Table Of Content

CONTENTS Title Page Dedication Praise for Communicating for a Change Acknowledgments Introduction Part I How’s My Preaching? 1. No One’s Listening 2. Where There’s a Will There’s a Ray 3. Go for the Goal 4. The End of the Road 5. A Map to Remember 6. Load Up Before You Leave 7. Crucial Connections 8. Show Me Some Identification 9. Stuck in the Middle of Nowhere 10. A New Attitude Part II Communicating for a Change 11. Determine Your Goal 12. Pick a Point 13. Create a Map 14. Internalize the Message 15. Engage Your Audience 16. Find Your Voice 17. Start All Over Conclusion Q&A with Andy Me-We-God-You-We Notes Don’t Miss These Titles from Andy Stanley Transform your ministry into a winning team! Help people connect into meaningful relationships. Copyright This book is dedicated to our friend and partner in ministry Julie Arnold. When it comes to creating captivating environments and setting up communicators for success, Julie is the best. “For years I’ve encouraged communicators to answer two simple questions before standing up to speak: What do you want your audience to know, and what do you want them to do? In Communicating for a Change, Andy Stanley provides us with a communication strategy built around these two fundamental questions. Whether you are a senior pastor with weekly teaching responsibilities or a student pastor who has been charged with engaging the hearts and minds of high school students, this book is a must-read.” BILL HYBELS Senior pastor, Willow Creek Community Church “As one of the most effective communicators in the church today, few leaders are better qualified to teach on the ins and outs of preaching than my good friend Andy Stanley. A very practical resource for every biblical communicator who wants to go from good to great.” ED YOUNG Senior pastor, Fellowship Church, Grapevine, Texas “To communicate effectively, you have to connect. Andy has been connecting with people for years and now he’s sharing his insights with the rest of us. In Communicating for a Change you will discover how to leverage your connection as a communicator to teach people the truth of God’s love, to make it have personal meaning, and to show how to live the life for which we were created.” JEFF FOXWORTHY Comedian Acknowledgments Most Christians can remember who was speaking the first time they heard the Scriptures taught in a way that captured their attention and created a hunger for more. For Lane and me, it was the same person. My dad. This book would not be possible apart from his influence. We would also like to thank our wives, Traci and Sandra. Specifically, we are grateful for their words of encouragement following messages where it might have been difficult to find anything encouraging to say. As always, we are grateful to Multnomah Publishers for their partnership and commitment to the local church. To our editors, Brian Thomasson and David Webb, thanks for your insight and patience. INTRODUCTION by Andy Stanley I never felt called to preach. I just volunteered. I wanted to feel called. But it just never happened for me. Several of my friends felt called while we were in high school. They went forward during a Sunday night service and shared it with the congregation. Everybody clapped. Some of them are still in ministry. I think one of ’em is in jail. One afternoon I was driving somewhere with my dad. After one of those long moments of silence that fathers and sons have when driving together, I spoke up and said, “Dad, does a person have to be called into ministry or can they just volunteer?” He thought for a moment. “Well, I guess it’s okay to volunteer.” “Good,” I said. “I would like to volunteer.” So I did. In fact, it was two volunteer environments that shaped me as a communicator. During my sophomore year of college our youth pastor, Sid Hopkins, asked me if I would help him lead our Wednesday night student Bible study. That was a really strange request since we didn’t even have a Wednesday night Bible study. Upon further investigation I discovered that he wanted me to start a study for our students. I had never led or taught anything in my life. I was a whopping two years older than some of the students I would be teaching. But I agreed to give it a try. The good thing about being so young was that I knew what wouldn’t work. Preaching wouldn’t work. Teaching for twenty or thirty minutes wouldn’t work. A verse by verse Bible study wouldn’t work. Telling a bunch of stories and tacking on a point wouldn’t work. So I decided to err on the side of simplicity. Nobody told me how long our “Bible study” was supposed to last, so I didn’t feel compelled to fill up a lot of time. I had been given a blank page. On week one about twenty students showed up. I passed out three by five cards with one verse printed on one side and a question printed on the other side. The verse for that first week was John 17:4. “I GLORIFIED YOU ON THE EARTH, HAVING ACCOMPLISHED THE WORK WHICH YOU HAVE GIVEN ME TO DO” (NASB). We talked about what it meant to glorify something. I explained that glorifying the Father was Christ’s chief purpose for coming and that it should be ours as well. Then I had them turn the card over and spend thirty seconds thinking about an answer to the following question: What can I do this week to glorify God in my world? Then I closed in prayer. The whole thing took about fifteen minutes. One point. One question. One application. Everybody stayed awake. Everybody was engaged. Everybody could remember what the lesson was about. Sid was a bit concerned about the brevity. But the next week the crowd grew. And it kept growing. Every week I handed out a card with a verse and a question. No music. No pizza. We didn’t even have a PA system. That was my first experience as a communicator. It taught me a valuable lesson that would be reiterated a few years later. In 1981 I moved to Dallas, Texas to attend Dallas Theological Seminary. At the end of my first semester, the principal of a local Christian high school asked me if I would present a message for their weekly chapel service. I accepted. Since it was high school students I decided I should pick a narrative portion of Scripture. Somehow I landed on the story of Naaman and Elisha. Naaman was the captain of the army of Aram. Elisha was … well, you know who Elisha was. Anyway, Naaman has leprosy and Elisha sends him to take a dip in the river. Naaman obeys and is healed. I spent hours pouring over the story. I drew upon my vast knowledge as a first semester seminarian. I went to the library and researched the Arameans. I had pages of notes. I had an outline that went something like this: Naaman’s Problem, Naaman’s Pride, Namaan’s Plea, Namaan’s Proof. I was so overprepared. The night before I was to give the message I was down beside my bed praying. I started praying for the students I was going to speak to the next day. I didn’t know any of them personally, But I knew that from their perspective this was going to be just another chapel led by yet another unknown chapel speaker. Yawn. As I was praying, it occurred to me that they weren’t going to remember one thing I said five minutes after I said it. I had spent hours preparing a lesson that no one was going to remember! What a waste of time and energy. I got up off my knees, sat back down at my desk and determined not to let that happen. I got rid of my alliterated points and boiled it down to one idea. Then I worked on it until I had crafted a statement upon which I could hang the entire