Is Your Communication Worthy of Your Message? - Rick Rhodes

Remember, as a communicator, your job is to deliver a message. It's about the message. It's not about you. This isn't about me. And that takes the focus off yourself. So to me, that's just foundational.

Rick Rhodes. So you have spent decades in ministry, teaching, things like that. You lived in Grenada for a while on the mission field. You were at IGO in Thailand for a number of years. You're back in the States now, and you run a conference, among many other things that you do in life, on good communication skills or developing our communication skills.

This is a huge topic, and I'm sure we won't cover everything, but I want to hit at least some of the fundamental principles of this and why it matters. So let's just jump right in, and I'll start with the first question of why does it matter? Like, why should we care about good communication? And I guess convince me, because some people are like, "Ah, it's not really that big a deal." Yeah. Okay.

Well, I believe the greater the value of a message, the greater the need to deliver well. The greater the value of a message, the greater the need to deliver well. So for anybody out there who does any type of communication, how important is your message? If you're in business, it's not always the best business or the best product that gets the job or that has the most sales. It's usually the one that's been presented the best. Okay? So if you're in business and you have a message to get out there and you're trying to sell products or whatever it may be, your message matters. It's your livelihood. Okay?

If you're a team leader, you lead a team, communication matters that you can do that well. It's got to happen. If you're in ministry, and for those of us in ministry, and what we do is present the word of God, whether we're teaching, discipling, or evangelism, obviously we know that that message matters.

So the greater the value of the message, the greater the need to deliver well. If we've been given a very important message, we want to deliver it well. So that's why good communication matters. So in that case, where do people start developing these skills? I call it a skill because I think it's something that can be developed and honed and improved.

Well, maybe first you should convince us, though, that it can, because some people, you hear statements like, "I'm a terrible public speaker. I'm no good at this. I can't write well. I can't." Whatever. They make these definitive statements about their abilities.

Is this something that can be improved? And yeah. You want to look at it as any other skill. So if you're in construction, you don't say, "Well, I wasn't born with this skill, so I can't do it." Anybody that does well in construction, they learned. It's a learned skill. Some people may be gifted in different areas, but good communication, it's a skill that you can learn. So to say, "I check out of this one because I wasn't born with this gift." No, it's a skill that you learn. So it is something that you can learn. It is something that you can develop. And so all of us can do it. And all of us do a measure of communicating somewhere.

In fact, what I like to tell people when we're doing our communication conference and we get to the stage presence, we do one session on delivery. And you talk about, "What do we do with our hands? What do you do with where you're at? When do you stay behind a podium? When are you moving?" This type of thing. I said, "During break, I'm looking at 50 communicators who aren't trying to figure out where to put their hands. They're not trying to figure out how do I stand. Everybody's being themselves."

And so in a sense, we get it. We know how to communicate. What happens is when we get on a stage or we get to where we're performing, whether it's in sales in a meeting, all of a sudden we think we got to be somebody different or do something different. But no, you're to be yourself in line with the message. So again, communication is something that you can learn. And for myself, I started with just reading books. So I read a lot of books by different authors, and it's good to read from different perspectives.

So I read a wide range of communicating books. And what I found was these authors would have their grid that they go through to develop their message or speaking. And there were some that I liked, some that I didn't like, some that felt really clunky, and I didn't like that. But what I found a common theme, and this is what you want to look for as you study things, is look for a common theme coming from different perspectives. And the common theme is the greatest need in communication is a crystal clear focus.

You need a clear focus. Okay. So like those times when we've heard a sermon that has 12 different points to remember at the end, is that an example of, "Whoa, too many things to focus on"? Is that what you mean, or am I taking this down the wrong street? That definitely is, yeah, is in this line. So you listen to a sermon with 12 points. Two days later, how many of those points do you remember? Well, that's kind of always been my challenge. Right? If there's too many pieces involved, it's like, "I don't know if I can remember this." Yeah. So as a communicator, what we've got to ask ourselves is, "Can I give a message, develop it, and then package the delivery in a way that my audience will remember it?"

That's what we've got to do. If I give a message and two days later, nobody can remember what I've said, I've wasted their time, and I've wasted all the time I put into it. Like, what was the point?

If I'm speaking to somebody and all I'm going to do is keep them entertained or they're listening, filling their time for 45 minutes or whatever it may be, and if they're not going to remember any of it, something's wrong with that. And the responsibility of that is on the communicator. So what I need to do as a communicator is when I have an opportunity to speak, I need to say, "Okay, I need to study, develop it well," and then say, "Okay, how can I package this message and deliver in a way that they'll understand it and they'll remember it?" And when we do that, to me, that's being a good steward of our opportunities.

So yeah, that whole thing of a crystal clear focus.

I've heard people say this, "I just have I want everybody to be able to get something. And I have a wide range in this audience. So I'm just a little bit of this, this." Kind of like a buckshot when you're hunting.

And it's about as successful as using buckshot to shoot an elk. The thing's going to run off and be stung a little bit, but you're not going to get the game. When you speak and you have all these different points, what happens is everybody remembers very little.

But you want a crystal clear focus. So that's, as I read from different communicators, that came clear to me. Okay, it's a clear focus. We need a clear focus. So did a lot of reading of books, then bought a DVD series that had from a training conference and went through that. So that was good. But there was something that I was missing. So I knew I enjoyed communicating. I knew that's what God had called me to do. And so a lot of my work was involved in that, in teaching and then preaching.

But what I lacked was personal coaching in this. And interesting. I don't get that from a book. I don't get that from a DVD. Yeah. And what can happen is we don't realize how we're coming across until somebody who knows communication listens to us, watches us, and then speaks into it. So back in 2013, when our family was living in Thailand, yet we were in the States for a one-year furlough, one of my goals was to go to a communicating conference. And so I did. Went to that conference. I think I paid $2,100 to go to this conference, to fly out to Colorado where this was. Went to this conference. I had already read the communicator's book.

I already had his DVD series. So I didn't learn anything new through the sessions because I'd been through it all. I devoured it all. But what I wanted to get was that individual coaching. And at this conference, you were part of a speech group, and you had a speech coach. So there were eight people in my speech group, and there was a speech coach. And that's what I knew I needed. I needed a speech coach to listen to me speak and to speak into my communicating skills. After my first speech, and so you're given five minutes to present a speech. After my first speech, my speech coach said this, "Your voice is way too intense.

It makes it hard to listen to you." Nobody had ever told me that. And then he went on to explain. He said, "What you need to do is just speak in your optimal or your normal voice. And then when your message is intense, then be intense, but it's for short periods of time. When you're always intense, you become hard to listen to." It's like, "Okay."

I had two more speeches to give, so I could work on that and point out a few other things. That honestly is the only thing I remember from that conference is, "You're too intense." It was worth my $2,100 to have somebody tell me that.

I went back home, and two months before the conference, I just was the evangelist at a big area-wide tent meeting out in Holmes County and had preached, I think, 10, 12 sermons in these tent meetings. They recorded these, put them on CDs, and then they gave me a set when it was done. I'm not sure why. Maybe they said, "You have some of your own medicine. Listen to your preaching." I don't know. But they gave me a copy. When I got back from this communication conference, I thought, "Oh, I'm going to listen to myself speak." Put one of these in my CD player and listen to it. And the first thing that jumped out on me is how intense my voice was.

And it didn't let up. I was just intense. And I was like, "My coach was so right. This is hard to listen to." I shut it off, and I never listened to another one of those CDs. It's like, "It hurt." I'm like, "Oh, no. What did I put all these people through?" And wow. So I say that to say, if we're going to develop ourselves as communicators, we got to have feedback into saying, "Look, this is how you're coming across." Because in our minds, we can think, "This is what I said, and this is what I meant, and this is how I said it." But the true gauge is, what did your audience hear you say?

How did they hear you say it? And when you think about it as communicators, there's very few places where you get that. So if you're a team leader at a business and you lead in communicating to your staff, who in your staff is going to come to you after meetings and say, "You know what? This is how you're coming across," or, "This is a weakness. This is a distraction"?

They don't really want to do that then. If you're in ministry, you're preaching a sermon, who afterwards is going to say, "That was good, but there's some things that were distracting me," or, "This is," or, "I thought you had a great sermon, but there was no application. I don't know what to do with it."

What happens is we have almost no place to get personal feedback into our communication. Therefore, I'll continue in my bad habit of being intense all the time unless somebody says it. So that's where to develop yourself, you want to read. You want to watch good communicators. I've done that. You learn from these. But you need feedback into how you're coming across. And I got that at that conference from coach speaking directly into that. And you can seek it from your audience. So if you are teaching a Sunday school class, outside of that class, you can go to somebody that you know and trust and somebody that would trust you and say, "Can you tell me, how am I coming across?

What are some things that I could work on?" And you can get people permission to give that to you. As a preacher, you can do that. But you've got to be willing to take it, or you'll shut it down. They won't give it again. And honestly, as a communicator, we really want to do it well.

I do want, and I believe everybody, we want our audience to understand it. We want them to get it. We don't want to have roadblocks in the way. So how do we get there? We get there by understanding what is effective communication, and then how can I deliver in a way that I'm not a distraction to the message?

Yeah, that's really helpful because you could go on Amazon right now or something and type in communication books or something and get, I don't know, 500 million results or something and say. And some of those are very helpful. Some of them are very good. I've read different ones and whatever. Or you could watch good communicators. Feels like you would tap out at a certain level, though, of improvement if you don't have that active feedback, right?

You're saying to get that feedback, you basically just have to ask for it then, right? For the most part. Now, being a dad, after I preach, I can get some honest feedback without asking for it. And it's great. Driving home from church not that long ago, and I preached that morning, and my one said, "The PowerPoint, Dad, that picture was terrible. It never should have used. It just looked unprofessional." I'm like, "Oh, okay. So let me plug in." I thought it was a great example of what I was going to use.

Earlier this past summer, I preached one, and one of my boys said, "Dad, you weren't really on your A game on that one." And sometimes what we could do is become defensive when people give it, or you can be curious and say, "So why do you say that? What were you thinking?" Okay, yeah.

It's good for me to hear those things. So apart from some of that, you can get it in-house. Where do you get that feedback? And that's where being at a conference where you will speak to a group that they know their job is to listen to you and then to give that feedback, that's really helpful. And you're not going to get that in a book. You're not going to get that just by watching good communicators. So that's where you can take your communication onto another level is, "Okay, I've got feedback. Now I'm going to work on these things." So one option might be having some kind of structured practice or something. You could even get a group together and say, "We're going to let's practice and take notes on each other or something."

It seems to me, though, to do this well, you'd have to be very vulnerable and very humble. Yes. Yes. For sure. So let me say a couple of things with that. Out of having been to a communication conference that Darryl Weaver went with me, we were missionaries together in Grenada, had kind of stayed in touch. And then during that furlough, I was teaching school at the school where he was a principal, and I wanted to go to this conference. And so I said, "Hey, Darryl, would you go with me?" We went there together, and it was really good. But we knew that most of our Anabaptist people wouldn't come to this conference, wouldn't be very comfortable with it.

And there were some things that we were glad we were there together. And it's like, and yet as we looked around in our Anabaptist circles, we weren't offering this. In fact, I think the only opportunities there are is maybe at Faith Builders, you'll get a class, a two-week class in the winter term, or maybe at SMBI, you could take a term, or maybe in high school, you got a little bit.

But to get in-depth teaching and then coaching, where do we get that? And so out of seeing that lack of opportunity, that need in our conservative Anabaptist circles, Darryl Weaver and I set to work together and develop the Impact Communication Conference where we do this.

Three-and-a-half-day training on communication. Everybody's in a speech group where they get that feedback. And that enables you to get that honest feedback. And while you can set up your own group and do this, and we encourage people to go from the conference to do this, a couple of your friends were here, or your whole leadership team was here, your work team was here.

What you've learned, now you help each other. But if you're going to try doing that completely on your own, what are you looking for? You've got to understand good communication. You got to have a basis to go on before you can start. So what we should do here is just underline what is effective communication.

Yeah. So yeah, which is where I was hoping to go with that is, could you give us some fundamental principles, I suppose, or yeah, principles at the base of effective communication? And I would assume we could apply this to not just public speaking, maybe writing, whatever the case may be. But yeah, give us some of those principles. Okay. So to me, this is foundational. Effective communication is always going to do three things for us. The first thing, we're going to connect. As a communicator, effective communication can happen if I connect with my audience, if I condense my message.

It's not this dump load of information, 12 points set on whatever it may be, and two days later, we're going to forget it. No, that's not being effective. So I'm going to condense my message. And then thirdly, I'm going to compel to action. So three C's of effective communication: connect, condense, compel.

Connect means you've got to know your audience. Who am I speaking to? Know your people. Condense, you got to know your point. Why am I talking this morning? Why this meeting? Why this sermon? What's my point? So to condense, you got to know your point. Then everything points at that. Okay. Then to compel, you know your purpose.

Why do they need to hear this? Okay. And to compel, it takes away this idea that we can just have informational meetings or informational times. Sometimes we'll call them that. Maybe a business or a church will have an informational meeting.

If you're having a meeting and it's simply to give information, but you do not want them to do anything about it, cancel those meetings. Let people have an evening at home. If you're a business, we have an informational meeting for all our staff. Let them stay at work. Okay.

But we get some resistance. Like, "No, no, no. They need this information. They need the data. They need to see the figures." Okay. Why? There's a reason you want them to know the information. So figure that out and then compel them to the action. Yeah, that makes sense. Because then you're, yeah, communicating without a why. That just seems like that's confusion. Yes. For sure. For sure. So where I get the connect, condense, compel, straight out of scripture. God's a great communicator. And scripture is full of great communicators.

So here's one for us. If I were to ask you, Reagan, who is known as a man after God's own heart? Who comes to your mind? David. Right. So that's what we know, right? There was a time in David's life when a man after God's own heart would have not been entitled for him.

After his sin with Bathsheba, he was an adulterer. He was a murderer. He had her husband, Uriah the Hittite, who was one of his top 30 men. He had him killed in battle to cover what he'd done and then so he could marry Bathsheba. So he's an adulterer, a murderer, and a liar.

And he's just acting like everything's okay. And it's not okay. What's going to change the course of David's life? You know what pushes me to keep growing myself as a communicator? Is God's not coming down here himself to do the work. He's not sending his angels to do the work. He's using us as human beings to be the messengers. So I want to do it well.

God needs somebody to go to David and say, "David, you've sinned." Who's going to do that? Nathan the prophet. Nathan comes to David knowing that he's the most powerful ruler in the country. He's just killed one of his best men to cover his sin. And Nathan's going to come in and say, "You have sinned." What's going to keep David from saying, "I don't want to hear that from you. I'm throwing you in prison. I'm taking your head off," whatever.

That's a pretty high-stakes message, right? When you look at that story, it's easy to say that was probably a five-minute speech that Nathan gave to David.

Look at what Nathan did in that five minutes. And we're going to see the connect, condense, compel. Nathan comes to David. And so he's going to confront him about his sin. He comes in and he said, "David," he said, "there were once two guys, two men living in the city. One's wealthy. He has flocks of sheep. One's very poor.

He doesn't have flocks. He doesn't have a flock. He has one ewe lamb. It was the only one he had. So it stayed in his house at eight from his table, slept in his bosom. I don't know what all that, but it's very poor, special lamb."

Nathan then says, "The rich man who has the flocks of sheep has a guest come from afar. And so he wants to treat him well. And rather than take one of his many sheep and serve it to this guest, he goes to his poor neighbor. He steals his only lamb and offers that for a guest for his friend."

David interrupts this story, and he's angry. It's touched his heart. His emotions are involved. He says, "That man should die for this." And then Nathan says, "David, you're the man." And when Nathan is done speaking to David, David's no longer angry. He's no longer trying to cover his sin. David's response is, "I've sinned."

And Psalm 51, "Created me a clean heart of God." It comes out of David hearing Nathan deliver a very important message, and he delivered it well. So why did David receive that? Look what Nathan did. He connected with him. Okay? How did he connect with him? He used a story.

Jesus used stories. So that's always a great way to connect. So we can learn from that. But his story used sheep. David's a shepherd. David was a shepherd. He gets that, okay? So when Nathan was preparing for this five minutes with the king, who's he thinking about? He's thinking about his audience. Always important. As a communicator, our focus is always about the audience.

What do they need to hear? It's not, "What do I want to tell them?" It's, "What do they need to hear?" Okay? So he's thinking about David. David grew up a shepherd boy. David grew up poor. David would connect with a pet little lamb.

David's very wealthy now. He's the king. He connects with having lots. He connected. Nathan connected with David through this story. Okay? That's the first part of effective communication is where you connect. When you connect with your audience, "Okay, I get it. There's buy-in there." Okay? So he connected.

To connect, know your people. Who am I talking to? Nathan did that. Secondly, condense. How many points was Nathan bringing to David that day? He could have talked to him about his leadership as a king. He could have talked to him about being a father. You got one kid running around that's a rebel. He's probably going to overthrow you someday. Work on your parenting skills. He could have talked about a whole bunch of different things. No.

There's one point today that you need to hear. You've sinned. He condensed his message to a crystal clear focus. And David got it, and he remembered it. And we as communicators need to do that. If I've got 12 points that I want to give, will I remember these 12 points without looking at notes?

If I won't, then why am I going to put that on my audience? They don't even have my notes. They haven't had the time to study. That's not even realistic. Don't waste their time. Cancel that message or let's condense it. Do these 12 points first of all, are they 12 points that my audience needs to hear? And if so, then let's take one and let's develop it well. Let's teach it well so that they get it. Okay?

I'm not saying that a message can't have more than one point to it. It can have multiple points that are all pointing to the point of the message. That's the key. So Nathan condensed his message to David, "You're the man. You've sinned." Okay? So he condensed it to that. And then it wasn't an informational meeting. Okay?

When he was done, David didn't look at him and say, "That's a cool story. Thanks, man. What do I do with this?" No. What did he say? "I've sinned." He was compelled to action. He knew what he needed to do. He needed to repent.

And when we communicate, we're never communicating just for the sake of communicating. There's a reason to it. Why am I having this meeting? Why am I meeting with this customer? Why am I speaking to this class? Why to this congregation?

And I want to compel them to action. We've all probably sat under a message or teaching where we've come away saying, "That was really good, but I don't know. What am I supposed to do with this?" And as a communicator, it's our responsibility to say, "Okay, I'm not just going to tell you, 'Here's truth. Here's something good for you to think about. What do you do with this?' I'm going to say, 'Here's how you apply this.'" In fact, we see that with Nathan in this one. Let me give another illustration. And this is from Jesus, the Master Teacher.

Jesus was asked a question one day. A teacher of the law came to him and said, "Master, what do I need to do to get eternal life?" And Jesus, knowing his people, the people that he's speaking to, knowing his audience, he said, "Well, you know the reading of the law. What's it say to you?" He said, "Well, you love the Lord your God through your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbors yourself." Jesus said, "You've answered well. Do that and you'll live." And then it says that this teacher of the law, saying, wanting to justify himself, he says, "Well, who's my neighbor?"

So here's the question. And what is Jesus, the Master Teacher, communicator? What does he do? He could have said, "Well, your neighbor is anybody you come in contact with." End of discussion. End of teaching session. How many people would remember that?

Not very many. You know how Jesus answered that question, "And who's my neighbor?" He answered it with a story. The story is what all of us know as the Good Samaritan. Jesus tells this story in a way that connected with his audience. They get it. He lists places. It's a real place. Passing from Jerusalem to Jericho. They've traveled that road. Fell among the thieves. They probably pictured the place where that can happen or on these roads, whatever. Fell among the thieves. A priest comes by. They know who a priest is. So he's using a story that his audience connects with. Okay? A priest comes by. Priest is a good guy. Sees the man lying there half-dead, passes by on the other side. "Well, that's not very nice.

How does this answer the question, 'Who's my neighbor?'" You've got curiosity in your audience. That's a good thing. You want there to be some tension like, "Why is he saying this? Or how does this apply?" So Jesus has that. Okay. The priest, he went by over there. Okay. Next, a Levite comes by. Sees a man in the ditch half-dead, passes by on the other side. And they're like, "A Levite, that's a good guy.

Not really a good guy." So what's Jesus doing? A priest, a Levite, good guys. They're the bad guys in the story. Jesus says, "Then a Samaritan comes by." And I can almost hear these guys groaning. "Oh, brother." They hated the Samaritans. They're the bad guys. We don't like them. Jesus is probably going to make the Samaritan beat the good guy. And he does. The Samaritan comes by. He sees the guy there. He gets off his donkey. He bandages his wounds. He puts him on the donkey. He takes him to an inn. Says, "Here, take care of him. I'm paying the bill. And if there's more, I'll check back and I'll take care of it." When Jesus is done, he turns back to this lawyer or teacher of the law who's asked this question.

He said, "So who was neighbor to him that fell among the thieves?" Now, the man asking that question and that audience did not go, "I know. It was the Good Samaritan. You could call the story the story of the Good Samaritan." Not at all. You know what he did? He wouldn't even say the words. He just said, "The one that showed mercy on him."

But he got it. He got the point. And then Jesus said, "Go and do likewise." He compelled him to action. So in that story that we have there, what did Jesus do? He connected. He connected with them through a story that they understood. They understood the place. They understood the people. He connected. He condensed it. How many topics could Jesus have preached to the religious leaders of that day? He could have hammered a whole lot of things. The pride in your heart. That's why you look down. No, no, no, no. Your neighbor is anybody you come in contact with. Go and do likewise. He condensed it to one point. He compelled him to action. Go and do likewise.

So to me, good communication will always do those three things. I'm going to connect. I'm going to condense. And I'm going to compel. That, to me, is effective communication. That's incredible. I've never thought of that story with Nathan the prophet and David. That is powerful, right? How he connected with David in that way.

It makes so much sense when you describe it like that. To me, you look at how pivotal that moment was. Absolutely. Yeah. And to me, this is why I want to grow myself as a communicator. How many lives am I going to come in contact with that it is a pivotal moment? And if I deliver well a message they need to hear, that it could be a good moment in their life. What if Nathan would have done this? "Okay, God. You want me to go talk to David?

He's committed adultery, murdered, and he's lied.

You're just going to have to tell him what to speak." Okay? Nowadays, like, "Okay, I'll just rely on the Holy Spirit." I don't know if he would have said that, but we'll just do that. Okay? I'm just going to rely on the Holy Spirit. I'm going to go. So he comes into David. "Well, David, you've sinned." I don't think it would have went over.

When I look at that story, he prepared. He thought about, "Who am I speaking to? What does he need to hear? Why does he need to hear it?" He answered those questions. He prepared well for that. And when he went in there, he delivered it well. And when he was done, David didn't say, "Wow, Nathan, you are an amazing storyteller."

Not at all. This is one of the misconceptions that people have in getting training for communication. If you become good at it, you'll get proud. Okay? The goal in growing yourself as a communicator is so that you're not a distraction to the message.

To me, the highest compliment I can receive as a communicator is for people to say, "I was so taken in by the message. I didn't think about you. I don't want people to think about me. I don't want to be a distraction."

Nathan gave that message in a way that David connected with it. He understood it. And in the end, it wasn't like, "Wow, Nathan, you're really good. I'll have you come back and story time with Nathan." No, it wasn't anything about that. The message hit home. You want to grow yourself as a communicator, not so people say, "Wow," but so people get the message. Comes back to this foundational belief I have. The greater the value of the message, the greater the need to deliver well. So for Nathan to say, "Well, I'll just rely on God. He's got to lead me," that's being lazy. Okay? Now, I believe we rely on the Holy Spirit to help us.

But to say, "I'm not going to prepare because of that," there's one time when Scripture gives us permission to do that. That's when we're brought before kings and governors for our faith. And it says, "Don't study ahead of time. Don't worry about what you're going to say. The Holy Spirit will give you what to say in that moment. When I'm on trial for my faith, I don't need to sweat it out. God's going to give me the word to speak." But when I've been asked to teach Sunday school, when I've been asked to preach a sermon, when I've been asked to address a topic, for me to say, "Well, I'm just going to rely on the Holy Spirit," that is not studying to show myself to be a prudent God.

That is not being a good steward of the responsibilities. I need to work hard in preparing. In fact, that's where most of the work of effective communication is. It's ahead of time. And we need to stop and say this. It's not, "Do I work hard or do I depend on the Holy Spirit?" I think we do both.

Where do we get this idea that depending on the Holy Spirit means I don't work and that the only time the Spirit leads is behind the pulpit? I'm teaching Sunday school. Spirit's just going to have to lead because I don't have time to study. That's laziness. Okay? That shows my priorities aren't where they should be. If I've accepted responsibility to teach this class, I need to put myself into it. And I want the Spirit to lead me while I study and while I present. To say, "I don't need to prep. The Holy Spirit will lead me." That's saying the study is all our own work. No.

Amazing things happen when we're working hard in the study. There will be times when we may study well and we get up to present and God's Spirit can say, "You know what? That's not the message. I want you to do this." There'll be some times to that. It can be. And then you follow what God's Spirit's leading you to do.

But to use the excuse to be lazy in our preparation so that the Holy Spirit leads me, that is not honoring to God. Nathan didn't do that. I'm confident of that. Maybe Jesus could do that, right? He could come to him. But none of us can do that. So the whole idea that I don't need to prepare well because the Holy Spirit will lead me, no. You need the Holy Spirit to lead you, and He can lead you in your study.

And He will lead you up there. Another question that can come along with that is, "So how much notes do you take?" Oh, I would love yes. Okay. So okay. To rewind a little bit, I think you made a there's two things that sticking out to me. When Nathan comes to David, that package that he delivered, essentially, had an incredible level of potency. He didn't need a 45-minute sermon, right? It's like five minutes, boom. So you have that. And just wanted to grab that as it passes by because that really affirms what you're saying about the investment in time to hone that in and make it potent.

The other one is proper communication or good communication, effective, actually lowers it's not about you, right? The person presenting it. That's kind of a new thought for me. And I wonder if that has a lot to do with what people hesitate with because like, "Well, I don't want to be proud. I don't want to be" it's almost like, "If I'm too good at this, then that lifts me up." And I think you're making a really good point there. I don't know. And then back to so there's that piece. And then the whole preparing and study. And then, of course, the question about notes. Do you use notes? All of that. Anyway, do you have more responses to what I just shared there?

So let me go back before the notes. Let's come back to that. But the whole thing of, "If I do good, people think I'm proud," whatever. We believe, as Anabaptists, we believe that we can do business really well and not be proud. We believe that our wives can cook really good meals and not be proud.

And we want our wives to cook good meals and stay humble. What I don't want to do is go home tonight for supper and come inside and there's a fog of smoke. And my wife pulls some burnt offering out of the oven and is like, "You know what, honey? I burnt this one on purpose to stay humble." Like, "Don't make us suffer, honey. Stay humble and keep cooking good," right? So somehow we have this foundational belief that we can do business well, we can cook well, we can do these things well and stay humble.

Why do we think that if I get good at communicating, I'll become proud? I don't think it should be that way. And I think part of that can come from is we think about communication as about the communicator. And what we need to do is switch the focus. It always should be receiver-oriented. We need to think as the receiver.

That's what effective communication, the focus is on the receiver. It's not about me. So what do they need to hear? What's their need? Why do they need to hear this? How will this help them? What do they need to do with this? How can I present it in a way that they get it? It's all about them. And all we are as a communicator, we're just the messenger. So our job is just to deliver it. So all my preparation is thinking about them. What do they need to hear? None of it's about me. And so it's getting the focus off of me, which, again, is in line with being a Christian. It's about God.

I really think that might be one of the most key pieces that you have here because if there's a foundational belief that, "Oh, well, you're proud if you're good at this," or, "Oh, I don't want to be in the spotlight," because, hey, if you're giving a sermon or a devotional in church, whatever, there's a lot of people looking at you here. It's a public thing, right? Yes. And so, "Oh, we get kind of nervous about that." And okay, but maybe we've got the we're maybe misaligned there or misoriented. I think you're really onto something there that can we not keeping the focus on what's the message and who are the people that need to receive it?

That's a really key piece, I think. It's in line with the principles of Scripture. It's about the message. It's not about the messenger. Paul said in Galatians, when he heard the church there was being deceived by the Judaizers, he said, "It doesn't matter who preaches this. Even if an angel comes, if it's any what matters is the message. If it's any then what is truth, it's wrong." That's a great point. I never thought of that. It's about the message. We as communicators exist for the message.

And when we make that, as I prepare, I'm thinking about, "Okay, what's the message? How can I say it in a way they understand it? Why do they need this? And it's all about them." We're really not even in the picture. Our job is just to deliver it. And we want to deliver in a way that we're not a distraction.

And when we do it well, our audience will say, "I get it. It makes sense." And then God speaks to the heart. When I don't do it well, I become a distraction. See, this is really resonating because I'm just thinking of like, okay, a high watermark for good public speaking is something like TED Talks, for example, right? And there's some out there that are just phenomenal and you learn a ton, right? And I'm trying to think. I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I've seen some." And I can tell you what the topic was. I couldn't tell you who the speaker was. Yes, exactly. Because I'll remember, "Oh, man, I remember I heard this on a TED Talk."

And that idea just was really neat and it was presented super great. No idea who that guy's name was. Exactly. You take your favorite communicators, the ones that you like to listen to, and you know why we like them?

Because they deliver well. If I think of my favorite speakers, I like them and I keep going back to hearing them because I know they deliver. I get a message. And so, again, along the line of why we want to develop ourselves so we can deliver well is if I go hear my favorite preacher and he doesn't give a message that connects, that makes sense, there's going to come a time where I'm like, "I don't really want to go hear him speak anymore."

What draws us to any communicator is the message. You can take your favorite speaker, your favorite podcast you listen to, or whatever it may be, your favorite communicator. If they stop delivering a message, you're going to stop listening.

But when we go back to places where we know we're going to get a message. So really, while we may say we have favorite speakers or authors, the reason we like them is because of the message. They really are delivering. You're like, "I learned something. This actually mattered." Yeah. Man, that's huge, though, because I think that is a big stumbling block for people. It's like, "Oh, well, I don't want to lift myself up," or like, "I don't want to put myself forward in this way," and maybe we're misconstruing this. Or perhaps maybe not misconstruing it, but we're perceiving ourselves incorrectly or something.

So yeah, let's hit a few practical things. So back to the notes thing. I'm curious. You do a lot of public speaking, a lot of teaching and things. Do you use notes? You have notes right now, but are you the kind of person, "I'm going to wing it"?

Okay. I have gone through different stages as a young preacher. There was a time when I only used three-by-five cards. Interesting. I just wanted it to flow, okay? And I preached a few good sermons from only a three-by-five card, and I preached some really lousy ones from that.

I have ranged in different aspects. To me, it's not about how many notes you take down. Now what I do is I put a lot of notes down, okay? Because it helps you process your message by putting it down on paper.

Yeah. Okay. And if you're going to reuse it in the future, then you have something to go back to. So I think you should put a lot of notes down. For the first goal is to make sure you got your thoughts organized, okay? So you see it there. Something happens when it goes from here down to the paper. Something happens within a set. It helps us process, helps us get it. So I take a lot of notes, and then I make sure that I've gone through them enough that I can internalize it. And my goal is not to use them.