How to teach God’s good news
in EasyEnglish
A guide for church leaders
Last part: How a church leader can explain about Christ’s death
In the previous chapter, I showed how to teach about Christ’s death in a clear manner. However, that chapter contains too much information for a church leader to explain on just one occasion.
Of course, a church leader could teach all these things at a series of meetings. If the subject were less important, then that might be the right thing to do. But nothing is more important than a person’s relationship with God. So the church leader must use every opportunity to teach what God has done by means of Christ’s death.
The Bible declares that people must trust Christ now (2 Corinthians 6:2; Hebrews 4:7). Church leaders must therefore not delay people until some future occasion that may never happen. If God has given an opportunity to declare his good news, then the church leader must not waste that opportunity.
And the church leader should use every opportunity well. Many visitors to his church will never return there. They must hear God’s good news on their first visit, because they may never get another opportunity.
The church leader should arrange everything at the church and in the meeting for the benefit of visitors. He should choose songs for the meeting because of their words, and not just the music. He should train the church members to speak about Christ to visitors. There should be information at the church that the visitors can take away. The leader himself should be available to speak and to pray with people after the meeting.
But the most important opportunity to teach about Christ is when the leader speaks during the meeting. Sometimes the leader may even have to change his subject to help the visitors who are present. So the leader must allow the Holy Spirit to guide him.
But if the leader cannot explain everything, what should he say? The answer must be: whatever will teach the people how to receive a right relationship with God.
They may already know much, or they may know nothing. It may seem impossible to teach anything worthwhile to someone who knows nothing about Christ. But in fact, many people trust Christ on the first occasion when they hear God’s good news (Acts 8:26-39; Acts 16:29-34). Their experience is genuine. God has saved them and he changes their lives.
Sadly, some people attend good churches all their lives but they never trust Christ. That fact shows us that God does not save people just because of their knowledge. God saves people who trust him. People do not need complete knowledge of the reasons for Christ’s death before God can save them. But they do need to understand that Christ died for them.
‘Christ died for me’ may seem a very simple statement. It should not be difficult to teach people the meaning of those words. Of course, people need to say those words sincerely and to understand those words properly. When those words express a person’s beliefs, that person has learnt several important lessons:
(1) That person knows that he has done wrong things against God. The person would not need Christ to die for him if he had done nothing wrong.
(2) That person knows that he cannot save himself. He believes that God can save him by means of Christ’s death. So the person realises that neither a church, nor good works, nor any human effort, can save him.
(3) That person realises the importance of Christ’s death. He understands that, because of that one event, God can change his life.
(4) That person knows about the love of God (1 John 4:9). Christ chose to die for that person (John 15:13).
(5) The words ‘Christ died for me’ show a personal relationship with God. The person who believes that has chosen to trust Christ for himself. That person does not depend on someone else’s relationship with God. And that person does not imagine that God saves everyone, with or without trust in Christ.
The church leader will probably not ask people to say those words, ‘Christ died for me’. But the leader should certainly teach people to believe those words. He should do that at every opportunity.
The Bible constantly tells people to trust God. They should do that because Christ died for them. And the result is that they will have a right relationship with God. Because that is the Bible’s main message, a church leader can choose to speak from any part of the Bible. So when he explains these things, he never needs to repeat the same talk twice.
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Next part: Advice about how to begin a relationship with God |
This article comes from the book: ‘How to teach God’s good news in EasyEnglish’ by Keith Simons, available as a free download below:
© 2013, Keith Simons.