Sermon Tone Analysis

!!! “Can You Hear Me Now?”

!!! Knowing Yourself and Listening

 

 

       Thank you for allowing us to “Stand in the Gap!” for the Saints in Springfield, Ohio, at St. John Missionary Baptist Church’s Spiritual Renewal week!

 

       “Can you hear me now?”

If you can’t hear or understand me, communication is impossible!

Communication is the oil that lubricates the engine of relationships, without it everything grinds to a halt.

Unresolved conflict, not conflict, acts like termites in a relationship.

Quietly, and imperceptibly, it can bring down great oaks!

We are working on a series of messages entitled “Can You Hear Me Now?”  We are working on effective communication, active listening, and conflict resolution.

These skills can help us develop meaningful relationships, whether we believe in them or not.

We can no longer wait until our hearts get right.

Let’s take effective action, while we’re repenting and waiting on God.

 

/(Listed are the Roman Numerals we’ve already covered.)/

*I.

INTENT VERSUS IMPACT.*

*II.

BIBLICAL BASIS.*

*III.

CONFLICT:  A POSITIVE CHALLENGE.*

/(We are picking up where we left off.)/

*IV.

KNOWING YOURSELF.*

*It’s important that you know yourself to communicate properly.*

The needs and values models of motivation are very important in understanding the impact of communication.

Performax’s Pamphlet entitled, “Winning Lifestyles,” states:  “When we’re *not* fully aware of what’s going on within ourselves, we can hardly expect others to know.

Honest, open communication requires us to be clear and assertive about what it is we need or want from someone so that our messages will be clearly received and understood.

Self-awareness is an important factor in how we relate to others.

We can only know and accept others to the degree in which we know and accept ourselves.

And increasing self-awareness of our wants and needs enables us to be more conscious, more present to other’s wants and needs.”[1]

\\        “With the knowledge of ‘DiSC’ and ‘TICS’ we can better understand and appreciate both ourselves and others, including the reality of differences among people.

This type of learning moves us in the direction of acceptance of ourselves and others.

This is a mind set which focuses on a higher esteeming of people.”[2]

I have developed three A’s to esteeming people.

They are:

 

1.

A -   *Acknowledge* that other people are different from us.

2.     A -   *Accept* the fact that other people are different from us.

“Acceptance of who we (and others) are is essential to our individual and collective well-being.”[3]

3.

A -   *Appreciate* others for their differences.

It is very difficult for people to accept and appreciate others who are different from themselves.

The reason:  they do *not* readily comprehend adjacent value systems of “thoughts they typically don’t think about.”

Let me explain:  If you are self-oriented, you cannot easily understand the Synthesizer point-of-view.

You’ll think they are weird.

Cognitively, you don’t understand the way they see people, world events, etc.  So, it is essentially a comprehension problem.[4]

But you should seek to understand and appreciate other points of view.

\\ /(Although communication is effective talking, it has more to do with active listening.

Many of us have had some kind of training is effective speaking, but not much in active listening, unless you have belonging to this church for a wile.

So, let’s begin to deal with the very important activity of listening.)/

*LISTENING PROPOSITIONS*

 

       “To listen accurately to self and other requires a clear recognition of the intimate yet separate relationship that exists between meanings and words.

This relationship can be clarified by frequently reminding oneself of the following:

 

1.

Meanings are in persons, not in words.

‘Words don’t mean, people mean,’ as Lewis Carroll observes in the dialogue between Humpty-Dumpty and Alice.

2.     Meanings are not transmitted in oral communication, just oral and visual signals--sounds, words, pauses, tones, omissions, facial expressions, gestures, posture, even respiration and perspiration.

3.     Meanings which a listener attaches to the signals based on inferences, hunches, not on facts.

I have only an inkling of your meaning.

I make the best guess possible and check it out.

4.     The word is not the meaning just as the wrapper is not the chocolate; the word is *not* the object it names just as the photo is not the person; the word is not the experience expressed just as my story is only a small part of that moment of history.

5.     Communication is a meeting of meanings.

When your meanings meet my meanings across the bridge of words, and the overlap is sufficient to satisfy us both, then we have achieved co-meanings.

6.     My meanings will never perfectly match your meanings.

Even in an intimately shared, mutually appreciated, truly understood communication, our meanings are uniquely our own.

In good communication the intent equals the impact.

Rare as this seems, it must still be the goal of every communication.

My intent, filtered by my expectations--emotions, needs, hopes, fears--gets put into words.

These words, filtered by your expectations--emotions, needs, hopes, fears--register an impact on you the listener.

When, after passing through these dual filters, the impact is still reasonably close to the original intent, clear communication is occurring.”

\\ “To hear another I must make room within myself to admit the other’s words and meanings.

When I am filled with excitement or exhaustion I am *not* available to another.

Listening requires an opening of my inner world to receive another.

Making room within myself requires a series of steps, taken in part or (in effective listening) attempted as a whole.

The steps toward truly hearing another include:

 

(1)    willingness to give another my attention,

(2)    an openness to perceive the other’s views and values,

(3)    a readiness to suspend judgment or evaluation,

(4)    a patience to wait for the other’s own expression of his or her own thoughts and feelings,

(5)    a genuineness of empathy that seeks to take the other’s position for the moment, to see the world as the other sees it, and

(6)    a commitment to work toward a dialogue that enriches us both.

/(Let’s touch on each step.)/

Step #1:   A willingness to give another my attention.

This is the step of presence.

If I choose to be present with another, I am recognizing and admitting the other’s presence.

We are now available to each other.

No communication can take place, until we first get together.

*Busyness is one of the major enemies of most American marriages.*

I suggest you pick a place and time to do some intimate sharing each week.

If you don’t schedule it, other things will crowd it out every week.

The authors of /Executive E.Q./, which is about emotional intelligence, have developed a wonderful formula to explain what they call “authentic presence.”

*(A x C) – (U x E) = AP*

*(Attentiveness x Concern) – (Ulterior Motive x Entitlement) = Authentic Presence*[5]

 

Attentiveness multiplied times concern for the other person is the positive side of “Authentic Presence.”

To have “authentic presence” we must be attentive to people and the situations that are around us.

In addition, we must have genuine concern for people.

When attentiveness is multiplied times concern, we have a positive measure of “authentic presence.”

\\ But there are some things that can detract from “authentic presence.”

They are ulterior motive and entitlement.

When we have ulterior motives, this detracts from our “authentic presence.”

When we have an attitude of entitlement, this also detracts from “authentic presence.”

When ulterior motive is multiplied by entitlement, we have a measure of these things that detract from “authentic presence.”

When we subtract the negative measure from the positive measure, we are left with some measure of “authentic presence.”

I trust that it is easy for us to see that “authentic presence” cannot be easily accomplished without Grief £ RecoveryÒ work.