Customer Reviews

Communicating for a Change: Seven Keys to Irresistible Communication

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A casual reader might glance through this book and think Stanley is suggesting watering down the gospel in an effort to be pragmatic. This is not accurate. This is not a book about Biblical exegesis or scholarship. This style of preaching does not preclude in depth study. Study for sermon preparation simply is not what this book is all about.

This is a book about delivery. About half of all younger Christians today attend the top 10% of churches. These churches have learned to communicate in ways that are simple and relational. We pastors need to speak in a language that people can understand.

I went through this book and applied its communication principles to a "test" sermon. My preparation was no different than I might have done at any other time, except my delivery intentionally followed patterns laid down in this book. The results were electric. People were engaged. They didn't want to leave after the message, and conversation continued as people slowly left for home.

These principles will not be comfortable for everyone, but they are still worth wrestling with. We pastors spend the largest portion of our lives preparing for or communicating publicly. We must constantly stretch and learn new methods. Buy the book. Read the book. If these principles do not fit your communication style, fine. But make sure you know why they don't fit and that you are correct. Don't refuse to consider them just because they are new and novel.

I feel compelled to warn fellow Christian Communicators. This book may make you angry. It just might inspire you to change the way you communicate the life-change message of hope.

I suppose whether you are angered or inspired depends upon what your goal is. Is your goal to teach the Bible to people? Or, is it your goal to see people changed as they apply the life-changing message of the Bible?

If you are comfortable with people telling you "Nice message..." as they leave; If you really don't want to disturb those who sit under your preaching/teaching; If you are satisfied with merely reading your three points to your people and expect that they'll "get it" because it is a sermon then you might want to take a pass on this book.

However, If you are like me and have a burning desire to see people CHANGED having heard the crucial message you want to give them then you will want to read this book (several times) with a legal pad and pen!

I can hear my seminary preaching professor even now in my mind, "This is against all convention!" That would be a correct assessment to be sure.

I'll confess the title caught my interest so I picked up the book. Once I started reading this book I literally could NOT put it down. Please know that I have read many books on the art and science of preparing, and delivering sermons. I have had several preaching classes in seminary, but NONE of them challenged me to make ONE point! Andy Stanley did... give him a fair hearing. I know this: I will never communicate Biblical truth the same way ever again! As Stanley correctly states, there is so much that is at stake!

Anyone who has heard Andy Stanley preach knows that he is an effective communicator. Now, Stanley and coauthor Lane Jones let us in on the secrets of effective preaching in Communicating for Change.

The first half of the book is a fable about a discouraged preacher, Pastor Ray Martin, who is desperate for help. He meets with an acquaintance, a successful businessman, who flies him by helicopter to meet Will Graham, a truck driver who has just the answers that Ray needs. By the time Ray leaves, he has a new approach and new hope for his preaching.

The second half of the book explains this model of preaching, covering topics like the goal of preaching, how to outline the message relationally, and how to engage the audience.

The model offered by Stanley and Lane has two main strengths. First, it centers preaching around one central idea, taken from the text. This is more effective than other approaches, which fail to capture the central idea of the text. In trying to communicate everything, they communicate nothing. Haddon Robinson and others have also written on the importance of the big idea in preaching.

Second, Stanley and Lane also present a relational outline approach to preaching. Their outlines are built around "the communicator's relationship with the audience rather than content." They remind us that "the way we organize material on paper is very different from how we process information in a conversation." This relational approach can lead to better communication of the Biblical idea of a passage.

The book is not without its problems. The leadership fable, in which an unlikely hero rescues a hapless practitioner, may be an overused approach. Also, this book is not a homiletics text, and preachers would be wise to look beyond this book for a full understanding of the task of preaching.

Stanley and Lane argue that the purpose of preaching is to "teach people how to live a life that reflects the values, principles, and truths of the Bible." They imply, however that this can happen by giving people application points. I am not so sure that application points always lead to life change; they can instead lead to application fatigue and moralism if the preacher is not careful. Preachers will want to wrestle with the larger issue of how people grow into spiritual maturity.

Communicating for Change reminds us of the importance of engaging interest, communicating a single big idea, and honoring relational dynamics in our preaching. It may be what discouraged preachers need as they work to improve their preaching.

After finishing this book, I was reminded of the following verse in 2 Timothy 2:15 - Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Not everyone is called to preach or to give Bible studies but this book, at the very minimum, allows us to see how much work and thought is involved when a pastor gives a sermon/Bible study. Because of that, I very appreciate my pastor who must have worked really hard to preach God's word. Here are the takeaway lessons that are transcribed verbatim from the book for each of the relevant chapters. In order to see how these points were derived, you'll need to read the book which I highly recommend:

1. Determine your goal
1a. Our approach to communicating should be shaped by our goal in communicating.
1b. Our goal should be life change. Specifically, to teach people how to live a life that reflects the values, principles, and truths of the Bible.
1c. When you commit to preach for life change, your preparation is not complete until you have answered two very important questions: So what? and Now what?

2. Pick a point
2a. In a one point message it is essential for the communicator to know the answer to two questions: What is the one thing I want my audience to know? What do I want them to do about it?
2b. For most communicators, the biggest challenge will not be finding the one idea, but eliminating the other three.
2c. The process for developing a one point message is as follows: 1) Dig until you find it. 2) Build everything around it. 3) Make it stick.

3. Create a map.
3a. An outline built around your relationship with the audience, rather than the content, best matches the way they naturally process information.
3b. ME-WE-GOD-YOU-WE
3c. Begin writing these five words in the margin where they apply in your current way of outlining. Add the sections you are missing.

4. Internalize the message
4a. Before you stand to deliver a message you must own it.
4b. Reduce your entire message down to five or six pieces. Not points, pieces or sections of information.
4c. If something doesn't support, illustrate, or clarify the point, cut it.

5. Engage your audience.
5a. Engage your audience.
5b. Engage your audience.
5c. Engage your audience.

6. Find your voice.
6a. Being yourself is not an excuse for poor communication habits.
6b. Be yourself. But become the best communicator yourself can be.
6c. Continually ask yourself, what works? What works for me?

7. Start all over.
7a. Don't allow the pressure to get the sermon finished override your passion to bring something fresh to your audience.
7b. When you get stuck, pray!!!
7c. When you get stuck, go back to basics: What do they need to know? Why do they need to know it? What do they need to do? Why do they need to do it? How can I help them remember?

Like these points? There's a lot of great insights that pastor Stanley gives in his book, which is why you should go out and buy this book. I hope that this helps.

Which is better, preaching that exposits biblical texts, or communication that changes lives? Having trouble deciding? Think of expository preaching as the mere transfer of information with diverse multiple points that no one--not even the preacher--remembers. Now think of the alternative, modeled by Andy Stanley and Lane Jones, as "teaching people how to live a life that reflects the values, principles and truths of the Bible" (p. 95). Still not sold on Communicating for a Change? Try assuming that Bible teaching only imparts knowledge that puffs people up with pride, while talking to them about themselves from the Bible (p. 96) results in obedient action. After all, "We don't live our lives by points" but "by emotions. We respond to what we see, taste, and feel" (p. 102). So why insist on an approach to preaching that requires rational understanding of historical facts and spiritual appraisal of their personal implications? If, by chance, you are still left standing in support of teaching the Bible to people, ask how you can possibly defend your stance since it reflects "a system designed in another era for a culture that no longer exists" (p. 89)?

Such a line of argumentation runs throughout a book that is otherwise brimming with helpful communication insights and techniques. In fact, the practical value of this book, the engaging style in which it is written, and the authors' own success as effective communicators, seem to have overcome any inclination on the part of its 89 reviewers to voice biblical objections to some of its assumptions. Before offering my own critique, I want to summarize the material I found most helpful.

Helpful Content

I agree that a sermon should reflect a clear goal that can be expressed in single statement. Everything should lead up to, support, or point back to that central, memorable statement of truth that Haddon Robinson calls "the big idea," and that Arthur Whiting called "the theme," and that Charles Stanley apparently refers to as the preacher's "burden" (p. 13).

Asking the five questions: What do they need to know?; Why do they need to know it?; What do they need to do? Why do they need to do it?, and What can I do to make it memorable?, strike me as useful tools in getting unstuck when I get bogged down or distracted while preparing the message or communicating a single point. They insure coherent movement from INFORMATION to MOTIVATION to APPLICATION and INSPIRATION, with helpful REITERATION.

Other good counsel includes: Internalizing the message by identifying the big chunks that serve as "mile markers" through the message; building tension in the introduction and early part of a message that is relieved by the one point of God's Word being presented; less information, more life; talking faster, and taking it slower in the turns so that "passengers" aren't lost in transitions.

Chapters 12 and 13 were the most helpful. ME-WE-GOD-YOU-WE is an approach to organizing a message based on the relationship between the speaker and his audience, rather than the text. It starts with the preacher, ME. My personal experience with a problem, question or need introduces the subject in such a way as to invite my listeners to identify with me. Together WE are engaged in the process of discovering what the Bible, GOD, says to answer the question, solve the problem, or relieve the tension identified in the ME-WE potions. The listener, YOU, is then faced with the changes called for by the single point of the sermon. Finally, the message concludes with a call to imagine or envision the implications of an obedient response on the part of the community of believers--including the speaker and listener, WE. I believe that thinking in these terms will help me do a better job of connecting, keeping my listeners engaged, and bringing them with me to the desired destination.

Having read several of the customer reviews that average nearly 5 stars, I am impressed not only with the unanimity of praise the book has received but with the number of reviewers who join the authors in rejecting how they were trained to preach in seminary. But at least four assumptions deserve some critical analysis because they appear to weaken a biblical understanding of the peculiarity, purpose, and power of preaching the Word of God.

Humble Critique

First, the writers state: "We make no distinction between preaching, teaching, or general communication. For our purposes they are the same" (13). While all communication--including biblical teaching and preaching--share certain principles and processes in common, the biblical purpose of preaching is unique. Unlike general communication, driven by results, biblical preaching is driven by revelation. Using the Bible as a resource to talk to people about themselves can result in effective communication, but the preacher speaks for God with the biblical text as his source (2 Tim. 4:1-5). Communicators speak naturally to connect with as many people in the audience as possible. Biblical preachers speak with divine authority that no one naturally receives (1 Cor. 2:14).

Second, as good as it sounds, a changed life is not an adequate goal for preaching the Word of God because God is glorified in His judgment of those who reject His Word as well as in the blessing of those who receive it. We are not commanded to relate ideas from the Bible that we judge to be essential, applicable, or appropriate--"all they gotta know"--but what God has already chosen to communicate because He considers it to be essential to knowing Him (John 17:3, 6-8, 17.) If we faithfully proclaim the whole purpose of God (Acts 20:27), teaching and admonishing one another in order to present every man mature in Christ (Col. 1:28), His word will not return to Him without accomplishing His purpose (Isa. 55:11). That purpose involves what people think and believe as well as what they do. Teaching the Bible to people has the decided advantage of equipping the listeners with a model for how to feed themselves. It also gives them a basis on which to evaluate messages they hear, like the Bereans did in Acts 17:11. While alignment of purpose, goal and method makes perfect sense in terms of communication strategy, there is a greater need now than ever to remember that the end doesn't justify the means. Attainment of the preacher's goal does not validate a methodology that promotes dependence on a fallible communicator.

Third, when preachers talk about a "powerful illustration," an "impactful delivery," or "seven keys to irresistible communication," often they are describing a human cause-and-effect. But there are important differences between the persuasive powers of public speaking and the power of the preached Word of God (1 Cor. 1:18-25; 2:1-5). The power of motivational techniques is human, while the power to convict sinners, justify believers, and sanctify saints, is divine. The assertion that "burden" plus passion equals change fails to distinguish between the power that resides in the packaging of the message from the supernatural power of its content . That God works through the personality in whom He has chosen to wrap His message does not mean that powers of persuasion are commensurate with the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16,17; 2 Tim. 3:14-17). While it may be true that "presentation trumps information when it comes to engaging the audience," it is the Word itself that is "...living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword... (Heb. 4:12,13). It is the heart of the listener that must be prepared to receive it as sown seed (Matt. 13). In spite of being the Truth in human form, the very Word of God perfectly packaged, the Lord Jesus was rejected by the majority of His own, and received only by those who, having been given the right to become children of God, believed in Him (John 1:11,12).

Homiletic application of biblical truth--even with inspirational imaging and reiteration--only identifies and urges needed change. It no more guarantees actual implementation of biblical truth than does information by itself. According to Matthew 7:28,29, what distinguished Jesus' communication from others was not that He was creative, direct, compassionate or offensive (as stated on p. 150), but that He spoke with the authority of God!

Fourth, the assumption that a generational shift has made it necessary to "abandon a style, an approach, a system that was designed in another era for a culture that no longer exists (p. 89)," is unsubstantiated. The authors ask, "Will you consider letting go of your alliterations and acrostics and three point outlines and talk to people in terms they understand?" The question seems to attack textual expository preaching as a relic of left-brained modernity, even discounting the present value of literary and mnemonic devices as if they were Confederate currency! The implication is that either the old style of preaching was ineffective in its own generations, or that now we have to accommodate a new generation that is not only completely different, but defensibly disconnected from that of their fathers. This goes beyond the idea that truth never changes but methods can and should. It essentially denies the existence of timeless principles of biblical preaching, and embraces contemporaneity as synonymous with relevance. Preachers must always bridge the gap between the time and culture of the Bible and of their listeners, and there are many kinds of bridges. But the principles of verbal and relational bridge-building don't change.

Honest Commendation

If the helpful content of this book is promoted on the basis of some faulty assumptions, the reader should carefully distinguish the two and not think that he must embrace the authors' apparent antipathy for textual-expository preaching in order to connect better with listeners that are increasingly influenced by postmodern thought. "But," as Robertson McQuilkin has written, "let's not be caught defending the indefensible or putting institutions (which the postmodern has little use for) ahead of people and authentic human relations." Stanley and Jones have reacted to common abuses of verse-by-verse teaching and preaching. The wise reader will make the necessary adjustments in his approach to sermon development and delivery rather than jettison his commitment to preach the Word in favor of a generational, results-oriented technique for communicating with people.

This book teaches us all the things we wish they had taught us in seminary! Once again, Andy shows us how to get more accomplished by doing less. I still don't know how he memorizes it all, but I am now using the me-we-God-you-we approach w/ great feedback.

I never thought I would be so excited about a book on communication, but I am VERY excited about this one. Stanley shares with the reader his philosophy of communication as well as specific and practical steps to becoming a more effective speaker. This approach may not be for everyone, but it is "home" for me. I have used his approach for the last couple of weeks and my audience is much more engaged and I have gotten very positive feedback from numerous people.

Love what the author had to say in terms of a one point message, make it sticky, know where you're going and how you're going to get there. These are amazingly good suggestions that I was able to quickly incorporate into my own teaching to make the lessons more memorable and have greater impact. The author's presentation in the first half of the book is outstanding.

However, read this book critically. A constant "Me-We-God-You-We" approach every Sunday is tedious for a congregation. It leads a speaker to always speak topically rather than exegetically. Although this approach is ideal for people who have no Biblical background (seeker friendly churches), it has the unfortunate side-effect of keeping them that way.

Don't get me wrong; I fully enjoyed this book and took many great insights out of it. I just can't in good conscience implement it for every message/lesson.

I am in higher education and have to speak regularly to adults on various topics. This book is wonderful for any communicator. I am able to develop a one topic presentation and then present it without constantly reading my notes. This is great for anyone wanting to improve their public speaking skills.

This is the best book I've read on communication. I'd love to list some quotes, but every time I buy another copy, I give it away. I'm requiring every communicator I work with to read this book. Although it is a "must read" for pastors, it will also speak to communicators in any field. Thanks Andy and Lane!