Category Archives: Audience Analysis

What if your biblical explanation is typically at a level lower than many of your listeners?  What are some suggestions for adding steak to the diet of listeners that are needing it?

1. Pray – Nobody cares about your listeners as much as God, so ask for His coaching.

2. Get feedback – It would be better to know what people think than assume they are needing weightier content.  For instance, just because there are seminary professors in your congregation doesn’t mean they want to be “stretched” by your preaching.  Good, solid, biblical and faithful preaching that is clear and applicable may be the highlight of their week!

3. Watch and evaluate some great explainers – Watch a preacher who is especially effective at biblical exposition.  What is it about their preaching that makes it effective?  (You may find they are simpler than you at first imagined . . . our tendency is to think more info, higher vocab and greater complexity is the key to steaky preaching – not so.)

4. Make connections carefully – It doesn’t take any skill to string biblical proof-texts together.  There is no licensing for tour guides in the “concordance safari” industry.  It does take great biblical awareness to be able to make the links that are appropriate to a message.  For instance, learn to look back in the canon and see what is feeding in to the passage (Kaiser’s “Informing Theology”).  Learn to value other writing by the same author slightly higher than other writings.  This is not as simple as a set of rules, it is an art form.

5. Devour your Bible as if God is worth knowing – To be able to help people make sense of biblical texts, there is no substitute for personal biblical saturation.  I’d rather be fed by someone who really knows their Bible than someone who has crammed higher level commentary content in the last days of preparation.  (This is not to deny the value of good commentary conversations.)

6. Well-cooked steak is seldom complex – I remember hearing radio ads for a steakhouse in Portland.  I was in seminary so could never afford to go there, but it did sound good.  What did I expect of a $75 steak?  Not lots of extra ingredients and spice overload combined with complex cooking processes.  I expected better quality content prepared simply.  Same with preaching.  When we think about preaching more steaky messages, we tend to crank up the jargon and lose sight of our message purpose.  Don’t.  Take the time to have better content, but don’t complicate, in fact, simplify sermon structure, etc.

7. The best “theology” is not on the cutting edge of speculation, it is pushing into the big and core questions – Don’t think that steaky biblical explanation comes from speculative originality, whether that be in sensational eschatology, or obscure theological novelty (save that for your PhD).  The best steaky biblical explanation comes from showing how the biblical text drives us back to the core questions: who is God and what is He like?  What does it mean to be human and made in His image?  What is sin and how deep is the problem?  What is grace and how does God solve the problem of sin in salvation and Christian growth?  God, man, sin, grace and growth.  Simple stuff, but if you can let the Bible probe these issues, your steak will be truly life changing.

Preaching involves explanation.  That is, when we preach, we need to offer some explanation of the passage’s meaning.  But it needs to be more than that.  We need to offer explanation of the passage’s meaning at a level appropriate to those who are listening.

Imagine a scale of zero to one hundred representing the level of complexity.  A class of three-year olds might need an explanation in the zero to five range, and would not do well with a doctoral seminar in the 80’s and 90’s.  This range difference may seem obvious.  However, it seems that sometimes we forget the range within a normal church service.

In a normal church service, there will be a range that must be considered for effective preaching.  If we don’t consider to whom we are preaching, then we will probably settle into a range.  Some of us may be naturally 30-40 explainers, while others of us may be 60-70 explainers.  Which is the right range?  Whichever range is before us.

We need to assume that there may be unsaved listeners present.  Then the range of explanation needed by the believers may be 10-40 or 30-70.

A little exercise for us.  Why not take a couple of minutes and pray for wisdom in evaluating the following:

1. Which range will I naturally settle into if I don’t consider my listeners?

2. What is the approximate explanation range of my usual congregation?

3. Where do the first two answers differ?  That is to say, do I need to put some prayer and work into offering more accessible explanation, or into offering some richer meat?

Biblical preachers have the best job on earth: we get to announce good news!  So here’s a thought to ponder . . . do we preach good news and good news?

There is a danger that we will separate gospel proclamation from instruction for the Christian life.  If we do, we will have problems.  Consider the case of the two-sermon Sunday.  Let me describe the downside of separating gospel proclamation from Christian life instruction:

Sermon 1: Gospel Proclamation.  The preacher preaches the gospel.  Good.  Problem is, the vast majority of those present are already believers.  He keeps telling us how much we need to be saved and how we cannot get there without God doing the saving.  Fair enough, we agree.  He preaches a message that would fit in a tent meeting, but seems entirely irrelevant to the congregation sitting before him.  Everyone hopes that someone is present who is not yet a believer.  It would be appropriate for them.  The sermon ends and a significant number of people leave the church without being fed or helped in any direct way.

Sermon 2: Christian Life Instruction.  The preacher preaches instruction for the Christian life.  Good.  Problem is, a significant number of those present in the morning sermon (Gospel) are not there in the evening.  But for those who are, surely this is helpful?  In some ways, yes.  But the separation is problematic.  Now we are told what our duties are and how we should handle the difficulties of life and what our thoughts and actions should be if trained by Scripture.  The separation means that the preacher does not apply the gospel to the believer, but gives instructions to the insider.

There are problems with both of these sermons.  Technically the preacher may be right in most of what he says.  But the problem with the Gospel message in the morning is that he seems unaware of his audience.  Most are already believers and the presentation treats them as “already in.”  Consequently they can only hope someone is present who needs to hear the message.  Yet the gospel should be relevant to believers too.  In the gospel message the believers could and should be engaged by what is presented.  In the Christian Life Instruction message, the gospel could and should be a defining feature.  Do we think that having believed and entered in by faith, that we now will grow to maturity by our own diligent obedience?  Check Paul’s thoughts on that approach in Galatians 3:1-3.  No, the gospel is relevant to all and it is by faith from first to last.

Perhaps we need to grasp our privilege of proclaiming good news and proclaiming good news: gospel proclamation and gospel-shaped Christian life instruction!