Good Communication

"Let us love one another, serve one another, and lift one another up to bring the truth of the Gospel back into our hearts. Let us spur one another on in all our communication for his ultimate glory and our joy."  

~Beth and Jeff McCord, "Becoming Us"

The nuts and bolts of good communication clank around in my brain often.  Like when I watch my girls practice their piano duets and their distinct personalities emerge (ENFJ for Olivia and INFP for Katherine, in case you were wondering). Sometimes they have the opportunity to practice harmony in their communication as well as in their music.

In our marriage, we are always working hard to communicate well, often missing the mark, backing up, apologizing, and beginning again.  We strive to communicate with our children well, too, and we regularly have to exercise extra grace with each other.

Even observing these four guys on the basketball court last weekend (representing almost 75 years of translation experience in this corner of the world), I marveled at their good communication with each other.

These conversations all happen among people whose first language is English and who would call North America one of their homes.  Throw in different countries, languages, and cultures, and the communication soup grows thicker.  Here at SITAG, our tiny branch, we have quite the variety of backgrounds to consider as we serve together.  I'm praying the above quote for each one of us, especially as we head into our biennial conference.