If your preaching only speaks to Christians, you’re missing half the room. Al Stewart lays out why preaching to both believers and unbelievers is not optional. It is essential for any church that wants to grow through gospel impact. This is a sharp call to lift your preaching game, build a culture of invitation, and make every sermon count for eternity.
What’s discussed:
• Why preaching should always assume two audiences
• How to critique worldviews without alienating people
• Preaching Psalm 1 to Christians and non-Christians
• How to handle historical books like Chronicles
• The importance of trust for invitation culture
• Practical tips for preparation and next steps
• What small groups can learn from this model
TOOL BOX:
This week we recommend you find your own passage and think about how you’ll apply it to two different audiences
For a great example check out: Preaching by Tim Keller
CREDITS:
This episode was brought to you by EA Insurance
The One Thing is brought to you by Reach Australia
To pray for Reach Australia, join our WhatsApp Group
For ideas or questions please email [email protected]
Support Reach Australia’s online library
TRANSCRIPT:
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
00:00:08:11 – 00:00:25:21
Unknown
Get I on pages and you’ve clicked on the one thing. It’s a podcast designed to give you one solid practical tip for ministry every single week. And, the one thing is brought to you by Reach Australia. We want to see more churches planted. And, if you want to find out a bit more about how to plant churches, jump on our website to have a look at, the whole section.
00:00:25:21 – 00:00:48:04
Unknown
Great resources there on how to plant churches. Of course, we want to see churches grow. And, if God grows his church through his word, we’re here today. I’ve got Al Stewart, to talk about preaching and particularly preaching to two audiences. We’ll come back to that in a second. But you’ve just retired, right? So you’re just sitting round playing lawn bowls.
00:00:48:10 – 00:01:06:20
Unknown
What? Tell me what retirement really means to you right now. What it does mean is the paychecks stopped last year. But it, it hasn’t been hard to fill in the time. Yeah. No, I do refer to myself as a freelance honorary consultant. My wife just says unemployed. But it hasn’t been hard to fill in the time.
00:01:06:20 – 00:01:25:10
Unknown
I’m, coaching a few young pastors. People still ask me, surprisingly, to come and speak at different things. I’m involved in the, men’s ministry at Divine Church in Surry Hills, so lots of stuff. I, I guess I’m still trying to work out. What do I do when I grow up? Because all old gospel workers never retire.
00:01:25:10 – 00:01:40:15
Unknown
They just get paid by someone else. Isn’t that that didn’t. Well, let’s say the ministry doesn’t stop the just the paychecks by check stuff. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, we, we’re here to talk about one of the great passions in your life, preaching to two audiences. So you’ve press play on the one thing, preaching to two audiences.
00:01:41:22 – 00:01:56:05
Unknown
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00:01:59:07 – 00:02:23:21
Unknown
Now you talk about preaching to to to audience. What does that actually mean? It’s my way of trying to get other, preachers to think about as we open the Bible, in church or in I have weekly Bible teaching meeting. We ought to be considering that you’ve got two audiences, two speeches that be that that being the believer and the unbeliever.
00:02:24:00 – 00:02:50:15
Unknown
Right. So you ought to be able open the Bible and address people who, following Jesus, signed up Christians, but also people from so many other spiritual forget the expression, so many other spiritual journeys that the Bible addresses the unbeliever and and we should be doing that as well. Do you mean that, every time the Bible is open, we need to go through sight.
00:02:50:17 – 00:03:12:01
Unknown
The six boxes are to isolate. Oh, we’ve always got to get to penal substitutionary atonement. What do you mean by address? The non-Christian? I’m all in favor of the six boxes of two ways to live. That that was illegal. But I became a Christian. And penal substitution. No, I mean, as we open the door, there are times when there’s just Christians in the room.
00:03:12:06 – 00:03:35:17
Unknown
If it’s a church staff meeting. Okay? It’s all for Christians, right? I’m sure. But. But our public Christian gatherings, when anyone can walk in the room, we should assume there’s non-Christians there. And if there aren’t, we should teach as if they be there. Because over time, preachers build their audience. Right? Okay. If you preach every week to only Christians, you’ll have very few non-Christians.
00:03:35:17 – 00:04:02:05
Unknown
If you assume that there are non-Christians in the room, your regulars will have conference to invite people. So I’ve got a might, I know in the city our church with, I’m advised, church where Toby preaches. I’ve got confidence that Toby will do a good job with, My mind is not a Christian, and I’ve invited, you know, I invite him to have invited him to come along.
00:04:02:07 – 00:04:23:11
Unknown
So that gives me confidence to invite my non-Christian friend, because I know that I won’t be embarrassed. And Toby will speak in a way that engages him. Yeah, and acknowledges that he is there and. Yeah. Yeah, not like, of course not individually and not that. Not in a crass way. Everyone who’s not Christian, please stand up now or no, no, no.
00:04:23:16 – 00:04:43:15
Unknown
Yeah. You know, that’s right. But you know, acknowledges their presence in the room. You might not be a follower of Jesus. And if you’re not by the way. Right. Did you hear. Have you considered baa baa baa. You know. Yeah. So I think that’s, it’s week by week. Our mission is Bible teachers is to each to be able to do that.
00:04:43:17 – 00:05:06:07
Unknown
And I think any passage in the Bible that you open should speak to the believer in the unbeliever. Okay. What do you you know, you you stand up and you look around the room, you realize there aren’t any Christians that. Do you still do this? Yes. Yep. Because you want because the congregation doesn’t know there’s no non-Christians there.
00:05:06:07 – 00:05:33:07
Unknown
Sure. Okay. And they, week by week assessing. Can I trust this guy to bring my non-Christian friends or invite someone? Will I be, offended? Will I be, embarrassed? Will I be or will I be embarrassed? It’s actually much scarier inviting someone and being the preacher. When someone invites a friend to church, they’re putting a lot on the line.
00:05:33:07 – 00:05:54:05
Unknown
And that relationship. I know I’ve done both. I’ve been the itinerant preacher, and I’ve invited people, and I know which one’s more. Yep. Costly, if you like. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it’s week by week. You are winning a vote of trust from your people that they can invite their friends. Yeah. All right. Give me an example of this.
00:05:54:05 – 00:06:15:19
Unknown
Like show me. Show me what you don’t like. You’re you’re preaching this week. Is that right. Yeah. This week at I’m speaking at an Anglican church in the west of Sydney. I don’t know the people. I’ve been invited to speak on some one. Right. So give me how you’re going to address, say, the Christian as opposed to the person who’s exploring Christianity.
00:06:15:19 – 00:06:41:02
Unknown
How is that going to work? From Psalm one? Okay. It’s it’s important that that we’re doing this. I tell you what, if I could just take a slight detour, the reason that matters, people, people, especially adults we’re talking to, say, after teens, people come to faith over time. And it and God can convert people instantly, of course.
00:06:41:02 – 00:07:02:04
Unknown
But generally what happens is over time, people get a contact with the with the Bible in some form and they go from thinking, hey, you know what? This actually makes sense to this. Will the world view furniture in the head needs to be rearranged to the point where, you know I can trust Jesus and and walk this way so you you need to model.
00:07:02:04 – 00:07:25:15
Unknown
I’ve seen multiple contacts with the Bible over time. You know, fairly random, but I could say even over six months regular for someone to get to the point where I now see that the Christian worldview and following Jesus make sense. And so people need to be able to say, I will hear you again on this matter. Like, you know, Paul gives you you see that in acts all the time.
00:07:25:15 – 00:07:51:02
Unknown
Does exactly. Acts 17 the Areopagus, Paul gives a great sermon about God and setting places and times that people leave. And at the end they say, we’ll hear you again on this matter. Yes. That’s that’s what you want. I’ll come back again. Okay. Well Psalm one, Psalm one is, is essentially well two ways to leave.
00:07:51:04 – 00:08:21:21
Unknown
There are two paths, you know, there’s the path is the blessed and then there’s the path of the wicked. Yeah. The structure would be verses 1 to 3. So what does it look like to live the blessed life? Well, the blessed life verse, verse one is saying, you be countercultural. What will that look like? Now, what that’s going to mean essentially is critiquing some non-Christian world views to show that why would you be countercultural?
00:08:21:21 – 00:08:54:22
Unknown
It’s because these non-Christian views that, what, hedonism, materialism, individualism even don’t deliver. But I’d say as you critique those things, you need to be respectful. Now, I can pour scorn on on other people’s worldviews, etc. then, but if you do that, people will be offended and you won’t get those second, third, fourth contacts, right?
00:08:54:23 – 00:09:21:05
Unknown
In fact, as you as you do critique someone else’s worldview, I think you need to actually acknowledge the positives or why they hold that worldview. So if you’re going to critique, euthanasia, for example, which I think is a terrible thing, I just say that, you know, people use euthanasia and monsters and they just want to kill people.
00:09:21:07 – 00:09:45:01
Unknown
No, no no, no. Why? Well, the argument is about human dignity. We can understand that. And the argument is about reducing pain. And we’ll everyone. That’s of course, good things. But one, if you acknowledge that, then you can stand up a little closer and critique respectfully critique that worldview. And people are much more likely to listen to you.
00:09:45:03 – 00:10:04:22
Unknown
So you’re not just saying, like on one hand you’re saying be respectful and to some extent stand in the shoes of those who may hold that goal view and go, I understand where you’re coming from. I understand why they hold these. Yeah, but you’re also sort of saying but here is a critique. Here is let me just sort of disassemble that worldview.
00:10:04:22 – 00:10:25:19
Unknown
So you’re doing both. And that’s much more effective. Sure. Okay. Yeah. And one is oh let me just hit you from outside and whatever. That’ll just bounce off. Yeah. The other is let me stand beside you. Put an arm around you, show you that I really care. Yeah. And then that that critique is much more devastating. Show people so people will will listen.
00:10:25:23 – 00:10:49:10
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you just approach it like mocking someone from the dislike the way it almost, a Roosters rugby league supporter. I’m sorry. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You meet someone from from manly or or the Bulldogs whisper scorn on them. Yeah, yeah, but they don’t listen, and you know they won’t. Yeah. And so you’re not mocking someone’s football team.
00:10:49:10 – 00:11:13:05
Unknown
You’re standing beside someone in a worldview and carefully critiquing. Okay, I’m. And the reason we do that is we want them to listen. You okay? A b okay. So. Yeah. So take me back to let me look at Psalm one. Yeah. What’s blessed. And then you could take a world view and then the other is you get to verse two about delight in the law of the Lord.
00:11:13:05 – 00:11:32:05
Unknown
Well, how is it that the Bible could be wonderful as you’re speaking to believers? They get it. But you need to show to the unbeliever, what is it that? And that’s the Torah. Well, the you know well Old Testament God, isn’t he mean? And whatever you say, no, this is the way you actually get to know God, who is the creator and the giver of all good things, and the Redeemer.
00:11:32:05 – 00:11:51:14
Unknown
And they loved him in the Lord. The Lord is compassionate and Eddy. Okay. And then you get to the judgment you need to, you’re going to talk about judgment, but acknowledge this sounds really hard, you know, etc.. And then you’ve got, you know, the Lord at the end, the Lord watches over the way of the righteous.
00:11:51:14 – 00:12:16:14
Unknown
The wicked leads to destruction. The I would, I would want to stress to people the personal nature because when in Psalm one, when it says the Lord, it’s actually Yahweh watches over. So it’s a personal God who watches over your life. If you think that through, what’s the non-Christian person in the audience going to be thinking, you can work out what you’re saying.
00:12:16:15 – 00:12:38:04
Unknown
So you want to encourage the believers to stay on that path and then show the unbeliever how beautiful that path is, and also the terrible consequences of not being on that path. And I think anyone who loves the Lord and loves the Bible, you’re able to do that if you think it through with the two audiences in mind.
00:12:38:06 – 00:12:59:02
Unknown
So when you’re doing preparation, how do you do you actually have sight two pieces of paper? How are we actually thinking about those two audiences as you work your way through? I don’t know, two pieces of paper, but I am trying to think through each step of the talk. Right? What what are the what do I want the Christians to think?
00:12:59:03 – 00:13:17:14
Unknown
But what part of the Christian worldview do I want to try and explain to someone who’s not a Christian? Yep, sure. Yeah. Of course there’s multiple audiences. So, you know, are you talking to the non-Christian is right on the edge of the kingdom? Yeah. Or are you talking to, you know, the hard hearted atheist who got dragged along by his mother in law there and does.
00:13:17:15 – 00:13:42:01
Unknown
Yeah. You know, so, yeah. But you, I think you need to address both worldviews. And interestingly, what we’re trying to do as we teach the Bible is we’re calling everyone to repentance, which looks like trust the Lord Jesus and follow him. So that’s the, you know, we whenever we open the Bible, that’s what we’re saying to people.
00:13:42:03 – 00:14:05:19
Unknown
We just showing what will that look like for the Christian and what will that look like for someone who’s not yet a believer? Yeah. Okay. So with this particular talk, what’s what do you have a next step for that person who’s exploring Christianity? Are they are they like are you going to say, you know what, if this is interesting for you, come back next week, is there or talk to them.
00:14:05:21 – 00:14:27:08
Unknown
What’s they going to be the next day. Oh yeah. That’s interesting. That’s that’s very good. A very good question. I need to talk to the minister in charge where I’m speaking and say where, where do you want me to lead this or what’s the follow up on this? And that that’s important. I have so so you’re working with, the, the minister at that point in time.
00:14:27:08 – 00:14:43:07
Unknown
And I guess if you’re in a, your regular church, you’d be talking with the mission’s pastor at that point in time going, okay, where do we where do we put them? What do we do next? So I know that actually, there’s one man there who I mean, one man is not yet a Christian who who’s coming along.
00:14:43:09 – 00:15:09:22
Unknown
And I do know that he’s been coming regularly. Right. So once again, this is part of that process of of him rethinking the world view. I’m doing some, itinerant speaking, in Victoria to a whole series of means events for different churches next year. And what I’ve said to the organizers is, I want you to tell me what is the follow up of this talk to.
00:15:10:00 – 00:15:32:19
Unknown
You know, he’s it, he’s it. Come to Christianity explained. Is it? If it’s just a vague I talk to the person who bought you. Yeah, that’s code for we haven’t organized anything. So I want something concrete at the end. Now, week by week in average. In your, in your church meetings, the the follow up. Maybe this is good.
00:15:32:19 – 00:15:49:17
Unknown
Come back next week. Yeah. Could be. Yeah. We want to hear you more on this. So they’ll come back and that’s it. But but even having that next step it’s, that’s part of the two audience, preaching isn’t it, to kind of go, okay, you hear this? Come back next week. Do what it, that’s a yes.
00:15:49:18 – 00:16:06:05
Unknown
Yes. But it’s also telling people, okay, well, what does what does repentance look like? You know, what is it as a, as a Christian? Well, I mean, you know, keep trusting Jesus in how you leave. You might need to spell it out for the non-Christian person. Sure. What would that look like? Well, it would mean, you know, you’re talking about money.
00:16:06:05 – 00:16:27:23
Unknown
It would mean can you learn to be generous? You know, can you learn to acknowledge you know, you acknowledge that God is the one who’s giving you all of these things. Is it that or don’t you need to actually trust Jesus rather than your money, etc.? Sure. Yeah. Okay. That’s that’s easy. You got to move on someone that’s nice and easy because you’ve got basically two, two different ways of living and you can compare them.
00:16:28:03 – 00:16:52:02
Unknown
Yeah, they’ve got to be all the passages of the Bible that it’s a much harder task to get from the passage to say the gospel, for example. Chronicles like that is it’s it’s straight history. It’s genealogy. It’s like, yes. And let’s face it, may not be the most sparkling part of the Bible. How do you get how do you do the preaching of two audiences from Chronicles?
00:16:52:04 – 00:17:23:05
Unknown
Okay, Chronicles. Depending on, I guess, depending on which part, I must confess I didn’t have my time. Just morning from Chronicles. What you’ve got is you’ve got the historical records, particularly of the kings and etc. in ancient Israel. One of the things you want Christians to walk away from with that is this is history. This really happened. God was at work in this nation and these are historically reliable records.
00:17:23:07 – 00:17:54:07
Unknown
Okay, this stuff really happened. This is not Lord of the rings or Harry Potter. What do you want? The non-Christian to walk away from with it? I want them to walk away knowing, hey, this stuff really happened. This is historically reliable. This isn’t Harry Potter or Lord of the rings, and this is stuff that actually feeds into or these, these, failures of all of these kings and this unraveling of ancient Israel actually points forward to the Messiah who came, who will fix things.
00:17:54:09 – 00:18:21:09
Unknown
So you see how much of that is an overlap? Oh, actually, this Old Testament stuff really happened, and it looked forward to Jesus and how that really happened. And so Christian, non-Christian now the making it interesting in, in of showing them back that up showing how interest. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and communicating the history so that it grabs people.
00:18:21:11 – 00:18:46:02
Unknown
That’s the challenge. Yeah. But Christian non-Christian that it there’s no difference. They. Yeah. Okay. But you but you also need to assume the guy, you know, the non-Christian who walks in is starting from scratch in terms of biblical knowledge. Sure. So part of the part of the, the the trick of it, if you like, is you’ve got to treat people as intelligent but uninformed.
00:18:46:04 – 00:19:07:15
Unknown
Right. So, Moses comes up now as one of my might said, you know, people around here think Moses plays for the LA Lakers. I’ll show you. You got to explain, I can. Yeah. Moses was a great prophet in Israel. He lived about thousand hundred and 40, 100 B.C.. Okay. And then you’re all right. Okay. Yeah.
00:19:07:17 – 00:19:39:00
Unknown
So you’ve got to assume people don’t have background knowledge. And how do you, how do you. It’s like every week someone starting cold, the how do you bring people along with you. And at the same time have things to say for people who have been Christian 30 years? That’s part of the joy of preaching what I, what I try and do when I speak is when there’s something that’s obviously historical.
00:19:39:02 – 00:20:04:04
Unknown
It’s all historical, but something that’s obviously history. Like, names, CDs, maps, historical figures. I just do a really quick thing, by the way. So, you talked about King Herod, too. Oh, by the way, Josephus, the Jewish historian, writes about Herod, and he did this, you talking about, you know, Jesus walked from Galilee to Jerusalem.
00:20:04:08 – 00:20:20:20
Unknown
What’s your map? And so, by the way, you know, it’s 120km that he walked, and he’s the map, and you can drive it today. And they’ll go, oh, right. It’s you know, oh, there’s, something about Jericho. Well, he’s the ruins of Jericho today, but. So you just in passing, you just, hitting the nail on the head that.
00:20:20:20 – 00:20:39:04
Unknown
Hey, by the way, this stuff really happened. I really love the, you know, when I walk from here to here these days, you can get on Google Maps and go. It’ll tell you how long it takes to walk there. And you’re going, oh, that’s actually not just down the road. Like, I know I complain about walking a few blocks in the city and it’s like, no, no, he’s he’s like walking 70km to get there.
00:20:39:04 – 00:20:58:17
Unknown
So exactly. But like some people got real stuff actually really happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah I it I want to throw you a curveball. Okay. Here we go. We, we’ve been talking about preaching and particularly, I guess, Sunday preaching in church. How much do you think this matters to say in a Bible study? Or a small group, depending on the small group, I guess.
00:20:58:17 – 00:21:21:18
Unknown
But, yeah. Well, it depends who’s in the room. If it’s just, like I’m part of a community group. Is eight people. They’re all Christians. That’s how you know. And in fact, membership of that group of people who are Christian, if you’re not a Christian, the the, our pastors would encourage you into a different group. Sure. Okay. Yeah.
00:21:21:20 – 00:21:45:19
Unknown
However, it doesn’t hurt to I think the more you ground the Bible in history, the more you show the historical reliability of the Bible. It’s good for Christians too. Yeah. Okay. So I’ve got a copy of Josephus Works. There’s a few beautiful passages when you, you know, now, why should we believe Josephus more than the New Testament?
00:21:45:19 – 00:22:07:21
Unknown
I don’t, but it doesn’t hurt to show people. Yeah. So, Yeah. Then you might have a if you’ve got a small group where there’s a mixture. Yeah. Christian. Non-Christian. Well, it all applies. Obviously. You’re good. It’s also helpful. Just to go through here is how you would address a non-Christian from this passage just to equip the Christians there to go.
00:22:08:02 – 00:22:37:01
Unknown
Hey, take this passage on. Go out and and and take it. Is that. Yes. Yeah. If you can, if you can pick up. Where does this intersect with a non-Christian world view? Yeah. And I’m sure that helps to say how our Christian people are getting the the Zeit geist of the non-Christian world constantly there. And so addressing that week by week when you open the Bible can be a great help for them.
00:22:37:01 – 00:22:52:03
Unknown
Yeah, I don’t do that enough. And so that’s been a great encouragement. So that’s that’s the word. So I put that in and people think you know stuff. Yeah. Yeah I can’t spell it. But but I can say it and okay. This is the one thing I realize. I’m talking to a preacher, so it’s got to be one thing.
00:22:52:05 – 00:23:17:14
Unknown
What’s the one thing, that you you want preachers to think or Bible teachers to think about when it comes to two audiences? Keep those two audiences in mind as you do your preparation, and you’ll automatically, work out what to say. Fantastic. Well, don’t, I wish more preachers were as concise as that. That’s great. In the toolbox.
00:23:17:16 – 00:23:34:09
Unknown
What we what we actually want you to do is rather than give you the resources, we actually want you to go grab a passage and think about how this might apply to two different audiences. If you want to take this a little bit further, Tim Keller, at the end of his book on preaching, has he’s got some examples of how he does it.
00:23:34:09 – 00:23:57:19
Unknown
He was really, really good on it. Does it slightly different to perhaps the way we are used to preaching here, in Australia, but it’s still worth learning from. Yeah. In fact, when you listen to Tim Keller, sadly they’re all recordings now when you listen to it, he just intuitively spoke to two audiences and it’s seamless. It’s very hard to say, oh, Christian, non-Christian, right.
00:23:57:19 – 00:24:15:09
Unknown
Most of what Tim Keller said spoke to both groups, which I think is that’s that’s why he was engaging. And that’s a beautiful model of how you can do that. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for your wisdom on this. This is going to be really, really helpful. I’m sure. So thank you for joining us.
00:24:15:11 – 00:24:28:22
Unknown
My pleasure. If you found this helpful, why don’t you listen to it with your staff team? Particularly your teaching team. You’re preaching team. It might be really helpful just to come and reflect on how you could do this a little bit better. Peace chat soon.
