"Living Out LeaderTreks" - A series on the core values and leadership principles of LeaderTreks. I'll share how they are lived out in the company and in my own life. To start from the beginning click here
I don't know exactly how they come up with these numbers, but apparently men speak about 8,000 words a day, and women speak about 20,000.
That's a lot of words in a lifetime...
And how often do you diligently think about the words you say.
Intentional Communication
We teach students all the time about the importance of communicating intentionally with their team. I saw a lot of growth in communicating with my last team in the Dominican Republic. Their VBS student leaders went from barely communicating to intentionally directing their team before, during, and after the VBS event. This intentionality greatly improved the teamwork and success of their VBS event.
When this principle comes up in a teachable moment we often tell the students that there are
4 C's to good intentional communication.
Clear
Compassionate
Concise
Complete
And over the past two months God has been finding teachable moments to tell me how important Compassionate communication is. It started on one of my Spring Break Trips to Memphis where our team was highly sarcastic toward one another, and the students started to notice how it affected their team.
Now these are students who truly loved one another, and worked really well together on the worksite, and most of society would probably look at them and not see anything wrong with how they interacted, but they saw something wrong with it... and they believed that God wanted them to work on it - so they did.
After the close of that trip I continued to watch those around me and how their satirical words affected those around them. I realized that these words were careless - and said carelessly to those that they had apparently already communicated "I care for this person." However, I began to question how someone could truly believe you care for them, if the majority of words you were using were continually negating that fact.
And then on the flight home, God hit me with a brick -
But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.
Matt 12:36
Oh dear, how often are my sarcastic words the most careless ones.
And then God quietly issued me a challenge:
I was discussing this fact with a close friend and she made the statement,
"You can never totally give up sarcasm, it's a part of our culture."
And she's right in one respect - sarcasm is a large part of current culture.
But God has been teaching me the importance of not saying, "never" or "can't"
Because all I have is his,
and the only thing I could NEVER give up is God himself.
So, I decided that evening to give up sarcasm.
Warning:
God lays different challenges on different people.
I do NOT believe that all of today's cultural sarcasm is bad
And I do NOT believe that all should take on this challenge
But I DO believe that God is asking me to become less careless in my speech.
I won't be perfect at it - giving up something that you've done carelessly for so many years is going to be a VERY difficult task. But I fully believe that God is calling me to be counter-cultural. I believe he is asking me to be different in my speech.
So that's what I'm planning to do with my 20,000 words
Intentionally communicating with those around me,
clearly, concisely, completely and now
compassionately.
What are you going to do with your daily words?
I don't know exactly how they come up with these numbers, but apparently men speak about 8,000 words a day, and women speak about 20,000.
That's a lot of words in a lifetime...
And how often do you diligently think about the words you say.
Intentional Communication
We teach students all the time about the importance of communicating intentionally with their team. I saw a lot of growth in communicating with my last team in the Dominican Republic. Their VBS student leaders went from barely communicating to intentionally directing their team before, during, and after the VBS event. This intentionality greatly improved the teamwork and success of their VBS event.
When this principle comes up in a teachable moment we often tell the students that there are
4 C's to good intentional communication.
Clear
Compassionate
Concise
Complete
And over the past two months God has been finding teachable moments to tell me how important Compassionate communication is. It started on one of my Spring Break Trips to Memphis where our team was highly sarcastic toward one another, and the students started to notice how it affected their team.
Now these are students who truly loved one another, and worked really well together on the worksite, and most of society would probably look at them and not see anything wrong with how they interacted, but they saw something wrong with it... and they believed that God wanted them to work on it - so they did.
After the close of that trip I continued to watch those around me and how their satirical words affected those around them. I realized that these words were careless - and said carelessly to those that they had apparently already communicated "I care for this person." However, I began to question how someone could truly believe you care for them, if the majority of words you were using were continually negating that fact.
And then on the flight home, God hit me with a brick -
But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.
Matt 12:36
Oh dear, how often are my sarcastic words the most careless ones.
And then God quietly issued me a challenge:
I was discussing this fact with a close friend and she made the statement,
"You can never totally give up sarcasm, it's a part of our culture."
And she's right in one respect - sarcasm is a large part of current culture.
But God has been teaching me the importance of not saying, "never" or "can't"
Because all I have is his,
and the only thing I could NEVER give up is God himself.
So, I decided that evening to give up sarcasm.
Warning:
God lays different challenges on different people.
I do NOT believe that all of today's cultural sarcasm is bad
And I do NOT believe that all should take on this challenge
But I DO believe that God is asking me to become less careless in my speech.
I won't be perfect at it - giving up something that you've done carelessly for so many years is going to be a VERY difficult task. But I fully believe that God is calling me to be counter-cultural. I believe he is asking me to be different in my speech.
So that's what I'm planning to do with my 20,000 words
Intentionally communicating with those around me,
clearly, concisely, completely and now
compassionately.
What are you going to do with your daily words?