Over the last two days we have seen three of the five levels of communication. It is not until we reach level four that communication actually begins to take place:
Level 4: MY FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS! This is where we share our true feelings about ourselves. At this level I don’t just tell you that I’m glad that Penn State lost. Now I get a bit more honest and transparent. Now I tell you that I’m glad Penn State lost because I do not like Penn State! This leads to the 5th and final level of communication.
Level 5: COMPLETE COMMUNICATION! It is at this level that there is absolute openness and honesty. To communicate at this level involves risk of rejection. This is where you find out the whole story. Not only do I not like Penn State, but Penn State played Ohio State and I am a die hard Ohio State fan. This is the level of communication we must strive for, but it takes a lot of hard work. It doesn’t come naturally. In fact, the only thing harder than getting to level five is staying there.
What makes communication so difficult? There are five possible messages every time we try to communicate. Only one of them is good. This means that every time we open our mouth we have a 4 out of 5 chance of messing up. Hopefully we will communicate what we mean to say. But how many times have we meant to communicate one thing but we actually said something else? I’ll never forget the time my wife and I were giving a purity talk at a church in Tennessee. I went first and spent about 15 minutes setting up the principles. My wife was then to take about 20 minutes to speak to the women in the congregation before I wrapped things up. As she neared the end she wanted to say a few words to the men. She meant to say, “As I close, I would like to address the men.” Instead, after 35 minutes of talk on sexual purity, my wife proclaimed, “As I close, I would like to undress the men!” All of us could tell similar stories, couldn’t we?
Or instead of communicating what we mean to say, we communicate what other people hear us say. I remember my mentor telling me about the time when he was a youth pastor and his Senior Pastor was speaking on a Sunday morning at the district campsite beside the campfire. Because he would be coming straight to the church service, he wore his suit to speak at camp. As a result, he smelled like smoke when he arrived at church. However, church had already begun and Pastor Larry, the Senior Pastor, came in the back entrance and up on to the stage while the youth pastor was giving announcements. Not only did the congregation not realize that he smelled like smoke, but they had no idea that he had been to a campfire that morning. As the Senior Pastor passed behind him, the youth pastor smelled the smoke of the campfire on his suit and blurted out, “Whew, Pastor Larry, you smell like hell!” He meant that he smelled like a campfire but the congregation heard something completely different.
And if that is not bad enough, you could communicate what the other person says about what you have said. Remember that game when you were in youth group? You would sit in a circle and the first person would whisper something in the ear of the person to their right who would in turn pass the information along the same way to the person on their right. By the time the message got all the way around the circle, it was a completely different communication. Why? Because effective communication is difficult.
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