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Episode Notes
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TranscriptIntroduction
As we rev back in to our weekly podcasting, I chose the content for the first two episodes based off the glaring needs in my own family.
There. Now you know. So, I invite you to join me today as we look at one more way the Brewster family—and your family—needs to change in order to glorify God. I am the head of the Brewster family. My name is Aaron, and today is all about communication. We’ve talked a lot about communication over the years, so I’m going to have a bunch of awesome resources linked for you in the description of today’s episode so that you can continue your personal and family growth in the area of communication. And be sure to check out today’s blog post for this episode as it will have those resources, free episode notes, and a transcript. Okay, let’s start by laying out what I mean by “assumptive communication.” Topic
What is Assumptive Communication?
I use the phrase “Assumptive Communication” to refer to communication between two or more people where we are either A. Required to make assumptions about what is being said, or B. We make assumptions about what is being said even when we’re not required to. According to Merriam-Webster, an assumption is “assuming that something is true.” And they define assume as “to take as granted or true,” to “suppose.” Let me give you a recent example from a conversation my wife and I had. It was a Thursday evening, and were talking through the pros and cons of a whirlwind trip to the Ark Encounter on Saturday to see Logos Theater’s “The Horse and His Boy.” By the way, we did go, and it was amazing. If you ever have the chance to see that production (or any of their other productions), definitely see it. Anyway, assuming we wanted to actually make the trip, my wife mentioned two main possibilities for a departure time. She suggested that we could leave on Friday or early Saturday morning. I told her I wasn’t interested in leaving on Friday, and even though we’d have to be up by 4 am on Saturday, if we really wanted to go, that would be the best time to leave. Well, the conversation came to a close, but it was revisited the following day, and I quickly realized that my wife and I weren’t on the same page. But I’m going to get back to this example in a few minutes. I believe it’s helpful for you to recognize that my wife and I are both trained communicators. Whether in public speaking or acting or biblical counseling or teaching, we both have had extensive university training as well as tons of real-world experience. In addition to that, all of my jobs since 2007 have been that of a professional communicator. I’ve been a Christian school teacher, martial arts instructor, conference speaker, podcaster, writer, preacher, and counselor. To be honest, that gives my wife and me a leg up on those who have not been carefully taught the art that is communication. I’m not saying any of this to set us up on a pedestal, only to make the observation that we’ve had a lot of training in how to communicate ideas. In addition to all of that, my wife and I have been taught about biblical communication in our churches and at Bob Jones. Beyond the pragmatic requirements for good communication, we’ve been taught God’s expectations. Yet despite all of that, I can’t tell you how many times my wife and I absolutely fail in the area of communication. Whether it’s due to our own sin or the natural hurdles of communicating ideas with the spoken word, we almost daily have issues. Now, the example I gave earlier wasn’t an example where we fell into sinful communication patterns. We do that far more than we would like, but that example was to illustrate the most benign issues we can have. Part of the issue with communication in general is that it’s so often imprecise. As much as we’d like to think our language is evolving in meaningful ways, I believe the reality illustrates the exact opposite. The size of our vocabularies is dwindling year by year, the recent push to move away from logic in communication is compromising genuine understanding, and the cultural propensity to redefine terms and make up nonsensical concepts is absolutely making it impossible to navigate the conversational landmines. George Orwell, in his novel 1984, imagines a future where communication had been reduced to the most basic necessities, and—my friends—our civilization is well on its way toward that dystopian future. Therefore, it’s important to recognize that . . . 1. Assumptive Communication happens because our communication is imprecise. Sometimes this happens because it’s necessary. I’m going to swing back to my conversation with my wife in order to illustrate this. My wife suggested we could leave Friday. I told her I didn’t want to leave Friday. Do you see the problem? What did we mean by “leave on Friday.” Come to find out, she was thinking about leaving Friday evening. However, for some reason, the idea of leaving Friday evening never occurred to me. I was imagining leaving during the day on Friday. So, when she mentioned leaving on Friday, I supposed she was talking about leaving during the day, and when I told her I didn’t want to leave on Friday, she understood me to be talking about leaving Friday night. The conversation we were having and the non-specific ideas we were communicating required that the other person either ask for more clarity or simply fill in the missing information—whether they realized they were doing it or not. Unfortunately, as much as I hate being misunderstood, you would think that asking clarifying questions would come naturally to me. Well, it doesn’t. I, like you, and like so many others are far more comfortable filling in the holes with our own assumptions. But we don’t only do this when we’re required to because of a lack of specificity. 2. Assumptive Communication happens because its easier for us to take for granted that people think the way we do. For this illustration, let’s consider the perfect communication of God. Whether it’s God the Father or God the Son, we have so many examples in Scripture (and in our modern day) of people completely misunderstanding what He was talking about. Let’s consider the very first time this happened. In Genesis 3 we find Eve and Lucifer having a conversation about exactly what God meant when He said not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Lucifer was deliberately insinuating that God didn’t mean what He meant, and Eve allowed her own assumptions—and the snake’s manipulation—to justify her committing the first sin. As sinful human beings, we are not only foolish, we’re wicked, lazy, and dead-set on our own destruction. We run headlong into folly and pain, and were it not for the Holy Spirit, we would all destroy ourselves. So, it’s incredibly easy for us to enter most conversations assuming not only what the person is saying, but why they’re saying it. We just take for granted that we know what’s true about the person and the ideas they’re trying to give us . . . and we far too often assume all the wrong things, believing our assumptions to be true and responding accordingly. So, my wife and I were being imprecise, and it was easier for us to assume that the other person was talking about the exact same thing we were because we were too short-sighted to imagine that there was another point of view. So, later in the day on Friday, my wife—attempting to quote me—said something to the effect that she didn’t understand why I was so adamant about not wanting to leave on Friday night. And it was in that moment I realized what happened. The first thought that came to me was, “I never even considered leaving on Friday night.” And then I explained to her that I thought she was suggesting we leave during the day on Friday. I didn’t want to do that because my son, my wife, and I were working, and my daughter had her online college course. By God’s grace, we finally got on the same page about what we were thinking and why, we left Saturday morning, saw the show, and loved it. So, Assumptive Communication sometimes happens because we think we have to fill in the blanks that were left out, but sometimes it happens because it’s just easier than even thinking about precision. So, now the question is, how do we stop assuming in our communication and engender conversations that revolve around truth and love? Before I answer that question, I’d like to tell you that today’s episode is brought to you by AMBrewster Ministries. When we started Evermind, we subdivided the ministry into specific teams that could keep God’s truth at the center of the human experience in meaningful and specific ways. We didn’t want Evermind to have the shotgun approach where sometimes you would hear about parenting, and then other times we would be talking about overcoming addictions or church worship or whatever else. We wanted to be able to be specific in our application of truth. However, that decision did result in us doubling a lot of logistical work. That’s why AMBrewster Ministries was started. When someone reaches out to Truth.Love.Family., The Year Long Celebration of God, or Faithtree Biblical Counseling & Discipleship to request that I speak at their event, it gets handled through AMBrewster Ministries in order to keep everything streamlined. So, if you would be interested in inviting me to speak at your conference, camp, school, church, and/or retreat, you can visit AMBrewster.com or submit your request through the Evermind App. I love communication, and though I definitely don’t do it perfectly, I value how God has chosen to use His written Word and His people’s spoken words to communicate His eternal truth to each other. Now, please allow me to outline some practical steps to avoid the dangers of assumptive communication. How can we avoid Assumptive Communication? 1. Communicate for understanding. Proverbs 12:18 tells us that “A fool does not delight in understanding, But only in revealing his own mind.” The Legacy Standard Bible says, “A fool does not delight in discernment.” This is the very crux of what we’re talking about today. When we fail to communicate for understanding, we’re failing to be discerning. We’re being fools. All we care about it whatever is in our own minds. And—of course—that attitude is easily going to assume that everyone is communicating from the same starting point we are. Whether we’re talking with a friend or our spouse or our child, it needs to be about far more than just getting them to hear what we’re saying. We need to work toward understanding on both sides of the communication. 2. Ask for clarification. Asking for clarification is helpful, but there’s another version of this that is more like saying back to the other person what we think we hear them saying. When my wife suggested leaving on Friday, I should have either asked, “When on Friday are you thinking we should leave?” or I could have said something like “So, you think we could leave sometime during the day on Friday.” Either of those would have quickly clarified the misunderstanding on my part. Later in Proverbs 18:13 we read, “He who gives an answer before he hears, It is folly and shame to him.” We so often do that when we form conclusions in our mind about what is true without really hearing (or asking) what’s being said. 3. Speak carefully. Proverbs 25:11 tells us that a word spoken in right circumstances is like apples of gold in settings of silver. The idea of speaking a word in right circumstances has to do with saying what needs to be said when it needs to be said. This is very similar to the truth we learn in Proverbs 15:23, “A man has joy in an apt answer, And how delightful is a timely word!” We need to strive to communicate all the necessary information for peak understanding in the moment. That requirement will be different as we communicate with different people, but if it’s the focus of our communication, then we will be quick to consider how best to communicate carefully. And finally, I want us to consider the heart of the matter. 4. Speak to glorify God. I Corinthians 2:14-16 reads, “a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 15 But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. 16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” Christ-honoring, biblically accurate communication is beyond the grasp of those who are spiritually dead. Therefore, we need to strive to conform our minds to the mind of Christ, but we also need to teach our families to know and understand the things of God. Our families will be set up for far more success when we root our communication in concepts and motivations that come from the Bible. Conclusion
Now, there is so much more that could be said about this topic—and about communication in general, but I wanted to keep this episode short today. So, don’t forget what I said at the outset of this show, we have a ton of resources all about biblical communication, and they are linked in the description of today’s episode. So be sure you listen (or re-listen) to those.
And remember that as we’re trying to grow this ministry, we really need to be introduced to new people, so please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets and tell your friends about it. Our next episode is entitled “How to Know If You Need Help in Your Parenting.” I hope you’ll join us, and I believe you will be surprised to hear the answer . . . I know I was. So, I’ll see you then.
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