It was 2007 when I moved from a very white collar, desk and laptop, type job, into a hard grinding trade environment as I started an irrigation and landscaping business. It was unfamiliar territory and it took me a while to get my bearings.

My soft pastor hands came home with knuckles skinned and covered in green irrigation glue, but at the same time I became conscious of the mass of people in our churches who work in these jobs, but are often unsure of what it looks like to live faithfully in that space.

My new book, Hi-Vis Faith, was birthed out of my concern for tradies and service workers, both men and women, who want to follow Jesus faithfully in their workplace, but who don’t connect easily with much of the current crop of books – many of which are excellent – just not speaking their language.

So, “Hi-Vis” is a description of the type of workers who will find this book most valuable—not a term to describe the kind of missional presence a worker should have while on the job. In fact I suggest “low-vis” as usually more appropriate for a secular, trade environment. There are few building sites that appreciate an evangelistic zealot on the warpath, but a quiet, faithful presence that consistently demonstrates the life of faith and answers questions with gentleness and respect is almost always appreciated.

My hope is that our tradies and service workers will have a valuable resource that is easy to read and theologically accessible, while offering some very practical stories and insight on how the life of faith takes shape in tough and sometimes toxic work environments. 

I have intentionally asked my friends who work in relatively unseen roles to contribute with their description of how they live their faith in the workplace.

Rob, the local mechanic writes of what it looks like to do auto work with integrity and kindness. Dave writes of recovering his childhood faith and now figuring out what shape that takes in a building environment. Ian writes of seeking a quiet retired life, only to find himself immersed in the life of a retirement village – and loving it. My favourite is Jen, who writes of her work, as a home schooling mum and part time belly dance teacher. It’s a beautiful story of good work done under the radar – as so much trade and service work is.

The book is available on Amazon and the audiobook, read by me is on Spotify and soon to be on audible. The movie is… Well there is no movie yet, but one of the contributors, Yanchep local, Matt just may decide one day to follow the life of some of our often unseen but faithful people who live their faith daily without any applause or recognition 🙂

The subtitle of the book ‘because ordinary work is sacred ground‘, is probably a little understated, but it’s true nevertheless. Wherever you find yourself there you are. That is the space God has placed you.

This morning I drove down to Morley to install a diesel heater for someone who couldn’t bring their van to me. The van was parked on a tarp—on grass and it has been raining, so there were large puddles of water everywhere. Not ideal. I asked if we could move it onto the driveway. That meant driving the client’s old GQ patrol and reversing into a nearly impossible hitch up situation. And… it was an old van and very low to the ground which meant nearly scraping your face on the floor as you slid along on the damp concrete minus the creeper because it just wouldn’t fit.

I could feel my ire rising with every moment spent “getting ready to work” rather than actually doing the job. And then the “other voice” blew in my ear to chill out, smile and relax. Simple enough, but it would have been easy to allow my frustration to spill over onto the young mum who was at home to meet me.

I was conscious of my change of attitude—conscious that I walked in already a little frazzled because of the heavy rain and the thought of enduring a soaking in a place a long way from home. In the end it didn’t rain, the job went well and I was able to shift my headspace to make it enjoyable for the client rather than allowing her to hear the brunt of my Monday morning blues.

Living faith in the workplace isn’t sexy or flashy. There’s no prizes for being a decent human being. But sometimes that’s all it takes to be different – to recognise the sacred ground that is ordinary work and to step up rather than away.

I set the book at $25.00 but for some reason it’s now $29.38 – not sure why – and the hardcopy version is some crazy amount ($100 last I checked!)

When I wrote my first book I felt it was important to have a brand name publisher on it. It felt like it maybe it gave it a little more credibility and gravitas than a random self publish.

But this time I have decided to figure out how to go it alone and self publish – not that I now feel famous and ‘out there’, but simply because I don’t think it actually matters that much. Using a publisher also means they take 90% of whatever $$ are actually made from the book. In my case that isn’t a huge amount, but I’d still rather take that 90% and pocket it myself.

So I’ve worked through the KDP process and the same with Ingram Spark (a bit more finicky). Findaway voices (Spotify) are my go to for audio-books and right now I reckon I am just a few days of final checking away from hitting ‘publish’.

The simple reality is that even if I ‘co-published’ again with some kind of better known name, they aren’t going to be marketing my book anywhere, or trying to help me spread the word.

It will get known in my own circles and through word of mouth, rather than clever advertising. I imagine more and more authors will take this route. I know some of the better known authors are already moving away from big name publishers for this exact reason.

So here’s a kind of ‘preface’ I have slotted into the book that gives you a feel of its focus and intent. If you know of someone who would find this book valuable then please spread the word.

A Quick Word?

So who writes a book and calls it Hi-Vis Faith?  

Who intentionally pitches a book at tradies, manual workers and other people generally not typified as readers? Because that is exactly what I am doing here.

Well… Someone who has lived in that world for 20 years and knows it from the inside. 

Someone who understands that hi-vis workers—both men and women—want to follow Jesus faithfully in their workplace. 

Someone who knows theology needs a practical edge if it is going to carry any real currency in everyday life.

For the last twenty years I have operated three different trade-based businesses while also pastoring churches and reflecting on the challenges of a practical working life.

I have read many books about work and deeply appreciated the way others have articulated the importance of our work in God’s world, but I’m yet to come across someone who writes with the gritty realism of having been immersed in a rough-edged trade environment for an extended period of time. 

So this is my attempt to bridge that gap. My hope is that it may empower and inspire these people to make better sense of their work in God’s world.

I could have landed a gig as a full time pastor—but for various reasons as I entered my mid forties, I found myself working in irrigation and landscaping. It was hard work, often done in the brutal summer sun. And it was unfamiliar territory to me. I had always worked in ‘white collar’ jobs, as a teacher or a pastor. Initially I was a fish out of water. These weren’t my people.

But I soon found myself enjoying the different culture—the conversations that happen on a worksite that are quite distinct from those in a church foyer or a school staff room. I appreciated the raw and unfiltered questions about “religion” that were often tossed at me.

I enjoyed doing a hard day’s work and then feeling proud as I looked at the lush green lawn, as I saw the smiles on the faces of the property owners.

As you read—or listen—to this book, I hope that you will feel equipped and inspired to go back to work knowing what your role is as a Christian.

I won’t be teaching you clever ways to convert people. That isn’t why you go to work. I will be helping you develop the conviction that your work matters. And I hope you will receive encouragement to represent Jesus well in tough and sometimes toxic work environments. 

Because when you “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and work with your hands”, as Paul said, people will notice. And if you live that life with integrity and faithfulness, you will win the respect of your co-workers, your clients and your community.

I spoke at a church recently where a young woman introduced herself to me and when I asked about her work she said coyly, “I’m just a check-out chick.” To her credit, that girl’s mother spoke before I could get the words out and said “You are not just a check-out chick.” I applauded the mother’s observation and her insistence that her daughter refuse to let her work be diminished by that label. Although this book is shaped by the hi-vis world, the deeper questions it explores belong to all of us.

Whatever you do—your work matters and the way you do it matters too. You have a role to play in God’s kingdom on this earth and your capacity to live your faith in whatever workplace you find yourself in is deeply needed in our world today – because ordinary work really is sacred ground.

Andrew Hamilton

June 2026

Sometimes when I’m talking with people who are new to public speaking and teaching in church I ask them to simply tell me in one sentence what you want to communicate.

If you can do that then you probably have a good grip on your focus. If you can’t then you need to do some more work to get it sharpened. I sense it is the same with writing.

From the time I began working on this book one quote from Martin Robinson has been at the forefront of my mind and has shaped my thinking. Here it is:

What would it look like for a church to function in such a way that the primary goal of church life was not to attract more people into attendance and membership, but to produce people who had a profound sense of their personal relationship to God, their resource in Christ and could take that reality into the world with them.

Martin Robinson – Invading Secular Space

I find this an absolutely inspirational idea summed up so succinctly. It’s an idea I could give the next 10 years of my life to without blinking. If only we could reimagine how we approach our work then we may well see a significant transformation in the landscape.

This is not a new idea. It’s just one that has never been fully explored. Why?…

I would almost bet that if I were to ask someone in your church what their ‘ministry’ is that they would look within to something they are doing inside the church family. Very few naturally and spontaneously look to their workplace. I wonder why that is?

So my hope is to take a run at this issue in the years to come and hopefully help people re-imagine their workplace as their first port of call when it comes to ministry – not in a wacky wierdo kind of way – but simply as the place where we reflect and live out the life of Jesus and where we are visible for 38 hours of our week.

I am doing some speaking around the place on this issue, so if you think your church would find it valuable to be challenged to reframe their thinking in this way then hit me up. The rest of this year is pretty tight, but 2027 is wide open. It’s the kind of subject that is best done over a 3-4 weeks time frame so that the ideas can get developed. If you want to see a few examples then check out Riverview Church on Youtube or Parkerville Baptist where I have done some work already.

When I set out to write this book it was with blue collar tradies in the forefront of my mind – people who know what it is to work hard and go home physically tired. It’s the space I know well and the ‘gap’ I see in the various books that have already been written with a focus on faith in daily work.

It’d be fair to say this mob aren’t renown for being avid readers, especially of non-fiction, theological type works. So I feel like I’m getting a knack or writing for niche groups. Last time was those exploring a bivocational approach to church leadership – a tiny group of people – and this time it’s tradies who like to read. Probably not a huge group either…

While this group were my initial focus my hope is that the book will be read well beyond. So it is written in a way that is accessible and easy to grasp.

That said I began to have a few wobbles as to whether the title would limit its’ reach. Truth is, it probably will. So I mused on various other titles; “Faith With Dirty Hands”, “Blood Sweat and Faith” as well as a couple of others, but after wrestling it around for a couple of weeks I’ve come back to my original focus and decided to lean in hard – hence the cover image of greasy hands gripping a spanner.

I was chatting with friends the other night about the choices and said “it’s not the difference between selling 100 000 copies or 50 000. It’s more a case of whether it sells a 1000 or 500.”

Thanks to all who offered their thoughts and reflections. It was helpful in the musing. I knew however that the decision was eventually going to be mine to make – rather than by Facebook poll or similar.

And yes, I realise the cover looks fairly blokey, but again, I just have to accept that I’m a blokey kind of man who writes in a blokey kind of way – so it fits.

Anyway, if Tim Keller, or Jon Mark Comer – two of the more popular authors in this space – haven’t lit a spark in you, then you might like to try Hamo’s Hi-Vis Faith. It will be published in a few weeks when I have had time to finish the audio version. My hope is to throw digital, paper and audio out at the same time, knowing that for some people audio is their staple these days.

Those words are not an apology. They are a deflection. A cop out of a mistake.

So try this instead

“Im sorry. I got it wrong.“

That is an apology. Note the difference. In the first you are the person with the problem. In the second I am the person with the problem.

An apology accepts responsibility and liability – something few people are prepared to do today.

Why the rant?

I tried to buy a car this week from Seaview Ford in Clarkson. I bought my current Ranger there 4 years ago and with 94k kms on the clock I wanted to turn it over. My previous experience was simple. Walked in, signed up and purchased a car. I asked for no red bow or extended ‘handover’ – just a white Ranger with a canopy. And that was what I got.

So I went back in December for a service and saw a potential change-over opportunity. The sales guy agreed to switch my wheels and canopy to the new car and we had a deal. The contract came thru but the ‘canopy’ part had been left off. No notification – just glad I read this stuff. A few phone calls later we find that sales guy has overstepped and made a mistake. No sale.

Then this week on Thursday I spot a car that is very good value for sale at Seaview, so I head down to take a look in between clients. Time is compressed but I haggle hard, we agree to a changeover figure for my car, shake hands and I head back to work with the contract to be emailed thru to me for reading and signing.

I let the sales manager know I wouldn’t be signing anything without a proper read, as previous experience had burnt me. But the contract didn’t come in. Ryan had got busy and didn’t get to it… (15 minutes of work he had told me if I wanted to wait, but I couldn’t wait.)

No contract Thursday and Ryan rings Friday to make sure I coming in to sign. Yep I am… once I read it… He is busy again so the contract eventually get sent to the wrong email address at midday before I correct him and he gets it to me. I am now running behind schedule for my next job in Caversham so I tell him I will read and sign later that day assuming I finish in time.

I hustle thru the job, hit the road for the Ford dealership, only to be rung by Ryan and asked if I’d like a different car instead.

“Nope – just the one we agreed on”

“That might be a problem… someone may be paying a deposit on it and getting finance for it”

‘Might be or are?’ I ask…

Short version – they sold the car to someone else – and that person ‘needed finance’. Translation = they were going to make a lot more out of customer ‘B’ than me so I got shafted.

Having busted my butt from my end to get everything sorted I was beyond belief that they would simply sell it to someone else without even a courtesy call to check and see if I was coming in.

But no. Car sold. And without a contract there is no actual agreement. I can even appreciate that as I’m sure some people give them the wind up. What I can’t get is the complete lack of courtesy to call and check in and then the subsequent ‘not our problem’ response.

I had a short conversation with the sale’s managers boss this morning who told me he was ‘sorry I felt that way and that they never want customers to have a bad experience’.

Which is verbiage for “bad luck mare” It was a very bad experience… and the ‘apology’ was even worse.

‘What about if I could do a really good deal on the other car?’ he asks as we end the conversation.

I’m incredulous… ‘I wouldn’t buy it off you if you took $10K off it .’ I said. ‘You will never see me again. And I will make sure other people are aware of how you do business.’

I’m just one insignificant cog in a very large machine, but I see the ugliness of people being nothing more than a dollar figure in a deal – and when a higher dollar figure walks in you lose. It’s the machine we all exist in and have to navigate, but we can soften its edges with kindness and respect. Or we can simply let it grind on…

So there is one dealership I will never return to… where the ‘car salesman’ slurr actually feels like it fits.

Heads up to those buying cars.

What is your ministry? Or what do you do that is of service to God and others?

How you answer that question is critical. 

Pause and take a moment to reflect on it before reading on.

———-

No—really pause—it’s an important question to ponder before continuing and it will make sense in a moment.

———-

Ok, the reason I ask you to consider that question is because I have a hunch that when church going people are presented with this question we typically look to what we do within the church; serving coffee, manning the audio system, playing music, or what we do in other parachurch groups that serves the wider community, eg street chaplains.

I wonder how many people’s minds gravitated immediately to their workplace. I have a sense that there wouldn’t have been many. We have been so conditioned to think of work as something separate to ministry (with the exception of specific ministry jobs; pastor, chaplain and the like), that we really struggle to imagine our workplace as ministry.

I want to wreck that idea, tear it down, rub it in the dirt and try and get rid of it altogether. It is as if we clock on to ministry when we do certain activities but work is not a ministry space.

In writing this book I am trying to help people envisage their workplace as their primary place of ministry. I will be helping you reclaim the eight hours you spend each day doing what some would consider unrelated to ministry whatsoever.

It’s a paradigm that doesn’t come naturally to us, because our church culture has predominantly framed ministry in terms of what happens in house or in overtly ‘Christian’ activities.

And that’s not to denigrate what does happen in-house. I have long said “if you are in the family then you help with the dishes.” Everyone has a part to play in our family—but our family isn’t an end itself.

So I’m expecting June will be the final edit and then publishing of this book. I am off to visit my friends at Sunshine FM next week for a couple of days to record the audiobook. I learnt last time that recording an audiobook allows you to pick any errors, as the spoken word is read slower than a normal scan. I also believe audiobooks are increasingly going to be a huge slice of the book market in years ahead.

And the beauty of publishing thru Amazon is that they allow you to create samples where you can test your design, font and lay out before committing. Just in case anyone is worried—the cover above is not the finished product…

It was the start of 2024 and a whole new phase of life for us. Danelle was going to study Clinical Pastoral Education and I was going to do some interim pastoring with Margaret River Baptist Church as well as running the caravan businesses.

Then Sam died.

Everything stopped and we took the time we needed to weather the assault of grief and just to regroup. As I write we are still in that process, but further down the track. A few months after Sam, my brother died, then in Dec last year one of my best mates and just last month mum and dad within a few days of each other. It’s been a heavy two years.

But it does feel like things are shifting. Up to now it’s been like walking thru dense, scrubby bush with no sense of where we are going and only just beginning to feel like we are hitting open space again. We can breathe, take stock, get our bearings and ask ‘what now?’

It’s almost like 2 years was wiped from our lives as we have simply survived the assault of grief and death. I know that’s not the case as we have grown, learnt and changed over that period too. I have written plenty about that so I won’t say any more here, other than to acknowledge that I know and feel things now that I don’t think I could have in Feb 2024. Is life richer for the experience? I dunno, I don’t think anything can be worth the loss of a son. It sux but I’m trying to make it suck in the best possible way.

As I’ve taken some time over the last 6-9 months to reflect on ‘what next?’, one of the things I have come to realise is that my future isn’t in local church pastoral leadership (of the permanent kind.) I feel like we can do the ‘interim’ stuff if it suits, but I don’t think I will ever be applying for either a part time or full time pastor’s job again.

That was quite a hard-hitting revelation this week, as I hadn’t actually given up on the idea before now. I would still take a look at the ‘positions vacant ‘ pages and ponder a new role in a new community. And as is often the case, the grass can look very green elsewhere and the illusion of a ‘perfect’ job, in a ‘perfect’ community can be quite alluring (and deceiving).

But each time I have pondered options I have to remind myself that we have spent 15 years embedding ourselves in the Yanchep community to the point where we know many people and we are well known and very much a part of it. We have a, beautiful street full of wonderful people and great neighbours. We would have to leave that behind.

With life organised the way it is at the moment we have time to be with people and do the very work we feel called to – the life of a “backyard missionary”. So to move to a new church would mean moving house and “moving friends” — because realistically you just can’t stay in touch with everyone. And we are only now in the place you really want to be—lots of friends, great connections and a life that we really enjoy.

Only yesterday morning I got a text at 10am from a mate letting me know a few local guys were going to surf a reef break that only fires occasionally – did I want to come? You bet! So 5 of us headed out for a blissful morning together. That wouldn’t happen spontaneously and regularly if we were to move house – esp if it took us away from the ocean.

That’s the biggest reason I think I couldn’t do it again. Moving house would be way too costly in terms of our relational and community investment. And unless it were for the rest of our natural lives it would also be out of line with our deepest sense of calling. As I learn more about mission and how the Christian message connects with Australian people I feel like there is much to be said for ‘staying’. It was once exciting and compelling to ‘go’ and plant churches, and while part of me would love the rush of doing all that again, another part of me knows that the best years of our time in Yanchep have been the last 5 as we have really felt the value of the previous 10 years. Real relationships take a lot of time. You simply can’t replicate that overnight.

Other than that I know that, reality is church leadership involves a whole bunch of tasks that I don’t enjoy and I’m actually not wired for. Many people still imagine pastoral work primarily as preaching, discipleship, leadership, and caring for people. Those things absolutely remain part of it. But the modern pastoral role often carries much more: managing expectations from every angle, organisational oversight and compliance, conflict resolution and lots of meetings just to name a few things. When I signed up to be a pastor it was with a view to meeting people where they were at and helping them move closer to Jesus. Now there is a lot more to it and I just don’t have the stomach for it.

It’s not that the church is doing stuff wrong or badly necessarily. It’s just living in this culture at this time when there are certain compliance issues that are both helpful as well as burdensome. It’s the shape ministry has taken in an increasingly risk driven context.

So while church leadership is no longer on the table, I sense I can make a better contribution from the place I am in currently. That means doing some speaking around the place, writing books and meeting with younger leaders hopefully to encourage and help them reflect. On one hand this feels like a beautiful place to be. On the other, leading a local community of Christians is very much in my blood and a hard thing to let go of. But I think it’s time. I remember during a few of my pastoral team meetings at Quinns feeling this sense of the Spirit saying to me, “get out of the way.” Not harshly, like I was an obstruction, but more like, ‘while you do what you do it limits what other younger people can do’. I’m fully aware that I still bring value, but I really do want to see the younger ones step up and shine.

So I think the time has come. As I have said many times, a ‘yes‘ to something is a ‘no‘ to something else and with only a finite amount of time left I want to be much more careful with those decisions so that the ‘yesses’ really count.

So future vocational plans include – in order of priority:

• Living in Yanchep for another 20-30 years and allowing our work here to develop organically. That is my hope, but as we know only too well an ‘early check out’ is always a possibility. But if we can just live here and be ourselves for an extended period of time then I sense good will come of it.
• Doing some speaking on subjects and ideas that I have done significant work on. I’m not a big fan of ‘one-off’ speaking gigs as it can be hard to get a real connection with people, so I lean towards 3-4 weeks of involvement or church camps. Not every church can allow this space, but there are plenty who can.
• Writing a few more books. I have the Hi-Vis Faith book due to come out mid June and I am currently working on something different – a 30 day Devotional / Reflective book focused on the letter of James.
• Catching up with younger leaders as it suits for them. This isn’t in any paid capacity so it’s more friendship than supervision or anything formal. That’s an intentional choice. I appreciate being invited into these spaces so I’m keen to be available to those who would find an older ear valuable.
• Developing the caravan businesses. I’m still not totally clear on where I want these to head. A part of me wants to get the diesel heater business firing to a point where I could sell it for a good dollar. But I don’t want it to absorb my heart and focus in these years, so it’s a tricky balance at the moment.

So while paid permanent pastoring may be a thing of the past, I don’t feel like I will be bored any time soon.

A few months back my friend Matt approached me and asked if I would be willing to make a short film that explored how I had processed grief since Sam’s death. I had met Matt in the surf about 10 years ago and we have become friends over that time. We share a love of the surf and a common faith. Matt also knew Sam and we had shared waves together at our local.

Matt is a brilliant videographer so I had no hesitation in saying “yes”, knowing he would tell a beautiful, hope filled story.

I noticed that I finish the film by saying ,”I think we’re going to be OK”. And I think we are—but more than ok we are going to continue to find joy and purpose in life and allow this tragedy to be woven into our story in some redemptive way.

And we live with the knowledge that one day we will be re-united and this time apart will be a blip on the radar of time. It doesn’t diminish the pain – but it does allow us to anticipate the life to come in God’s new creation

The film is one of a series Matt is producing titled, All Good Things Take Time Friend. If you go to his Youtube channel you will find 2 other short films about Yanchep locals, Warrick & Hamish, both also beautiful and inspiring to watch.

A few months ago Matt approached me and asked me if I would consider working with him to tell the story of how I have been processing the grief of losing Sam. I made a decision a while back to try and hit any situations like this front on, so I said ‘yes’.

I know some people need privacy and others just don’t want to revisit that kind of pain, but if I’m living in it anyway then I want to try and wring some good out of it.

Matt is a brilliant film maker, so I had no hesitation in saying yes to him particularly. I knew he would tell the story truly and beautifully. I met him in the surf at Yanchep about 10 years ago and we have become friends over that time. We share a common faith so he gets where I come from in this story. You can watch two promo links here & here and buy tickets here

The film itself is part of a series titled “All Good Things Take Time Friend”. It is both a brutally and beautifully honest slice of my life over the last two years. And I chose to participate in it not because I need anyone’s attention or adulation. I was happy to do so because I believe Matt allows me to speak a) to how blokes process grief b) how I reconcile my faith with a God who didn’t save my son.

So I hesitate to put this out there because I don’t want to say ‘come and look at me’, but I do want to say come and see what Matt has created. It isn’t soppy, nor does it point to easy answers. Matt does a great job of both tapping into the gritty daily reality of walking thru grief as well as capturing the hope that we have – that it’s all going to be ok. It really is going to be ok in the end…

The film is one of 3 that will show on Saturday evening. The first is about Warrick Palmateer another surfer friend, Yanchep local and very gifted ceramic artist. The second shows a local called Hamish creating a knife in his home-made forge – over a period of 100 hours and then the third is my story curated by Matt.

He asked me if I was happy to trust him and see it for the first time this Saturday. I absolutely trust him – but I wasn’t sure I could cope with the intensity of that – so I watched it a couple of weeks ago and I am really stoked with how it turned out.

If there is any beauty story in the brutality of the last two years then Matt has been able to tap it and unfolds it superbly.

I know he’d love to know how many people are coming so if you can, book a ticket ahead of time here.

Ok – this is more a stream of consciousness than deeply reflected on…

I just finished watching a video of someone preaching and it left me cold. Their content was good and their delivery was excellent – polished even – but I felt like I was watching a ‘Ted-talk’ like performance. It felt like the person had virtually memorised the script and was acting out the part. Often those Ted talks have a certain tone that just feels too tightly tied to a script.

It just led me back to pondering what we consider as ‘good preaching’ and I guess I have formed my own opinions on this over the years.

But it definitely isn’t polished oratory.

Those days are long gone. Neither is it academic exegesis and so called ‘deep teaching’. If we want to help people listen then surely the first step is to tune into the frequency on which they are listening.

Yes – we tune in to where they are. It’s not their job to make sense of our input – but it’s our job to help them understand by speaking their language. A couple of weeks back I had a bloke say to me ‘I like that you speak the Aussie language’. I took that as a compliment because I was trying to connect with a largely Australian crew of people. I imagine I would change tone a little in a very mixed context or in one where the majority were from another country.

John Smith used to say that if we want to connect with people then we need to speak in the ‘language of the vernacular’. In other words high fallutin words need to be ditched in preference for simple – basic communication. Sure – there’s a place for technical language, but it should never be the dominant form of our communication.

As far as polish goes, I have walked down the track of preaching from memory rather than notes and I found I spent too much time mentally background processing where I was up to and what was next. I don’t use notes a lot – but I do like knowing I have a structure to follow and it’s one I can change on a whim.

I will take conversational over polished any day. I remember years ago preaching would be a draining experience as I invested enormous amounts of emotional energy in voice modulation and what was virtually a performance. These days I lean heavily on simple conversational approach – in fact one of the closest styles of public communication I see that resembles good preaching is the stand up comedian who is able to interact with the crowd. There is an easy going, but confident approach that invites people in, rather than a download of knowledge. I rarely come home exhausted these days or suffer from morning after blues.

Not that knowledge is bad. We obviously want to communicate knowledge and biblical knowledge to be precise, but in a world where good communication is everywhere on Youtube and beyond we are unlikely to compete with the greats who have thousands of followers.

So knowing your audience matters enormously. Then knowing yourself and being yourself is so important too. Occasionally I speak at event where i find myself wondering ‘why me?’ I don’t think these are my people at all. That can be hard.

Although one thing I learnt from Calvin Miller when he was teaching in Perth many years ago was what he called ‘the talk before the talk’ – the 2-5 minutes we spend building initial connection with the listeners. For people we know well it’s a very brief time, but when I speak to a new crowd I usually take 4 or 5 minutes to try and make a connection. Those 4 or 5 minutes ‘lost’ from ‘content’ will establish a connection that ensures whatever is communicated has a better chance of making a dent.

Dress sense is interesting. Some churches have a certain dress code that needs to be adhered to. I accept that if i ‘dress down’, it’s prob gonna make it harder for people to listen. So typically shorts are off the menu when speaking around the place – but they are my staple when on home turf. I rarely wear long pants or shirts with buttons – but sometimes this little stuff just needs to be rolled with so that people aren’t immediately questioning your credibility. ‘Who is this dude who looks like he just rolled in off the beach?!’ In my own context I probably have just rolled in off the beach, but if people don’t know me then it just means I’m kicking into the breeze for the first 15 minutes.

Using slides is another issue. I see the value for Bible readings and quotes – maybe even for main content points. But they can also make a conversational message start to feel like a lecture. I sometimes choose to speak with no slides because it affords a freedom that slides don’t. That said I usually tell the person on the projector that the slides are only a guide and I may not use some of them. My jury is out on the value of slides v the value of simply speaking to people.

Of course I am a big advocate for communication by story telling. And Jesus is our best example of that. I find myself bemused by pastors who open with a Bible reading followed by some theology. Most people zone out before the end of the Bible reading. But tell a story, especially with some humour and then you can go back to scripture and offer an anchor for your story. If you don’t tell stories then you aren’t gonna connect. There is only so much expositional stuff people can digest before they need a break and a laugh. It takes time to find good stories but that is the work of good communication – observing life and seeing how it connects.

And finally when I’m speaking with someone who is struggling to communicate I often ask ‘what is it you want to say in one sentence?’ If you can’t answer that question then you aren’t ready to stand in front of a group of people as you really haven’t nailed why you are there. So so simple – but so so important. One sentence. If you can’t nail it to one sentence then keep working until you can. OR ditch some stuff. I sometimes see people with way more content than is necessary. Keep it simple – not ‘basic’ – just clear and simple so the message isn’t lost in a haze of clever words.

Bottom line – know your audience – be yourself – know what it is you want to say in one sentence – tells stories. Tell more stories. People listen to stories and you can slip some dangerous truths into stories!

Ok I’m done – now I’m off to the beach 🙂

And tomorrow is my first time ever speaking in a Church of Christ…