Monthly youth leaders column

It’s how you say it that makes the difference. We have seen many politicians on our TV screens recently making brave attempts to sound repentant (or otherwise) in order to save their skins.

The public seems to have got to a point where no politicians can be believed. Whatever they say and however sincerely they mean it, they have lost the ability to be credible. When leaders give their speeches, some are immediately captivating and others a complete turn off, whatever the substance of their message. Barack Obama has to be listened to whereas some leaders closer to home don’t even sound convinced by their own message.

Captivating Jesus

‘All we have to do is teach the Bible’, said one youth minister — I couldn’t agree more. Psalm78 reminds us of passing on ‘the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might, and the wonders he has done’ (Psalm 78.4). Jesus’s ability to captivate an audience shines through the pages of the gospels and Paul’s communication skills are beyond doubt. Talking to philosophers in a Hellenistic culture took some doing. If we say ‘just teach the Bible’, it could become a ‘get out clause’ which enables us to think that, as long as we are faithful to the text, we can speak it how we like. Now, of course, other Christian leaders have gone to the other extreme and they are all about wowing an audience with their eloquence, humour or delightfully warm personality but I wonder if that has pushed those of us, who know our prime directive is to teach about Christ from his word, to a place where we almost disregard who we are speaking to.

A real misunderstanding

We are youth minsters so we talk to young people and I have sat through more than enough youth talks to realise we can be less than we should be in our ability to make the pages of Scripture come alive. I once heard a speaker, who told me, after he had given what he himself described as a ‘flat talk’, that he didn’t want his passion to obscure the message. I think that is a real misunderstanding of what it means to teach young people. The role of a teacher is to make it as easy as possible for their listeners to receive and assimilate the information or the truths. Put simply, we want them to get it and live by it. Ministry is not dependent on our ability to communicate — it is dependent on the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit which is at work in those who believe (1 Thessalonians 2.13). But we mustn’t work against that by paying little or no attention to the way we deliver our talks.

Interactive

Your work on the passage you are teaching is the core business of what you are doing. Get that straight and clear and you will communicate clearly. That is not the same as being too simplistic or patronising your group with platitudes rather than teaching them with appropriate material. How interactive do we make our sessions? Clearly Paul on the Areopagus was not without his questioners and neither, it appears, was Jesus. Of course, the role of classic preaching is still at the heart of what we do, but do we never engage in dialogue with our young people? As I heard one youth leader say, ‘I’ve taught you the Bible, that’s all you need’, and he refused to engage in dialogue, claiming that his job was done once his presentation was finished.

Next month we will look at some practical communication skills.

Dave Fenton

© Evangelicals Now - July 2009
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