Preaching to Everyone in Particular
By Haddon Robinson
October 1, 1994
While Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts, was without a pastor for over a year, I preached there often. The church is remarkably diverse, having Harvard professors and high school dropouts, doctors and lawyers and house cleaners, political activists and those who don't even read the newspaper, people with multimillion-dollar investment portfolios and minimum-wage workers. In addition, members are of many races and colors.
I stood before such diversity each week amazed at the responsibility I had to reach them all. As I prepared my sermons, I stewed over how my sermon could reach the entire cross section.
As preachers, our task can be expressed simply: to become all things to all people. To actually do it is a formidable task.
SACRIFICING WHAT COMES NATURALLY
When we fail to speak to the entire cross section in our churches, we resemble the doctor who knows only how to set a broken arm: if a patient complains of a bellyache, the doctor breaks his arm so she can set it.
Reaching broader audiences demands that we sacrifice what comes naturally to us. When Paul said, "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some" (1 Cor. 9:22), he wasn't talking about just evangelism. He was talking also about helping converts grow. "To the weak"--believers who had weak consciences--he became weak; he restricted his freedom for their sake.
Speaking to a broader audience requires a sacrifice from us. We give up our freedom to use certain kinds of humor, to call minority groups by names that make sense to us, to illustrate only from books and movies we find interesting, to speak only to people with our education and level of Christian commitment. Sometimes such sacrifice feels constricting to us.
A pastor ...
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