How To Get Your Point Across


January 15, 2013

Recently I was talking with one of my younger brothers who is launching into the world of full time youth ministry. He had just had the opportunity to speak in a youth service and was a bit disheartened, I could tell. After explaining how things had gone during the night he asked me, “Do you think it’s bad that a couple of the students seemed to be uninterested?”

Haven’t we all been there?! Haven’t there been times when you were trying to make a point or communicate something and it just didn’t seem to be going as well as you’d hoped? I’m sure of it, because we’ve all been there!

Now my brother was fairly lucky because, in his whole youth ministry, it was only one or two kids who seemed to not be paying attention. Sometimes we may be facing a larger crowd and an opportunity to lose the attention of ten or twenty or far more. Whether your audience is a few people or a large crowd, you want to get your point across in a way that sticks and assures that they “got it.”

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Here are some key questions to ask to make that happen in whatever your context may be:

1.  What do you want to communicate?

It’s incredibly basic, but it needs to be. What is the point that you want to get across? Being able to articulate and explain this to yourself is absolutely the first step. If you’ve ever sat in a sermon that seemed to have more rabbit trails than a main idea it’s because that speaker had not come to a clear sense of what they wanted to communicate. As I’m writing a sermon I always have a clear purpose statement that I’ve written out. Why? Because it steers the entire way that I will communicate from what I say to how I say it. So clearly determine what your point is.

2.  Why does it matter to the hearer?

It is noble for us to think that people should just appreciate what we say because we’re the ones saying it. Sometimes you’ll be able to get away with that. Most of the time you won’t.

People tend to be rather simple creatures. If we know there is something in it for us, we will listen to the message. If we feel we don’t have a stake in what’s being communicated we flip the channel. So the second step is crucial. You need to figure out why what you have to say is so important! What do they stand to gain or lose? What could be at stake? What does it matter to them personally?

3.  What’s the best way to communicate it?

This is where it gets a little more subtle and nuanced. When you’ve clearly defined your message and know why it matters to the hearer then you can begin to tailor it to them. Notice, you’re not just bulldozing in with your agenda. That simply doesn’t work.

What you’re doing is deciding whether a direct approach is best or maybe a subtle one. Perhaps you will need to speak softly or to speak boldly. You may want to consider whether starting off with a story is better than “getting right into it.” (In fact, I know a Guy who seemed to love to do that.) What you’re doing here is taking the time to fine tune things. It’s like deciding what specific gift you’re going to give rather than settling with a gift card.

4.  What’s the most effective way of making the message stick?

Oftentimes communicating your message well will not be your final goal. You’ll want it to stick as well. You want them to get it but also remember it. For this you need to think impact.

Jeanne Mayo is queen of the token method of making a point stick. When appropriate she will come up with amazing little “trinkets” (and some are far more than that) that go home with the listeners to constantly remind them of what they’ve heard. Another effective way of making a message “stick” is to make it as much of an interactive experience as you can. How can you move beyond teaching the material to impressing the message? That’s what we need to wrestle with.

You have things worth saying and worth hearing. If you take the time to consider how you get your point across you may find that you’ll be far more effective in actually accomplishing that!