The key to powerful communication is to be personal.

Question: How do you maintain a sense of intimacy with your parishioners?

Rick Warren: The key to powerful communication is to be personal. The more personal it is, the more powerful it is. People don’t relate to statistics; they relate to stories. And what they love are life stories. It’s not an accident you go into any grocery store, the most popular magazine are gossip magazines. Why? We have an intense interest in hearing about other people.

And I always tell speakers, pastors, or anybody, whenever you’re talking to an audience and you start to lose them, just start telling a story. All of a sudden everybody will perk up and start listening again. You give a point for the head and a picture for the heart, a point for the head and a picture for the heart. And you layer it like cake. And these are just some of the techniques. I actually have a full week’s training on this – a five day seminar on how to communicate to change lives.

Recorded on: December 11, 2007