Clear and Simple

Clear and Simple

Is the message we proclaim and clear and simple as we think it is… or are we distracted by things that don’t matter as much as we think?

Are we being as clear and simple as we could be? This is a question I find myself asking multiple times a day. I like to think I am being clear and simple… but the honest truth is I am not always as clear or simple as I think I am. For example, we were hoping to do a church wide mission trip this coming summer. I dropped the ball on it from a communication standpoint and the sign ups weren’t enough to do the trip like I had hoped. I had to cancel the trip, but unfortunately my miscommunication wasn’t over. The announcement that it was not a viable trip ended up hurting people’s feelings. When I heard, I felt awful. I apologized and told myself that I need to do better. How and what I communicate is so incredibly important.

The truth is… we all have stories like this. It might not be on a large scale like my example, where an entire organization was involved in my lack of clarity. Sometimes it is lack of clarity when communicating with our spouse, children, friends, or those who follow us on social media. We have all had those moments where we THOUGHT we were clear… only to learn later that what you THOUGHT you said was not even close to what people heard. How many marital conflicts boil down to two people who meant well but weren’t heard correctly? It happens.

While this can create all kinds of relational tension in our lives… what happens when we lack that clarity when it comes to communicating important aspects of who God is?

We have a tendency to cling to things like tradition and ego. We allow assumptions to drive us. Because of that I often wonder if we aren’t allowing unnecessary things get in the way of the clarity of the message that life is found in Christ. Christians can be some of the most closed off and isolated people on earth. I mean, listen to the things we often find ourselves worried about! Music, carpet color, wall decorations, sermon length, the lack or inclusion of different aspects of worship services. Are these things important? Sure. Are they a distraction from the clear message that life is found in Christ? Probably.

If I didn’t believe in Jesus and heard some of the junk Christians spent time arguing over… I doubt I would want anything to do with the Church either.

What if we spent more time caring about eliminating the unnecessary barriers that exist between Christ and the world? Here at Woodview we preach out of the NLT for a reason. It is not a common translation to find in sermons…. but it is one of the easiest translations to understand without giving up too much linguistic accuracy. This message matters too much to be misunderstood! What if we adopted the mindset of… I will do anything short of sinning to bring this message of hope to one more person. What if we were willing to change the way we do church if it meant creating a safe space for one more person to come and explore what this journey is all about? What if we treated this message as if it mattered more than our comfort, traditions, and preferences? What if we spent half the time we spent on trivial things and instead worked on communicating clarity?