You don’t care much about Olympic sports, and neither does most anyone else.

I get it. There are some sports you care about, maybe gymnastics, swimming, soccer, golf, and others that you enjoy regularly or find fun every four years. But on the whole, you don’t consume Olympic sports and neither do I.

The reason I know this is true is because Olympic athletes are competing against one another all the time all over the world. Most of us don’t bother to purchase the niche streaming channels which show their events and competitions or drop the cash to go see them in-person when nearby.

My daughter is a student at The University of Texas at Austin. Each year she buys “The Big Ticket” which allows her entry to every UT game or match. Thirty current or former University of Texas athletes and seven coaches were involved in the Paris Olympics. She cheered for each of them. She has seen none of them compete in Austin. Why doesn’t she? Because the competition is actually a vehicle for the thing we care about: stories.

Jerry Seinfeld once joked about the rate that professional athletes change teams and retire leaving “fans” to basically cheer for laundry. He’s right. Sports fans attach stories to sports and teams. The stories we attach, in turn, supply meaning. This is why during each Olympic games, NBC spends considerable time and goes to great expense telling us the stories of the athletes.

While, as an American, I might be predisposed to cheer for Suni Lee in gymnastics, I become much more emotionally involved after the seven-minute piece about her kidney diagnosis and other mental and physical hurdles she’s overcome in the past three years. Simone Biles—who I met with my daughters about 10 years ago—is arguably the greatest gymnast ever, but I am even more connected after hearing about her struggles with twisties during the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.

Stories carry emotive and connective power that nothing else does. The wise preacher will endeavor to master the art of storytelling. Why? Because stories help people care about things they would not otherwise have thought of or cared about.

As I wrote in Speaking By the Numbers, humans use three centers of intelligence to navigate the world—thinking, feeling, and doing. Many pastors approach their preaching task and worry mostly about just one: thinking. We give data, stats, principles and points.

Thinking is good, but imagine having a conversation with someone where they treated you that way—data and stats and principles and points. You would not likely want to have another cup of coffee with them. You might find them dry, uninspired, and maybe even boring. It might even feel like the world’s worst PowerPoint presentation, which many sermons have already become. The greatest story ever told has become the lamest outline ever written.

What would it be like to turn on the Olympics only to have NBC broadcast events we already don’t watch exercised by athletes we don’t know? We could easily appreciate the athleticism, but it's the story that makes us care, even if only fleetingly.

Too many pastors preach only or overwhelmingly to the thinking aspects of human intelligence because it comforts our egos, or fools us into believing we have been “biblical” or “informative” or “exegetical.” In reality, we have simply not bothered to help our hearers care. Olympic broadcasts assume, rightly, what preachers frequently discount: People don’t care until you help them care.

Here are two initial steps preachers can learn from the Olympics (Note: I told you some stories before I got to the steps.)

Know What They Already Care About

Olympic broadcasts center their stories on people and groups who have overcome. There are commercials about young people making sporting teams, athletes who have overcome mental and physical hurdles, still other athletes who look physically outside the norm of world-class athletes, others who are nearly out of their physical prime but train in the early morning or late at night while also holding a full-time job and caring for their young family.

These are the kinds of stories we all know. Many people have had their own obstacles to overcome, and those who haven’t know someone who has. Olympic broadcasters are not trying to make us care about something new. These stories touch us because somewhere inside us, we have, or are, living it already.

Good preaching starts with addressing the ordinary, simple, and universal experiences of life. There are tensions, conflicts, and obstacles which nearly everyone encounters. Start there. Ground sermons on earth. Name and validate shared experiences, then we can lift our eyes to the skies.

Appeal to Existing Virtues

There is a moment during the Olympics where many Olympians cry. It is when they’ve won the Gold Medal, stand atop the podium, and hear their national anthem. It’s magic. My daughters, and I, confess that we are never more patriotic than during the Olympics.

Jon Mulaney recently told NBC that Charles Barkley encouraged him to go to the Olympics at least once because, “People love their country.” People do love their countries, and events like the Olympics, while not erasing the problems inherent in every nation, remind us of the parts of our country we do love. Love of country, for many, if not most, is a pre-existing virtue.

A good bit of preaching is trying to help the church embrace attitudes and actions which will be helpful for them and the world or address actions and attitudes that a pastor intuits the church is not doing or doing well.

What people are not yet is a terrible place to begin a conversation. Jesus always begins with where people are and then moves us to new places. Preaching should do the same. Fred Craddock once said that people don’t “amen” new information. The most powerful moment in a concert is when a band plays their most popular song, not their newest.

A wise preacher roots the new in the old. Great messages arise from what a particular congregation already holds dear. This is the place from which we can lead to new levels. It’s only when I see how much I love my country, for example, can I care more deeply that everyone experiences the promise of that country.

In the end, great communicators find existing connections of the best and worst of human experience. Those experiences are found in the commonality of our stories. Once we explore those stories, in the fullness of all their drama and comedy, we see the tapestry of human connection and can begin to care about the aspects of life that we’ve previously missed.

Sean Palmer is the Teaching Pastor at Ecclesia Houston, speaker and speaking coach, and author of several books including--Speaking by the Numbers: Ennegram Wisdom for Teachers, Pastors, and Communicators.