Preach Magazine Issue 1 - Creativity and innovation in preaching | Page 25

FEATURE

25

When Pastor Michael Ekwulugo’s church moved to a
town centre location, his congregation faced a bigger
change than perhaps they’d been prepared for.
he Transformation Life Centre
in Birmingham had previously
been a traditional black
majority church, but now there
were different faces in the
crowd.

communicating in such a way that
your words actually convey biblical
truth to your audience? Or does
your preaching float right past your
hearers because it’s not delivered “on a
frequency” that they listen to?’

‘We were blessed to be able to buy a
new building,’ says Pastor Ekwulugo,
‘but it’s right on the High Street so that
was massive for us because all sorts of
people would walk through the door.
We realised that we couldn’t just go on
the way we were, so we’ve made loads
of changes. We’ve had to cater for the
new people, we’ve had to evolve.’

Tailoring your message to your
audience is crucial, according to writer
and Baptist minister Mark Woods. He
told Preach magazine: ‘There’ll always
be compromises, because not everyone
in the congregation is going to be
in the same spiritual place or have
the same educational background,
though churches do tend to settle at a
particular level.

In Pastor Ekwulugo’s case, the change
of audience didn’t signal a change of
content. The whole church, however,
had to deal with a cultural shift in the
way its Bible message was framed and
presented (see page 28).

‘A sermon that works in one church
will completely bomb in another. But
I believe passionately in preaching,
which at its best is one heart speaking
truth to another…’

In a recent essay on contextual
preaching, the US author and
minister Ed Stetzer wrote: ‘At the
heart of effective preaching is a solid
missiological perspective. Are you

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Reverend Woods has argued that
regular all-age services don’t work no
matter how well they’re done.
‘I think that real preaching requires
an intensity of speaking and a level of

engagement with the Bible, the world
and the human heart that needs a
certain maturity,’ he said.
‘If we compromise on that, we’re selling
everyone short, both children and
adults. Sermons should be serious,
imaginative and urgent. We should
expect to hear God speaking through
the preacher.’
Stetzer believes that effective preaching
that really speaks to your audience
on a level they’ll understand, does not
involve leaping through hoops – the
Bible is already relevant.
‘Our job is to present it in ways that
help the hearer see that it is relevant
– in this and in every culture.’ he
writes. ‘We do so by starting at their
understanding and taking them to
Scripture for the whole answer.’

Preach magazine spoke to Pastor
Ekwulugo and three other speakers
with very different audiences, and
asked how they shape their sermons to
suit their congregations.

17/10/2014 12:53:50