Communication boosters

 

In a world with so many voices calling for attention, how do we make ourselves heard - especially how do we make the gospel heard and how do we make "correcting, rebuking and encouraging" heard and how do we make information that will get people to spaces where they will receive all that be heard?  The following is a collection of 16 things – some vital and hugely significant, some less important – that can enhance our communication and ‘boost the signal.’

1. The power of loving. This is foundational. ‘Do everything in love’ (1 Cor. 16:14). Love makes for very compelling communication.  “Once become satisfied that a man loves you... you will listen gladly to anything he has to say” (JC Ryle). And love covers over a multitude of mistakes. We can get it wrong culturally, we can be inept technologically, we can be bumbling speakers, but it we love people that comes across and covers over. Interestingly, in 1 Thessalonians 2, love for people is tied very closely to accountability to God. Loving people is not pleasing people; it may often be the opposite. If I need you to like me then I am not loving you, I am using you for my own ends. Paul feels the weight of his commission from God, he is seeking only to please One, and that frees him to love people which will involve saying the hard things. And love shapes the way we communicate. If we love we’ll think about how to communicate in a way that they can receive. We are not just talking to get things out of our head but to get them into our hearers for their good. In football and rugby there is a difference between firing the ball at someone and giving them a ‘sympathetic pass' – one that is easy to receive. We want to communicate like that sympathetic pass so our hearer can easily catch what we're saying. If we love that will make our tone patient, gentle, compassionate (2 Tim. 4:2; 1 Thess. 2:7). Not demanding and harsh and impatient but as a loving mother spoon-feeding her small baby. And if we love our hearers we fight for their attention. In fact all the other things listed below flow from love – we pray because we love, we prepare because we love, we work hard at being clear because we love. 
2. The power of praying. There is talking to people about God and there is talking to God about people. What is the ratio? Let me not be like Job's friends but more like Job. Let's soak all our communication in prayer – not only the sermon but every email and every conversation and meeting. Let's fire off little Nehemiah 1:11-type arrow prayers all through the day.
3. The power of preparing. We know we should be giving good hours to preparing our sermon but what about those communications we think we can do off the cuff? The answer to a tricky pastoral or apologetics question. The announcement for a church event. I find that when I'm unprepared that is when I’m most likely to be rambling, wrong or offensive.
4. The power of clarity. John Stott was a master of this - he'd say what he was going to say, say it and then say what he'd said. Be ruthless with jargon and Christian-ese. What do I mean by ‘trust God’ or ‘trust God more’? What does that really mean? Don’t just use your favourite illustration of a chair or a wheelbarrow. How could you explain it to a five year old? How could you break it down and spell out what it looks like in daily life for someone in your congregation? There is an easy, superficial simplicity on the near side of the forest of complexity or we can go through the forest of complexity to a simplicity on the far side which is much more profound, rich, satisfying, helpful. And just in day-to-day communication - pursue clarity - e.g. in an email: work out what the main thing you're trying to communicate is and say the main thing first.
5. The power of the unexpected. The Bible is full to bursting with stunning surprises. That’s why ‘What are the surprises?’ is always a good Bible study question. We need to help people see them and get an instinct for spotting them. But it’s also not a bad thing to say surprising things yourself. I was once at a dinner table with an Australian Bible teacher and what was striking was that he agreed with everything you’d expect him to disagree with and disagreed with everything you’d expect him to agree with. It made it a very engaging and usefully unsettling conversation – he wasn’t just endorsing everything we already thought. Mark Forsyth, in his book, The Elements of Eloquence, shows how some of the most effective rhetoric is intentional disruption of normal word order or breaking the traditional rules of rhetoric. E.g. "Breaking the rules of rhetoric is good because: 1. It arrests the attention (differentiating you from all the background noise), 2. It’s biblical not to care too much about rhetoric and polish (1 Cor. 2:1).  3. I don’t need to give you a third point."
6. The power of story. The Bible is full of story. It’s one of the best ways to start a talk. The best adverts are basically stories (think John Lewis Christmas advert). A GREAT story is Genuine (ring of truth), Repeatable (viral), Emotional (connection), Astonishing (there’s a surprising twist), Tangible (there’s a take away you can apply).
7. The power of encouraging. Younger pastors can miss this. The whole letter of 1 Thessalonians is a brilliant example of it: "This is the grace of God I see in you, this is the God who has saved you and is for you and will return and raise the dead; you're going great - now do so more and more." Craig Hamilton points out that end of Paul’s letters are full of praise of people. "Honour such men" (Phil. 2:29). It is right to honour. It clarifies, exemplifies, celebrates what is good (e.g. the humble service taught in Phil. 2:1-11). Be on a treasure hunt for signs of grace. Make the encouragement genuine and specific - “I really appreciated the way you…” Especially encourage and honour undervalued ministry (e.g. unseen service, mums, manual workers). Make it God-centred - “I praise God so much for his work in you…” And be aware you may well need to teach people how to respond to encouragement: don’t brush it off, say, “Thank you for the encouragement.”
8. The power of humour. Why is Jesus talking about taking a plank out of your eye so memorable Humour can be used to tear others down but it can also be used as a levelling, bonding thing – me showing I know I’m an idiot, defusing tension, breaking down barriers, warming relationships, releasing good chemicals and activating different bits of the brain. 
9. The power of honesty. Straightforwardness is very powerful. Say what needs to be said. Say when you don't know. Say when you've messed up. Be the chief repenter – not necessarily going into the specifics of your sin but having the tone of Nehemiah, Ezra and Daniel. Speak as a sinner to fellow sinners.
10. The power of non-defensiveness. Similar to honesty. John Lennox uses this brilliantly in interviews and debates. “That’s a brilliant question. I find that a huge problem too.”
11. The power of Why? This is Simon Sinek’s point, picked up by Craig Hamilton. Start with the Why. We very easily start with the What & How. People will often follow if your Why is clear (even if you’re not that clear on the What and How). This is how the Bible teaches us (the why before the imperative). This is what we need to reflect in our preaching. It’s certainly important when you’re talking to your children (over the age of 3) or discipling anybody. It’s important in the Sunday gathering – Why are we here? Why do we sing? Why do we read from the Bible? – there are probably several reasons so split them up and drop in one each week. One particular situation where it’s important is in church announcements – whether upfront notices or via email or some other channel. These are a great opportunity to teach the Why – and yet so easily we just say What (there’s going to be a church picnic on Saturday at this park at this time) and present the need (please bring food and chairs and gazeebos) without explaining clearly why we are doing this.
12. The power of Proxemics. That's a fancy word for thinking about the space in which you are speaking and the variables which could impact the effectiveness of the communication. E.g. Size of room, number of people, arrangement of people in the room – this is going to effect your volume and pace, whether or not you stand or use a lectern, how much energy you need to project; Acoustics; Clutter, visual distractions, décor, colours; Distance (public, social, personal, intimate space) – depending on culture, in a larger sized public space (normal church situation) it's normal to have 12+ feet between the speaker and hearer; Position, Angle, Level; Physical Barriers – is a heavy lectern necessary?
13. The power of emphasis. People don’t remember everything. What are you going to underline? You can emphasise through repetition. D. A. Carson: “If I have learned anything in 35 or 40 years of teaching, it is that students don’t learn everything I teach them. What they learn is what I am excited about, the kinds of things I emphasize again and again and again and again. That had better be the gospel.” Repetition, from different angles – that’s how Hebrew poetry works; that’s how the Bible emphasises the sufferings and glories of Christ, through a rich variety of different pictures and angles. You can also emphasise through change of volume, pitch, speed. You can emphasise by flagging: “If you’ve gone to sleep, wake up because this is the key thing you need to hear.” All these things we can overdo – you don’t put everything in bold or CAPS. 
14. The power of bluntness. Jesus was often blunt. I’m noticing more and more that a lot of godly leaders can be very direct and blunt. Of course it can just be rudeness but there is a middle class idol of ‘being nice’ and a cultural aversion to bluntness which is not biblical. It comes back to honesty and straightforwardness and even more foundationally to the question of whether I am trying to please man or God. Bluntness can be right and bluntness can be very powerful.
15. The power of the Word. This is where the real power is – Psalm 29 - breaks the cedars and shakes the desert. We want churches led by the Word of God. We want our hearers to go away from a sermon with the Word ringing in their ears not our clever illustrations. We want to be making decisions genuinely based on the Word of God. That is a very exciting thing for a congregation to see – that the pastors and elders are really sitting under the Word of God personally and that as a church we are changing things and doing things (including hard things) purely because we’ve seen it in the Word and been corporately convicted and been compelled to do things differently. So we don't in any way want to try to 'use' the power of the Scriptures to push through our own agenda - God forbid. But where we are seeking to do things because of the Word then show your workings - show how the Word has directed that decision or been the fuel for that initiative or is the reason for that gathering. 
16. Less is more. The one I find the hardest of all! But often true.