Leadership: Passion

You can see what a person is passionate about.

Take some ministers to the footy and they will scream their lungs out. Put them in the pulpit and get them to preach about the cross and it sounds like they are reading from a shopping list.

You can see what a person is passionate about

We are in a time where people are more concerned with how you say it rather than what you say. This decline in our culture is unfortunate at best and downright dangerous at worst. But it says to the leader that they need to figure out how they will communicate what they need to communicate. In short the communicator needs to be visibly passionate.

This especially goes for preaching. If you want to preach and be engaging be visibly passionate.

Tips on communicating passion:
1) Make sure what you are communicating hits your heart. If you want to be communicating with passion are you passionate about what you are communicating? My worst sermons have been when I have not taken time for the message to freshly inspire, correct or rebuke me. I find that if the text has done work on me I will communicate the text far better than if I hadn’t.

2) Choose your words carefully It always cracks me up when I hear some ministers talk about their wives. Because their description of their wives are the worst advertisement for marriage ever!

This is a direct quote from a minister about his wife. (I have changed her name though) “This is my wife, her name is Wanda and we have been married for 15 years now and she has been really helpful as a ministry partner. The way she organizes our family is really commendable.”

This quote communicates no passion at all because of the words he chose. Words like helpful and commendable aren’t even okay when you are talking about a book let alone your wife! Also, notice how there are no words which display affection. The words love, like, beautiful, etc. are replaced with helpful and commendable which are just boring and tepid. (By the way if anyone calls something I do “helpful” I really find it hard to know where I am going to hide their body!)

If we want to communicate passion we need to choose our words carefully.

3) Speak with passion. Use your voice to show you are angry/sad/scared/happy/etc. If you speak in a monotone it will make people switch off.

4) Prepare, prepare , prepare. I have found that when I am really confident with what I am communicating I am more passionate. However, when I am not confident passion is the first thing to go. So to be passionate I need to prepare whatever I am communicating well. In fact the more I prepare the better I communicate with Passion.

So what things this week do you need to communicate with Passion? How will you prepare yourself and your message to passionately communicate?