"In his excellent book The Power of Little Words, author John Beckley, former business editor of Newsweek, observes: "The emphasis in education is rarely placed on communicating ideas simply and clearly. Instead, we're encouraged to use more complicated words and sentence structures to show off our learning and literacy. Instead of teaching us how to communicate as clearly as possible, our schooling in English teaches us how to fog things up. It even implants a fear that if we don't make our writing complicated enough, we'll be considered uneducated."
I think everyone can agree that many of the issues we face in life can be complex. A professor may legitimately argue that his or her area of expertise is complicated. I won't contest that. But as leaders and communicators, our job is to bring clarity to a subject, not complexity. It doesn't take nearly as much skill to identify a problem as it does to find a good solution... Making things simple is a skill, and it's a necessary one if you want to connect with people when you communicate. Or to put it the way Albert Einstein did, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it enough."
This is the un-official blog of the Queensland Theological College Preaching Class - but others are welcome to join in! We're exploring the mechanics of clear and effective Bible Teaching.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
More from John Maxwell... on being simple and clear
John Maxwell has plenty more to say on simplicty and clarity. To catch on, you really need to think about the difference between being simplistic and being simple. Being simplistic means you're in danger of missing the essence of an issue. Being simple - I think - means actually getting to the essence. Anyway, here's more from Maxwell...
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I love that Einstein quote. I think it should be the motto for preaching class. At the very least it'll have to be printed out and put on the wall right above my computer where I write all my sermons.
ReplyDeleteHaving a congregation of people, of whom only 3 have been to Uni, and most were over 60 (if not 70) made me realise how important this is.
ReplyDeletePreaching to middle class, well educated people makes us think we can pitch our message at a higher level - use more complex sentences, abstract ideas etc. We can't.
I don't mean we dumb it down, but we have to spend more time and effort explaining the big, complex issues - maybe it means we need to do some Theological Topical Preaching.
Good points Gav.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if perhaps an implication of this is that we have to train ourselves to be able to explain complex concepts concretely and simply. The art of illustration I think is less to make sermons interesting and more about the teaching technique of analogy.