Greetings,
Communication is an important aspect of our lives. We communicate with God and with each other. We don’t live in a vacuum and our relationships require communication in order to build understanding, trust and love of neighbor. We all recognize this importance in marriage and our families where effective communication involves the ability to convey feelings and emotions and to gain the feedback that these feelings have been understood. If someone is expressing how they feel, the ability to listen to gain full meaning of what is being said is also important so that the other person feels as if he or she has been heard and understood.
We undoubtedly have all experienced situations where what we have said has been heard with a completely different meaning than what we intended. This underscores the importance of face to face communication where you can more accurately gauge whether you have expressed your thoughts clearly or need to clarify or reorganize what you are thinking.
We are working at operating along family style lines and this means good, open communication between all of us but more so perhaps for those with specific responsibilities within the Church. The Council of Elders hold weekly teleconferences which are very helpful for building teamwork and an atmosphere of cooperation. However, face to face communication with time for a lot of back and forth is also essential. It helps build the family familiarity we need. The Council and Management Committee members all live far apart and we don’t have the luxury of regularly sitting down and talking with each other. In a book on communication development this point is made: “The family that constantly talks together may be a bit noisy but it is likely to be happier and better adjusted than one in which there are few frank, free discussions about anything and everything. Perhaps the most important opportunity for family talk is at mealtimes. Here, under the gentle but firm guidance of the parents, the child begins to appreciate the elementary rules of good conversation” (How to Write and Speak Better). Good conversation is a very important means of communicative exchange between people.
This week the Council of Elders assembled at our home for a couple of days before travelling to Southern California to join the Management Committee for a weekend of discussions. There is nothing earth shattering on the agenda but we feel the need to have some “family” time together. Your prayers for this team building would be appreciated.
Warm Regards,
Brian Orchard
