Preaching and the Externally-Focused Church: An Interview with Rick Rusaw...Continued from page 3

Good deeds by themselves is just being a social worker, and truth just by itself is in a sense being a prophet. I believe God has called us to speak truth and love and do the show-and-tell thing. And so if you are showing good works in your current relationship, then you better have something to back that up with ? the message that made the difference in your life, that caused you to do these good works in the first place. So preaching to me is critical.

And from a leadership standpoint, how are we communicating this to the believers who are part of LifeBridge? How are we helping them see their lives on loan so that God can use them, that He is writing His story through them? We’ve used preaching as a key component to encourage people along that path.

Preaching: As you talk about preaching in a culture where a large percentage of people either don’t connect or don’t understand why we are what we are, how do you find yourself adapting your own preaching style to try to communicate with that kind of culture?

Rusaw: I think it’s not major shift for me. It’s been more subtle stuff. I know I drive some of our people here at LifeBridge crazy because I’ll say things like “Today, I want to invite you to turn to John the 15th chapter” and then I’ll say, “Now, John’s found early in the New Testament about three-quarters of the way through your Bible.” Our folks, who have been here a long time, are saying to me, “Come on, we know where it is,” but it gives permission to the person coming through the door the first time ? or maybe that unchurched, dechurched folk ? it just says, “Hey, it’s okay that you don’t know.”

You know, I think sometimes we make the mistake of being simplistic ? and there’s a place for simplicity ? but then sometimes we have been real complex and I think there is a place for complexity. I think the key in preaching is simplicity on the other side of complexity. Meaning that for me as a communicator, I have to do all of the hard work of understanding the passage, making it relevant and practical and speaking that truth, knowing the audiences that are sitting out there and then making it understandable. I’ve been guilty of being simple. Haven’t usually been accused of being overly complex! I think the genius in communication is the simplicity on the other side of complexity, and that’s a hard-work process.

Preaching: I understand there are times you do some creative things in your worship or communication to try and drive your point home. In his book Refining Your Style (Group), Dave Stone gave the example of using the wooden crosses in the service, and having people nail their sins to those crosses. Is that a common thing for you? How do you approach the whole idea of creative communication techniques?