I had a long conversation with a friend last night and it got me thinking about communication once again. I love this guy with all my heart and when we drill down to the core of our faith 99.9% of the time we agree. The problem is that we don’t always recognize that we are on the same page. Last night we discussed that we don’t generally have a theological difference or a philosophical difference but a semantical difference. The words I use don’t carry the same meaning to him and vice versa. This got me thinking.
How do I effectively communicate to a large audience where various words carry different levels of meaning. What I mean isn’t necessarily what they hear. And what they hear isn’t always what I mean. Ugh! So what is the solution?
I believe this is the beauty of the one point sermon. Instead of saying a bunch of things in one way that only some people will understand the way I mean it, I can teach one thing in various ways so that the largest number of people can receive it. I can’t reach them all…but I can try.