Video Transcript: Communication Basics

Again, my name is Steve Elzinga. And we are in the effective communication  class. And today, this lecture, we're going to ask the question, how can learning  about communication, change your life, I know you're taking these classes,  because you have a vision, you have a dream of being more involved in God's  kingdom being more prepared, who knows what God might be calling you to. So maybe you're thinking of a career or a job working in the church, or at least a  part time thing. But this class can not only help you do some of those things, but I think it can change literally every aspect of your life, and the relationships that  you have in your life. And in this lecture, I just want to give you a sort of an  overview of how that might be true. Remember, communication is about  connecting. So if you were to improve your communication skills, you can  theoretically improve your connections and your connections are everything.  Communication basics, what does it take to communicate, talking, listening  repeatedly. If you' took the Getting Started class, which you had to do in order to take this class, then you are familiar with this, if you want to get to know  someone that takes talking, listening, repeatedly. You're getting to know me by  listening, I'm not really getting to know you by talking, we need to do both of  these things, we need to do the talking and the listening, you meet someone  you've never met before. You do a little talking, you do a little listening, and it  goes back and forth. And then you never see him again. You're not going to  have much of a relationship with that person. So it has to be repeated, over and  over the friends that you have into talking, listening, but you see them often.  When I met my wife, I saw her she looked good to me. And so I started talking to her. And she started talking to me. And we kept doing that. And over a six month period, we did a lot of talking and listening repeatedly. If I lasted six months, a  relationship blossomed out of all that talking, listening. And I asked her to marry  me now, we've been talking listening for many decades. That's what it takes.  You want to get to know somebody you want to connect. It takes talking,  listening repeatedly. So I just want to quickly go over the seven connections.  Hopefully you're familiar with the seven connections. But I just want to relate  these connections to communication. So first of all, your connection to God is  the most important that you can have Philippians 3:10, I want to know Christ,  yes, to know the power of his resurrection, and participation in his sufferings,  becoming like him in his death. And so somehow attaining to the resurrection of  the dead, you want to connect with God, that's your most important connection,  then your connection to your spouse. If you're married, you have a spouse, this  person is the most important person in your life. It takes talking, listening  repeatedly. But you don't have to understand each other's language. You may  speak the same language English or French or Spanish or whatever it might be.  But there's a there's another kind of language. Some people need a lot of words  and other people need a picture. Some people like to go deep. Some people are on the shallow end of the pool. What is the love language of your spouse? 

What? What speaks to them? Conflict negotiating, how do you how do you  manage conflict in our marriage? Intentional connecting habits? What are the  things that you do intentionally to have a better relationship to your spouse? And then there's the connection to your family understanding each child. You may  have several children, but they're not all the same. They were raised in the  same family but they're not all the same. How do you understand each one and  how they communicate and how they hear and listen, discipline? How do you  engage discipline? What is what is the communication of discipline? How do you communicate in such a way to your own children that they become disciplined in life? How do yiu give encouragement? Each one receives encouragement in a  different way? How do you inspire your children to become all that God has in  mind for them? Your connection to friends or support group? That's connection?  Three? How do you make friends? How do you keep the friends that you have?  How do you get real friends that support you in the most important aspects of  your life? Much of our connections in life are dependent on the support that we  get in the environment that we find ourselves. Your connections in the kingdom? How do we connect to what God is doing the church and the church around the  world, knowing what God is doing around the world, using your gifts and abilities to help beyond your local situation beyond your local family, your connections to  the world, feeling comfortable engaging the world around you? Some people are isolated from the world. They sit in the church and with the church people, and  they never get outside of that, knowing how to effectively engage the world  around you. So we're going to talk about well, how do you how do you share  your faith? How do you start a conversation with a stranger in a spiritual way?  How do you go from the trivial things, to something that's more in depth,  knowing and being confident with several ways that you could engage the world  around you? So we'll look at various ways and means to share your faith? Well,  what if you were to become more effective in these the following communication  skills? And I'm just going to give you a whole list? What if you became more  effective in making conversation? You sit down with some people, and you start  talking and they enjoy the time they spend with you? What if you can become  better at them? or what have you, we're better at negotiating that there's a  problem. There's a situation and we have to negotiate, we have to compromise  we have to give and take in business, often you have to negotiate something,  what if you we're better at selling. Communication is really about selling the  needs of the person and the product that you have somehow used to put those  things together. What if you were better at conflict resolution? In your family, in  your business, in your church? In your community? What if you are better at  that? Giving comfort? giving encouragement? What have you learned how to be a better encourage? I grew up in a family that wasn't very good at this. So I  didn't know how to do and I have four boys, how do I encourage them? How do I not just criticize them? And point out where they're failing? But how do I 

recognize that they're doing well, that say something about so that they keep  doing it and keep working in? That's a skill? How do you give a challenge? How  do you give a challenge in in such a way that people don't feel like you're  disappointed with them, a lot of times, you know, someone gives a challenge.  And it feels like you're not happy with me. And that's why you're challenging me? How do I do it in a positive way? That they feel good when I'm finished  challenging them? Because I believe they can do it? How do you apologize?  How do you get better at apologize? How do you inspire? I just my my son  married a girl from Ecuador, and he's living there in Ecuador. And we were just  there a month ago and we went to one of the services there. There's a town of  15,000 people and they have one Catholic Cathedral they can hold 250 people.  That's it. And there was about 190 people there. And the ritual, most of the  service was the ritual. And the priest had 10 minutes. He had a homily for 10  minutes. And even though my Spanish isn't very good, I can tell he hadn't  worked very hard at this. It was just it was it was just just going through the  motions. He wasn't inspiring people to do anything. This was his 10 minutes to  actually say something. I know a little bit of Spanish but I was trying to learn a  little bit of the native dialect. The people that lived in the mountains, spoke  Quechua. They were Quechua Indians and they spoke the language Quechua  and one of the workers was a Quechua Indian. And so he was trying to teach  me Some of their words and some of the language and when we were driving by in the mountains, I would just yell out the window, 

rimaykullayki, which just means good morning. And the people would look back,  and they would be so surprised. These people have been putting down,  everything is so negative, everything is down the church telling you that you're  not living, right, and you got to do this, and you got to do that. And the ritual, and no one is saying, God loves you. And he has put you on this planet for a reason. And you may be, you may be somebody and you haven't had all the  advantages, and you wonder how your life is going to go. But God has his eye  on you. He could have created a world in which you didn't exist, but he didn't.  He created this one, the world in which you exist, because he has a plan for  you. How do you inspire people to grab hold of their lives? To find out what God  has for them? How do you rally people? How do you get people, a group of  people behind something you project? That something that church? How do you get everyone to sign up and be enthusiastic about what it is?  

Unknown Speaker 11:20 How do you get people to follow? Do you want to be a  leader? You have to inspire people to follow? Leading questions, how do you  ask questions that help lead in a certain direction? How do you spark interest in  something with just a sentence, so that people want to know more, we'll look at  how to tell a story. In your opening line, if you if you opened with the right words, people will listen to everything else that follows. How do you? How do you have 

clear reasoning so that when you speak, people understand that you've gone  from here, and this goes to here, and this goes here? And they can follow what  you're saying. And when they're done. Someone said, Well, what did he talk  about? They could they could say? How do you have clear reasoning? How do  you put things in their proper order? How do you give comfort? How do you  emotively listen? how do you listen to someone with all that you are? I once saw a cartoon. It's a little boy, he's coming up to his father, his father is reading the  paper. And the boy is talking to the Father and the Father isn't looking at the boy. And the boy finally says Dad, I want you to listen with your eyes. You're not even looking at me. Drawing out emotions. People have words, but those emotions  underneath those words, and how do you draw those emotions out? How do  you listen conflict away? You can have someone that is angry at you that is  upset abotut something in the church, for example, or at work, or whatever it  might be. And you can actually listen the problem the way you if you listen well.  The person at the end will say something like, Well, I know I was angry at you.  But now I see that as some issue that I have. I've done this where all you're  doing is listening and getting them to do all the talking. And they listen to  themselves right out of the problem. How do you use humor? If you look at two  people talking anywhere on the street, and you're out in public within three  minutes someone laughing humor makes a sort of greases the wheels of  communication. How do you go deep a lot of communication is just shallow.  What did you do? What do you like? Things like that. Rarely do you get to a  deep conversation? How do you take something that's shallow and go to a  deeper level limits unearthing the goals? How do you get to something  significant? You know, we're only on this planet for 70, 80 years. Let's get to  something important. What might be the results for your life if you learn how to  become a more effective communicator, what might result in your life you'll have more knowledge and opportunities to grow and more opportunities. discover and use your God given gifts. More success and all that God gives you to do more  possibilities of becoming an effective mentor and coach for other people. Better  Jobs more pay more responsibility, more satisfaction. more influence, better  marriage, better family life closer to God, more satisfying friendships, more  leadership opportunities in the community and the church, more opportunities to  make a difference. So we've looked at what communication it's communicating  with symbols. It's a shared understanding for the purpose of connection. We  looked at why we should study it, because God is all about connection. Father,  Son, and Holy Spirit, He made us the same for one body. He made us for this  miscommunication is what sin is all about. And God's grace is about getting the  oneness back. And then we've looked at, you know, what, what, how  communication can change your life. These are the things that we're going to  explore over the next 11 weeks. I can't wait to take you on this journey with me