Bishop Writes: Mission mistake - Don’t set needs before God’s word

Bishop Ivan Lee writes

Once upon a time, thinking about people’s circumstances and needs as part of evangelistic strategy or preaching was simply not thought about – at least not very much! In fact, especially in the area of preaching, talking too much about ‘needs’ and addressing these ‘needs’ was seen as shallow preaching.

How times have changed! These days, it is rare to hear a sermon commence with the attention grabbing “there are five theological points and three warnings in this passage, firstly...” Rather, you will be alerted to a current crisis needing resolution, an ethical question needing an answer, a story of a person’s situation needing help.

These days, good mission strategists pour over local statistics and demographics. Who lives in our parish? What do they need? What are they looking for? What will we run – a playgroup, youth group, ESL, outings for seniors?

On one hand, I am very glad that we try and address people’s needs in preaching and mission strategy. If we ignore them altogether, our preaching will seem either academic or irrelevant, and our mission strategy will be misdirected. I am all for knowing who lives around us and what is going on in their lives. Some of us need to work harder at this.

On the other hand, I just want to sound a warning and get people thinking more deeply about ‘needs’. We don’t want people’s needs to set the agenda for our mission and preaching. The Bible is not primarily a handbook of ‘God’s Answers to People’s Questions’ (although at times it does do just that). The Bible is God’s word to people, challenging us about the sometimes silly things we worry about. The Bible is God asking us questions, and telling us what we really should be asking, what we really need!

What is the link between our ‘real’ needs and our ‘felt’ needs? CS Lewis says our sinful lusts are really misplaced attempts to answer deeper needs. You see, the Bible is profoundly relevant, because it points us to our real, deeper needs. One question to ask when we read our Bible is: What is God saying? Another question is: Why is God saying this? In other words, what is the need that God is addressing? And then help people, believers and unbelievers alike, see how our felt needs are really pointing to our real needs, and how Jesus Christ is the answer.

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