Communicating for a Change, pt. 3

And the last of the highlights 🙂 (can you tell I really enjoyed the book?)

It’s difficult to receive challenging information from someone who seems to have no clue as to what it is like to be you.

Go out of your way to lay out your humanity and frailty. 

Many communicators either skip along the surface of a few verses without really explaining or engaging the text. Or they go down so deep and stay there so long everybody in the audience is gasping for air.

I think it’s the fear of losing the audience that motivates so many young preachers to be Scripture light and story heavy. 

The ideal option is to engage the audience with the text. Don’t just read it. Don’t explain it to death. Take the audience with you on the journey. Make it so fascinating that they are actually tempted to go home and read it on their own. 

Can you share the point of your sermon in a five minute conversation? If not, you might be in the habit of squeezing too much information and too many verses and not enough life in your sermons.

Take out the good stuff so the best stuff can shine.

There is lots of talk lately about people’s attention spans. The theory is that it’s getting shorter and shorter because of technology. The point is, when we’re engaged, time flies. When we’re not engaged, time stands still. The issue is not the span of people’s attention. The issue is our ability to capture and hold people’s attention.

Often we think we need new content to keep people engaged. Not true. We need fresh presentations.

In the first century people loved or hated Jesus. But nobody fell asleep. He was engaging and enraging. He was creative, direct, compassionate and offensive.

Be willing to sacrifice what’s comfortable – what has become part of your style – for the sake of what is effective. 

all communicators should buy this book. 🙂