In a recent interview on the website Breakfast With Fred, Steve Brown (speaker for KeyLife, a prof at Reformed Seminary, and a Preaching Magazine senior consulting editor) explained that, “In my classes at the seminary, I teach a TULIP of communication. The TULIP presupposes the authority of Scripture, understanding doctrine, knowing how to exegete a text. The principles are as follows . . .
T = Therapeutic. ” The communicator must, by necessity, speak to problems with solutions. Like a surgeon, the words may heal or hurt to heal . . . but if there is no healing, then there is no real communication.”
U = Unconventional. “The greatest sin for a communicator is the sin of boring the audience . . . Don’t say it the way everybody else has said it. Don’t say the expected. Don’t fit into anybody else’s mold.”
L = Lucid. “I tell students that a good measurement of their communication skills is this question: If your listeners wanted to take notes, could they? . . . The content may be only one point made by a story . . . but that one point should be clear . . . clear enough so that it would be written down and put into practice.
I = Illustrated. “Stories are very, very important in modern communication. Learn where to find them, how to use them and then use the often . . . ”
P = Passionate. “If you don’t care, nobody else will. If you aren’t excited about what you are going to say, nobody else will be excited. So, if your “hot buttons” are not pushed, don’t try to communicate it to anybody else.” (To read the entire interview, click here.)
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