What does it mean to be a good communicator for Christ? So many organizations, speech and debate leagues, coaching companies, etc all share a mission statement along the lines of “training up communicators for Christ”. But what does that actually mean? Join Abbey Lovett as she explores what this means… Abbey is a National Champion speaker, has created her own communication consulting firm- Lyceum Communications, and on top of all that- she coaches for Lasting Impact!… Remember there is still time to sign up for Abbey’s Storytelling Workshop (part of the Lasting Impact! Workshops Series)… For more info. CLICK HERE.
If I’m being completely honest, when I was in highschool, I tended to zone out whenever my league’s president brought up this statement, “What does it mean to be a communicator for Christ?” First of all, I didn’t really want to be your classic “Communicator for Christ”. I didn’t want to be a missionary, a bible study leader, a pastor’s wife, or really anything along those lines. I participated in events like Apologetics because I enjoyed studying the topic and I was good at it, not really because I thought of it as a preparation for how I would speak to people about God. Secondly, every time someone got up to speak about this general mission statement, it sounded so canned and practiced. I felt like every one of these organizations made this an ever occurring part of their rhetoric because they were socially obligated to it as a christian organization.
But no one actually ever told me what it meant for me to be a communicator for Christ or why it should be important to me.
So I graduated high school, I left speech and debate, and I never really thought about it again. Until now. And I’m not really sure why this concept popped back into my head, but it has finally dawned on me what it means to be a communicator for Christ.
I’ve recognized that people tend to respect me more if I can communicate big ideas. If I show that I have a desire to learn, understand, and appreciate new points of view, they’re a lot less likely to shut me down. Usually, my relationship with Christ comes up in conversation because it’s a pretty big part of my life. I’ve found that if I establish myself as a good communicator, people are much more willing to have an actual conversation with me. I’ve had people be completely shocked that I was a christian simply because of the way that I chose to communicate it. It wasn’t judgmental, it wasn’t evangelical, it was simply a conversation where I got to talk about something I was passionate about to someone who didn’t agree to me. Those relaxed conversations with atheists have been some of my favorite conversations ever and I have never walked away from them without making a friend.
Isn’t that what communication is anyway? It’s listening. It’s understanding your audience. It’s being selfless in conversation. It’s enjoying conversation instead of jumping on the defense. I learned all of that from being in speech and debate. And because of speech and debate, I am a communicator for Christ in a way I had never realized before.
Being a strong communicator for Christ doesn’t mean that you have to dedicate your life to being a missionary or spending every waking second trying to evangelize to people. Being a communicator for Christ is about knowing how to be a strong communicator and using that skill to tell people about all the amazing things that are happening in your life because of Christ. It’s about having such a pure desire for knowledge and understanding that people can’t help but want to hear what you have to say.
This is how I’m a communicator for Christ. You can be too. So don’t just zone out the next time your coach or league president talks about this, but honestly think about how you can better communicate what Christ is doing in your life to the people around you.