Preaching

Preaching

Acts 13:5

Paul says in Romans 1 0 : 1 4 - 1 5 a, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?”

Seven years ago, the Lord led me to pack my family up, move to North Carolina and plant a church. After leaving my first pastorate of just four years and seeing God move in a mighty way in a very small community, I had great expectations for how God could use me and my family in a city of over 300,000 people.
My father-in-law always says, “you can’t preach what you don’t know.” He was speaking in a biblical knowledge sense, but the application still applies. You can’t plant a South Georgia church in Fayetteville, North Carolina, nor could you do the opposite. You can’t preach to a farming community in the same manner as a congregation full of Soldiers. You also can’t preach to families who were raised in churches located in the Bible Belt in the same way you do to people who have never stepped foot in a church or opened a Bible.
I found it is important to assimilate to your culture. Although moving from southeast Georgia only 300 miles north doesn’t seem like it would be different, I can now attest that it is extremely different. Moving to the “foreign field” of North Carolina required many of the same things that would be required if we moved to a foreign country. There had to be time to
learn the culture and how to best minister to a large community.

After learning the people and their needs, I, then, had to develop messages geared toward my congregation - a congregation with the median age of 26; a congregation that didn’t really know “Church Work” let alone how or why to join; a congregation that most do not have a testimony of salvation; a congregation that falls into the statistics of society that believes that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife and Jonah was just a guy swallowed by a whale. In our case, planting a church near the largest military instillation on the east coast, means developing messages for a congregation that you have three years, at best, to evangelize and discipline before they move to the next place.
I have noticed in the seven years of ministering to the people in Fayetteville and Fort Bragg that my preaching style has changed. Even the
method of my preaching has, I will use the word, adapted.

The church in Georgia that I pastored was filled with multi-generational families in Sunday services. There were more people over 60 years-old than there were people under 30 years-old. There were members whose family were charter members in 1820. There were members who remember when electricity came to the building and when Sunday School first began in the community. Many of the members lived and worked around the community. Everyone knew everyone, and they were present in each other’s lives.
It seemed that the style of preaching I was led to preach there was more of a topical or application style. Call it inexperience or an effort to gain the trust and respect of those that were two or three times my age, I studied hard to pull out those gold nuggets of The Scriptures. I studied and preached from scripture that was considered rare to hear a sermon from. Also looking back, I used a lot of visual sermon illustrations and “Object Lessons,” or even tangible keepsakes to serve as a reminder of the message. I felt I was able to speak to the babe in Christ and the mature Christian with these methods.
Now that I am in Fayetteville and preaching to a congregation where-
in the majority are either babes in Christ, lost, or unsure, I lean more
towards expository preaching. Preaching the messages with scriptures
dissected to those who “...desire the sincere milk of the word, that (they)
may grow thereby.” Also preaching to educate and edify the saints that
have need of the “meat of the word.”
I don’t feel like there is a specific people that we focus on, but the people that God continues to send to us are military families. They have a culture unto themselves and preaching to them is different knowing that they are putting their lives on the line for our country. Encouraging them to stay focused on God in the middle of a war zone, while preaching to their families back here that are worried about their Soldiers. Attempting to minister to them in a way that they learn that even though the Army motto is “Mission First, Family always” that God should still reign preeminent. Furthermore, it is important to preach messages of commitment to God, knowing that they are going to a new place and they need to find a place of worship to serve the Lord.
It seems that people in Fayetteville are not very sensitive to the Gospel message. They are definitely not as sensitive as the people in the Bible Belt. Our motto as a church is “You’ve Never Been So Loved” and we try to preach that message wherever we go or whatever we are doing. Our number one method of evangelism is to love the people of Fayetteville to the Cross of Calvary. To show them rather than tell them of the love of God. But looking back over my time in the ministry, I am always reminded that even though the people and culture change or the method of preaching may change, the words of Brother Jeff Luellen continue to be true, “Preach Christ and Him Crucified.” That is the answer to reaching people. No matter where I am, where you are or who we are preaching to, “Preach Christ and Him Crucified.”

Missionary Michael Jones

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