Following on from my post yesterday. Read this quote from Smashing Magazine over at Tonymorganlive.com.
“Speaking in a language the customer understands is key to good communication in any business. Whenever you get deep into a field and become an expert, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the rest of the world doesn’t think like you.”
This is a huge challenge for me. Most of my life I have worked in the Insurance and Investment Industry. (Till I started at MKCC) My job to help people make right choices in a field they did not fully understand. The longer I worked there the more insider jargon I picked up the harder I had to work not to use it when talking to a customer.
I left the big bad world of investments 8 years ago and have been working full time in church. I pick up more and more inside jargon, thought processes, ways of doing things. All the people I work with and all my friends and acquaintances are churchy.
When I finally get to speak to someone who needs to know Jesus can I contextualise as Paul did on Mars Hill in Athens the message in a way they can understand.
As I heard Mark Driscoll say recently: Our job is not to make Jesus relevant, he always has been and will be relevant our Job is to explain his message in a way people of today can understand.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Useless Expert
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3 comments:
Billy,
Great thoughts. Thanks for sharing. I need to think like this.
CB
that's so true - ditching jargon when I am talking to non believers is a big problem - my mind is conditioned to 'Christian speak' and it comes so naturally. The question is - does my unbelieving friend have a clue what I'm trying to convey to her?
good stuff i remember before becoming a christian, when "christian folks" tried to witness to me i use to think they had some screws missing because i could not understand what they were saying. Simplicity is the answer
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