Preaching and the Externally-Focused Church: An Interview with Rick Rusaw...Continued from page 2

The analogy you hear all the time is: we didn’t like the water going by the front door, so we created our own stream out back. Of course, statistically, Barna and everybody else says we look the same. We divorce at the same rate. We get addicted at the same rate. All those things happen, but at least the water is a little cleaner out behind the building. I’m just suggesting that we get in the water as it goes by the front door and I think service is the best opportunity to do that.

We take two approaches to it. A lot of times the church will say, “Hey, there are homeless in our community. Let’s start a homeless ministry.” At LifeBridge, we simply say: who’s already doing that and how do we come alongside and help them? So we partner rather than create. The second thing is always hard for me and it’s hard for the church ? I’m wired so that we grow and people notice what we are doing ? but we don’t care who gets the credit. We don’t wear our LifeBridge shirts or our hats or t-shirts. We just try to show up and be helpful and what I’m discovering is there is power in those relationships, and from the relationship we get the opportunity to talk about grace.

Preaching: If a church is seeking to be externally focused, it seems there are some clear implications there for preaching. How is preaching involved in the task of becoming externally focused? Is it that maybe after you become, after you reach that stage, what role does preaching play?

Rusaw: I think preaching is still is an absolutely critical issue. There’s a lot of talk about what it should look like today, and how it should be done. We have a responsibility to take the Gospel into the world. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the way to a relationship to God. We have a responsibility to take that message that never changes, to a world that isn’t ever going to be the same.

I do some corporate consulting and every industry I know over the last decade has been wrestling with, not so much products ? although that as important ? but delivery. Everybody’s delivery system is changing. They are looking for faster, more niche-oriented delivery. They are looking for a quicker way to get the product from point A to point B. The mass distribution center is not necessarily the way that is being done anymore and I think the church has the same issues.

How do we deliver that message in a culture that does not speak our language; where 66% of the people, according to a Gallup poll, say they see the Church as not useful or meaningful in helping them to discover purpose or meaning in their life. And so somehow there’s this huge disconnect between the Church being a vibrant part of the community and speaking into the fabric of our community and how people perceive us.

So for us in preaching, we really preach; we’re always straight forward with the message. We’re not trying to water it down or make it easy but rather to communicate it in a way that people can hear. So as we view our whole worship time on a weekend service, the message is important but that message might get communicated in four or five different ways, whether it be through music or a testimony reading or how I present the message. This last weekend, the message was in three different parts and one other person helped me deliver that message. I think that’s where we have to think in terms of: how do we preach this truth?