This MTI blog series aims to help you and your readers sharpen your skills in communicating faith matters to secular readers – skeptics, seekers, and the spiritually disinterested.

What topics interest the nonbelievers you seek to touch through your communications outreach?  How can you discover those topics?  Without them, your intended audience might not pay attention.  Explore resources that will help you address issues that your audience wants to consider.

Pray

I suggest starting by asking God to show you what He wants you to address.  Many topic and writing ideas come to me during extended running and exercise periods when I’m praying.  My mind can clear of routine office or other work and listen to God’s ideas.  Also, when I awaken in the morning, I often lie in bed for a short while praying about the day.  Ideas about how to approach or improve writing projects seem to flow then to my rested mind.

Google and beyond

In today’s digital world, it makes sense to start with a good search engine – appropriate to your culture and location – to learn what topics people are searching for.  One research company “analyzed over 4 billion search terms to identify the questions that people search for the most on Google.”  Their top 100 questions for the current year included some curious results:

• How many weeks in a year
• How many days until Christmas
• How old is taylor swift
• Where am i
• How many days till Christmas
• How old is dolly parton
• How old am i

Not exactly what I expected!  How about you?

Anxiety, depression

Statistica reported on searches for mental disorder symptoms, a common concern nowadays.  In recent years…

“…anxiety and depression had by far the most searched-for mental illness symptoms in the United States, with more than 256.5 thousand and 233.5 thousand average monthly searches for each disorder. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), schizophrenia and bipolar disorder were also frequently sought, ranging from 168.6 thousand to more than 91 thousand monthly searches. Additionally, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were by themselves the most searched mental illnesses in the country.”

I first began writing about anxiety as a university student, and the theme continues to scratch where readers, viewers, and listeners itch.

Anxiety, depression, PTSD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder … enough to keep you busy for a while.  A search for Most Googled counseling questions yielded questions about addiction, emotional pain, family disease, pornography, and injury.

Spiritual interest questions

The web also reveals audience spiritual interest.  Bruce Miller’s book, The Seven Big Questions, discusses “the seven most-Googled questions about God and the Christian faith.”  Global Media Outreach, an excellent, wide reaching, web-based, Great Commission-oriented ministry published the book.  The 7 questions are:

1. Why does God allow suffering and evil?
2. Does life have a purpose?
3. Does God exist?
4. Is Christianity too narrow?
5. Is Jesus presented as God in the Bible?
6. Is the Bible reliable?
7. Can I know God personally?

Current events

Current events can be effective opportunities to catch readers’ attention and get them thinking about faith issues.  Infamous Ponzi-scheme swindler Bernie Madoff cheated his clients out of billions of dollars.  Many contemporaries – especially his victims – wanted to wring Madoff’s neck when his crimes were exposed.

I wrote Forgiving Bernie Madoff?, asking “Could you forgive the multibillion dollar swindler if you were one of his victims?”  The piece tapped then-current interest to help readers ponder that “bitterness can corrode internally—as an old adage goes, like swallowing poison to kill your enemy.” It presents biblical solutions.  “Ethical insights from the headlines” ideas can help fill your outreach quiver.

Reading what your audience reads can tune you in to their interests.  Also watching/listening to secular TV and radio.  Don’t just consume content you agree with.  Scan the philosophical horizons for your nation, culture, and audience.  I’ve read The New York Times since secondary school, and it continues to help me understand what my audience is thinking and reading.  BBC News also helps.  Variety and the Hollywood Reporter help me keep up with movies and entertainment, speaking of which…

Movies and television programs

When I learned that if I wrote about current films, I could often reach many more readers than writing about current events, I incorporated that focus.  Essential for exposure is releasing the article around the week before the film opens, when massive studio publicity creates widespread interest.  If you time things correctly, you can ride those publicity waves to take the love of Jesus to many needy hearts.

But how can you get to see the films before the general public does?  Here’s how I learned.

A Christian publicist I met at a Christian press convention is hired by film studios to promote their movies.  She arranged for me to see many in advance.  But she did not have access to all films.  When Les Misérables was about to open in 2012, I asked her for advance screening ideas.  She recommended contacting NBC Universal Studios, which I did.

It took numerous emails and phone calls to get through to the proper person, who arranged a screening invite for me in San Francisco.  I attended, but upon my arrival the rep did not have my name on the invitation list!  My copies of NBC Universal emails plus some silent prayer opened the door.  I wrote Les Misérables film: Mercy Triumphs.  By God’s grace, over 100 websites based on 4 continents used the piece.

A Universal publicist very kindly connected me with Allied Global Marketing, an agency that Universal and many other studios use to promote their films to press.  I connected with the San Francisco Allied director who vetted me and signed me up for film news and advance screening opportunities.  When I moved to Florida, she very warmly connected me with AGM Florida.  Today, my email inbox overflows with movie coverage ideas and advance press screening opportunities.

Bottom line for getting lots of film topic ideas:  Pray, network with agencies related to your audience location, and read your emails.

Friends and family

Developing and maintaining friendships with people outside of your faith can greatly help you understand how secular audiences think.  Friends and family – Christian or not – can also give you topic ideas.  In fact, my wife, Babs, suggested I write several of the articles in this Reaching Secular Readers series, notably 7 More Questions Skeptics Ask, and  Following Up Your Secular Readers.

So, how do you generate topic ideas for reaching nonbelievers?  Pray, listening to discern God’s answers.  Use Google or another search engine to discover what nonChristians search for.  Read, watch, and listen to the media your intended audience consumes.   Consider current events and films.  Consult friends and family, both Christian and nonChristian.

Want to know more?

Gratis online resources:

• The Audience Map is a Cru interactive online tool to help Christian communicators analyze their audience and develop ideas for reaching them for Christ.  Easy to use, global in scope, and research based.  It includes videos and many questions to help you think through skeptics, seekers, the spiritually disinterested, nominal Christians and more.  Offered as “Your missional guide to seeing and loving people in the digital age.”
• RWC outreach articles on our website can give you ideas about topics appropriate for thinking nonChristians.  Categories include Current Events, Racism, Humor, Relationships, Sports, Movies/Films/Television, Holidays/Seasonal, Psychology/Mental Health, Ethical Insights from the Headlines, Social/Historical Issues, Faith, Communication.

Copyright © 2024 Rusty Wright

by Rusty Wright. Rusty is an author and lecturer who has spoken on six continents.  He holds Bachelor of Science (psychology) and Master of Theology degrees from Duke and Oxford universities, respectively.