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It was a magazine for children, the editor told me. I needed the explanation. The design offered few clues as to the audience of a magazine whose pages were gray with text. The editor and her volunteer staff members were barely out of their teens, but somewhere along the line they had lost touch with their own childhood. They were Bible school students, grown up, with theological truths to impart to their young audience.

This article was on redemption; that one was about forgiveness. All solid, theological themes presented thoughtfully and in depth. What do the children think of these articles, I asked. A look of confusion. They had never specifically asked children about the articles-whether they read them or understood them. Caught up in the significance of the message they were passionate to impart, they hadn’t really thought about how it was received.

Challenged to consider how children learn and how to package the truths they were so eager to impart, the magazine staff was stymied-until they looked at how Jesus communicated. Always aware of the background, interests and concerns of his audience, Jesus packed theological truth into pithy stories and lively metaphors. The shepherd, fisherman, farmer, housewife, slave, merchant-all found themselves in Jesus’ teaching.

At first, the editor of the children’s magazine thought that putting important theological truths in a simple, even primitive, form for children would somehow cheapen the message. But, as she thought about the Gospels she decided that if God himself was willing to use simple, everyday concepts to communicate complex, unchanging truths, then the method was valid.

Working with magazine staff members in Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union, I often meet people who have a firm grasp of what they want to communicate. They have that all-important passion for the message-but little love for or understanding of the audience.

In this regard they are not so different from most people. It is easy to get caught up in our message, especially on a topic about which we are passionate. It is unfortunate that sometimes our passion for our message can actually get in the way of communicating the message.

Communication has not occurred, after all, until the recipient has heard and understood our message in the way we intended. This means that, like Jesus, we have to know our audience and be prepared to package our message in a form that can be received.

We must not confuse our message with our style. A message can be delivered in any one of a number of styles. Are we willing to sacrifice our favored style for the sake of communicating effectively with the audience to which our message is to be directed? This doesn’t necessarily mean changing the message to suit the audience. It does mean putting the message in a form that the audience can understand and that has the potential to make an impact.

Whether we edit magazines, preach sermons, teach Sunday school or converse with friends, we must consider our audience and their unique needs, concerns and environment. We need to speak their language and give examples relevant to their lives, in order to bring our message to life for them.

If we want to communicate God’s truth to a dying world, we have to be ready to do a little dying ourselves-dying to our right to look and sound impressive and erudite if it means our message won’t come across to those who need it. We must be ready to die to our own style if that style will not reach those who need to hear the message.

For theology students like those writing the magazine for children, it meant laying aside their theological language and abstract concepts and adopting a child’s language and thought forms. But it is, after all, a biblical concept. Didn’t Jesus say that in order to enter the kingdom of heaven it was necessary to become like a little child?

At times, dying to ourselves may even mean not communicating the message about which we feel so passionate, but communicating the message the audience needs to hear. Do we really know our audience as Jesus knew his? Do we care as Jesus cared? If so, we will be sensitive to where the real needs are and we will reach out to people with the message they truly need to hear-not simply the message we want to speak.

As missionaries on furlough, are we sensitive enough to the audience to meet them at their point of need? Or, are we simply determined to tell “our” story? As pastors, do we spend time thinking of appropriate analogies, or do we once again unload the football analogy on an audience that is 75 percent female? As teachers, are we more concerned that students grasp the truth than that we display our familiarity with six-syllable words? As friends, are we ready to listen before we speak so that when we do speak our words will be “seasoned with salt” as the Bible says?

It’s human nature to want to “get my point across.” Yet, Jesus demonstrated another way. Whether we edit a Christian magazine, preach sermons or simply talk with friends, knowledge of and concern for the audience must match our passion for the message. Only then can we have any real hope of communicating not simply words, but life.

Sharon Mumper directs the Magazine Training Institute (MTI) from Austria. MTI equips Christian magazine publishers in East Central Europe and Asia .