Communications

3.1 Devotional. Red-Letter Communication - Part 3

Getting Started

Throughout the Holy Bible, we are able to see ways in which Jesus demonstrated leadership principles that we today hold up as best practices. Throughout the class, we will look at this Red-Letter Leadership (in many Bibles the words of Jesus are printed in red) as it applies to communication. 

In past courses, your devotional reflection has been a 1/2 to 1-page interaction between you, the Bible text, and some provided prompts. For this course on communication, we are going to switch things up a bit. Instead of a written reflection, you will provide a 3-to-5-minute video reflection using the Video Note tool (like you have done for the course opening biographies). While you may want to make some notes or a basic outline of key ideas that you want to communicate in your video (in response to the Bible text and prompts), important values for the video reflection are authenticity and transparency. Often it can be helpful to think about three categories of response:

1. What are the key insights that occurred via your reflection?

2. What are some of the ideas, principles, or perspectives that really touched you deeply?

3. What are the questions you are grappling with as a result of the reflection?

Consider your video note to be like a personal conversation you are having with a trusted friend or advisor in a quiet booth at the back of a restaurant over a cup of coffee or tea.

Upon successful completion of this assignment, you will be able to:

· Appraise a biblical perspective regarding communication.

Background Information

One of the skills we can learn from Jesus is how to tell great stories or weave revealing metaphors that help you, as a leader, communicate an important point to your hearers. I (Aaron, the course writer) once had a boss who seemed to always have a metaphor or a story to illuminate the situation we were facing together. Sometimes these stories helped me learn lessons that might have been harder to hear had they been direct. Other times his stories provided insights into situations I would not have understood otherwise.

Many of Jesus’ stories are parables. A parable is a simple story used to illustrate a moral or lesson.

In Luke 15 Jesus tells three parables to help his hearers understand the intense love God has for every lost person.

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So, they began to celebrate.” (NIV)

There are another eight verses to this parable that deal with the reaction of the older brother, but I wanted to stop here so that we would focus on the three different stories where Jesus indicates how excited God is for each lost person who is found.

Think about the different ways in which Jesus communicates this message. Think about how these different parables may have been received by different hearers. Perhaps a shepherd would not have connected with the second two but would have the first. Perhaps there is a poor man who hears the first parable and cannot imagine being rich enough to own 100 sheep and assumes that someone so wealthy does not care about a single sheep. To hear that God in fact does value him, that lone, lost sheep, may have been the message that broke through when nothing else would. You could continue on and on with the ways these different stories connect to different hearers. This can both teach us how to craft good stories that are accessible to many as well as how to craft stories that resonate with a specific conversation partner.

Instructions

1. Review the rubric to make sure you understand the criteria for earning your grade.

2. Review the information in the  Getting Started and  Background Information sections.

3. Record a 3- to 5-minute video response to the questions below 

4. Which of the three parables resonated the most with you? Why?

5. What can you learn from the way Jesus communicated in these parables that will positively influence your communication in the future?