Quotes about Communication

Whenever pastors assume people in their congregation know certain things, they miss opportunities to teach. If a pastor makes assumptions year after year, then a whole generation has never heard [that truth] for the first time. If we assume too much, we communicate too little.

A sixty-hour workweek will not compensate for a poorly delivered sermon. People don't show up on Sunday morning because I am a good pastor (leader, shepherd, counselor). Ironically, my pastoring skills have almost nothing to do with my success as a pastor! In my world, it is my communication skills that make the difference. So that is where I focus my time.

A leader is someone who has the courage to say publicly what everybody else is whispering privately.

The key to this approach is refusing to stand up and speak until you 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?

What is the one thing I want my audience to know? •   What do I want them to do about it?

Our approach to communicating should be shaped by our goal in communicating.

Leaders who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.

I am in touch with a company that hopes to replicate my voice. However, they are not replicating my original voice - if they did that, I would sound like a man in his 20s, which would be very strange! They are actually trying to replicate the synthesizer that sits on my wheelchair.

The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.

Whether it's eight o'clock in the morning or eight o'clock at night, I always try to greet others before they have a chance to speak to me.

Rhetoric, which is the use of language to inform or persuade, is very important in shaping public opinion. We are very easily fooled by language and how it is used by others.

Dad had a way of disarming people because he never really directly attacked them. He might attack a principle, but he never attacked the individual.