True Confessions
I was in a conversation recently where the topic was about something I had written. I included everything in the communication that I felt a person would want to know. When I was finished, I was certain they would have no questions whatsoever and would be clamoring to participate in the event.
One of the individuals in the conversation, for whom I have great respect, noted the length of the communication and the probable reality that people hadn’t read it. The length was challenging, the number of words overwhelming, and therefore the was message lost.
I smiled as they were sharing their observations. What else could I do? They were probably wrong because I’ve been doing this my whole life and while on occasion someone might have said something, most people didn’t comment.
Always striving to grow in my ministry and vocation I thought, oh, wait a minute… maybe the silence meant something other than I thought… Hmmm.
I then received this TED Talk in my email and because of the comments I received in the meeting, I chose to watch for 15 minutes (the length of a short sermon, right?) and see if there was anything to it.
The presenter, Jim VandeHei, founder of Politico and Axios, spoke of how many of us (at least my age and older) remember a time when the evening news and the morning paper were the main sources of information. However, people can now get everything they are looking for online, and the reality is that most of us are overwhelmed (he says few people can truly multi-task) and only read bits and pieces of articles.
In this talk he shares about his new concept pertaining to context presentation calling it “Smart Brevity.” This works in the world around us as well as within the church in the areas of communication, worship announcements, and even the sermon (I now have to shorten the one I am using this Sunday). It will also work in how we communicate with each other in person.
This talk is well worth the 15 minutes, would be a great resource for lay and clergy leadership, and may even help us to ensure that more people will read the awesome news we share of how God is working with, in, and through our faith communities.
Clearly, I’ve already written long enough and now I have to go tell the person who dared to speak the truth in our meeting that they were right. Maybe using smart brevity, I’ll just say “Thank you.”