A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak on the phone with John Saddington, AKA Mr. Human3rror. It was odd, though hardly coincidental, that he had gotten in touch with me only a day after I had spoken to my fiancee about feeling the need to get in touch with him.

Though neither John nor I knew what it was that we needed to speak about, we made certain that there was time set aside for that call because it was destined to be important.

God works that way, sometimes.

A couple of weeks, lots of hours of prayer and a few thousand questions later, God’s purpose for that phone call became obvious.

John asked me what I wanted to do to help the 8BIT Network. Though I wasn’t immediately positive, dedicated prayer to that question gave me an answer.

Prayer works that way, sometimes.

Through spending the past 17 years of my life being involved (in one way or another) with marketing and advertising, the Lord revealed that I could use the knowledge I’ve gathered to help the Church reach out to the younger generations.

There is an aspect of outreach that isn’t focused on very much, and I’d like to present an ongoing series that will highlight on this.

Words

For this first part of the series, I want to focus on a singular idea — words.

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. – Rudyard Kipling

Think about this, for a moment. Relationships are changed, hearts are healed (and broken), wars are started and ended all on the power of words. You may have the most amazing message that anyone has ever heard, but that message can disappear in an instant with a poor choice of words.

Reach Out

What words are you using to reach out? Are you so focused on Heaven and Hell that you’re losing the rest of the story? Alternately, are you so focused on displaying only the positive changes of Christianity that you’re doing the disservice of not telling the whole truth?

If Heaven is real, then so is Hell. If angels are real, then so are demons. The lost generations of today (aiming directly at those generations after the Baby Boomers) are generations that cannot be snowed into believing in a perfect life on earth.

We, as the Church, spend so much time speaking on only one side of the story or the other that we are only giving half truths. Once the other side becomes obvious, the fact that we’ve ignored it has the ability to push away new believers. Worse yet, it has the ability to push away those who have not yet made the choice to believe.

Hell. Demons. Satan. These are powerful, often-frightening words. It’s no wonder that we don’t want to speak about them. But in that choice to ignore the power in those words, we’re missing out on the greater message: the power of the word God and the power of the Word of God.

What words are you using to reach out? Are they effective, or are you choosing to dilute the truth? Make a choice to use words that are majestic. Use words that will inflame a heart and illuminate the mind.

Choose Carefully

There are so many amazing ways for us to be able to communicate across generations.  With blogging, and networked sites such as ChurchCrunch, we’re in a position to put literally thousands of words daily in front of the eyes of those who need ministry.  Choose your words carefully, but not so careful as to dilute the message that has been given to you.

As I sit here writing this, I’m listening to the live stream from the International House of Prayer, in Kansas City. Misty Edwards, the present worship leader, breaks into a refrain from an old hymn:

“Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, and to take Him at His word; just to rest upon His promise, and to know, “thus says the Lord!”

God works that way, sometimes.