Josh Hunt's blog

A constant theme of my teaching revolves around a few central ideas: It is always in our best interest to live the Christian life. It is good for us to follow God. God is good. His ways are good. Following God is good. It is good for me. Always. We must come to love the Christian life or we will never come to live the Christian life. I wanted to emphasize this point in an introduction recently and said something like this: "I picked up this book yesterday. . ." Note: people are interested in what is current. They want to know what you learned recently. In your relationship with God, they want to know if God has said anything to you lately. They want to know what you are reading this week. They want to drink from a moving stream. "It is written by pollster Frank Luntz and has commendations by both President Barack Obama and Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House. It seems ...

I did a sermon on the woman caught in adultery years ago. I told the first part of the story then said, "Just then, people starting running through the crowd passing out stones. Everyone knew what they were for. They were and instrument of death. There was about to be a stoning." Just as I said, "people started running through the crowds passing out stones" the youth group was cued to do just that. They jumped out and began passing out stones. When everyone had a stone, I asked, "Who would you hurt if you had the power to do so? God calls upon us to forgive. He calls us to set down our judgmentalism and forgive. I want to ask you to set down your stone and with it, your judgmentalism. Set down your slowness to forgive. Set down your stone and forgive." If you would teach sticky lessons, if you would teach like Jesus taught, you need to do this kind of thing from time to time. You need to use stuff that you can to...

Our brains are designed to see the unexpected, the unusual, the shocking. If you would teach sticky lessons, like Jesus did, teach with some shock value. You don't have to read Jesus very long before you find an example of this in His teaching: Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. (25) In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet. (26) The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter. (27) "First let the children eat all they want," he told her, "for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." (28) "Yes, Lord," she replied, "but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." (29) Then he told ...

"If you can't reduce it to a slogan, people will never remember it." -- Rick Warren "Memorable is portable." -- Andy Stanley Quick: what are two or three things your dad taught you? Here is my answer: Many hands lighten the load. We don't all do things alike. New is not always better; it is just new. Notice you don't find any paragraphs there. You don't find book chapters. You dont' find any long, complicated (deep?) ideas. What you find is what we always find when we ask what people remember: short, pithy, memorable, easy-to-pass-on statements. Jesus was a master at this. Look at His longest and most famous sermon, easily the most important piece of prose ever written. It is full of these slogan-ish statements: You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to ...

I start reading hundreds of books but rarely finish any of them. Occasionally I finish one. Once in a blue moon I read one twice. Reading a book three times is almost unheard of. I have just done it with two different books. I want to talk about one of them in this set of articles. Modern science has taught us much about communication. A great deal of research has been done on what makes a message stick. One of the best books on the subject is Heath and Heath's Made to Stick. If you have ever seen a copy you might remember. The book is bright orange with a piece of duct tape stuck to it. The cover itself teaches one of the six principles contained inside. As I read (then listened) to this incredible book, I was struck by two things: This is exactly how Jesus taught Every Bible Study lesson should include these 6 elements It is not enough to teach what Jesus taught; we need to teach how Jesus taught. Jesus pe...