3 Reasons Why You Should Understand Your Audience While Preaching

How we preach matters. Not simply because we want people to see and understand Jesus more clearly, but also because how we preach plays a big part in who we are actually preaching to. In this post, I share three reasons why you should understand your audience when preaching.

1) Understanding who you are preaching to will determine how you preach

Here's the reality; how you preach plays a large role in who will come to and get connected to your church. For example, if you preach in French, English speakers will stop coming to your church. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it shows us that we must understand who we are preaching to, as that will determine how we preach.If you are teaching to elementary aged students, you communicate much differently than you do if you are preaching to adults. This also impacts how and what you prepare to teach. To be the most effective and impactful we can be, we must understand who our audience is so we can communicate as clearly and understandably as we can to them.This means its important to understand who you are preaching to as that will determine how you preach. Which leads to the next point.

2) Decide who you want to preach to

There isn't necessarily a right or wrong answer to this, but as a preacher, you have a big say in who you preach to. As mentioned above, how we preach determines who will come. So the question is, who do you want to come?At New City, we believe that preaching in a Sunday morning context is to be aimed at believers knowing there are non-believers in the room. After all, the local church is the gathering of believers where we love, encourage, and grow closer to Jesus together. So we preach hoping to help our people learn more about Jesus, his Word, and how we can live it out.That being said, we also want New City Church to be a place where people invite their friends to, and where anyone is welcome to come, ask questions, and learn more about Jesus. So we preach from the Bible and use biblical words like when they come up like atonement and sanctification, but we also always define what these words mean, as well as the contexts of the passages we are preaching from.While preparing sermons for believers in a Sunday morning context, I always keep in mind my friends who know nothing about Jesus or Christianity, and I let that influence what I am going to say. If one of them decided to show up for the first time that Sunday, would that still be able to follow along and understand what I am saying?

3) How you preach effects who will come

If we want to build up and equip believers while also helping unbelievers and those new to the faith in their spiritual journey, then we must be intentional in how we communicate. For example, this means giving context to a biblical passage that you are teaching from so everyone can be on the same page. Let's say you are teaching from John 11 about the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. If you assume everyone knows who Lazarus, Mary, and Martha (and even Jesus!) are without explaining who they are, you'll eventually end up only with people who already have a good understanding of the Bible.Perhaps for a more practical example, if you use words like atonement and sanctification and other biblical words that the average person doesn't use in their everyday vocabulary, and never explain what they mean, you will eventually end up with only Christians or people who like to use big words. Why? Because don't like the feeling of not understanding what is being said and/or the feeling that everyone else must know what the preacher is saying, and they don't, so they must be out of place.Even if, in your current setting, new people rarely come and everyone that does come has been around the church for a long time, how you preach can change that. By preaching as if non-believers are there, those that are there will begin to assume that A) there must be new people here because the preacher is talking like there is, and B) I know if I invite a friend who knows nothing about Jesus or the Bible, that they will still be able to follow along and understand what is going on.Understanding your audience impacts who the audience will be. Let's be intentional in how we communicate for the benefit of Christians and non-Christians alike.