ENGAGE THE ATTENTION

PREACH AND TEACH TO CHANGE LIVES

Step 1:  ENGAGE YOUR HEARERS’ ATTENTION

Before we can change lives with our preaching and teaching, we must first of all engage our hearers’ attention.   How do we do this?

The most helpful advice I got about this came from a writers’ seminar I attended where the lecturer told us about FOUR POWERFUL WORDS (which he learned from someone else): HEY, YOU, SEE, SO. 

According to our lecturer, all effective communication (spoken or written) must have FOUR BASIC ELEMENTS as represented by these four powerful words: HEY!  YOU… SEE?  SO.  Let’s look at these elements and see how they apply to the process of sermon/Bible study preparation.

1.  HEY!

CATCH THE ATTENTION of your audience.

(a)  Always start your sermon with a HEY! 

(b)  Imagine yourself in the park.  You stand on a park bench and shout HEY!  You can be sure that everyone within hearing distance will turn their eyes toward you and look at you for at least two or three seconds to find out whether you’re just a crazy guy, or you’ve got something important to say.

(c)  In preaching, your first task is to CATCH the attention of you audience.  How do you catch their attention?  A lot of ways, but here are some standards: news, story, question, dramatic statement, humor.

2.  YOU…

HOLD THE ATTENTION of your audience.

(a)  You must quickly follow up the HEY! with a YOU…

(b)  Back to our park illustration:  After shouting HEY! you say: “Everybody wearing a red shirt or red dress, I’ve got a special message for you.”  So your hearers look at their shirt or dress, and those wearing red will continue to give you their attention.  The others wearing the wrong color will go back to what they were doing.

(c)  In preaching, your second task is to HOLD the attention of your audience.  All advertising gimmicks use one principle: PEOPLE WILL PAY ATTENTION ONLY TO WHAT CONCERNS THEM OR TO WHAT WILL BENEFIT THEM – SOLVE THEIR PROBLEM OR MEET A FELT NEED.  In the YOU… section of your sermon, your aim is to make people aware of that they have a need or problem in their life and that your lesson/sermon will help them with that need or problem.

3.  SEE?

GUIDE THE ATTENTION of your audience.

(a)  Now that you have the attention of your audience, proceed to your SEE?

(b)  Again, back at the park:  You say, “Now, all of you red shirts, let me tell you about the newest detergent that can keep your shirt or dress retain its color fresh for a long time.  Here’s how… point one, point two, point three.”  In your sermon, the SEE? will go on to explain your message point by point.

4.  SO.

APPLY THE ATTENTION of your audience.

(a)  The conclusion of your talk must present a challenge for the audience to APPLY what they learned, a challenge to do something about the information received.

(b)  Back to the park one last time:  After I have explained to my red-shirted audience the secret of keeping their red colors perennially fresh-looking – of course, the secret is a certain product – then I give them the opportunity to do something about the information. I’ll tell them where to obtain the product, and if I brought some along I’ll tell them I have these ready for them to look at, at the end of my talk.  Then I thank them for listening and end my talk right then and there.  The SO is your conclusion where you explain how your audience may apply the truths you have just shown them. More than any other form of communication, the sermon normally concludes with the preacher providing guidelines and encouragement regarding practical applications of the sermon.

PAUL’S EXAMPLE

Paul’s sermon  in Acts 17:22-31) provides a clear and effective illustration of the use of the four elements:

HEY!

22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 23a for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:  TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.

YOU…

 23b  Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:

SEE?

24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood^[c] every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.

SO.

30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”