That Whole "What You Do Speaks So Loudly" Thing

Yesterday Peter Harris of A Rocha was our guest lecturer in class, as he and his wife Miranda will be Missionaries in Residence here at Regent for the next few months. His lecture was titled Caring For Creation: A Christian Imperative?, and while I could post about that, it was something he said in passing that I want to share here and now.

First, some background. Back in my days with Fidelity Investments I ran through countless sales training courses. I did all the psychological profiles, and I even spent time with the Gallup people. If I had a dollar for every time I heard that 70%-90% of our communication is none-verbal, I'd be a rich man. And yet, it seems that Christians as a group seem to think that this universal truth does not apply to us. So often we want to tell people about Jesus, without demonstrating him, or the difference he has made in our lives, or in turn the difference we are making in the world.

I don't know why I've never connected those two points before, when I've held them both for so long. But, when Peter mentioned that odd bit of reality, the light went on.

Just a thought.

Comments

[wilsonian]

Don't know if we're more ignorant of this than others, but we should certainly be motivated differently to be self/others aware.

Thank you for the reminder.

[Jocelyn]

I think sometimes Christians (like everybody else) tend to pick and choose their psychology to fit the trend of the time - to ignore the fact that actions often speak louder than words (or to put it differently, the Harvard Interview study says that 70% of what gets you hired from a job interview is your non-verbal communication) and then write half a zillion books on the four "love languages" or why dating is bad speaks of a kind of selective hearing.

[craig]

Hi Mike,
In our context here in Vancouver I just don't know anyone who is passionately involved in trying to communicate and invite people into a relationship with Jesus Christ who is not also attentive to their WALK, & their RELATIONSHIPS. It seems to me that those who take evangelism seriously here in the city are interested in what their actions say. We must remember that the incarnation was accompanied by a great deal of speech on Jesus' part. In fact all his miracles were signs--but these signs were accompanied with explanation. Perhaps its and issue of how "conscious" we have to be. I really like what I have picked up from Chinese house churches: some don't speak of "evangelism"--they just call it "living in the power of the Holy Spirit." The other issue with over concern about how others interpret our actions and even our speech is that we are not really in control of that. For example--a good study of this is contrast John the Baptist and Jesus. Both lived in obedience to the Father, had lives that looked quite different, and were soundly criticized. Nice site by the way.

[David]

Some good points craig, but ultimately we ARE in control of how we communicate to the audience to which we are called. We must be more intentional about being heard in languages that our hearers understand. Or all we're doing is creating more noise and doing so to get the blood off our hands and not to actually make disciples. And for many of us in this culture we've been TOO verbal and not nearly intentional enough about embodying the message itself.

[Caroline]

I think that it's a bit more complicated than just actions speak louder than words.

There's a saying that I like: "you only own half of what you say" - the other half is created and owned by those who are listening (or not).

Our actions, and the actions of other Christians will shape how our words are interpreted. Our words will shape how are actions are interpreted and together they will shape (and I think this is more important) how our relations with others will develop.