This book review of Calvin Miller’s The Empowered Communicator was written as part of Pastor Lane’s doctoral course work, and as such, it is written in a more formal, academic tone than the rest of this blog’s posts. Still, we hope the audience will find these academic book reviews useful, which is why we have published them for your reference.
The Empowered Communicator focuses on effective sermon delivery and the relationship of the communicator and the audience. Personal issues for the speaker, practical issues for delivery, and pragmatic issues of the relational and environmental dynamics are all given serious consideration and guidance. This book contains a great amount of practical wisdom from an excellent and experienced communicator.
The strength of The Empowered Communicator as a resource rests in the foundational premise that challenges the reader to consider the best way to connect with an audience and deliver a message effectively. Three points made in the introduction show the author’s intent in the book. First, he presses the reader to consider his own practice of being in the presence of God as an inner authenticity. This is connected to the communicator’s power. While a power from the audience is acknowledged, the author states, “The Spirit of God is the first source of power for the sermon.” Second, trust is identified as that which must be established for communication to be effective. The reader must understand that the act of communicating comes from a servant, not a ruler.
Seven keys to empower the communicator shape the flow and content. These keys include
- Building a speaker-listener relationship
- Stepping over the ego barrier
- Promising your hearers usable information (and keeping your promise with content)
- Creating tension and resolution (building attention and story and finishing with a happy ending)
- Constructing a pyramid or priorities
- Making sure they hear through a trinity of audio values
- Killing interest-lag through six values of mobility.
Each key is explained and addressed by chapter.
One best distinction of The Empowered Communicator is the way the author addresses practical issues. More than just a list of best practices, this book takes principles of effective communication and ties them to their usage in light of the overall goal of the sermon. The reader is able to see more than just a list of what should be done to be a good communicator. The purpose behind these practices is the point the author is very intentional to make throughout the book.
An entire chapter is given dealing with the communicator’s ego. This is not a topic one often has the opportunity to read much about. This chapter takes the time to not simply rebuke the ego, but to address it with constructiveness. Acknowledging its presence, the author confronts it head on and shows how to control it, so it becomes a way to connect with the audience and not a barrier. I find this treatment very helpful, and rare.
This book is a rare handling of the dynamics a preacher will deal with in preaching. The author gives a detailed handling of issues and speaks to them in a way that gives principled understanding to the reader. In reading this book again after fifteen plus years, I found it refreshing and re-engaging to remind me of issues that I now have a greater awareness of after years of preaching experience. It has been very helpful to me once again.
More book reviews by Pastor Lane: