Solutions August 2019 | Page 23

What if Jesus came to your church and preached? And what if you could survey the audience during His sermon to discover how well those who heard Him understood what He said? What if you could discover what percentage of your church understands what Jesus said about His identity or about salvation and the cost of discipleship? What about His teaching on relationships or His return to rule and reign? Imagine what you would discover and how those results would change your ministry priorities to make your church more fruitful! Over the past 20 years I’ve visited more than 1,000 churches of various denominations presenting the words of the Bible dramatically. Lately it doesn’t matter if I’m performing Genesis, Daniel, John’s Gospel, Acts, or Revelation, someone always comes up to me afterwards and says something like “That was a great speech!” and I gently remind them that it was the “Bible” that I was quoting (not something I wrote). Sadly, many people sitting in church today have never heard these words before! But the church’s greatest need today isn’t “biblical literacy.” I believe it’s more specifically “Jesus literacy” that we need. Since we’ve already been given the gift of God Himself, we desperately need spiritual information for wisdom, discernment, encouragement, and fruitfulness. We need the very words and teaching of Jesus. Jesus said… “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, a s k w h a t eve r yo u w i s h , and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” John 15:7-8 As followers of Jesus, more than anything, we need to hear the words of Jesus. No one was better at using words to discern where people are spiritually than Jesus. His words are the ultimate test of our true spiritual state. My latest live dramatic scripture- only presentation was developed to meet this need. It’s called Jesus: In His Own Words. It enables audiences to experience in a powerful and unforgettable way what it was like to hear “ As followers of Jesus, more than anything, we need to hear the words of Jesus. Solutions • 23