4 Keys To Preaching To Unbelief

Preaching to the context of unbelief has not been normal. Try to find a book on the topic. Google: Preaching to Unbelief. You won't find much. Yet in our country where the Nones (those religiously unaffiliated) are the fastest growing segment of religious identification if we don't learn how to preach to unbelief we will lose our voice in society.
I was thoroughly schooled to preach to belief: 1) begin with the propositional truth of the biblical text, 2) describe and explain that truth to the audience, 3) illustrate that truth in action. That was the bones of the sermon. Deeper than this sermon structure is the sermon purpose. In preaching to belief the purpose is to confirm the already existing belief of the audience. We want our people to leave the worship experience confident in their belief and affirmed that they are right. But what happens today when people do not believe our presuppositions about God, Jesus, or the Bible? How do we connect with them in a way that recognizes their unbelief and provides room for us to engage one another around the question of belief? This is where preaching to unbelief enters.

​Here are 4 keys to help you explore the idea of preaching to unbelief:

1. Begin with a question. Where preaching to belief begins with a truth proposition preaching to unbelief begins by uncovering the question of unbelief. This may be the most challenging of these 4 keys because it means, as the spiritual guide, we must first explore our own unbelief. What in the biblical text do we find ourselves doubting? What is too hard to do? To difficult to understand? To good to be true? It takes courage to allow our own doubts arise so we can speak to them, but remind yourself that wherever your doubts lie many other people will have those same doubts. We must learn to cry out, "Lord! Help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24).
2. Don't assume knowledge. It is so easy for those of us who are preachers, who have dedicated ourselves to the biblical text or spent our lives in church pews, to forget that most people have little knowledge of the Bible. They don't know the stories. They don't know why this book has all these different chapters with funny names like 1 Thessalonians, Mark, or Philippians. And what in the world are these big and little numbers all over the page? People who are not yet believers need us to orient them, to give them background, to provide them a place to stand so they can engage the story of God.
3. Create a yearning future. Tim Keller describes the idea of defeater beliefs that keep people away from the gospel story. His conclusion is: A person must come to the point where he or she says, "that would be great if it were true--but is it?" As you preach to unbelief help your audience yearn for what could be. Help them see a future so appealing that they yearn for it to be true. Can a marriage actually be fulfilling? Can I really escape my addictions? Can life be worth living?
4. Ask them to test it. Every sermon is an invitation to test the Word of God to see if the God of the Word really is. If God is our creator, our Lord, the one who knows us better than any other, then what he says must make sense in life in some way. God's story challenges us. His call to our hearts is not shallow; it is a deep, powerful current pulling us deeper into Him. Invite your hearers to engage God. Ask them to try it out, to see what happens, then ask them to come back and share their experience of God. God is big enough to hear our questions. By asking people to test God you are giving God the space to work in their lives.

Stan Granberg, kairos Executive Director