If you’re anything like me, then you’ve grown up hearing all kinds of public communication.  For me, it’s been sermons and classroom lessons, primarily.  Think back to any of those talks.  What percent of information that has been communicated to you have you retained, do you think?

If your answer is “Not much”, how does that inform YOUR communication?

My problem when I begin to craft a talk is that I usually have too much to say.  I want to give my audience my entire worldview.  And that’s simply not possible.  So I usually ended up speaking for around 45 minutes and having anywhere from 3-7 different talking points.  This was great for me – I got to build a compelling case over a wide range of topics and then tie them all together.  If you were taking notes, you could go back, review it all, and then achieve enlightenment.  Or something.

And then, one day, I heard someone (Andy Stanley, I think) say this:

“If you say three things, you don’t say anything.”

Most people aren’t going to take notes.  Most people, therefore, aren’t going to remember your three (or four… or five…) cleverly alliterated points for more than a day or so.  And if that’s true, then most people probably aren’t going to integrate your message into their lives.  So, really, all your hard work was for nothing.  In an important sense, you haven’t communicated at all.  So you can grumble and complain.  Or you can change the way you communicate.  Instead of throwing a handful of ideas at them and hoping something sticks, try this:

Say one thing.  Then say it again.  And then again, in a different way.

When you’re crafting any sort of lesson or talk, ask what the core idea is.  How should it affect or transform your audience (whom you’re considering)?  Build your entire talk around that idea.  Consider how to communicate it to your visual learners.  To the kinesthetic people.   Do you need to provide some reflective space for the introspective persons?  The analytical persons are going to need to hear something different from the more artistic types.

Repetition is the key to memory.

Do you agree?  Is this strategy more or less effective in different communications media (speaking, writing, blogging, recordings, etc.) or settings (Worship gatherings, small group studies, classrooms, etc.)?