A while back I had the privilege of watching my favorite Los Angeles basketball team play a game during the most critical part of the season. It was an amazing experience to see a playoff game up close and join my voice with 19,000 other fans seeking to contribute meaningfully to a victory for our team. Sadly, my vocal efforts that day were all in vain due to an overtime defeat. My team lost the game through poor defense while I, and several thousand others, lost our voice due to intense and loud cheering. I'm glad that they space those games out a couple of days apart, because if another game would have come the next day, we wouldn't have much of a voice to cheer them on with.

At first, losing my voice didn't seem like a big deal. But soon I started getting annoyed while trying to do the most menial things, like answering the phone or ordering food at the local drive through. It's frustrating when you have something to say and you try to say it, without the ability to do so. Just think what losing your voice permanently might be like. Imagine the frustration of trying to communicate without a voice, particularly when you have something important to say.

THE POWER OF A VOICE

Fortune 500 companies understand the power of having a voice. This is why they will happily spend millions of dollars on a single 30 second commercial during a sporting event, just to have their voice heard. But they take it one step further when they periodically reevaluate their voice potential and even choose to spend millions of dollars every few years on rebranding themselves in the hope of retaining their voice. PriceWaterhouseCoopers Ltd., a consulting company, committed $110 million a few years ago just to advertise it's new name in an effort to rebrand. The only reason a company would spend so much money on rebranding itself is because they understand the power of having a voice and are committed to retaining it.

What about the church? How much do we value retaining a relevant voice? Are we still being heard within our communities? Or better yet, are we hearing our communities and being sensitive of their needs? This last question is the one I'd like for us to consider, the one about hearing. This is because I believe that the most effective way for a church to lose it's voice is not due to a lack of communication, it is due to a lack of connection. And we connect with our communities the best when we stop to listen to their needs. Let me explain.

CONNECTING, NOT JUST COMMUNICATING

Know your audience! Every public speaker knows that connecting with your audience is one of the most important elements of delivering a message with a voice that is heard and respected. But this principle also applies to a church if the goal is to grow the church from within the community. Connecting with a community is an essential ingredient to communicating with them. Taking the time to hear the needs, and seeking to meet the needs of our communities, is really the key to remaining relevant and having a voice that is heard and respected. One of the loudest voices in American history was the voice of a Christian church during the civil rights movement who through the efforts of a minister, Martin Luther King Jr., was able to connect with the community and bring about needed change, while retaining its relevant voice.

Very often, however, our churches attempt to connect with our communities. We host seminars where we do a good job of communicating, but often at the expense of connecting with them, when we fail to take the time to know their needs. The well respected leadership expert John C. Maxwell put it well when he said "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." I can't think of a place where this is more true than in the church. We have developed a name for ourselves as a church that knows and communicates prophecy and end time events. But why would a community want to hear from a church if they are unsure about how much they care about them. It is imperative that we try to know and meet the needs of the community in order for our voice to stay relevant.

It's not just leadership experts who understand the value of connecting with our communities. I like the way Ellen G. White put it in describing how Christ kept his voice relevant to the people he communicated with. She says,

"Christ's method alone will give true success in reaching the people. The Saviour mingled with men as one who desired their good. He showed His sympathy for them, ministered to their needs, and won their confidence. Then He bade them, "Follow Me." - Ministry of Healing, p. 143.

Clearly, we cannot underestimate the power of connecting. When we do this, we will find that in seeking to connect with our communities our voice in the community will remain relevant.

TIME WILL TELL

Every major movement in history has had a voice, a clear and effective method of making a difference and bringing about change in a way that connected with the needs of the people. And over the centuries, successful movements that have stood the test of time have been committed to reevaluating the impact of their voice. And only those who were willing to do what it takes to stay relevant, by seeking to connect with their communities, have stood the test of time. Only time will tell whether we as a church will be willing to do the same. It would be sad if we didn't, because there is nothing more tragic than a movement that has lost it's voice.

I, for one, will be cheering us on!