139 Sermon Illustrations on Communication

For the messenger of painful tidings, the shortest and simplest way of communicating the facts is the best. When the tidings was brought to Achilles, of Patroclus' death, it is simply, "Patroclus is down: they are fighting around his naked corpse; and his armor is held by the plume-waving Hector." When Gen. Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga, the rumor one morning had reached the House of Commons. Every one was alert to hear; when Lord North arose slowly in his place, and with a solemn voice said, "Gen. Burgoyne and his whole army are prisoners to the Americans." A dead silence of several minutes followed.

circumstances, concluding thus—'I am, sir, your very obedient humble servant,' the greater part of the world might subscribe it without deviating from the strictest veracity."

Mr. George Hibbard discovers a new literature in process of development, born of the needs of modern advertising. In _The Booklover’s Magazine_ he writes:

The modern advertisement is worth looking at, whether it is the sounding proclamation of some big corporation, with facts and figures both weighty and impressive, or the light eye-catching notice of some simple trade or contrivance. All forms of literary composition find place in the advertising pages: history, story, verse. Many advertisements measure up to the test of good literature. In truth, there is often an uncommon amount of character in them. A word here or a phrase there is often singularly vivid as “local color,” and behind many an advertisement it is possible to see a vigorous personality. Nor are there lacking in this new literature qualities of humor, both intentional and unintentional. One generation writes an epic, another an advertisement; who shall say that one manifestation is not as important as the other.

See RECEPTIVENESS.

CAPACITY, ORIGINAL

During the trial in court of a case involving the originality of a picture, an eminent counsel put this question to Gainsborough: “I observe you lay great stress on the phrase, ‘the painter’s eye’; what do you mean by that?” “The painter’s eye,” replied the artist in a smart repartee, “is to him what the lawyer’s tongue is to you.”

The progress of the world can be inferred from facts like the following:

In 1798 the entire business of the Post-office Department was conducted by the Postmaster-General, one assistant, and one clerk. In 1833 it required forty-eight hours to convey news from Washington to Philadelphia. In 1834 New York Saturday papers were not received in Washington until the following Tuesday afternoon. In 1835 the mails were carried between Philadelphia and Pittsburg daily in four-horse coaches, two lines daily, one to go through in a little more than two days, the other in three and a half days. In 1833 a contractor named Reeside carried the mail between Philadelphia and New York, ninety miles, in six hours, making fifteen miles an hour. The railroad, as a factor in the mail service, did not have a beginning before 1835. August 25 of this year the formal opening of the road between Washington and Baltimore took place. Amos Kendall, then Postmaster-General, at first objected to having the mails carried by rail over this road, since it would, as he feared, disarrange connections with existing lines of stages. In October, 1834, a writer in the Boston _Atlas_ says: “We left Philadelphia on the morning of the sixth in a railroad car, and reached Columbia, on the Susquehanna, at dusk--a distance of eighty-two miles.”--JOHN M. BISHOP, _Magazine of American History_.

Having discovered that we are immersed in the ether, and that it responds instantly, and to untold distances to electric vibrations, the daring inventor said, if I can set the ether ajar with a certain kind of vibration by shooting up into it strong electric impulses, then I can plant yonder in the distance another instrument keyed to that particular kind of vibration, and it will pick out its own from the ether, quivering, as it is, with an infinite number of vibrations. Just as when you run the scale of the piano in a room, each object responds to its own note. When you touch D a certain lampshade will shiver in answer. That is its note. It knows its own vibration, and is silent to all others.

This, then, is what is transpiring now among men. A code of signals being arranged, one here sends up his request or prayer into the heavens, speaks into space. The whole hemisphere of ether is set quivering. Another yonder, a thousand miles distant, picks out of space the syllables of that prayer, one by one, and then throws back through space the answer. Nothing so marvelous as this, so near spiritual conditions, has ever before entered the heart of man. It is not surprizing that the air is full of prophecies, dreams and visions. One says we will yet be able to carry in a pocket, like watches, little vibrators, so that we can communicate with our distant friends without wires or towers, or skilled operators, as readily as we take out our watch and tell the hour of the day. Others, in this prophetic madness, say we may yet learn the vibration of the planets, and fling off into space our “All hail” to Mars and Venus.

— JAMES H. ECOB

The following specimens of false syntax are given by the _Printers’ Register_:

A man who was suddenly taken sick “hastened home while every means for his recovery was resorted to. In spite of all his efforts he died in the triumphs of the Christian religion.” “A man was killed by a railroad car running into Boston supposed to be deaf.” A man writes, “We have decided to erect a schoolhouse large enough to accommodate five hundred scholars five stories high.” On a certain railway the following luminous direction was printed: “Hereafter when trains in an opposite direction are approaching each other on separate lines, conductors and engineers will be requested to bring their respective trains to a dead halt before the point of meeting, and be careful not to proceed till each train has passed the other.” A steamboat captain, advertising an excursion, says: “Tickets, twenty-five cents; children half-price to be had at the office.” An Iowa editor says: “We have received a basket of fine grapes from our friend W., for which he will please accept our compliments, some of which are nearly two inches in diameter.”--_Printers’ Register._

I have to-day a paper at home, as long as half my hand, on which was photographed the whole contents of a London newspaper. It was put under a dove’s wing, and sent into Paris, where they enlarged it, and read the news.

— WENDELL PHILLIPS

See PROPHECY.

ORATORY

There are men in legislative assemblies who speak often, but are never masters of any situation. They have great powers of utterance, but nothing to say. The orator whose burning sentences become the very proverbs of freedom is not he who consumes the most time and employs the selectest paragraphs. I have seen men in Congress often on their legs and buzzing about like able-bodied darning-needles, but they never managed, even by accident, to sting anybody into attention.

— JAMES T. FIELDS

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Sometimes a word or phrase will do in literature what a sketch will do in charcoal, defining a character and suggesting a whole line of possibilities. An instance of this is in the following from _Everybody’s Magazine_:

After a certain jury had been out an inordinately long time on a very simple case, they filed into the court-room, and the foreman told the judge they were unable to agree upon a verdict. The latter rebuked them, saying the case was a very clear one, and remanded them back to the jury-room for a second attempt, adding, “If you are there too long I will have to send you in twelve suppers.”

The foreman, in a rather irritated tone, spoke up and said: “May it please your honor, you might send in eleven suppers and one bundle of hay.”

Certainly lawyers can not rail at theologians for adhesion to traditional forms.

An author who inveighed against the practise of lawyers drawing long deeds and settlements, thus satirized it: “If a man were to give to another an orange he would merely say, ‘I give you this orange’; but when the transaction is entrusted to the hands of a lawyer to put it in writing, he adopts this form, ‘I hereby give, grant and convey to you all and singular my estate and interest, right, title, claim and advantage of and in the said orange, together with all its rind, skin, juice, pulp, and pips, and all right and advantage therein, with full power to bite, cut, suck, and otherwise eat the same, or give the same away as fully and effectually as I, the said A B, am now entitled to bite, cut, suck, or otherwise eat the same orange, or give the same away, with or without its rind, skin, juice, pulp, and pips, anything hereinbefore or hereinafter, or in any other deed or deeds, instrument or instruments, of what nature or kind soever to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding.’” (Text.)--CROAKE JAMES, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

After reviewing my sermon with my wife Celeste, I decided to redo it completely. As I walked to my study at midnight, a car pulled in to parking lot. “Pastor, I need someone to talk to.” We talked for an hour. Near the end of our conversation, the person says offhand: “I go to church to hear the sermon. The rest is just filler.”

Communicating the need to act can have unpredictable results.

During the first decade of this century, long before there were any efficiency experts, somebody came up with the bright idea of hanging up in the office signs that simply said, “Do It Now!” The president of a large business bought a number of those supposed cures against procrastination and hung them up in front of all his employees.

After a few days, he was startled at the results. The treasurer of the company had skipped out with $50,000. The head bookkeeper had eloped with the boss’s secretary. Three salesmen had asked for raises and the boy in the mail room had gone out west to become a movie producer.

I know it is not natural for most men to say, "I love you," to their wives. Researchers have found that from the earliest years, little girls talk more than little boys. After wiring a playground for sound, researchers found that 100 percent of the sounds from little girls' mouths were audible, recognizable words, but the boys didn't talk as much and, when they did, only 68 percent of the little boys' sounds were words. The remaining 32 percent were sounds like "uh," "Zooooom!" and "Yaaaaaah." No wonder we men find it hard to tell our wives the things they need to hear. That's also why Paul reminded women to be quiet!

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Analogy to the incarnation from perspective of ants:

If you wanted to communicate your love to a colony of ants, how could you most effectively do it?

- Step on them? (Magnifying glass)

- Yell at them?

Obviously it would be best to become an ant. Only in this way could your existence and what you are like be communicated fully and effectively.

The best and clearest answer to how we know there is a God is that he has visited us. The other indications are merely hints. What confirms them conclusively is the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Article on male bonding movement. Male intimacy is encouraged through use of drums, sweat lodges and other forms of primitivism. "We were chanting and sweating and screaming and hollering. It was fun and uplifting because it involved prayers and a lot of affirmation. People talked about pain." Men find it difficult to communicate and these groups help them end their isolation.

Leaders in the movement are Robert Bly and Sam Keen.

A few years ago there was a television miniseries about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Since they lived in the White House for 12 years I wouldn't call them a typical American family. But they still had some things in common with the rest of us. The scene I remember has the two of them sitting at the breakfast table. Franklin has a cup of coffee in one hand, while the other held the morning paper, which he was immersed in.

Eleanor proceeded to chat with him -

“Franklin, did you know the Smiths have built a new home in Arlington?” Without moving a twitch he responded,

“Nuh huh.” [no]

“Well, isn't that marvelous? Now they'll be so much closer.”

“Uh huh.”

“Some other news I heard is that Sarah Jones is marrying a British diplomat.”

“Oh really...”

At this point Mrs. Roosevelt was obviously perturbed, because her husband was obviously oblivious. So she added one more bit of news.

“Aunt Gertrude is very upset. She lost her head two days ago and hasn't been able to find it.”

“Uh huh.”

“FRANKLIN!! Put down that newspaper this instant! You haven't listened to a word I've said.”

Without lifting his nose out of the paper, he replies: “On the contrary, Babs. The Smiths have moved to Arlington, Sarah Jones is not the wife of a British diplomat, and Aunt Gertrude misplaced her head two days ago. Knowing her, it's not much of an inconvenience. A refill, please.”

WIVES, does that sound like your husband? (except for the final comment)

HUSBANDS, don't you wish you could come back like that?

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In a class I teach for adults, I gave the assignment to "go to someone you love, and tell them that you love them."

At the beginning of the next class, one of the students began by saying, "I was angry with you last week when you gave us this assignment. I didn't feel I had anyone to say those words to. But as I began driving home my conscience started talking. Then I knew exactly who I needed to say `I love you' to. Five years ago, my father and I had a vicious disagreement and never really resolved it. We avoided seeing each other unless we absolutely had to at family gatherings. We hardly spoke. So by the time I got home, I had convinced myself I was going to tell my father I loved him.

"Just making that decision seemed to lift a heavy load off my chest.

"At 5:30, I was at my parents' house ringing the doorbell, praying that Dad would answer the door. I was afraid if Mom answered, I would chicken out and tell her instead. But as luck would have it, Dad did answer the door.

"I didn't waste any time - I took one step in the door and said, `Dad, I just came over to tell you that I love you.'

"It was as if a transformation came over my dad. Before my eyes his face softened, the wrinkles seemed to disappear and he began to cry. He reached out and hugged me and said, `I love you too, son, but I've never been able to say it.'

"But that's not even my point. Two days after that visit, my dad had a heart attack and is in the hospital. I don't even know if he'll make it.

"So my message to all of you is this: Don't wait to do the things you know need to be done. What if I had waited to tell my dad? Take the time to do what you need to do and do it now!"

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By Dennis E. Mannering, from Condensed Chicken Soup for the Soul, Copyright

1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor, Hansen & Patty Hansen

How families communicate:

The magic test is phrase: “Take out the trash.”

Whenever I hear my beloved wife say that, I immediately drop everything and rush right down to do it -- because as your pastor I must set an example.

Some of you have reacted skeptically. So I’ll be honest. In truth, if I were to do everything my wife asked, right away, she’s have a heart attack then and there. Once she called out “Dinner’s ready” and I came down immediately, only to wait 20 minutes for the food. Dads know what moms REALLY mean.

A look at common, reckless words that hurt those we love.

A. Harsh Words.

1. Name-calling.

2. Words that wear on the soul.

3. Words that take the heart out of people.

4. Words that overstate the point.

5. Words that rub salt into a wound.

6. Words that communicate personal disgust.

B. Control of the Mouth.

C. Love of Quarreling.

The power of words can edify or mortify. A word aptly spoken gives life.

Summary of article:

I. Words are powerful.

A. Wise words.

B. Encouraging ones.

C. Searing sentences.

1) "looks like a girl's sweater"

II. Words matter.

A. God created world by speaking.

1) Therefore pay attention to how you speak.

2) Be conscious of HOW you deliver words.

B. Communication training.

1) Moral approach - how we should talk.

2) Psychological approach - this is why I talk this way.

3) Helpful approach - here is how we can talk effectively.

III. Learning to communicate.

A. Acting sincerely is not enough.

1) But people notice.

2) Like using left foot for soccer - feels unnatural, but

you eventually get the hang of it.

a) Seems phony, but is not.

b) Decent communication skills lead to deeper friendships.

c) Others benefit when we know how to talk.

B. Jesus says our words reveal our real selves.

1) Speech is never truly accidental.

a) A mouth opens, and out pops a heart.

b) Proof is found when we try to change.

1> Eliminate harsh words and they still crop up.

2> It's not just careless words, but yourself.

c) We need to be transformed by God.

2) Importance of affirmation.

a) It has a powerful influence on people.

C. Bible speaks much of controlling the tongue.

1) Examples:

a) Proverbs.

b) Jam 3:2-5

2) We can control ourselves by controlling our tongues.

a) It is a small instrument with much power.

Words are powerful. Many people, if they take time, can think of wise words from a teacher, parent, or friend that made a great impact on their life. Many people can spotlight an encouraging word that lifted them at a very low time. Many people can also remember some searing sentence, the memory of which brings blushing shame even today, years later.

My mother was a great knitter. She never went to meetings without her ball of yarn and a sweater-in-progress. At home she was forever holding up sections of a new work against my arms or chest or back, to see whether they would fit. Unfortunately, not all of her sweaters were triumphs. Often the size or shape or color was decidedly odd.

I do remember one outstanding creation, however. When I was in the seventh grade, she gave me for Christmas a bright red, cable-knit sweater, very distinctive and attractive. I proudly wore it to school, where a boy noticed it and looked it over critically.

"It looks like a girl's sweater," he said.

I never wore the sweater out of the house again.

Our words matter. The Book of Genesis portrays God creating the world by speaking. In a related way, we create the world we live in through our words. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that we pay attention to our words -- both those we intend and those that slip out when we are not paying attention. And we also need to be conscious of how we deliver the words we use. No matter how encouraging the actual words are, they will lose their positive values if accompanied by an uninterested voice or lack of eye contact. The way we talk to each other can build a world full of love and security, or a world of bitterness and anxiety.

Take a married couple. The man does not talk. To compensate, his wife talks too much. In particular, she shoots off her mouth about his mother. If you pressed him, he would admit that his mother is far from perfect. But he simply does not want to hear it all the time, especially from his wife. To him, the running down of his mother is like a dripping faucet. It is not any particular drip that kills him; it's the wearing effect of the whole thing.

She, on the other hand, is worn down by his silence. She wants to hear that her husband loves her and likes the way she looks. He does compliment her cooking, but that does not help. She knows she is a good cook. Her attractiveness is what she needs affirmed.

Her husband is not a sentimental person, and she knew that when she married him. She did not know how wearisome it would be. She is tired of taking the initiative. She wants him to bring a little romance to the marriage. For a long time she tried to wheedle it out of him, but she has given that up. He just won't listen to her needs, she says.

Can anyone help these two? A moralistic approach will not work; they both can give you nine yards of reasons why they are justified in their behavior. You could take a more psychological approach, trying to delve into their pasts. But there is no certainty you will ever get to the basis of why they behave as they do, or that they would be able to change their behavior if you did.

Without taking anything away from a moral approach or a psychological approach, I would suggest another way. It would help a great deal, I believe, if both would learn how to talk. The woman needs to learn to limit her critiques of her mother-in-law. The man needs to learn some ways to say, "I love you," so his wife can hear it. Both of them need to learn new ways of bringing up sore subjects without starting fights that make everything worse. If they learned such skills, it might not put an end to all their troubles, but it would be a huge and helpful start. It would stop the bleeding and begin to let their love flow through.

Such training in talking you do not get at school. You get it -- if you get it -- at home. It is typically transmitted mother to daughter, father to son. Unfortunately, a lot of people miss out. Such training takes time, and it requires confidence on the part of the parents. If they themselves do not know how to talk, they cannot very well pass it on.

I am peculiarly, painfully aware of this need for training because I missed out on so much of it. I grew up in a wonderful family, but it was the kind of family where, if you thought someone's opinion was stupid, you said so. We had great debates around the kitchen table, my siblings, parents, and I. I learned how to think in my family, but I cannot say I learned how to talk. I was well into my college years before I learned that telling someone that his favorite movie is incredibly dumb may hurt his feelings.

Perhaps this had more to do with my personal makeup than with my family makeup. I was shy, and often shy people retreat into themselves, unknowingly giving the impression of unfriendly aloofness. In college, I began to realize that other people's image of me did not match my image of myself. Those who did not know me well saw me as stern, aloof, and judgmental. Nobody told me so directly. Once I began to catch on, however, I was hit by the message from all sides.

This pained me deeply, because it was not true. I knew what was inside me. I was as aloof as a puppy dog. I was soft-hearted, if anything. I cared about people. I craved friendship.

I began to try to rewrite my life. I began consciously to say nice things to people, to let them know that I appreciated and liked them. I tried to act warmly. I began to hold my tongue when I had something to say that might be construed as critical or snobbish.

And I hated it. It felt horribly unnatural. I despised having to watch my words, having to mull over every interaction to see whether I had handled it well and gotten my message across. Why couldn't I just be myself? I was, I suppose, a true child of the sixties: I believed that acting sincerely was enough. Now I felt that I was acting insincerely, putting on an act.

My changes did bring noticeably better results, though. People told me I was different. They told me I seemed warmer, happier. People opened up to me. People sought me out. I liked those differences. And I found that I got used to the act I was putting on. Over months and years it grew comfortable. Eventually, it became liberating. It became me.

For years, I have coached youth soccer. Most of the under-10 kids I get only know how to kick with their right foot. They may be fairly skilled at kicking with their right foot, but when they try to kick left-footed, they look incredibly uncoordinated. Usually they give a pitifully weak kick that dribbles the ball a few yards in front of them. Sometimes they miss the ball entirely and fall on their rears.

As their coach, I know that soccer players have to learn to use both feet. So I encourage them to use the "off" foot. There is no magic trick I can teach them. They just have to do it. If they do, they will get better at it, and one day they will feel as natural kicking with the "off" foot as they do with their primary foot. Learning to talk is the same way. Sometimes you have to make yourself uncomfortable, do things differently -- strange as that may feel -- until you become comfortable again.

What worries people about such an approach is that it seems calculated and artificial. It seems phony. I am sure that it could be. This was not my experience, however. On the contrary, though it initially felt phony, it helped me develop far deeper and more authentic relationships with people.

When I learned how to stop putting people off with my seeming aloofness, when I learned how to say that I liked people and to show an interest in their lives, I began to make more free and open friendships. They, in turn, made me into a far more confident, friendly person -- naturally. I can honestly say that learning how to talk changed my life. It enabled me to be myself.

At the same time I was changing the way I talked to people, I was studying with a teacher who was a genius at mining dumb comments for gold. I took his seminar in nineteenth-century theology, and I don't think I was the only student at sea among the Schleiermachers and Kierkegaards. Again and again, we made blundering stabs at the thoughtful questions Professor Irish put to us. Often I did not know what my fellow students were trying to say, and I was not sure they did, either.

But Professor Irish could somehow see a kernel of relevance in those answers, draw it out, and move the whole discussion along. He made us feel we had remarkable insight -- and when he guided our discussion, we did! I began to see that learning to talk has implications beyond just one-to-one interactions.

When people know how to talk, they are not the only beneficiaries. Society profits. What kind of world would it be if every classroom, every business conference, every committee, every school board meeting, and every legislative body were dominated by people who knew when and how to speak for the mutual edification of the group? I know this for sure: it would be a world where I would not hate meetings so much.

Jesus taught that our words reveal our true selves. He said: "For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him" (Matt. 12:34-35, NIV).

Our speech is never truly accidental. If you listen to someone talk for long enough, you will know what kind of person he or she is. Careless words may reveal more than carefully planned speeches. A mouth opens, and out pops a heart.

If you have ever tried to change your way of talking, you have realized this. Just try, for example, to eliminate harsh words. This does not sound all that difficult. But the unwanted words always crop up in the most unruly way. They rush out of your mouth without warning. Through the effort you will discover how much meanness is in your heart, for it keeps bubbling up. You will have to face not just your careless words, but yourself.

Or try to begin honestly praising someone whom you find hard to affirm. Why won't the words come out? Why is it such an effort simply to say, "I love you," or, "Your friendship is very important to me," or, "I really appreciated your work"? The reason can only be that, at heart, you are not an admiring and a giving person. To change your words, you must change your heart as well. This kind of metamorphosis requires prayer, meditation, the help of loved ones, and above all, the help of God.

But it also requires a recognition that changing your speech is not merely a superficial and outward activity. It is not "acting nice." It goes to the heart. Your talk is a rudder by which you can steer your life.

Years after I became aware that the way we talk is vastly important, I met the woman who became my wife. Popie was (and is) the warmest person I had ever met. I liked her right away, and I wanted her to like me. She obviously did, and let me know it. But then, she let everyone know how she liked them. She was lavish with her affirmation.

Affirmation is only one way of talking, but it is an extremely important one. Popie's affirmation of others was extravagant. I saw that it made an extraordinary difference in her friends. They were different when she was around them, and they stayed different after she was gone. [...] And what was her technique for influencing their lives so powerfully? She said encouraging things to them.

Seeing how Popie affected others (and me), I began to see words as very powerful tools. I had always wanted to be a powerful person. I never knew it was so possible. The key was as close as the words that came out of my mouth.

The Bible has much to say on this very subject. Many of the Proverbs concern the way we talk. They teach the skill of speaking well in everyday conversation. And the epistle of James states, "If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check."Perfect? Was this sheer hyperbole? I used to think so, until I looked again.

James underlined the thought with two comparisons: "When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body..." (Jam. 3:2-5, NIV).

These metaphors suggest that we can control our lives by controlling our tongues. Even more startling, they imply that if we are able consistently to choose our words well, we can make our lives all that they are meant to be, and all that God wants them to be.

You cannot direct either a horse or a ship by pushing. They are too big and unwieldy. You must use -- skillfully -- small instruments of control. For horses, the bit. For ships, the rudder. For human lives, the tongue.

________

Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine

ctcurrmrw5TB0305919

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How to make peace with your parents.

A Plan for Peace.

1. Identify with your father's specific offenses.

2. Confess your own offenses to God.

3. Count the cost of failure to forgive.

4. Confess to God that your anger has clouded your vision.

5. Pray for your father.

6. Let go of your father's offenses and cancel his debts.

New Behavior Patterns.

a. Measure genuine progress.

b. Write a letter.

c. Talk it over with someone.

d. Open up communication with your parents.

e. Listen to your parents.

f. Draw appropriate boundary lines where necessary.

g. Demonstrate verbal and physical affection.

h. Build a support network.

i. Avoid the trap of old behavior patterns.

j. Be patient.

All conversation between men and women" according to Roy McCloughry, "is cross-cultural conversation." If he's right, any preacher may communicate well with only part of the congregation and miss the other part.

As a woman who has listened mostly to male preachers during the past six decades, I've reflected during many sermons on why some connect with my world and others don't.

HOW MEN AND WOMEN THINK

Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse compares the male and female thinking processes to two kinds of vision we all use: macular and peripheral. Macular vision focuses on one thing to examine its details. Peripheral vision takes in the larger context. We use both every day; in fact, the two taken together allow us to see more fully what is there.

Barnhouse likens macular vision, focus, to the masculine way of thinking. Men tend to analyze problems, figure out their parts, and choose among the options.

She compares peripheral vision to feminine thinking. Women tend to consider the context, trying to keep all issues in view. This makes arrival at a "right" answer more complex.

For example, a couple talk about buying a car. He may check several models and compare prices, horsepower, extras included, etc. The decision looks pretty straightforward. When he brings up the subject at dinner, his wife asks a new set of questions he may consider irrelevant: What impression would the neighbors have if we start driving such an expensive car? Could Aunt Maude get in and out of the car easily when we take her grocery shopping? Would the pastor think we should increase our giving to the church if we're able to drive such a nice car?

He looks at the car; she looks at the context in which the car will be used.

From birth, girl babies respond faster to human contact and are relatively uninterested in things. Boy babies like things from the start.

Carol Gilligan underlined the female tendency to put relationships before other values. In studies of children at play, researchers found that boys' games last longer because they settle disputes by elaborating rules. Girls, on the other hand, end the game when disputes break out; relationships are more important than continuing the game.

Roy McCloughry concludes, "Men and women live in different cultures: he in a world characterized by independence, and she in a world characterized by intimacy."

What are the implications of this for preaching? What types of texts or illustrations are most likely to resonate with female listeners? What emphases are they most or least likely to hear?

HOW TO TRANSLATE

During the years my husband and I worked as missionaries in Europe, I often served as an interpreter. With practice I could do that without thinking. One time I caught myself "translating" a French sentence into other French words. That was not my job! I was supposed to carry meaning from one language into another.

A woman in the pew goes through that process almost every time she listens to a man preach. Most of the time she isn't aware she is doing it. If she has been active in church, she has developed such skill in translating, it has become second nature to her. But she is still translating. By attending to three areas, a skilled preacher can learn to speak in a woman's "native tongue" and thus reach the entire congregation.

1. Translate masculine images into feminine images. While reworking a series of Bible studies for women, I chatted with Haddon Robinson about the project. He helpfully suggested illustrations for points I wanted to make. One was about a football player, another was a quote from a baseball player, etc. Gratefully, I included them.

But before the book went to the publisher, I took those illustrations out. They just didn't fit. While some women follow sports, others feel that competitive sports violate the values they hold for relationships. The idea of winning is connected with somebody losing. And the violence of sports such as football or hockey does not communicate positively for many women. Unless a woman can translate illustrations from sports or business into relational values and experience, she may not connect emotionally with the point.

Several years ago a large Bible church invited me to speak at their Sunday services. During the first service, I used an illustration from my sewing machine. When I was about halfway through, I stopped and said gently, "I know that this baffles some of you men, but you need to know that this is my sweet revenge for all the sports illustrations I've had to listen to all of my life." There was a titter, and then a roar of laughter, and then applause. Afterward, women came up to me and said, "Thank you for talking about the sewing machine. That connected with me." The experience underscored for me that men and women live in different worlds. But the two worlds can be bridged.

Suppose a male preacher wants to speak on perseverance or determination, topics for which illustrations from sports would be ideal. He can still connect with women by reaching into the world of the Olympics, where usually an individual competes against a standard. Figure skating, for example, does not require violence against an opponent in order to win (besides, it is beautiful). In a similar way, an illustration from Chariots of Fire could show the necessity of discipline in order to achieve, while not being associated with violence.

However, after such an illustration from sports, it would be helpful for women to hear an illustration from another arena of life -- for example, professional music. Here, too, great discipline and perseverance are required.

2. Translate abstract principles into terms of concrete relationships. When I listen to a sermon, I want to know how the biblical principles fit my life -- not merely as an individual, but in my complex web of relationships. How does this point affect me in my role as wife, as mother, as grandmother, as neighbor, as church member? How will it change the way I speak to my husband in the car on our way home from church? How will it alter the decisions I make about the use of my time when women in distress call me on the phone? My life is about people, a lot of lonely, confused, and hurting people. I want to know how biblical principles work in my world.

Women want to hear the Word of God in a way that applies to our lives in relationship. Effective communicators to women translate abstract principles by using illustrations drawn from relationships.

Consider substitutionary atonement, a principle that can remain abstract for many listeners. Women will relate to it best when the preacher uses human illustrations -- for example, a man who donates a kidney in order to keep a family member alive, or a woman who loses her life while giving birth to a child, or a teenager who rescues a toddler from a burning building but dies in the rescue attempt.

Even an abstract principle such as spiritual war (Eph. 6), which many men relate to positively, can be made appealing for women by explaining it in relational terms. If using an illustration from war, for example, it's important to de-emphasize the bloodshed and emphasize what was at stake for the people involved. For example, if illustrating from the Second World War, emphasize the freedom from Nazi tyranny it won. Or women might relate to a war for independence that freed people from brutality and gave them security.

3. Translate masculine language to feminine language. Much biblical imagery is masculine. Jesus the Son called God "Father," a masculine image. Christian women can hear that and, unless they were sexually or physically abused by a bad father, appreciate the rich image of relationship that Jesus gives us in that name.

But much more than masculine biblical imagery crops up in many sermons. Most Bible translators don't discriminate between the Greek words for "male" and for "humanity." A preacher can help women in the pew by clarifying what translators usually leave unclear. In 1995 it is no longer acceptable to use man or mankind as a generic word for humanity. Even for women so accustomed to translating that they don't know they're doing it, man or men doesn't fully translate.

Perhaps a dozen years ago, I heard a woman speaker change the noun and pronoun from masculine to feminine as she quoted 1 Corinthians 5:17 -- "If any woman is in Christ Jesus, she is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." I sat there stunned, then realized that tears were running down my cheeks. This meant me. I was included.

Had you asked me ten minutes earlier if I were included in the text of 1 Corinthians 5:17, I would have said, "Of course!" Intellectually, I can grasp that. Emotionally, I cannot. A preacher who cares about communicating to women will not draw back from reiterating the text with feminine pronouns here and there. Saying "men and women" or "women or men," rather than merely "men," helps women feel included.

We understand the need to communicate cross-culturally when we speak to different races or ethnic groups. Do we understand that it also applies when men and women attempt to communicate with one another?

Women in general are good listeners. It's part of being relational. But they are often puzzled listeners. Preachers can make a difference in what women are able to hear as they work to include and affirm both women and men as they speak.

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Alice Mathews is dean of the Philadephia Center of Seminary of the East in Dresher, Pennsylvania.

Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal

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A little joke about male-female relationships:

A man was walking along a California beach and came across a old lamp. He figured, why not, picked it up and rubbed it. Lo and behold, out pops a genie. The genie looks at the man and says OK, OK, you released me from the lamp and now I will grant you one wish and only one wish! The man sat down on the sand and thought long and hard about this opportunity, finally he said, "Please build me a bridge from here to Hawaii, so I can drive over there to visit."

The genie laughed and said, "That's impossible. Think of the logistics, and how would the supports ever reach the bottom of the ocean, and all the concrete and steel. No way! Think of another wish."

So the man reconsidered and said to the genie, "I've been married twenty years and still don't understand women. My wife always says that I don't care about her and I'm insensitive. So I wish that I could understand women... know how they feel inside and what they're thinking ... know why they're crying, know what they really really want, and when to say nothing, ... and know how to make them happy..."

The genie looks at the man and with a sigh says, "You want that bridge with two lanes or four?"

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Ronald Reagan loved to talk about how he played a submarine captain in the 1958 film "Hellcats of the Navy." But his tale was missing some rather pertinent facts. What actually happened was that he virtually brought the house down, though not by virtue of his acting. The crew, told to treat Reagan's orders as they would their captain's, accidentally overheard the actor practicing his lines, and they responded.

"Answer all bells," he said, giving the code for get underway, practicing to get just the right inflection.

"All back full."

"All ahead two-thirds."

"Starboard stop."

"Starboard ahead standard."

"Left full rudder."

The submarine began to jerk in every direction: back, forward, stopped, forward, left. The bow lines began to stretch, then pull until the aging pier that had moored the sub snapped into pieces of cracked wood and rusted iron, just as the sub's captain raced to the bridge, yelling, "All stop, for God's sake, all stop!"

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