This month, I'd like to share my thoughts on the dangers of smart phone obsession and how it affects our relationships, but in order to fully understand that article which I'll share next week, I'd like to first draw your attention to an article I wrote several years back on the influence of texting on communication. Texting, emailing, and easy access to various forms of electronic media are a handy tool in the technological age. However, in my experience, it has become more than a tool to most and has greatly degraded the effectiveness of modern society's communication. In addition, it has produced a people who are less concerned with truth than convenience and more concerned with being connected than making...
It's not as much a lack of training these days that gives way to communication issues; it's currently a lack of interest! I'd be willing to bet that 95% of the people who see this article (or any other article or blog post, or Facebook post or ...you get the picture) will just scroll past it without giving it a second thought. I'd be willing to go one step further and say that almost the same amount of people will do so even if the topic is of great interest. I'd also be willing to bet that at least 75% of people don't take the time to really listen when a friend or family member speaks and that about the...
For quite some time, studies have shown that there has been a significant decline in communication effectiveness. College professors report an increase in papers with text speak, slang and poor grammar. Employers have reported a serious lack of communication skill in their new hire candidates and that it's one of the reasons employees are not promoted. You and I notice it every day when we speak to people, and chat with them on social media. Sometimes the lack of communication skill is so apparent we can hardly make out what the person is trying to tell us. However, it's not as much a lack of training as it is a lack of interest. The bottom line is that most people...
There is no one-size-fits-all way to communicate with people and that is even more important when it comes to something as controversial as faith. In order to relate to those we minister to, we need to employ effective communication skills. Sharing our faith is as much how we say it as what we say. There no right way to communicate to everyone, but there are many wrong ways and in today's anti-Christian culture, it's even more important that we avoid those. Over the next year, I will be giving you in-depth information about the best ways to share our faith as well as how to respond to anti-Christian bias and even how to handle conflicts within the Christian community. My...
I touched on this briefly in my post a couple weeks ago, Communication Lessons from Fairy Tales, but here is a more in depth look at this phenomenon. Words like awesome, fabulous, I’m STARVING, DEAD TIRED… everyone says them, but most don’t truly mean them. Are we desensitized to them so much now that these words don’t mean anything anymore? When someone with thyroid disease or fibro says I’m exhausted. Most think tired. When someone is truly in pain and says it’s excruciating. Most think it hurts. When someone is clinically depressed or has had a death in the family and says depressed, most think sad. What's the danger in this? 1. Using inflammatory words too often will give the impression...
