Sermon Illustrations on Communication — page 3

Family Communication Statistics

--56% of parents believe their kids want more time together (but only 10% of

kids want more time with Mom, and 15.5% want more time with Dad.) Most kids,

however, believe parents spend enough time with them.

--62.5% of parents say they like work a lot - but only 14% of kids say Dad

enjoys his job, and 42% say the same about Mom.

--44.5% of kids say time with Mom is rushed, 37% say so with Dad. Only a third of parents say time with their kids is rushed.

--23% of kids want their parents to earn more; 14% of parents believe kids want this. (Newsweek, Aug. 30)

God Has Prepared Everyone For Jesus

Acts 14:11

In his book "Yearnings," M. Craig Barnes tells of a tribe of Australian nomads called the Achilpa. These primitive people told how their god Numbakula had created heaven and earth. In their legend, he made the universe, then cut down a gum tree and anointed it with blood. He placed it between the heavens and the earth, then climbed it and vanished into the sky.

Accordingly, the Achilpa made their gum tree pole. As they moved from place to place, they let the bend at the end of the pole choose the direction for them. Regardless of where they went, so long as the pole stood in their midst, their tiny world was secure and meaningful. One day, the pole broke. Suddenly, their world was in disarray. For a while they wandered without direction, but eventually, the tribe dropped to the ground and waited for the sky to come crashing down.

Missionary author Don Richardson made a discovery some years back that applies here. After writing an account of his missionary experiences in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, with a tribal people he learned how to present the gospel of Jesus to them, he wrote a second book. "Eternity in their Hearts" tells how God has revealed Himself to every culture through their stories, customs, myths, and legends. What the Christian witness has to do, Richardson says, is learn the stories the people tell that explain and define them. There one will find the nest, the preparation, the unique foundation, for the Gospel which God has given those people. It's an intriguing theory, or a fascinating fact. Let's look more closely at the Achilpa legend.

A tree anointed with blood, erected between heaven and earth, a tree that the god climbs and then ascends into heaven, which gives order and meaning to their lives -- does that ring a bell for you?

It sounds like a ready-made situation for those people to learn about Jesus -- His bloody death on a cross, His resurrection, and His ascension into heaven -- doesn't it?

Don Richardson and his wife Carol made a discovery in Irian Jaya that forever changed the way they related to "pagan" cultures. They found that the warring tribes had a custom they called "the peace child". In order to end a conflict and establish peace, each tribe gave to the other a child from their village. They laid hands on their child and sent him to the other side, and in turn received their new child. They gave the children new names.

Then, so long as their peace child lived, peace prevailed between the peoples. In a crisis between the groups, one would say, "I plead the peace child", meaning "So long as the peace child lives, we are brothers." It was a remarkable custom that the Richardsons discovered and wrote about in their book Peace Child.

Richardson explained to the tribes how the great God in Heaven had given His Son Jesus as a Peace Child to us, to establish peace with Him and between men. Since He lives eternally, that peace is established forever. For the first time, the tribal people began to comprehend this message the missionaries had brought.

Don Richardson calls these "redemptive analogies," the keys to various cultures that God has provided for an entree into the hearts and minds of those people groups. We see it in the Bible. Paul noticed that the Athenians had erected altars and statues to every god imaginable, including one shrine dedicated "to the unknown god." So, he built on that and introduced them to the One True God, Yahweh (Acts 17). The New Testament book of Hebrews, writer unknown, does the same with the sacrificial lamb of the Old Testament period, showing how the Lord Jesus Himself is the very Lamb of God who once and for all takes away the sins of the world. It's a brilliant technique.

At the end of his first book, Don Richardson tells of a missionary working with a remote tribal group in Irian Jaya who had just figured out how to put together two important words: ki for "life" and wone, "words". He walks outside his hut and announces to the assembly of fierce warriors, "We have come to bring you ki wone, the words of life." The man of God had no way of knowing he had just touched off a revolution.

Some of the older men caught the phrase the missionary used.

They stared at him and blinked as if awakening from a long sleep. "Trembling with excitement," Richardson writes, "the sages conferred with one another." It turns out that an ancient story of their tribe told of the day someone with white skin would come and tell them the secret of immortality. The ancestors had said, "Be sure you listen to them or immortality will pass you by."

That night, the missionary was busy with other tasks and heard singing erupting across the valley. He wondered what kind of celebration was going on. The next morning, when he walked outside, thousands of tribal people had surrounded his home. "Tell us how we welcome the words of life," they said to him.

Richardson ends that book wondering how many more cultural analogies planted by God Himself are waiting to be found in order to introduce their owners to the gospel of Jesus Christ. He concludes, "Only those who go and search will find them."

__________________

["Eternity in Their Hearts" is a reference to Ecclesiastes 3:11; the book "Peace Child" was published in 1974 by Regal Books. "Eternity in Their Hearts" came out a couple of years later, presumably by the same publisher.]

*

(untitled)

Charles Schulz, creator of the comic strip Peanuts, the world’s most read and revered cartoonist, died of a heart attack just as his final comic strip was going to press. Schulz had announced his retirement in December, 1999, because of his battle with colon cancer. He had drawn his last strip that featured Snoopy typing out a farewell message; that strip became his epitaph. For almost 50 years he had drawn the 18,000+ comic strips that were immensely popular.

“All my fears, my anxieties, my joys and almost even all of my experiences go into that strip,” Schulz recently said. That is what most feel made his Peanuts characters so popular. Schulz reflected that which makes us human. He intertwined faith and feelings, success and failure and gave us the ability to laugh at ourselves. Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy and the cast of characters Schulz created gave voice to the everyday realities we all face.

TS: It is what makes us real that people relate to. Whether we are preaching, teaching, singing or talking over a cup of coffee, people want to know that someone who shares their struggles, has a real faith for a real world.

Accentuate the Positive

We all know how important it is to speak to people with the right tone of voice. So often it is that tone which communicates your feelings more than the actual words you use.

Here's a little game I learned from Zig Ziglar in his book, "Secrets of Closing the Sale" which demonstrates how the way you say something can dramatically alter what you mean to say. In this exercise, I want you to accentuate the one word in the sentences below, which appears in CAPS. Just put extra emphasis on that one word as you read out loud. Each sentence is exactly the same, but watch what happens when you place emphasis on the different words. My comments are in parenthesis.

"I" didn't say she stole the money. (Someone else said it)

I DIDN'T say she stole the money. (I flatly deny saying it)

I didn't SAY she stole the money. (I implied it, though)

I didn't say SHE stole the money. (Someone else, not her)

I didn't say she STOLE the money. (Embezzled it possibly, but definitely did not steal it)

I didn't say she stole the MONEY. (May have "lifted" a few other items however)

Aren't the differences interesting? All because you merely accentuated a different word in the exact same sentence!

By noticing our voice inflection and intonation, we can work magic with words, and improve our positive communication skills in dramatic ways. For the next week, practice noticing "how" you say things to people even more than "what" you say to people. And I HOPE you are ecstatic with the results. (Actually, I hope YOU are ecstatic with the results). (Come to think of it, I hope you are ECSTATIC with the results).

*

Forgiveness: Coming Home To God's Embrace

In the Amazon area of eastern Peru, missionaries made a poignant discovery.

When Wycliffe Bible translator Bob Russell sought a word for "forgiveness" in the language of the Amahuacas of eastern Peru, he discovered their unique way of asking one another for pardon. In that culture, if an offender wants to be reconciled with someone he has offended, he says to him, "Speak to me."

Russell learned that Amahuacas who are unreconciled typically refuse to speak to each other. So when the offender asks the offended to speak, it's the equivalent of saying, "Show me we're friends again by being on speaking terms once more."

Many Biblical terms illustrate the concept of forgiveness - cancel debts, cast away sins, free the sinner.

The Amahuaca expression strikingly translates what is the most important biblical meaning of God's forgiveness - above all, it is a reconciliation, the restoration of a friendship with him that has been marred by sin.

Short Miscellaneous Illustrations

Adultery

A third-grade Sunday school teacher was uneasy about the day's lesson: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." By way of introduction, she asked, "Would someone please explain what adultery means?"

A young sage answered matter-of-factly, "Adultery is when a kid lies about his age."

-Jonathan R.Mutchler Blaine, Washington

Budgets

The bad news: the average American has just $83.42 in the bank.

The good news: The average American is $4.6 trillion richer than the U.S. government.

-Hope Health Letter (2/96)

Communication

A woman answered the knock at her door and found a destitute man. He wanted to earn money by doing odd jobs, so she asked, "Can you paint?"

"Yes," he said. "I'm a pretty good painter."

"Well, here's a gallon of green paint and a brush. Go behind the house and you'll see a porch that needs repainting. Be very careful. When you're done, I'll look it over and pay you what it's worth."

It wasn't more than an hour before he knocked again. "All finished," he reported with a smile.

"Did you do a good job?" she asked.

"Yes. But lady, there's one thing I'd like to point out to you. That's not a Porsche back there. That's a Mercedes."

The message we send is not always the message that's received.

-Bruce Thielemann Preaching Today

Being president is like running a cemetery: you've got a lot of people under you, and nobody's listening.

-Bill Clinton

Someone told me that a commencement speaker is like the body at an Irish wake. They need you in order to have a party, but nobody expects you to say very much.

-Anthony Lake National Security Adviser, commencement speaker at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Family

Isn't this nice? We're a typical nuclear family. Yeah. . .one meltdown after another.

-Tribune Media Services

Honesty

A troubled man sought counsel from a therapist: "Doctor, everyone calls me a liar."

"Oh, come on now," said the counselor. "I can't believe that."

-The Light (Issue 11)

Golf - Taking Action

A golfer's errant shot ended up on an ant hill. He squared up, took a big swing--and missed. Thousands of innocent ants were killed. The hacker took another swing--and missed again. Another wave of ants was destroyed. Panic-stricken insects scurried everywhere.

One ant finally took charge. "Follow me," he cried with authority. Another ant yelled, "But where are we going?"

He pointed to the Titleist golf ball sitting in front of them. "There. If we don't get on the ball, we're going to die!"

Summer 1996 Vol.XVII, No.3, Page 71

The Pastor's Editor

THE PASTOR'S EDITOR

From the pulpit: "I asked my wife to look over my notes for today's sermon and mark out everything dull -- so in conclusion ..."

Right Out In the Open - and Ignored

Mark 4:22

The disciples are all set to go on a safari for the mysterious truth. And Jesus tells them, save your trouble. What you're looking for is right at your feet. Don't you see it? Because it is what is in your sight that is hidden in the first place. Somehow you do not see it.

I thought immediately of Poe's tale, "The Purloined Letter." Perhaps you know it. It is one of the three adventures of Poe's pre-Sherlockian Sherlock Holmes, C. Auguste Dupin.

One day the frustrated Prefect of the Paris police knocks on Dupin's door and tells how he and his men have been searching for months for a stolen letter, all without success. It seems that the Queen had received some sort of love letter from a secret admirer and had hastily stashed it on her desk when the King came in. While his majesty did not notice the letter, soon a conniving government minister entered and did readily recognize the letter and what it meant. He managed to pocket it in plain sight of the Queen who however dared not say anything lest the King be alerted to her indiscretion.

The minister kept the letter to blackmail the Queen into favoring his policies. The Queen set the police on the trail of the minister to retrieve the letter as discretely as possible. They have made nightly searches of the minister's apartment, but to no avail. Every imaginable hiding place has been scrutinized with utmost care, but nothing.

Eventually Dupin saves the day, reasoning that the minister, a clever rogue of his acquaintance, would have anticipated the secret searches and outwitted the police by "hiding" the letter out in plain sight in a letter rack on the mantel. No one thought to look there!

This particular story has attracted a lot of critical attention. All the critics agree that in Poe's story the stolen letter functions as a symbol for communication in general. Every message, whether oral or written, is like a letter sent from sender to receiver. And just as the Queen's letter was stolen, and finally stolen again from the thief, every communication of ours is liable to go astray, to miscommunicate our meaning. A caricature of our words may return to haunt us. Our words may come to the ears of others whom we did not intend to hear them, and what was meant innocently becomes problematic. Every communication of ours may be misconstrued, its meaning lost in echoes.

And even when deprived of any particular meaning, the mere fact of the letter, of the thing having been said, is powerful and continues to make waves, as when Alexander Haig was embarrassed and discredited after the near assassination of President Reagan. He said, "I'm in control here in the White House," but the media did not hear the last few words and leaped to the conclusion that Haig was power-mad and had leapfrogged the whole line of succession. By the time they realized they were wrong, the damage had been done. Meaning had strayed; Haig's letter had been purloined.

*

A Friend On the Line

Even before I finished dialing, I somehow knew I'd made a mistake. The phone rang once, twice - then someone picked it up.

"You got the wrong number!" a husky male voice snapped before the line went dead. Mystified, I dialed again.

"I said you got the wrong number!" came the voice. Once more the phone clicked in my ear.

How could he possibly know I had a wrong number? At that time, I worked for the New York City Police Department. A cop is trained to be curious - and concerned. So I dialed a third time.

"Hey, c'mon," the man said. "Is this you again?"

"Yeah, it's me," I answered. "I was wondering how you knew I had the wrong number before I even said anything."

"You figure it out!" The phone slammed down.

I sat there awhile, the receiver hanging loosely in my fingers. I called the man back.

"Did you figure it out yet?" he asked.

"The only thing I can think of is...nobody ever calls you."

"You got it!" The phone went dead for the fourth time. Chuckling, I dialed the man back.

"What do you want now?" he asked.

"I thought I'd call ... just to say hello."

"Hello? Why?"

"Well, if nobody ever calls you, I thought maybe I should."

"Okay. Hello. Who is this?"

At last I had gotten through. Now he was curious. I told him who I was and asked who he was.

"My name's Adolf Meth. I'm 88 years old, and I haven't had this many wrong numbers in one day in 20 years!" We both laughed.

We talked for 10 minutes. Adolf had no family, no friends. Everyone he had been close to had died. Then we discovered we had something in common: he'd worked for the New York City Police Department for nearly 40 years. Telling me about his days there as an elevator operator, he seemed interesting, even friendly. I asked if I could call him again.

"Why would you wanta do that?" he asked, surprised.

"Well, maybe we could be phone friends. You know, like pen pals."

He hesitated. "I wouldn't mind...having a friend again." His voice sounded a little tentative.

I called Adolf the following afternoon and several days after that. Easy to talk with, he related his memories of World Wars I and II, the Hindenburg disaster and other historic events. He was fascinating. I gave him my home and office numbers so he could call me. He did - almost every day.

I was not just being kind to a lonely old man. Talking with Adolf was important to me, because I, too, had a big gap in my life. Raised in orphanages and foster homes, I never had a father. Gradually, Adolf took on a kind of fatherly importance to me. I talked about my job and college courses, which I attended at night.

Adolf warmed to the role of counselor. While discussing a disagreement I'd had with a supervisor, I told my new friend, "I think I ought to have it out with him."

"What's the rush?" Adolf cautioned. "Let things cool down. When you get as old as I am, you find out that time takes care of a lot. If things get worse, then you can talk to him."

There was a long silence. "You know," he said softly, "I'm talking to you just the way I'd talk to a boy of my own. I always wanted a family - and children. You're too young to know how that feels."

No, I wasn't. I'd always wanted a family - and a father. But I didn't say anything, afraid I wouldn't be able to hold back the hurt I'd felt for so long.

One evening Adolf mentioned his 89th birthday was coming up. After buying a piece of fiberboard, I designed a 2' x 5' greeting card with a cake and 89 candles on it. I asked all the cops in my office and even the police commissioner to sign it. I gathered nearly a hundred signatures. Adolf would get a kick out of this, I knew. We'd been talking on the phone for four months now, and I thought this would be a good time to meet face to face. So I decided to deliver the card by hand. I didn't tell Adolf I was coming; I just drove to his address one morning and parked the car up the street from his apartment house.

A postman was sorting mail in the hallway when I entered the building. He nodded as I checked the mailboxes for Adolf's name. There it was. Apartment 1H, some 20 feet from where I stood.

My heart pounded with excitement. Would we have the same chemistry in person that we had on the phone? I felt the first stab of doubt. Maybe he would reject me the way my father rejected me when he went out of my life. I tapped on Adolf's door. When there was no answer, I knocked harder.

The postman looked up from his sorting. "No one's there," he said.

"Yeah," I said, feeling a little foolish. "If he answers his door the way he answers his phone, this may take all day."

"You a relative or something?"

"No. Just a friend."

"I'm really sorry," he said quietly, "but Mr. Meth died day before yesterday."

Died? Adolf? For a moment, I couldn't answer. I stood there in shock and disbelief. Then, pulling myself together, I thanked the postman and stepped into the late-morning sun. I walked toward the car, misty-eyed.

Then, rounding a corner, I saw a church, and a line from the Old Testament leaped to mind: A friend loveth at all times. And especially in death, I realized. This brought a moment of recognition. Often it takes some sudden and sad turn of events to awaken us to the beauty of a special presence in our lives. Now, for the first time, I sensed how very close Adolf and I had become. It had been easy, and I knew this would make it even easier the next time, with my next close friend.

Slowly, I felt a warmth surging through me. I heard Adolf's growly voice shouting, "Wrong number!" Then I heard him asking why I wanted to call again.

"Because you mattered, Adolf," I said aloud to no one. "Because I was your friend."

I placed the unopened birthday card on the back seat of my car and got behind the wheel. Before starting the engine, I looked over my shoulder. "Adolf," I whispered, "I didn't get the wrong number at all. I got you."

______________________________

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Version in Rev. Brett Blair, 2/16/03:

I Thought I'd Call

There is a story about a New York City policeman investigating a case. Even before he finished dialing, he somehow knew he’d made a mistake. The phone rang once, twice – then someone picked it up. “You’ve got the wrong number!” a husky male voice snapped before the line went dead. Mystified, the policeman dialed again. “I said you got the wrong number!” came the voice. Once more the phone clicked down. “How could he possibly know I had the wrong number?” the policeman asked himself.

A cop is trained to be curious – and concerned. So he dialed a third time. “Hey, c’mon,” the voice said. “Is this you again?” “Yea, it’s me. I was wondering how you knew I had the wrong number before I even said anything.” “You figure it out!” The phone slammed down.

He sat there for a while, the receiver hanging loosely in his fingers. He called the man back. “Did you figure it out yet?” the man asked. “The only thing I can think of is nobody ever calls you.” “You got it!” The phone went dead for the fourth time.

Chuckling, the officer dialed the man back. “What do you want now?” asked the man. “I thought I’d call – just to say hello.” “Hello? Why?” “Well, if nobody ever calls you, I thought maybe I should.”

____________

Dr. Gary Nicolosi, Sermon: “The Wideness of God’s Mercy”

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Ask Creatively

The chief buyer for a thriving company was particularly inaccessible to salespeople. You didn't call him. He called you. On several occasions when salespeople managed to get into his office, they were summarily tossed out.

One saleswoman finally broke through his defenses. She sent him a homing pigeon with her card attached to one leg. On the card she had written, "If you want to know more about our product, just throw our representative out the window."

*

Listening ... ?

Luke 8:18

Do you realize Listening is a Power that can be exercised and tapped into and with it, you can change lives ... including your own?

When you listen next time with someone ... give 100% attention, and don't let anything distract you ...

Remember ... this is their time with you ... respect it.

Lock onto not just the Moment, but the Message within the Moment.(CLUE!!!!!)

REALLY Listen and you will be surprised what you hear that you've missed before ...

Here is an idea ... let's engage:

An Active Listening ... not just with your ears, but also with your eyes and heart ...

A Powerful Body Language ... look in your folks' eyes, and lean their way, to show connection.

A Caring Focus ... listening starts with the heart.

A Content focus ... Listen for the content, not just the intent ... .

An Empowering Attitude ... encourage and edify all that has been said, show gratitude for them thinking enough of you to share ... .

The Power of Listening truly is the "Million Dollar Skill ... " Most People treat it like a 5 dollar attitude ...

====================================================

Doug Firebaugh is Chairman/ CEO of PassionFire International

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The 10 Biggest Traps To Avoid When You Speak: Dull To Dynamic

[Advice from the business world that is helpful for preachers - Holwick]

Whenever you open your mouth, whether your audience is one person or a thousand, you usually want to get a specific message across. Maybe you want your opinions heard at meetings, or you're giving a formal talk. Or perhaps you're in a position to advise your sales team or CEO on an important presentation. Anyone who sets out to present, persuade, and propel with the spoken word faces 10 major pitfalls.

1. UNCLEAR THINKING. If you can't describe what you are talking about in one sentence, you may be guilty of fuzzy focus or trying to cover too many topics. Your listeners won't understand either.

2. NO CLEAR STRUCTURE. Make it easy for people to follow what you are saying. They'll remember it better -- and you will too as you present your information and ideas. If you waffle, ramble, or never get to the point, you lose your listeners.

3. NO MEMORABLE STORIES. People rarely remember your exact words. Instead, they remember the mental images that your words inspire. Support your key points with vivid, relevant stories. Help them "make the movie" in their heads by using memorable characters, exciting situations, dialogue, suspense, and humor.

4. NO EMOTIONAL CONNECTION. The most powerful communication combines both intellectual and emotional connections. Intellectual means appealing to educated self-interest with data and reasoned arguments. Emotion comes from engaging the listeners' imaginations, involving them in your illustrative stories by frequent use of the word "you" and from answering their unspoken question, "What's in this for me?"

5. WRONG LEVEL OF ABSTRACTION. Are you providing the big picture and generalities when your listeners are hungry for details, facts, and specific how-to's? Or are you drowning them in data when they need to position themselves with an overview and find out why they should care? Get on the same wave length with your listeners.

6. NO PAUSES. Good music and good communication both contain changes of pace, pauses, and full rests. This is when listeners think about important points you've just made. If you rush on at full speed to crowd in as much information as possible, chances are you've left your listeners back at the station.

7. IRRITATING NON-WORDS. Hmm -- ah -- er -- you know what I mean -- . One speaker I heard began each new thought with "Now!" as he scanned his notes to figure out what came next. This might be okay occasionally, but not every 30 seconds. Tape record yourself to check for similar bad verbal habits.

8. STEPPING ON THE PUNCH-WORD. The most important word in a sentence is the punch-word. Usually, this is the final word: "Take my wife -- PLEASE." But if you drop your voice or add, "Right?" or "See?" or "You know?" or "Okay?" you've killed the impact of your message.

9. NOT HAVING A STRONG OPENING AND CLOSING. Engage your audience immediately with a powerful, relevant opening that includes the word "you." Don't close with questions. Ask for them, if appropriate, then deliver a dynamic closing. Last words linger.

10. MISUSING TECHNOLOGY. Timid speakers who simply narrate flip chart images, slides, videos, overheads, or view-graphs can rarely be passionate and effective. Make technology a support to your message, not a crutch. Keep the focus on you!

Avoiding these 10 common traps is the first step to changing dull-and-boring speaking into dynamic, powerful, and persuasive communication.

*

The Five Levels of Intimacy

THE FIVE LEVELS OF INTIMACY

===========================

THE FIRST LEVEL

Here, a couple simply tries to avoid each other and when they do speak, it is usually shallow conversation or exchanging cliches. They say things like:

“How you doing?”

“I'm fine.”

“Please pass the salt.”

At this level, there is little discussion about life or each other.

THE SECOND LEVEL

Here, the couple is sharing basic facts about themselves or life in general. At this point, there is little risk in starting an argument. They say things like:

“It was sure hot today, wasn't it?”

“Can you believe what the President did today!”

A couple tends to avoid “facts” that could lead to conflict.

THE THIRD LEVEL

Here, the couple is at a greater risk in starting an argument. At this level, they can share their opinions, concerns or expectations.

“You never listen to me.”

“You're wrong and you know it.”

“If I had known how stubborn you are, we wouldn't be married.”

It's at this point that an argument can ensue. If the couple has not learned how to handle arguments at this level, they are at risk for becoming infected with one or all of the four relational “germs.”

THE FOURTH LEVEL

The fourth level is achieved when a couple feels safe to share their deepest feelings and they treat each other's feelings as very valuable. When one mate asks the other about his or her concerns, opinions, or an expectation, the one sharing is open, honest and responsible for his or her own feelings. They say things like:

“Tell me if this is right, you feel afraid for our daughter because she

is getting her driver's license.”

“It's not that you mind me watching TV, it's that you feel cheated that

we don't spend more time together.”

“I could be way off, but I feel sad when my parents don't come by and

see us like they used to.”

There is an atmosphere of honor, that is, the listener is trying to understand and validate what is being communicated. When we share our feelings, it is a person's attempt to express his or her deepest needs. Conflicts usually reveal that a person's feelings and needs are not being understood, validated or fulfilled.

THE FIFTH LEVEL

Level five is different than previous levels because this is where a person feels safe to share his or her own deepest needs. Safety is of the utmost importance. Also, when a mate shares his or her deepest relational needs, there is a feeling that those needs will be understood and valued. They usually say things like:

“See if this is right. You need some alone time at night after work and

it's not that you don't want time with me, it's that you need to

recoup?”

“Are you saying you need more tenderness when we talk? Describe

tenderness. What does it look like to you?”

“Wait a minute, I don't understand. Am I getting this right, you're saying

that we need to be saving more each month? What does that mean to you?”

Since feelings reflect whether a person's needs are being met, a couple can honor each other as they move through the fourth level (feelings) into the fifth level (needs). For example, if a person has a need to be treated with tenderness, one might see expressions of frustration or hurt on the face of the offended person. Honor, at the fifth level of intimacy, would involve asking the offended person to share what is needed. If an environment of safety was established, he or she could express the need for more tenderness. The feelings of hurt, frustration or fear are reflections of a person's deeper need for tenderness.

If you want to move from a superficial to an “ultimate,” deep level of intimacy and a lasting and loving relationship with your mate, Secrets to Lasting Love shares with you three key skills every person must master if they truly desire a close and intimate relationship with their mate. Three skills to change your relationship forever!

Couples in conflict or disharmony typically believe they have a long and tough road ahead of them if they are to turn their relationship into a healthy one. This could not be farther from the truth. These three skills, if applied in your marriage, can immediately turn your relationship around!

First and foremost is HONOR - respecting your spouse for all of his or her individual qualities as well as differences from you; next is COMMUNICATION - speaking to one another in a way that moves conversations and conflict into deeper realms of understanding; and, last, CONSTANT RENEWAL - recharging your spouse emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually.

These skills are not natural, which is why you need to learn them and apply them to your life. Once these skills are successfully applied to your relationship, you are able to move into the deepest level of intimacy (the fifth level, which is the last of five levels to intimacy.

If you decide to apply these principles, you will find yourself on a path to discovering deepening levels of intimacy. Learning to open up to one another, breaking through communication barriers, strengthening commitment, and being able to reach your spouse's heart and spirit are just a few of the benefits of this research and teaching.

If you want to build a bond that can withstand the inevitable highs and lows of marriage and move them into ever deeper levels of intimacy, the skills of honor, communication, and renewal will inspire you to reach the utmost for your relationship!

*

Asking the Lord For A Friendly Voice

Job 7:16

Ten o'clock and I'm still at the office, I thought. I'd been putting in a lot of extra hours lately. I barely had a moment to think, pray, talk to my friends - just to relax. Everyone else had left hours ago. I'd promised myself I would get home early tonight. So why was I still at work? Just one more fax, I told myself. Then I'll leave.

I put the papers on the machine and punched in the number of a client in Los Angeles. Then I pressed the “send” button. An error message flashed on the display beside the number. I looked at it closely. Odd. That's not the number I dialed. This one was a 714 area code. That's Anaheim, I thought. Why would the fax machine be calling there? I tried again, carefully dialing my client's number. The same thing happened.

Finally, I decided to call the mysterious 714 number. The phone rang a few times. Then a woman answered shakily, “Hello?”

I explained to her that I had been trying to send a fax.

“There's no fax machine here,” she said. “This is a convalescent home. You called an old lady.”

I quickly apologized for bothering her so late at night.

“Oh, no, my dear, I'm glad you called. I hardly ever get any visitors. In fact, I was just sitting here asking the Lord for a friendly voice.”

The old woman and I chatted for a few minutes. Then a few more. She told me all about her life in the nursing home. I talked about my job. Before I knew it, we were talking about faith too.

“Thank you so much for calling, Dear,” the woman finally said. “You made my night.”

Now it was really late. But all the way home a good feeling stayed with me. I didn't even think about the fax until the next day, when I got to work. I called my client to apologize for not sending him the papers.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “I got your fax late last night. It came in just after ten.”

I guess I must have had the right number all along.

__________

Guideposts, Copyright (c) March 2004, http://www.guideposts.org

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[Original illustration here was a duplicate in HolwickID 25837-26027]

How To Communicate Like A Pro

Mark 1:22

Six techniques you can use to help you say what you mean and mean what you say.

Here are six techniques you can use to help you say things simply but persuasively, and even forcefully:

(1) Get your thinking straight. The most common source of confusing messages is muddled thinking. We have an idea we haven’t thought through. Or we have so much we want to say that we can’t possibly say it. Or we have an opinion that is so strong we can’t keep it in. As a result, we are ill prepared when we speak, and we confuse everyone. The first rule of plain talk, then, is to think before you say anything. Organize your thoughts.

(2) Say what you mean. Say exactly what you mean.

(3) Get to the point. Effective communicators don’t beat around the bush. If you want someone to buy something, ask for the order. If you want someone to do something, say exactly what you want done.

(4) Be concise. Don’t waste words. Confusion grows in direct proportion to the number of words used. Speak plainly and briefly, using the shortest, most familiar words.

(5) Be real. Each of us has a personality — a blending of traits, thought patterns and mannerisms — which can aid us in communicating clearly. For maximum clarity, be natural, and let the real you come through. You’ll be more convincing and much more comfortable.

(6) Speak in images. The cliché that “a picture is worth a thousand words” isn’t exactly true (try explaining the Internal Revenue code using nothing but pictures). But words that help people visualize concepts can be tremendous aids in communicating a message. Once Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative became known as Star Wars, its opponents had a powerful weapon against it. The name gave it the image of a far-out, futuristic dream beyond the reach of current technology. Reagan was never able to come up with a more powerful positive image.

Your one-on-one communication will acquire real power if you learn to send messages that are simple, clear, and assertive; if you learn to monitor the hearer to determine that your message was accurately received; and if you learn to obtain the desired response by approaching people with due regard for their behavioral styles.

Your finesse as a communicator will grow as you learn to identify and overcome the obstacles to communication. Practice the six techniques I just mentioned, and you’ll find your effectiveness as a message-sender growing steadily.

Leaders Are Communicators

John 7:46

In many ways, effective communication begins with mutual respect, communication that inspires, encourages, or instructs others to do their best. When you respect people, you will never be rude to them. Consequently, by treating them with respect, you get cooperation, enthusiastically given instead of grudgingly given. Respected individuals are going to work harder to become peak performers, wanting to do more and more.

If people like you, they will work harder for you. If they don’t like you, they might work to keep their jobs, but they won’t really be giving the effort they’re capable of giving. People might perform to keep their jobs because duty and responsibility demand that they do a job well. But love and encouragement enable people to do work beautifully. When you communicate to people that you genuinely like and respect them, and follow that up with consistency of action, you establish rapport with and confidence in your people that will make a difference.

Communication is not necessarily an easy skill to learn, but it really begins with seriously listening to what the other person says. By listening with respect, you will learn things that can make a difference. Consistency will be the result, and consistent performance is the key to excellence. Buy into and practice those concepts.

Ten Ways To Love Your Kids

There is great joy in children! They are a gift from God and meant to be a tremendous source of blessing. They need to hear from parents how special they are, and they need to hear it in terms they understand and believe.

How to communicate love to your children:

• Establish boundaries for their lives. By setting boundaries you convey your love for them by saying, “I love you too much to let you grow up in any way other than the way I know will honor God and bless you.” Boundaries are only as strong as you are willing to enforce them.

• Enjoy them. It’s fun to have kids. Enjoy the time with them. Fill your home with smiles, laughter, and a little bit of craziness.

• Expose your humanness to them. Let your kids hear you say, “I’m sorry; I blew it,” when you make a mistake. Whether blowing your stack without all the facts, or saying something you later regretted, mistakes are part of parenting. Admitting your human inadequacies face-to-face teaches them by example.

• Explain the reasons behind your decisions. “Because I said so” ought to be stricken from every parent’s vocabulary. It should be your goal to help them reason through your decisions. That doesn’t mean they will always accept your judgments, but at least they need to understand the rationale behind those decisions.

• Exchange ideas with them. Your children will know they’re something special when you take the time to exchange ideas with them. When you expose them to an intellectual life beyond the routines of a busy household, they will see that you are treating them as valuable people. And many times they grasp more from these exchanges than you suppose.

• Encourage them. Encouragement in regular and massive doses is probably the best thing you can give your kids to help them know you are on their team. Be a cheerleader for your kids, helping them to believe in themselves. Keep searching for opportunities to encourage your kids – they need it so much.

• Help them to believe they can go further than they dream. God invites you to challenge your sons and daughters to look beyond where they are; to imagine a broader and richer and greater future.

• Physically express what you feel in your heart. It’s a delight to hug a 2-year-old, but how easy it is to get out of that habit as the child enters the teen years. You can never receive too many hugs – no matter what age. When you express your emotion in hugs and tears, without fear of rejection, then your children will enjoy the greatest security they can ever know.

• Examine your marriage regularly. You best communicate love when they see that the commitment Mom and Dad have to each other is so deep that they will never violate that commitment and leave the children to deal with the results.

• Exercise great patience with them. It takes a lot of patience to be a parent. But God uses the hard times of family life to bind families together.

Frist and Lsat Ltteer Msut Be At the Rghit Pclae

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

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The Tone Makes All the Difference

Dave Aufrance, a missionary in Hongkong, talks about languages . . .

I've embarrassed myself a number of different times in Cantonese. It's easy to do because it's a tonal language. In Cantonese there are seven tones that we learn. They are high-level, high-falling and a high-rising, mid-level, falling and rising, and a low-level tone. Any one word likely has all seven tones, and a different tone gives it a completely different meaning. For example, when the word jyu (pronounced a bit like “Jew”) is said with a high-rising sound it means “Lord”. Said with a high falling sound, it means “pig.” Wow, can one get in trouble there! Or I can say “For God so loves the Westerner” instead of “For God so loves the world” with only one slight tonal difference (“sai” said with a high-falling tone rather than a mid-level one on the third word).

In addition, most all words, pronounced in the same way with the same tone, can have different meanings. One has to hear the word in context to know what the speaker is saying.

One time I wanted to say the word “deacon” (“jap sih”, high-level and low-falling tones respectively). Instead I said “jap sih”, with a high-level and low-rising tones. That means to “pick up poop”. Oooh, did I step in that one!

After church one Sunday, sitting around the table having lunch with some of the people from the church, I combined two words, one English and one Chinese. Because of the family nature of the “Fodder”, I can't even tell you what I said. The girl beside me heard it and rice came flying out of her mouth. Fortunately she was just laughing, and realized that I did not have a clue what I had just said. No one at the table would tell me what I had said. I had to go to school the next day and ask one of my colleagues what it was. So life can be interesting, to say the least, when it comes to languages.

__________

Source: Monday Fodder mailto:dgaufaaa@iohk.com?subject=Subscribe_Monday_Fodder http://www.fishermansnet.com/Monday-fodder/

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Powerpoint Gospel?

2 Corinthians 8:9

There are some messages that just don't lend themselves to a PowerPoint presentation. Julia Keller, writing in the Chicago Tribune, has imagined what changes the popular software might bring to Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." The original poem begins:

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

But if it were done in PowerPoint, would it look like this?

PROJECT GOALS

* To watch woods fill up with snow

* To do so without being observed

RISKS OF PROJECT

* Could get caught by owner of woods

STATUS OF HORSE

* Likely disoriented by unplanned stoppage

STATUS OF WOODS

* Lovely, dark, deep

LIMITATIONS ON PROJECT

* Strictly short-term

You get the idea. As helpful as PowerPoint may be, many messages require a more personal touch.

When you think about all the pyrotechnics, special effects, and elaborate staging God could have used to communicate His love for us, the simplicity of what He did is profound. God the Father sent Jesus the Son to earth, not only to speak the words of life but to open the way to eternal life by dying for us.

God appointed His Son heir of all things, “yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).

The One through whom God made the universe “made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Philippians 2:8).

The gospel is God's greatest message with His most personal touch.

DESTINATION POINTS

* Does God seem close or remote to me today? Why?

* What elements of Jesus' coming strike me as a personal touch from God?

* If I were free from the slavery caused by the fear of death (Hebrews 2:15), how would that change the way I live today?

Jesus humbled Himself to heal us.

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[Original illustration here was a duplicate in HolwickID 25837-26027]

Bluntness

If you can't understand this one, you're pretty stupid...See what I mean? Most of us know better than to call other people names and insult their intelligence.

Being assertive about our opinions and beliefs is fine, but at some point, assertiveness crosses over into bluntness. And that means you haven't taken the other person's feelings into account.

Find out if bluntness is a problem for you. To do that simply ask five of the people closest to you at home and at work something like: “Do I come across as too blunt sometimes?” “Do I say things that hurt other people's feelings without realizing it?” If you get back some “yes” answers, then you need to pay attention to the ways you communicate. Any one of several things can make your communication hurtful when you don't intend it. One is obviously your choice of words. Another is the tone of your voice. The words can be fine, but the tone conveys hostility. How would you feel if someone said to you: “That's a great piece of work.” [said flatly with a slight edge of sarcasm -- could be taken as positive or negative]

Many people don't realize that their tone is gruff or negative sounding. One way to tell is to tape record yourself having a phone conversation. Tape your end of it and play it back. Make sure it's a substantive conversation where you can really hear yourself speaking at length, preferably to someone you're not trying to impress. Listen to the tape carefully, pretend it's someone else. How does this person sound to you? Friendly? Matter-of-fact? Or is there an edge in the voice that's unfriendly?

Hearing what we sound like to other people can sometimes be a revelation. If there's a hostile edge to your voice, then you'll need to consciously modify your tone. That'll take time - weeks, maybe even months. But nationally recognized speech consultant, Carol Fleming, in her audio program, The Sound of Your Voice, says it can be done, if you're willing to put in the conscious effort. Modifying the sound of your voice may be the single most important thing you can do to improve the first impression you make on people, after your appearance. One woman I know was told by Dr. Fleming that she pushed the pitch of her voice down [Say next part in lower pitch] in order to sound more authoritative. The woman had to consciously work at allowing her voice to find its natural pitch. It took several months of effort, but it made her speaking voice sound more alive and musical.

In general, overcoming bluntness in your communication style means becoming more aware of other people's feelings. The more you can do that, the more successful you'll be in developing satisfying relationships. If you have a tendency toward being authoritarian, you can work on recognizing when it's appropriate to back off. If you listen more to other people's opinions, ideas and concerns, you're less apt to express your own in a blunt way.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate in KeruxID 25837-26027]

Do Women Really Talk More Than Men? [2 Articles]

Job 8:10

[Most internet references to the gender differences in communication claim that women speak twice or even three times as many words per day as men. This portion of an Austrian research paper claims otherwise, as does the Indian article which follows.]

DO WOMEN REALLY TALK MORE THAN MEN?

===================================

Silence and talkativeness is another interesting aspect of gender-specificity in conversational strategies due to the fact that women are often believed to talk more than men. This widespread belief, however, has been unanimously disconfirmed by anthropologists.

In an experiment where males and females were asked to describe three pictures, males were found to speak an average of 13.0 minutes per picture as opposed to females who only spoke an average of 3.2 minutes[1]. Further research shows that men talk more than women in public settings while being less involved in private talks[2].

Researchers who have investigated the issue have indicated that public settings were considered as a ground for competitiveness, hence the greater amount of talk by men in public. Women have been shown to talk more in private with female friends about topics often considered trivial and unimportant by men...”

________

1. Swacker, 1975.

2. Coates, 1993; Eakins and Eakins, 1978; Spender, 1980; Steinem, 1991.

From: http://hhobel.phl.univie.ac.at/mii/gpmc.dir9606/msg00013.html [no longer online]

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http://www.freshlimesoda.com/features/gaurav_s1.htm

"And They Say..." by Gaurav Sood

Do men really struggle to get a word in edge-wise?

During my post-Graduation, I frequently travelled between Chandigarh and Patiala. As soon as I found a comfortable seat, I would doze off. The only things that occasionally disturbed were rattling windowpanes and chattering co-passengers. Though their talks were often disturbing yet, at times, interesting. The men would discuss politics, office and current events whereas women had a lot to talk about - husbands, kids neighbours, office mates, dresses, latest TV serials and almost everything under sun. I often wondered who talked more - was it the men; or the women?

“Nothing is so unnatural as a talkative man or a quiet woman” says a Scottish saying. An American proverb says, “When both husband and wife wear pants it is not difficult to tell them apart - he is the one who is listening”. “Women's tongues are like lamb's tail,” says an English saying. A Japanese saying reads, “Where there are women and geese there's noise.” Most of these sayings and proverbs try to convey that the women are always talking, noisy and irritating prattles. But do women dominate in talking? Do men really struggle to get a word in, edge-wise?

Researchers, Deborah James and Janice Drakich in their study, “Understanding gender differences in amount of talk” in their book “Gender and Conversation interaction” have reviewed 63 studies that examine the amount of talk time used by women and men. In 61 studies men talked more than women. If we apply these elements in the present day context one can conclude the same too.

These days various channels host talk shows on the idiot box. If we compare the amount of talk time indulged in by female and male guests invited the result indicate that men dominate in most of the talk shows. Generally men take more than half on each occasion.

There are numerous examples to prove the point. My father, who is a retired educationist, often recalls that from kindergarten through primary, secondary and higher level education it is boys who dominate the classroom talks.

The question arises that who talks what and why? Researchers conclude that formal public talk is aimed at enhancing one's status as this is meant to inform people and persuade them to agree to a certain viewpoint. People who confirm certain degree of public status often do public talk. A simple test is to use a stopwatch to calculate the amount of talk conducted by men and women at a political or public meeting.

Researchers conclude that men talk more than the fair sex in public, as they believe that verbally contributing would enhance their social status and they are more concerned with asserting status and power than women are.

Informal or intimate talk is purposed to establish and maintain social contacts with others, making social connections, developing and reinforcing intimate relationships.

Interestingly, various studies which researchers Deborah James and Janie Drakick reviewed concluded that there was a little difference in the amount contributed by men and women, though still men were placed higher on the graph.

The researchers found out that women are willing to talk more in social contexts especially when relaxed. Their talk functioned to develop and improve social relationships.

Another piece of evidence that supported the study was that male talk tends to be more referential or informative, while female talk is more supportive and facilitative.

The researchers finally concluded that women seemed to use talk to develop personal relationships and maintain family connections more often than to make claims to status or to directly influence others in public contexts.

Studying various research observations we find that in people's contributions to discussion section of seminars, women were more likely to task questions and make comments when the topic was one they could claim expert knowledge about.

Dale Spender in his book 'Learning To Lose' says, “The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence, women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women”.

Finally, to conclude on the 'do-women-talk-more-than-men' debate, it can be said that it depends on various reasons and factors such as social context, kind of talk taking place, relative social confidence of the speaker and their familiarity with the topic.

The researchers concluded that men generally talk more in formal, public contexts where informative and persuasive talk is highly valued and where talk is generally the prerogative of those with some societal status and has the potential for increasing that status. Women, on the other hand generally contribute in private, informal interactions, where talk more often functions to maintain relationships, and in other situations where for various reasons they feel socially confident. “Silence is golden,” says the proverb and there are certainly contexts in all cultures where silence is more appropriate than talk. At times the silent participants are considered to be the powerful players. However, this is true, it must be recognized that talk is very highly valued in today's world.

It seems that as long as holding the floor is related with influence, the questions whether women talk more or men will continue to be a matter for debate.

________

Gaurav Sood, 25, lives in Chandigarh, India.

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Whoosh - When Heaven Opens Over Simple Happenings

While sitting at my computer early one Tuesday morning I had a "W.H.O.O.S.H." moment. Preparing to paste a tiny piece of information from one document into another, I hit what I thought were the right keys and waited for the magical transference. My eyes widened though, when words far different from the ones I had expected to see appeared on the screen. Obviously I had forgotten to "copy" before I "pasted." I said aloud, "What's going on here?" and tried to comprehend the content of this phantom paragraph.

You know what it's like. You sit down to a computer where your kids have been looking at who-knows-what, never knowing what dark secrets lie one keystroke away. You have this gnawing fear that your child will forget to delete a hair-graying URL or that you'll stumble upon a spine-chilling confession he has written into a poem-something about his involvement in drugs or witchcraft, or persistent thoughts about suicide. Or - perish the thought - that he secretly wants to take up the bagpipes. You suppress the fear that you'll catch a heart-breaking glimpse of your precious son's struggling, sinful soul.

I gawked at words that slowly began to make sense. "Aha!" It was an excerpt from a paper that my high school sophomore son had been writing the night before for a science class. I read: The theory of evolution is just that, a theory. It is in no way proven; it is merely an idea of how the earth came to be. The theory lacks the evidence necessary to make it credible. Bolton Davidheiser, Ph.D., of Johns Hopkins University, wrote, "The non-scientific public has great faith in what a paleontologist can do with a single bone." The so-called missing links that would prove that one species evolved into a completely new species are just that: missing.

Now I don't know where you stand on the Creation vs. Evolution debate, and my purpose here is not to change your belief system (however if you've got a few hours I'd love to share some interesting information on one of my favorite subjects). My purpose is to point out that I had no earthly idea that my son had been infected with some of the passion his preacher dad has for this heavenly subject. That is until I caught him doing something great.

When you catch your kids leaving something on the computer, what you don't expect is them drawing a line in the public school's sand; throwing down a gigantic, politically incorrect gauntlet; standing firm on God's Word as a credible source of information, despite the controversy that could easily ensue. And you know as well as I do that sophomores in high school are at the summit of their highly personal mountain of self-consciousness. They will go to sacrificial lengths to maintain their "coolness." And yet I caught my son writing words like: In summary, this paper has presented Biblical fact, scientific evidence, and testimonies of former evolutionists who have changed their philosophy to that of creationism. Whoosh!

For lack of a better term I borrowed the "Whoosh" word and filled in the blanks to an acrostic, "When Heaven Opens Over Simple Happenings." For me, heaven opened over that simple discovery. If you had taken a snapshot of me in my little chair behind that little computer, you probably would have seen a shaft of light coming down from above, illuminating that tiny space which had become a little worship center. Was that ringing in my ears from too much coffee or were those angels singing?

Not wanting to let him know that I snooped into his documents, I kept the secret to myself and silently worshiped: Thank you, Lord, that my son's faith is becoming real. Thank you that he's willing to stick his neck out, willing to thoughtfully debate with others who may become hostile in their disagreement with his views. Thank you, Father, that he has a faith foundation strong enough and personal enough that he is willing to engage his subculture with dangerously different ideas than the norm.

Fortunately, my son kept me from agonizing over my secret discovery. Shortly after I stumbled onto his secret stash he asked me to read his paper. He nonchalantly handed it to me and said, "I'm supposed to have someone proofread this. Wanna help?" Did I? On his way out the door to school the next morning, I patted him on the back and said, "Great job on the paper, son. That ought to get 'em talkin'." He grinned back. "Thanks, Dad."

Whoosh! Don't you just love it when a tiny portal of heaven opens over a simple happening? Blessings on you, fellow pilgrim parent. My prayer is that you'll catch your kid doing something great this week. When you do, enjoy the whoosh.

What They're Trying To Tell Us

1 Thessalonians 2:11

Non-verbal communication. You don't always need words to communicate what you need to get across. At least our 18-month-old granddaughter doesn't. It may have been one of those times when Mommy was preoccupied with one of the thousand things she has to stay on top of. Well, the little one didn't try to make any big noise about what she needed. She just toddled from the living room where Mommy was into the bedroom, picked up a diaper, toddled back into the living room, and lay herself down right in front of Mommy, diaper in hand, with her legs in the air, ready for a change. So, you get the idea, Mommy?

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “What They're Trying to Tell Us.”

Our granddaughter had a need. She didn't know how to put it into words. So she acted it out. In a way, that doesn't change as our children grow. They often don't know how to put the need inside them into words. They may not even know what the need is, so they act it out - in their behavior. And that behavior often isn't very cute. It may drive us nuts, or worry us to death or baffle us. There is no more important lesson for a parent to remember than this: behind your child's deed is a need. And you won't affect the deeds until you do something about the needs that drive those deeds. A wise dad was confiding his concern to me the other day about his son's use of alcohol - that's the deed. Then he said, “You know, there's some need there.” He's right.

Using parenting as an example of how he treated the believers at Thessalonica, Paul says this in 1 Thessalonians 2:11-12, our word for today from the Word of God: “We dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God.” Right there you've got three powerful tools in your parenting tool kit, each designed to meet the needs that are driving their deeds. Sometimes, there's discouragement deep down inside, making them act the way that they're acting. So you respond to that need with some positive encouraging. Other times, there's pain inside from something you may not know about or realize that it's hurt them. It's time to apply some gentle comfort. Other times there's a lack of clear direction, confusion about what's the right thing to do. That may act itself out in some crazy behavior, but the need behind it is to be urged in the right direction.

Behind your son or daughter's actions may very well be a need that really needs some attention. They may feel like they're not worth much - so they make choices that fit that self-evaluation. But the bad choices are because of bad feelings about their worth. Or maybe your child is unduly curious about sex. Could it be because you've never given them clear and loving sexual answers? Sometimes, the need is just to feel loved. You may be showing your love by things you do for them, when their language of love is more about your availability, or your public treatment of them, or your exclusive time with them, or your hugs. If that need isn't met at home, they'll go somewhere else to have it met and that can mean a disaster.

If you're going to get behind your child's deeds to their needs, you'll have to make James 1:19 your modus operandi - “Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” If you listen a lot, if you listen patiently, uncondemningly, you'll begin to hear the needs behind their deeds. Just as your Lord did: “When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them.” (Matthew 9:36). Compassion - that literally means the capacity to feel with the other person. That's what your son needs. That's what your daughter needs.

Yes, the deeds need to be addressed. But it's the needs that are driving them. God has promised His wisdom upon request (James 1:7) - and nobody needs that wisdom more than moms and dads. So, several times a day as you look at your children, ask the Heavenly Father, “Help me see what You see when you look at them.” Then you'll know how to give them what they need the most.

________

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Seven Rules For Fighting Fair In Marriage

1 Corinthians 4:5

A pastor did an entire message on these seven “C's” called “A Marriage Survival Kit.” He called this the Battle of the Seven C's. Every one of these things are things that you have done and I have done. From now on these are out of bounds.

1. NEVER COMPARE. Don't say “Why can't you be like her husband...” or “You're just like ... “It's unfair to compare. God made every person unique.

2. NEVER CONDEMN. Don't use phrase like, “You always...” or “You never... You ought to... You should... You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” Lay on the guilt, play the conscious. That's God's job to be their conscience not yours.

3. NEVER COMMAND. Don't try to end an argument by force. “I demand that you do what I say! “If you don't do this then I will this ... “I command you to do this...” Don't try to be a parent to your spouse. Don't make demands it causes temperatures to be raised.

4. NEVER CHALLENGE. Threats. “Just try that and see what happens!” Don't threaten, challenge, cool your guns. The three most common threats in marriage are: sex, money, divorce. Rule those out as deadly weapons in your marriage. Don't threaten to withhold sex, or go blow all the money, or go see a lawyer. That is a mark of immaturity. Let's grow up and not use that.

5. NEVER CONDESCEND. Never treat that person as less than they really are, as an inferior. Don't put them down. Don't ridicule them for their feelings or their logic or whatever. Above all, don't play psychologist. “I know why you said that... You said that because...” Most of us have a difficult enough time figuring out our own motives much less figure out another person's. Don't prejudge motives. That's definitely playing God. “Judge nothing before the appointed time.” 1 Corinthians 4:5

6. NEVER CONTRADICT. Never interrupt in the middle of a sentence. When we do that we are not really listening. We are just thinking of refuting. Don't cut each other off. Treat each other with consideration. “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” James 1:19

7. NEVER CONFUSE. This is when you bring up unrelated issues in the middle of the argument. Often you do this intentionally to sidetrack people. Some of you are very good at this. You learn this skill when you are a teenager. Mom and Dad ask you where you were and you look at your Mom, did you get your hair trimmed - it looks so nice. When you're in an argument that you know you're losing you bring up something unrelated and they start arguing about that. You keep switching the argument because you realize you're losing. Stick with the issue. Don't confuse people.

Let me summarize these seven things in one sentence: Attack the issue, not each other. Proverbs 11:29 (Living Bible) “The fool who provokes his family to anger and resentment will finally have nothing worthwhile left.”

Should We Talk About It?

Job 8:10

Sadly, divorce seems to be tightening its ugly grip on our society, when many marriages could be salvaged if the couple would just ask for help. While there are numerous factors behind divorce, a leading problem is communication. When these channels get clogged, the match is in trouble.

It reminds me of a cartoon I saw once that showed a husband and wife sitting together at the breakfast table, sipping coffee. The wife is thinking, “Our marriage is in trouble. We better talk about it.” The husband is thinking, “Our marriage is in trouble. I better keep my mouth shut.”

No matter what the problem, take time to discuss it with a trusted friend, confidant, counselor or other adviser. Seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness.

In recent decades, society has made progress at getting past the macho, all-American embrace of pride and self-reliance. Still, we have not conquered the problem. Too many people lead lives of quiet desperation.

Communicating With the Great Beyond

Luke 16:27

TalkToAliens.com began taking orders in March, recording people's messages at $3.99 per minute and beaming them into space, aimed toward the Milky Way by a huge parabolic dish antenna in Connecticut on a relatively accessible FM frequency.

And in December, German inventor Juergen Broether introduced his “telephonic angel” system (at about US$2,000), which is a battery-operated, underground loudspeaker that, buried at a gravesite, allows someone to speak into a microphone and have the messages amplified through the dirt to the departed for up to a year on a single battery charge.

________

Space Daily, 3/8/05; Agence France-Presse, 2/5/05

Sharing Truth With An Ever-Emerging Culture

1 Corinthians 9

In ministry, some things must never change but others must change constantly.

Clearly, God's five purposes for his church are non-negotiable. If a church fails to balance the five purposes of worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and evangelism, then it's no longer a healthy church, and it's in danger of becoming simply a social club.

On the other hand, the way or style in which we fulfill these eternal purposes must continually be adjusted and modified because human culture is always changing.

For instance, when I first started Saddleback Church, fresh out of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, personal computers were in their infancy, the Internet was just a crude academic network, and nobody had even heard of e-mail. Now I often sit in my pajamas and have e-mail conversations with people across the globe. The times, they are a-changing, and they'll keep right on a-changing whether we want them to or not.

Our culture has moved past the MTV generation into the Internet generation, and yet many of us are just now responding to the TV generation! Our message of transformation must never change, but our presentation should be continually transformed, adapting to the new languages of our culture. One of the strengths of Saddleback Church is that we're constantly adapting; we've changed styles of worship, programming, and outreach many, many times in the last 25 years, and we'll continue to do so because the world keeps changing.

The only way to stay relevant is to anchor your ministry to unchanging truths and eternal purposes but be willing to adapt continually how you communicate those truths and purposes.

As an example, let's look at evangelism, one of the five New Testament purposes of the church. In many traditional churches, evangelism remains confrontational rather than relational. There is planned visitation of this sort: “We'll all come Thursday night and go knock on doors.”

Would it surprise you to know that in 25 years at Saddleback, we've never had a planned, organized visitation program? Yet we've baptized more than 1,000 people a year for the last decade! We reach them through relationship evangelism. Our members are constantly on mission to bring their friends and neighbors to our weekend services, where we reach out to non-believers -- particularly those who have no real church background.

You might wonder if we attract these visitors by watering down the Gospel, but we don't. We simply communicate it in ways that non-believers understand. Jesus drew enormous crowds (called multitudes) without compromising the message. He was clear, practical and loving, and he presented his timeless message in a contemporary fashion.

Lost people have a need for meaning, a need for purpose, a need for forgiveness and a need for love. They want to know how to make right decisions, how to protect their family, how to handle suffering and how to have hope in our world. These are all issues we have answers for, yet millions are ignoring the message of Christ because we insist on communicating in ways that don't connect with people any more.

In a sense, we've made the Gospel too difficult for a changing culture to understand.

Imagine a missionary going overseas and saying, “I'm here to share the Good News, but first you have to learn to speak my language, learn my customs and sing my style of music.” You can immediately see why this strategy would fail. Yet we do that all the time in a culture that is in radical flux.

If we want to reach people in the 21st century, we must start thinking differently. Paul said, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22b, NIV).

We Baby Boomers have tended to see the church as an organization, but the emerging generations are desperately looking for community (a major secret to Starbucks’ successful strategy: community in a coffee cup). We need to present the church as a place where you belong, a family where, as they sang on “Cheers,” everybody knows your name. Now, you and I may know that the church is a community, but emerging generations have never seen it that way. They've seen a list of rules, not a loving community. We need to restate the eternal truths of the Bible in a fresh, contemporary way.

Emerging generations also are focused on the experiential, and that means we have to adjust the way we teach and preach. Rather than preaching simply for information, we also should preach for action. Our message is not meant to just inform, but to transform the lives of those in our congregation. In almost every single sermon I preach every point has a verb in it -- something to do. What are you going to do now that you know this godly truth?

Why do I do it this way? Because God says, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22, NKJV), and our entire purpose driven process at Saddleback is designed to move people not only into intimacy with God, but also into service for Him, where they'll experience a deep and broader faith in the midst of community and ministry.

I've never seen more people so hungry to discover and develop the spiritual dimension of their lives. They are hungry for symbols and metaphors and experiences and stories that reveal the greatness of God. Because seekers are constantly changing, we must be willing, like Jesus, to meet them on their own turf and speak to them in ways they understand.

Remember: the world changes but the Word doesn't. To be effective in ministry we must learn to live with the tension between those two.

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'Out of Office' E-mail Auto Replies

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A Handy Guide For Communicating With Women

There are days when all a man has to do is open his mouth and he takes his life in his own hands! This is a handy guide that should be as common as a driver's license in the wallet of every husband or boyfriend:

DANGEROUS: What's for dinner?

SAFER: Can I help you with dinner?

SAFEST: Where would you like to go for dinner?

ULTRA SAFE: Have some chocolate

DANGEROUS: Are you wearing that?

SAFER: Wow, you look good in brown.

SAFEST: WOW! Look at you!

ULTRA SAFE: Have some chocolate

DANGEROUS: What are you so worked up about?

SAFER: Could we be overreacting?

SAFEST: Here's my paycheck.

ULTRA SAFE: Have some chocolate

DANGEROUS: Should you be eating that?

SAFER: You know, there are a lot of apples left.

SAFEST: Can I get you a glass of wine with that?

ULTRA SAFE: Have some chocolate

DANGEROUS: What did you do all day?

SAFER: I hope you didn't over-do it today.

SAFEST: I've always loved you in that robe!

ULTRA SAFE: Have some more chocolate.

What Language Are You Speaking?

Job 9:27

Did you know that body language accounts for over 90 percent of conversation?

For example, fidgeting indicates impatience or nervousness. The fidgeter is either self-conscious, uncomfortable in the other person’s presence or just eager to get away from the other person.

The more a person uses his hands when talking, and the bigger the movements -– these things indicate a more outgoing personality. A quiet person usually doesn’t move his arms away from his body very often or very far.

And what about crossed arms? On any given Sunday, you can look across a church’s congregation and spot a sea of them! Crossed arms are the ultimate body language defense or rejection mechanism. They say, “Try all you want –- you’re not getting any closer to me. You’re not going to reach inside me, and you’re not going to change my opinion.” Or this posture can flat-out say, “I am so bored with all this. I’m here because I have to be. Just get it over with and let me out of here.” In other words, “I hear you, but I’m not listening.”

Even the angle of the body in relation to others gives away our attitudes and feelings. We tend to angle toward people we respond positively to, and we angle away from those we’d rather not be around or so close to.

Stand or sit too far away and you're signaling the other person to keep his distance -- you’re not wanting your relationship to get any closer and you just want the conversation over with so you can move on to other and maybe better things.

Where you stand distance-wise in relation to a person you’re having a conversation with is significant. Stand too close and you’re showing that you’re over-eager or aggressive -– you’re an “in your face” person. And that very expression, “in your face,” says so much, because so much is said through our facial expressions.

For example, eye contact. Eye contact is a person’s conscious and unconscious way of letting someone know how much he is or isn’t significant. You can walk past without any eye contact, saying, “I am not remotely interested in you,” or you can casually glance a person’s way, and the expression you use again tells that person exactly what you think:

A frown announces, “You’re in my space. Don’t bother me -– I’m not in the mood. Out of my way –- I don’t have time for you.”

A blank expression says, “I see you, but I have no interest in you one way or the other. I simply acknowledge your existence.”

But a smile! You’ve told the person you’re passing that he has value. You personally, if only for one brief moment of time, see him as a person and want to show him that he matters in this world.

As a Christian, your smile can also be saying, “I want to share with you my own joy.” What kind of joy? The joy the Bible talks about in Nehemiah 8:10: “The joy of the Lord”

For years, I worked at a major city hospital. One day, I decided to exert a conscious effort to smile and make eye contact with the people I passed, especially when I was out in the areas where I would see visitors or patients. My mother was battling leukemia during that time and was in and out of the hospital, and I knew from our own experience how many days there were when we desperately needed every smile we could collect.

Think about the Lord Jesus as He walked the earth. Along with throngs of adults, children flocked to Him. I can guarantee that His body language spoke welcoming volumes!

Now don’t get all paranoid on me, but take a minute to reflect on your body language, your normal facial expressions, your eye contact with people you walk by. How do people respond to you? Are you, as was Jesus, a welcoming presence?

Every person you meet is going, has gone, or will go through some very trying times. And sometimes, your smile will be the only encouragement any person will give them that day. Some days, your willingness to make eye contact with that person will be the only thing that lets him know he has value.

But if all that isn’t enough to convince you to acknowledge the people you pass in the hallway or on the sidewalk or in the store aisle, then consider this -- a self-defense course I took taught me a very interesting fact: Muggers and other predators have a keen perception of body language.

Through interviews with hundreds of these types of criminals, researchers learned that whenever a person made direct eye contact with the “scouting” predator, that person was rejected as a victim almost 98 percent of the time. Just like predators in the animal kingdom, these criminals were looking for people whose facial expressions and body language indicated that they were fearful, or more easily intimidated.

So, on that cheery note, I hope you’ll start consciously watching your body language. Look people in the face and let them know that they matter to you and to the God you serve.

Ephesians 4:24 says that a believer has taken off the old man and “put on the new man, the one created according to God’s likeness.”

Jesus said in John 9:5: “I am the light of the world.” But what did He say in Matthew 5:14? “You are the light of the world.”

A lighthouse has one source of light, but that one light is reflected by countless prisms until it becomes so brilliant that it can be seen from incredible distances. All of us have heard it said about a smile “lighting up a room.” Make a commitment to the Lord and to yourself to be that beaming lighthouse -– reflect the Light of the One who shines within you. Who knows whose day you may brighten!

*

Code Talkers

Mark 7:33

A remarkable story emerged from the Second World War when the U.S. Marines employed the services of the Navajo Native Americans as “code talkers.” These men played a pivotal role in the Allied victory in the Pacific. The Japanese were skilled code breakers who consistently cracked the codes of the U.S. Army during the war. But they failed to break the code used by the Navajo Marines. In 1942 the Marine commanders were persuaded that the Navajo language, only spoken in isolated parts of the American Southwest, would be the perfect basis for an unbreakable code. Navajo is an immensely complex language, with no alphabet or symbols, and consequently comprehensible only to those who have had extensive exposure to it. It was reckoned that only around thirty non-Navajos in the world spoke the language, and none of them were Japanese.

Hence, the Navajo recruits created the now-famed Navajo code. Their task was to transmit information about the battle over the radio and the telephone. They were amazingly quick and effective. The code itself worked by each letter of an English word being transmitted as a Navajo word that, when translated into English, started with that letter; so any given letter could be represented by more than one Navajo word. The code proved unbreakable even for years after the war. Thousands of messages were sent without error.

Certain conclusions can be drawn from this incredible exchange of information. First, the transmission of information requires a physical carrier, whether a human mouth or a single gene. It requires a defined coding system for representing ideas in the form of symbols, whether an alphabet-based human language or DNA letters. Furthermore, the information in the code has a mental character. It is an intellectual concept; it does not have a material origin.

When we consider that even the simplest organisms need “operational information” for a functioning system, and that the communication of information needs an understanding and agreement between the sender and the recipient already in place, we begin to grasp the complexity of intelligent design in the universe. There can be no information without a sender.

At source, information does not arise by random processes but is guided by the action of the mind. There is no known documented example of information arising from a mindless natural process. In other words, all information must have a mental or spiritual source. If we grant the evolutionist’s theory and the first protocell developing the information coding to manufacture just one functional protein, we immediately run into a theoretical objection. This code would be as useless for producing life as the Navajo code was to the Japanese, unless the complex machinery that recognized the code was already in place (simultaneously translating them into the correct amino acids).

Tapping into the Navajo transmission was easy enough, but knowing how to translate and apply the message was another matter altogether. Without the knowledge of the language, the code was useless. The same is true with genetic information; the translation machinery itself is encoded in our DNA. Thus, as Dr. Michael Behe summarizes:

The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the

data itself -- not from sacred books or sectarian belief.... The

reluctance of science to embrace the conclusion of intelligent

design...has no justifiable foundation.... Many people,

including many important and well respected scientists, just

don’t want there to be anything beyond nature.

Though it doubtless sounded like gibberish to the Japanese, the Navajo code was not a random collection of noises. It was a complex code containing vital information; much thought had gone into its design. How much more so this must be true of our creator, who has much to communicate with his own.

Consider the words and actions of Jesus Christ when he met a deaf man unable to speak properly. Jesus took the man aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and then he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Mark reports of the crowd, “They were astounded beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak’” (Mark 7:33-37). The writer of the code that informs our very existence moves that all ears will be opened to the information he has set before us.

________

To the Cosmos

Luke 11:1

In 1977, NASA sent an unusual sort of time capsule into outer space aboard the Voyager spacecraft. It was a gold-plated record containing a variety of sounds and images meant to represent life on planet Earth. Among other things, the sounds included thunder, laughter, and greetings recorded in fifty-five languages. A letter from then-president Jimmy Carter accompanied the record:

“We cast this message into the cosmos.... Of the 200 billion

stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have

inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such

civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded

contents, here is our message:

“This is a present from a small distant world.... We are trying

to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday,

having solved the problems we face, to join a community of

galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our

determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome

universe.”(1)

While this project intrigues me, I have to admit that I find the letter humorous. If aliens exist, and if they were to intercept the record (and the Voyager’s creators recognized how slight that possibility is), the chances are slim that they could read and understand English (or one of the other fifty-five languages on the record). Or, if they are such advanced semiologists as to be able to decode our language, they may already know a fair bit about civilization on Earth. But I’ve no doubt that President Carter and others thought of these things, and I suspect that the letter was more a symbolic gesture than an attempt to communicate with beings in other galaxies or other millennia.

I’m afraid that the prayers of most of the inhabitants of our planet bear all too close a resemblance to this “Letter to the Cosmos.” They are launched into the unknown with no real expectation that they will be heard or understood. They are prayed in the manner and language considered appropriate by the one praying, with no knowledge of whether it will be acceptable to the one prayed to. These prayers are largely symbolic gestures rather than communicative acts.

There is a human impulse to try to communicate with our creator. Though it may lie dormant in some, it quickly springs to life when one is faced with danger or disaster. We seek the one who is in control when we are keenly aware of our own helplessness. But without a knowledge of who that creator is, such efforts are at best bumbling, at worst futile.

There is, however, hope for our prayers. We do not have to launch them aimlessly into the cosmos. The reason for this hope is that our creator has first communicated with us. J. B. Phillips refers to our world as a “visited planet” because God himself walked among us in the person of Jesus Christ. When Jesus’s disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he did not scoff at the idea that their prayers could reach the ears of their creator. Instead, he gave them an example, beginning, “Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.”

The idea that God is reachable through pray would seem about as far-fetched as the idea of aliens intercepting a letter from Jimmy Carter, if it weren’t for the fact that God has already reached out to us. We do not have to make supplication to the cosmos; we can call out to a personal God who has invited our prayers. They are not symbolic gestures, or aimless attempts to signal an S.O.S. They are meant for the God who hears, the one who loves to answer.

________

1. Jimmy Carter, “Jimmy Carter to the Cosmos,” LETTERS OF THE CENTURY, ed. Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler, (New York: Random House, 1999), 551.

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Taming the Tongue

James 3:1

Sermon in Book of James series, #9. James 3:1-12

TAMING THE TONGUE

=================

I. The uniqueness of communication.

II. Getting your words across. 3:1-2

A. Christian teachers are the focus here.

B. Teachers use a lethal weapon - the tongue.

C. Teachers will be judged by a harsher standard. 3:1

D. If we can control the tongue, we can control anything. 3:2

III. It's not the size, but the impact. 3:3-6

IV. Controlling the tongue. 3:7-8

V. God can do it! 3:9-12

A. Seek God's control over our tongues.

B. Practical advice on controlling tongue. T.H.I.N.K.

C. The tongue is the barometer of our souls. Matt 12:34

[derived from previous sermon on June 26, 1994]

On Speaking Terms

Luke 18:1

“We’re not speaking.” When you hear those words, you know what they mean. In our culture, to stop speaking to someone is a euphemism that means there has been a breach in the relationship. When you’re “not speaking” to someone, you are estranged from him. You avoid him and try to pretend like he doesn’t exist.

This euphemism for estrangement gets at how central communication is to nurturing a relationship. When you have chosen to stop speaking to someone, you have chosen to stop maintaining that relationship; you’ve chosen to let it die. The idioms of our speech show that we know this intuitively.

And while it may be obvious that, under ordinary circumstances, you can’t have a relationship with a human you don’t talk to, it is apparently not obvious to most that communication should be at the center of their relationship with their creator. They give thanks on holidays or for a financial windfall, and they blame God when suffering impinges on their pursuit of happiness. But they rarely, if ever, TALK to Him.

The Scriptures teach that God does not want mere acknowledgement from us; He wants a relationship with us! It is for this reason that we are so often commanded to pray. We should not see prayer as a duty. Prayer is the marrow of our faith, and I would go so far as to say that true faith cannot exist apart from communion with God.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Paul commands us to “Pray without ceasing.” If we think of prayer as a duty, this command seems to set up an impossible standard. If, instead, we think of prayer as communion with the One who loves us best, the command becomes a precious privilege.

How does one manage to pray without ceasing? Does this mean we should simply pray “on the fly,” abandoning times of concentrated prayer? In answering this question, I find Charles Spurgeon’s advice (from a sermon called “Pray Without Ceasing”) to be helpful:

“Though all hours are alike to me, I find it profitable to meet

with God at set periods, for these seem to me to be like the

winding up of the clock. The clock is to go all day, but there

is a time for winding it up; and the little special season that

we set apart and hedge round about for communion with our God,

seems to wind us up for the rest of the day. Therefore, if you

would pray without ceasing, continue in the offering of the

morning and the evening sacrifice, and let it be perpetually an

ordinance with you, that your times of prayer are not broken in

upon.”

Of course, even if you are willing to speak to someone else, you can’t really have a healthy relationship unless you let them speak to you. God expects our communication to go both ways. We are told that his word should abide in us. What does it mean to have words abide in you? Think back to the time when your spouse (if you are married) first told you that he or she loved you. Did those words go in one ear and out the other? Chances are they ABIDED in you, influencing your mood, your behavior, and even the purpose of your whole life!

The relationship that God offers to us is too precious to let die from lack of communion. Talk to God, and take to heart what He has said to you; you may be surprised at just how rich your relationship with your maker can be.

________

Anger In Public Discourse: the Rules of Engagement

John 8:1

As I mentioned on yesterday’s broadcast [see #34364] about Peter Wood’s new book, A BEE IN THE MOUTH, anger has become the new norm for public discourse today. Just think about any arguments you have had — or heard — lately about the war in Iraq, global warming, gay “marriage,” or abortion.

Clearly, our nation and our culture are polarized. Discussion and debate have been replaced with yelling and demonizing. We Christians cannot retreat from the public square. We are called to speak the truth in love. But how do we engage others in a world where sound bytes compete and angry rhetoric is the order of the day?

As I have thought about this cultural trend, I have been reminded of a famous speech by Dorothy Sayers, “The Lost Tools of Learning,” presented at Oxford in 1947. In it, she discusses the three pillars of a classical education: fact-gathering (or “grammar” as it is referred to), logic, and rhetoric.

We can apply this classical way of learning to our own discourse: Gather facts, apply logic, and then use effective principles of communication. Thankfully, there are a number of Christian classical schools across the country teaching kids exactly this.

But this does not get us quite far enough in this postmodern world. How do we engage with others who may have tossed logic to the curb long ago?

For starters, we might look to Jesus Himself as a model. Throughout His ministry, Jesus engages in conversation by probing people so that they examine themselves. How does He do it? He asks them questions of His own: Why do you call me good? Whose image and word are stamped on this coin? Who was the neighbor to this man? Some eighty-two questions of Jesus are recorded in the book of Matthew alone.

Take a look, for instance, at the story of the woman caught in adultery. The Pharisees come dragging a woman before Jesus to put Him between the rock of the Mosaic Law and the hard place of a public bloodbath. Stewing in their anger against Jesus, the Pharisees asked Him what they should do with the woman. Jesus could have responded in anger. Instead, He stoops and scribbles in the sand, creating a silent moment in a volatile situation.

Then, knowing that this teachable moment has more to do with exposing the Pharisees’ hearts than the heart of this already-exposed woman, Jesus says, “If anyone is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” It’s an implicit question: Who among you is sinless?

Jesus was not merely trying to win an argument, nor was His main goal even diffusing anger. He was trying to win the hearts and minds of those who might listen.

The Pharisees had come with an agenda, and their anger, like the anger of so many around us today, was merely a symptom of a deeper problem. Of all people, Jesus could have shown a judgmental attitude. Unlike us, He is, after all, a righteous judge. But instead through a humble heart, and an implicit question, Jesus gently exposes the real issue.

You know, if our priority is winning over our opponents, instead of merely beating them in an argument, God can give us grace to do the same as Jesus did.

________

You Need Miracle Ear!

James 1:19

Sermon in Book of James series, #5. James 1:19-27

YOU NEED MIRACLE EAR!

=====================

I. How families communicate.

A. The magic test.

B. Communication is a complicated affair.

C. Communication is also central to our spiritual life.

II. Listening to the Word. 1:19-20

A. Quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.

B. Good listening is a difficult trait to acquire.

C. Listening slowly - to God.

III. Receiving the Word. 1:21

A. Get rid of moral filth.

B. Humbly accept the Word.

IV. Doing the Word. 1:22-27

A. Paying attention is not enough.

B. The purpose of listening to truth is to act upon it. 1:22

C. Alternative - listen, do, be blessed. 1:25

V. Three specific areas where truth should be put into practice.

A. Speech. 1:26

B. Concern for people who hurt. 1:27a

C. Concern for personal holiness (pollution by world). 1:27b

[This sermon duplicated a previous one given on May 8, 1994]

People Who Take Letter Writing Seriously

Acts 15:23

People don’t write many letters these days. It’s one reason the post office is going bankrupt. But some people take letter-writing seriously.

The painter Vincent van Gogh wrote 819 letters which survive. [1]

The playwright Samuel Beckett beats him by a mile. Beckett scribbled a staggering 15,000 letters in his lifetime, equivalent to writing one a day for 41 years. [2]

Keith Flett is a left-wing activist in England who has written 20,000 letters to newspapers. He figures that only 5% are ever published - but that would be 1,000. And he is only 45 years old. [3]

The Apostle Paul beats them all. He may not have produced as much volume, but he has definitely exceeds in lasting impact.

________

1. "Vincent van Gogh's letters go digital," by Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, February 8, 2010. .

2. "Dear posterity… the dying art of letter-writing," Ben East, The National newspaper of Abu Dhabi, March 22, 2010. .

3. "Britain's most famous letter writer," by Mark Jones, London Evening Standard newspaper, November 7, 2001.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #11740]

Moody Was A Gentle Father

I have always had respect for the great 19th century evangelist, Dwight L. Moody. He was the Billy Graham of the 1800s. He was also a very caring father. His son Willie reported that it was not unusual for his father to come to one of his children lying in bed late at night and say something like this: “Are you awake? I can’t go to sleep till I talk to you. I’m sorry I lost my temper.”

As a teenager Willie wrote this tribute to his famous father: “Other kids tell me they cannot go to their dads and just talk and hope to be understood; they say they can’t because their dads are ‘always right’ and they are ‘always wrong’. They can’t talk to their dads the way I can talk to you. I could always talk to you. You always understood. There was nothing I could not tell you.”

139 Sermon Illustrations on Communication