Communicating for a change- book review

This book review is on “Communicating for a change” by Andy Stanley and Lane Jones. Stanley is a head pastor of a church and Jones is a campus director of a church school. They both have long time experience in teaching the gospel and wrote, in this book, their methods and ideas on effectively teaching people Gods word. It has seven strategies to help a preacher be creative and make an impact to his/her audience. It is a 200+ page book. It is broken down into two parts and segregated in 17 chapters.


The first part is called “How’s my preaching?” and the second part is “Communicating for a change”. From chapters  1 to 10, the author writes a story about a man on a journey to find the best way to effectively preach to his congregation.


The first chapter “No one’s listening” Is the introduction of a character named Ray Martin, a head pastor of a church. Who sees his sermons, not affectively communicating to his congregation. Then calls his wife and friends for help. They help Ray by letting him meet a man named Will Graham who is known as an affective preacher.


Chapter 2 is “Where there’s a Will there’s a Ray” This part of the story is when Ray meets Will Graham and finds out that Will is not an ordinary preacher, but a truck driver who preaches. This gets Ray really doubting if Will can teach him anything about preaching.


Chapter 3 “Go for the Goal” is where it reads that Ray stayed with Will and bonded. Also, both talked about having a goal in preaching.


Chapter 4 “The end of the road” Ray really starts hearing and understanding Wills method on effectively preaching the word. Will explained how it is better to teach about one topic over several topics so that, the listeners can grasp and understand the message better.


Chapter 5 “A map to remember” is the part where Will explains his “me-we-God-you-me” method on teaching. It’s about how to better connect to the audience throughout the whole entire message.


Chapter 6 "load up before you leave" is where Will explains that the speaker must "internalize" the message. Meaning that the message should really be coming from the speaker, as if it's personal or very meaningful or profound that it needs to be shared.


Chapter 7 "Crucial connections" is the part where Will explains how knowing the audience can be a big factor to the effectiveness of the message. Also, presenting ways for the audience to raise their own awareness of how the message connects to them.


Chapter 8 "show me some identification" writes about finding your own voice and style.


Chapter 9 "stuck in the middle of nowhere" is where they both talk about getting lost or stuck in a sermon. How it is a normal thing and it just needs prayer and a checklist questions to help get back on track.


Chapter 10 "a new attitude" is the ending part of the story of when Ray says goodbye to Will and what Ray learned from him, including the goal of a sermon, which is to change lives with God working through the speaker.


The rest of the book is the second part called "Communicating for a change". This part of the book talks about the techniques spoken about in the part 1 of the book in a more thorough and systematic way. There are seven things it teaches. Which are: determine your goal, pick a point, create a map, internalizing the message, engage your audience, finding your voice, and start all over. It goes to a more in-depth explanation on this method.


As a conclusion, I really enjoyed the teachings of this book. It helps me refine, mold, and evaluate my style and method of sharing messages and sermons to people. I like the idea of how a message can have one topic and be expounded upon and still be an affective preaching.


Another technique I like and will incorporate into my teaching is the "me-we-God-you-we". Me: means getting the audience to know the speaker and getting them comfortable so that they will more likely listen. We: means getting the audience engaged by posing a deep thought, question, idea, scenario or situation. God: means telling the audience what the bible says about the topic, and what Jesus did or has to say about that topic. You: means making the message personal to the audience, and making them relate to the topic. We: is the part of the message in which the speaker inspires, challenges, motivates, to apply the teaching in everyone's lifestyle.


Also, I know that affective preaching means that first: the speaker must be prepared, sincere and authentic. Second: the audience receives the message clearly, will remember it in the long term, and use what they learned in their own personal life.