequately, I greatly hinder any opportunity for true persuasion. On the contrary, if I answer each of these well, I have the best opportunity to communicate dynamically and truly persuade.

The question Can I trust you? amounts to Are you a good person? Have you experienced what you’re talking about? What are you really selling? My audience wants to know my ethical appeal.

Ethical appeal is not easily put on. You either have it or you don’t. It is normally based on a good track record. People can smell it. Those who have it smell good; those who don’t smell bad. And audiences are sniffing away, because they must pick up the scent of ethical appeal before they will respond.

In the recent Billy Graham Crusade in Anaheim, California, I was challenged again by his incredible ethical appeal. He really doesn’t have to say much (though he does), nor does he have to say it in a dynamic way (though he does). He overwhelms his audience with his long track record of ethical appeal.

The second subquestion, Do you care for me? is a short way of saying, Are you interested primarily in your own well-being or mine? Do you mean what you say? Are you actually committed to it? Are you excited about it? My audience wants to know my emotional appeal. Do I really care for them, or am I just going through the motions? People sense enthusiasm and intensity. Emotional appeal becomes contagious, and the audience has a tough time resisting it.

Over the years I watched Richard Halverson demonstrate vibrant emotional appeal to his congregation in Bethesda, Maryland. Each Sunday he expressed his true excitement and affection for his people. He told them how much he loved them and appreciated the privilege of being their pastor. He had one of the most beautiful love affairs with his congregation I’ve ever seen.

Third, Do you know what you are talking about? Do you make sense? Do you have evidence? Is that evidence fair? Who are your authorities? My audience wants to know my logical appeal. This does not mean telling all I know about a subject, but it must be clear that I know much more than I am telling. Logical appeal helps an audience understand truth more clearly and persuades them that it makes enough sense to act upon it.

I have found it extremely effective to appeal to secular authorities as part of my logical appeal. There are biblical examples of this technique, especially Paul’s use of Greek poets in his Acts 17 address in Athens. Using the Word of God as a foundational authority, it’s easy to find widely accepted secular references that state the same truth. This does not make the biblical truth more true, but it does lead your audience from the secular authority they already accept to your ultimate authority they may or may not already accept.

Probably the clearest example of all three appeals in action is in 1 Thessalonians 2:1-13. Paul approached his audience “not … from error or impurity or by way of deceit … nor with a pretext for greed.” (Ethical appeal — Can I trust you?) He also approached them “as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.…” (Emotional appeal — Do you care for me?) Having laid this foundation, his logical appeal was successful; he says, “When you received from us the word of God’s message, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God.”

That’s what I want as a response to my communication. This is what I mean by “AHAAAA!” — an ethically, emotionally, and logically satisfying response to God’s truth.

Do Application

Application becomes natural if it follows the preceding steps. As a speaker, I simply must not ignore the action-steps that flow out of a message. I have heard it said that 5 percent of an audience are innovators, 15 percent are adapters, and 80 percent are adopters. If this is even approximately accurate, most of our audiences will not act on their own. They need simple action-steps they can adopt to apply truth.

I test my action-steps with a three-point quiz:

First, are they realistic? Can people actually do them? Would I do them?

Second, are the steps relational? Is anybody else committed to them? Without a dimension of relational accountability, most applications of truth seem to have a built-in fizzle factor.

Third, are my action-steps responsible? Do they lead people toward greater personal responsibility? I don’t want to leave any room for my audience to blame others or count on them unduly for help.

After all is said and done, more is said than done. Our task as pastors is to close that gap between talking and walking. The most effective gap-closing method I know is to talk so more people will listen, moving them toward a satisfied “AHAAAA!” response.