Where did it all go wrong?

Posted on October 8, 2011 by preachersa2z

Communications confessional

Words are a gift from God, and language is one of those things which enobles the human race. Of these truths I am sure. To quote from a recently published book on the subject:

The ability to form and receive words may be seen as a gift, a precious element of our make-up as created beings. As we have seen, it carries all sorts of possibilities, both negative and positive. It gives us the ability to create new realities and destroy old certainties simply by speaking. It equips us for creative endeavour and exposes us to careless failure. As such this gift must be treated with both wonder and caution.

Hmm – wonder and caution, eh? I would guess that every one of us has had the experience of opening our mouth only to change feet! If you have a few minutes on a Saturday morning, why not use them to enter the small communications confessional below?

[polldaddy poll=5566062]

When I wrote Who Needs Words it was written out of a profound sense of gratitude for the priceless gift of language. It was also written with an uncomfortable awareness that our communication, both written and spoken, often lets us down. We sow muddle when we want confusion, we sound angry when we want to sound compassionate and message gets swallowed up by medium instead of being enhanced by it. My hope is that by taking a warm, human and spiritually honest look at communication we can all improve some aspects of it. After all – there is plenty of scope!

Chomsky, Bryson, Keating & I

Posted on October 6, 2011 by preachersa2z

On being reviewed

Those of you who went through any formal training as preachers will probably have endured the ritual of sermon class, or something like it. At Spurgeon’s College, where I was privileged to train, it followed the pattern below. The ‘victim’ (or ‘volunteer’) would preach for twenty minutes, lead worship for twenty minutes – and then have their efforts critiqued/ analysed/ de-constructed by faculty and students of the College. It was an uncomfortable exercise for those in the hot seat – but taught everybody a huge amount. After all, in the general run of things our feedback from preaching tends to be restricted to the warm handshake or the query about a misquoted verse or date. Awaiting a book review this week for my new book felt a bit like being in sermon class but at a distance, a bit like a witness addressing the court by video link.

Last night, the review was published – and it was full of the wit and humour I would expect from its writer. If you want to know what he said, or what the two sets of pictures below have to do with it – you’ll have to read the review here. Not sure the comparisons are deserved – but I’ll leave that to you to decide!

Images: newstatesman & yalibnan

Who Needs Words – excerpt IV

Posted on October 1, 2011 by preachersa2z

The risk of silence

From July until October I have been releasing one small excerpt of my new book, Who Needs Words, on the first day of each month until publication. In the excerpt below, we think about the risk and opportunity of silence.

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Today we are constantly bombarded by messages from all quarters. Our computers spew out e-mails, our phones clog up with voice and text messages, our journeys to work are surrounded by billboards advertising every kind of product. Were we but able to see it, the air around us is in fact a thick soup of data of every kind. Upwards of a billion text messages are exchanged in the UK every month alone. In such a noisy place, silence can be an act of defiance. The call to silence, a bit like the call from the ‘Go Slow’ campaign to slow down our busy lives, can seem like a very odd thing indeed. Go Slow began in Italy – a nation famed for the frenetic pace of its language and lifestyle. What began as a campaign about slow cooking and eating, spread to travel, communication and lifestyle. Since the movement began, London has now held its first Slow Down festival – encouraging citizens to slow down, talk less and listen more. As appealing as that might be to some, it still feels profoundly counter cultural. Conditioned as we are to noise and bustle, the alternative can fill us with dread

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Who Needs Words can be pre-ordered from the Saint Andrew Press.

Happy Translation Day!

Posted on September 30, 2011 by preachersa2z

September 30th

Twenty years ago today, the International Federation of Translators (whose acronym in English comes out, amusingly) as FIT) suggested that the Feast of St Jerome should be marked as International Translation Day. Of course in some ways the work of a good translator, a bit like that of a good plumber or electrician, is hidden. When a translation is good it slips effortlessly in through the back door of our own heart language, and we read the final text without a second thought. Like the plumbing and wiring above – we only notice it when it goes wrong.

In this Biblefresh year many have been thinking especially about the work of Bible translation. Bishop Miles Smith wrote in the preface of the original King James Version that “translation it is that openeth the window to let in the light’. That is just the way it should be.

On this International Translation Day, though, let’s remember some of the rather less successful Bible translations, courtesy of the United Bible Societies:

The Vinegar Bible 1717

The parable of the vinegar (instead of vineyard) in the headline about Luke 20

The Printers Bible 1702

Printers (instead of Princes) have persecuted me.
Psalm 119.161

The Place-Makers Bible 1562

Blessed are the place-makers (instead of the peace-makers). Matthew 5.9

The Bug Bible 1551

Thou shalt not be afraid for the bugges (bogies) by night (instead of terror). Psalm 91.5

The Treacle Bible 1568

Is there no treacle (instead of balm) in Gilead? Jeremiah 7.22

The Unrighteous Bible

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit (instead of not inherit) the kingdom or God. 1 Corinthians 6.9

The Wicked Bible 1631

Do commit adultery (instead of do not). Exodus 20.14. The printer was fined £300 for omitting the word not. All copies were ordered to be destroyed by Charles 1.

The Murderers Bible 1801

There are murderers (instead of murmerers). Jude 16
Let the children first be killed (instead of filled).

God bless ’em, every one.

#whoneedswords

Posted on September 29, 2011 by preachersa2z

Your turn

On Sunday I was speaking to a Frenchman in church about the complexities of linguistic acrobatics. I told him about the first sermon I ever preached, which was in French, and how I had puzzled the congregation with my exposition on the teeth (dents) as opposed to the gifts (dons) of the Holy Spirit.To think that one tiny tweak in the shape of my mouth could make such a difference! Language is a slippery thing, even when we are speaking our own. The pictures below, which currently sit on my Twitter profile, show quite how easy it is to get it wrong. I feel especially sorry for those whose mistake is tattooed permanently into their own flesh.

Images: oddee & huffingtonpost

In just over one week my new book, Who Needs Words, is published. As well as offering an analysis of what happens when we communicate and advice on how to do it the book also addresses the question of why we should do it at all. When all is said and done this book is a plea to use our God-given ability to communicate, and to do it well.

To celebrate the launch of the book, I would love to hear about your own experiences (a bit like my disastrous French sermon) where your words have let you down. You can share them directly via the comments on this page, or using the #whoneedsworsd hashtag on Twitter. Saint Andrew Press will award a free copy of the book Who Needs Words to the entry which makes the Preachers’ Blog laugh the most. Entries close on October 6th

Facebook and the death of words?

Posted on September 23, 2011 by preachersa2z

Not yet

Last night Mark Zuckerberg, the face of Facebook declared that: ‘The Internet shouldn’t just be a place to gather information and connect with friends’ So far, so predictable. ‘It should also be where you preserve… the most important memories of your life.’ Some of us might want to argue that particular point, since we feel our most precious memories are preserved in less technical and publicly accessible forms. However, these were really only the opening bars of the fanfare to Facebook’s shiny new innovation: Timeline. Watch the promotional video below and you will see how it graphically charts the course of a person’s life. Not only that, but it allows the insertion of photographs and memories from the dark ages when Facebook didn’t exist! Presumably, it also allows people to ‘neaten up’ their story should they so desire.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzPEPfJHfKU&w=400&h=300]

There is no doubting that this will be popular. When I looked at it seventeen hours ago it had received 315 hits – that number has now exceeded 3 million. People love to ‘see’ their lives and those of other people, through still and animated images. We are graphically wired, so that images stimulate both intellect and emotion.

So, how should I feel today then – on the brink of publishing a book of words about words? Are they old hat? Will they become the betamax to Timeline’s blu-ray? Will they look like a shaky black and white television playing next to a plasma screen? Surely not. We are speaking creatures, and in the end we will always rely on words to articulate the graphic cornucopia of images around about us. The excerpt below comes from the introduction to Who Needs Words, describing a snatch of a graffiti seen from a train window. The only picture I have of the graffiti is in my head – but its definitely there on my personal timeline.

There on a wall next to the railway, between vandalised warehouses and soot-blackened houses, was a single word sprayed on the bricks:Compassion? I couldn’t quite work out whether the word was an ironic contrast with its location, a plea for action, or a cynical dismissal. It continued to trouble me throughout the journey and has lingered with me ever since. Do our words articulate our environment or sit awkwardly in the midst of it, I wonder? Do they add to our understanding of the world and of each other – or are they just so much noise?

In not so many words

Posted on September 20, 2011 by preachersa2z

So much is said

Although estimates vary, most people seem to agree that the number of words per minute in average speech is approximately 100. If that is that case, then the little video below is verbally undernourished, at just under 100 words for two minutes. I’m sure you will agree, though, that it is not lacking in impact.

In just over two weeks, my bookWho Needs Words will be published. The title is born of the belief that we do indeed need words. God has made us speaking creatures – just as he is the speaking God who articulated a universe out of nothing. Our words enable us to describe the best and worst of things to those who haven’t seen them. Our words enable us to describe those things which might be to those who have not imagined them. As a Pastor I get to use my words to join two souls together at the moment of marriage, and I get to stand at a graveside and commend a Christian soul on its journey with words of ancient pedigree. These are not small things and they are not mere words.

In the end, it all comes down to choosing the right words for the right occasion. What do you think of film-maker ccodyguy’ s choice of words in this short film?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk8ERxqCZqQ?rel=0&w=400&h=300]

Who needs words (IV)

Posted on September 12, 2011 by preachersa2z

A book is born (nearly)

Three years ago, two blokes got together in a back room in Southwark cathedral and talked communication all day. We laughed, we sighed, we cogitated, ruminated and scribbled. We talked about the best and worst of communication that the Christian church has to offer, and we looked beyond the church’s walls to see best practice elsewhere.

Out of that conversation a project was born, and three years down the line it has flowered into a book. One of the men in Southwark cathedral that day was me, and the other was Rt Rev Nick Baines. Over the intervening period it has been my privilege to write the book Who Needs Words, to which Nick then added a thoughtful and provocative foreword.

The book is definitely not a last word on communication, but it might just be the first word of a conversation about it. It draws on sources outside the church , as varied as industrial relations and neuro-linguistic programming, in order to examine the subject. It also reflects on the church’s twenty centuries of communicating across racial and ethnic divides. What have we learnt, and how much do we still have to learn? Any organisation which started with papyri and now uses podcasts must have collected some insights along the way. As well as practical advice on communication in different contexts it contains some honest reflection on what to do when it all goes wrong.

Caleb Rutherford, who designed the cover (below) described the design process as somewhere between a conversation and an act of creation “The idea is the lump of clay”, he said “and from the to-ing and fro-ing of conversation it becomes a vase”. His final design combines the simplicity of wordless multiple conversations with the polished finish of slick high-tec communication on the carpet of words below.

From today until October 7th you can order the book with a pre-publication reduction and free post and packing if you click on the image below. My greatest hope is that it will start conversations about communication. As the conversations grow and develop the book itself will fall far away, like the landscape below a hot air balloon as it rises. When it does, its the communication itself which will really matter – which is just as it should be.

The Preachers' Blog

Reflections on preaching, communication and story

Tag Archives: communication