We have thought about the complexity and diversity of our listeners when preaching.  There are too many of us that would preach the same no matter who was before us.  We need to take seriously the need for analysis and understanding of our audiences.  Who am I preaching to?  Who is listening?

We have thought about building up believers and reaching lost souls with the gospel.  We have thought about the impact of that ministry on the unseen forces of good and evil.  But there is one more listener:

5. God Himself.  Seems obvious, but how easily I can forget.  It is easy to preach as if God is a monadic and distant being, One whom I represent and fear in equal measure.  One who will evaluate my offering and find me wanting.  But what if we think about preaching from a trinitarian perspective?

The Father always delights to talk about the Son.  I get to join that familial delight as I preach of that same Son.  The Son always thrills to obey the Father’s will.  I get to participate in that trinitarian submission and obedience as I serve alongside Christ, my brother, sacrificing self in order to please the Father.  And there is the Spirit, the active communicator, but never the focus.  I get to do ministry that is not about my efforts, but instead is fully alive because the Spirit is at work in me.

And all along, God is listening.  He delights to hear of His Son.  He enjoys seeing me serve Him with the Son whom He loves.  God listens.  And God cares.

God cares about every other listener, more than I ever could.  He cares about me, more than I could ever deserve.  He cares about this unique moment of ministry.  I’ve been planning for a couple of weeks, but God knew about this moment and the work He would do from the beginning of time.

God wants us to target our messages at the people before us, but there is an unseen realm of listening ears.  Frightening foes, powerful spiritual servants, and the wonderful God who hears, who sees, who cares, and who changes lives . . . even with us doing the preaching!

We understand the text in order to communicate it.  We understand the listener in order to target the message.  Simple.  Until we pause to ponder how complex a normal audience actually is.

We’ve thought about edifying saints and redeeming sinners, but are there other listeners?  What about taking two together:

3. Angels & 4. Demons.  Not so sure what to do about these two, but we can’t ignore them completely.  We know angels long to look into the wonder of the gospel, and we know from experience that the forces of evil hate the proclamation of God’s character and the good news of the gospel.

But what do we do about it?  I don’t suggest it is wise to target your preaching at either God’s ministering spirits sent to serve us who will inherit salvation.  Nor do I think it is smart to start identifying and targeting particular spirits of whatever in your church congregation.

Our ministry is profoundly spiritual, but we are not called to wage rhetorical war on the enemy of our souls.  We are called to proclaim the gospel so that those blinded by the god of this age might be saved, and so that the body of Christ be built up.

Perhaps where this spiritual awareness should stir us the most is in our prayer lives.  When we preach as if it is about information clearly communicated to neutral listeners, then we are being utterly naive.

We preach in the context of a spiritual battle over souls.  Apart from Christ we can do nothing.  We need to pray for the people listening, believers and not-yet-believers, and we need to pray for our preaching ministry to make an eternal mark.

There is another listener, of course . . . tomorrow.

Yesterday we thought about some aspects of the diversity of a so-called “Christian audience” . . . but the reality will almost always be that there are people listening who are not believers.  They also, of course, are not a monolithic bloc:

2. Not Yet Believers.  You only have to stop for a few seconds to realise that we can’t simply refer to people who are not following Jesus as if they are all the same.  Some are feeling genuinely stirred and motivated.  They may not be able to explain why, but they find themselves on a spiritual journey and may even be surprised by the interest they are taking and the new perspectives they find themselves embracing.

Others are only at church listening to you preach because they feel obligated to be there.  A family member.  A key date in the calendar.  Something means they have to be physically there.  But nobody can force them to be emotionally or mentally present.  They may well be playing the next round of golf in their head before you even begin.  Unfair challenge?  Sure.  It is still up to you, leaning fully on God’s strength and wisdom, to get them engaged and keep them engaged.

Then there are the folks with questions.  There may be one big one that is blocking everything else, and if you get to chat to them, then it may soon come your way.  Or there may be a plethora of questions, perhaps being stirred by your message as you go through it.  The only way to address those kinds of questions is to put yourself in their shoes before you preach the passage.  What would I ask if I didn’t already agree with this passage?

Some listeners grew up going to Sunday School and have some level of Bible literacy.  Most today have little to none.  How will they hear and understand what you are preaching?

Everyone will have their own paradigm for life and reality.  What might stir affirmations from some, might stir indignant antagonism from others.

Preaching is not easy.  Thinking about the listener is a multi-faceted challenge, and there are still more listeners to add in yet.

Preaching  is a simple concept.  You prayerfully prepare and then communicate the biblical text to a contemporary audience.  God, Bible, Preacher, Listeners.  Voila.  A good preacher will be someone who is close to God, studies the text well, communicates effectively and pastorally targets the listeners.  Simple.

Unless you probe this.  For instance, there are multiple factors when it comes to being close to God.  Studying a biblical text well requires a diversity of skills for a significant variety of textual genre.  Communicating effectively involves consideration of terminology, vocal variety, body language, gesture, facial expression, proxemics, etc.  At least the idea of targeting our listeners is relatively simple.  Or is it?  When you preach, who is listening?

1. Members of God’s family.  In a church setting, hopefully a significant number of listeners will be fellow believers in Christ, co-baptised by the Holy Spirit into Christ, siblings living in the forever family of our perfect Father.  I have one sibling – same DNA, but we are so different!  I have five children – same DNA, but they are so different!  Then there’s the church – same Holy Spirit DNA, but talk about diversity!

Some believers in the church are mature saints who have travelled a long and windy path, experiencing life in all of its complexity, all the while growing closer to their Father and to the Son, by the Spirit.  They know His faithfulness in the depth of their being and their identity is profoundly saturated in His love.  But others are mature in human years, yet have never really matured in their Spiritual lives.  They remain spiritual infants and are profoundly vulnerable, yet often these folks have no awareness of how fragile their Christianity actually is.  They might be worried, or they might be bombastic and difficult to deal with, throwing their weight around and wondering why people don’t seem to respond to them as they do to others.

Some believers are in the process of maturing in a healthy relationship with Christ marked by hearing His heart through the Word and responding in the fellowship of a healthy prayer life.  Their spirituality is relational and personal and responsive.  Other believers are confused by some sort of speculative spirituality that has caused them to chase knowledge through books or conferences, others chase an experiential spirituality through reflective disciplines or different types of conferences.  Other believers are not particularly marked by any spirituality, other than learned behaviour.

Some believers exhibit the fruit of the Spirit.  There is something dynamic about their lives and there is a clear sense that God is at work in them. Other believers evidence primarily the fruit of the flesh.  There is little delight in Christ to be noticed and you can’t help but wonder where they stand before God.

Tomorrow we’ll consider another category of listener . . . believers alone are complex enough though!