The number one tool in the leadership kit is words.

Opening our mouth, we utter sounds which others recognize as meaningful words and which we hope to have arranged in such a way as to inspire, instruct, and encourage, and once in a while rebuke. That’s a pretty hefty order for something as simple as words, but we’ve all seen people do it. We remember Churchill’s words in 1940 and Martin Luther King’s words in 1963 and we thrill at the power of speech well-chosen and powerfully delivered.

I’d like to do that, we all think to ourselves. We imagine the effect of speaking just the right words and watching lives change before our eyes.

If the number one tool in the leader’s kit is words, I daresay the number one failing of leaders, and especially the preacher-kind-of-leaders, is overtalking. It’s not that we did not use some great words in our talks, our sermons or our prayers; it’s that we surrounded those wonderful words with so many other words that we ended up devaluing their worth and weakening their impact.

Ask one of us preachers a question and 15 minutes later, we pause for breath and ask, “What was the question again?”

Shame on us.

We generally think of politicians as being bigger talkers than even preachers, but television debates and media interviews have forced them to choose their words and shorten their speeches. Often a moderator announces that a candidate has one minute to respond to a question. It’s great discipline for the speaker and easier on the audience. Of course, most speakers are not close to being through when the minute is up. But still, they’re trying.

Anyone who reads this blog knows I am on the side of the preacher. I know his battles because I fought them for 42 years. I know the pressures and joys, the stresses and the burdens, the demands and the endless expectations on him. I’m on his side. But I’m not blind to his faults–mainly, because I share them.

Watch a preacher make an announcement or express public appreciation for someone on a program. Here’s the way a typical situation goes….

“We’re indebted to the men’s group for preparing the supper tonight and to the ladies for serving it. The beautiful decorations were made by Mrs. Elsworth’s class. And weren’t they lovely. We ought to let you ladies work on the church office sometime. (He laughs; no one else does.) So, thank you men and thank you ladies, and thanks to Mrs. Elsworth’s class for the lovely evening. It was fine in every way, and we do appreciate it. We’re going to let you folks do it every year! (He laughs again.) Thanks very much. Let’s all give them a hand of appreciation.”

It’s called word inflation and it’s the occupational hazard of the ministry. Our Lord said the hypocrites of His day thought they were more likely to be heard by God if they padded their prayers with extra words. (Matthew 6:7) That kind of shallowness is still plaguing our prayers, but its twin afflicts God’s people from the pulpit as well.

Look at the paragraph above, the one where the pastor is thanking those responsible for the supper. He thanks them, then thanks them again, and then repeats it. Finally, he calls on the audience to applaud them.

No wonder people get that glazed over look when we stand to speak. We have bored them out of their minds to the point that they hardly listen to a word we say.

What if we learned to discipline our speech, forcing ourselves to say precisely what we mean and nothing more. Suppose the pastor’s little announcement had gone like this:

“We thank those responsible for tonight’s incredible dinner: the men for cooking it, the women for serving it, and Mrs. Elsworth’s class for the lovely decorations. Let’s give them a hand.”

There. You said it and you sat down. How refreshing.

Not one person in a hundred will think to thank you for the brevity. Subconsciously, however, they’re all feeling kindly toward you. The next time you rise to speak, they’ll be listening.

Let’s talk about our public prayers for a moment. Listen to certain ones of us pray in public.

“Lord, you have blessed us. You have given us….” (and there follows a long litany of the various blessings God has sent this way.)

“Lord, we think of those who have made this night possible.” (and there follows a list of those people alongwith the contributions of each.)

“Lord, as we go from day to day, traveling to work, to school, to the mall….” (and the speaker pads his prayer with a lengthy list of various places one might actually visit during the day.)

You get the idea.

What I wonder is whether it’s as boring to the Father as it is to us. I mean it. Not only is that prayer boring to the ones having to listen to it, in some cases it bores the one praying it. Again, shame on us.

I wonder what would happen if we decided to get to the point in our prayers. We pad our prayers like a high school senior with his English essay, adding filler, dropping in extras here and there, taking little side trips, all in the interest of praying longer and thus, presumably, better.

Bigger and longer are not better when it comes to prayer. Not if we can believe the greatest authority on prayer who has ever lived. Jesus taught us to think of prayer as asking, seeking, knocking. He told us to tell the Father what things we have need of, even though He already knows. (Matthew 7:7 and 6:8)

If that’s not saying, “Get to the point,” I don’t know what is.

There’s blind Bartimaeus sitting beside the road outside Jericho, begging for alms. When he hears that Jesus of Nazareth is entering the city with his disciples, Bartimaeus commences yelling, “Jesus! Son of David! Have mercy on me!” Over and over, he calls.

As the Lord comes within earshot, he stops and asks who is calling him. Someone tells him about the blind beggar creating a ruckus by his yelling for Jesus. “Well, bring him here,” Jesus says.

Now, watch this. They stand the beggar before Jesus. Our Lord, who had heard the man calling for mercy repeatedly, now asks him a wonderful question. “What do you want me to do for you?”

Bartimaeus had been asking for mercy, a general request which could have meant money, a better begging site, training programs for the blind, or a hundred other things. So, the Lord is asking him to get specific. What exactly are you asking for?

“Lord, I want to receive my sight,” Bartimaeus answers. “Okay,” Jesus says, and the man is healed. Just like that.

We all would do well to apply this test to our prayers: “What am I asking for?”

Get to the point.

A generation ago, John R. Rice was an evangelist, author, and editor of the fundamentalist wing of Christianity of some renown. Perhaps his most famous book was “Prayer: Asking and Receiving.” A line from that book goes something like this:

“Prayer is not a touring sedan in which to see all the sights of the city. Prayer is a truck which you drive to the warehouse and pick up the goods and return home.”

My longtime friend Chet Griffin–fighter pilot in Viet Nam, wing commander in the USAF, Sunday School teacher, and favorite son of Rolling Fork, Mississippi–heard me quote that line from Dr. Rice years ago and has attributed it to me ever since. I’m tempted to take credit for it, because it contains a great truth for all us over-talkers and boring pray-ers. But it’s not mine. It’s ours.

Through the years, I have prayed Psalm 141:3, “Set a guard upon my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips,” as a corrective to my tendency to use words harshly and wrongly. I often delighted in cutting a friend down with a caustic remark which left him bleeding as I walked away laughing at my own cleverness. I’m not over the problem yet, but have made lots of progress.

But that little prayer has an even stronger function.

In praying for the Lord to set a guard upon my mouth, I’m asking Him to control the amount of words allowed to exit that portal, the quantity as well as the quality. I desperately need help in speaking fewer, better words.

A number of pastors and Bible teachers read this blog. I thank you and I’m honored. Now, friend, I challenge you as I do myself to work at disciplining our mouths so that we speak clearly and on target, but overspeak our subject and outtalk our friends less and less.

Turn on your radio or television. There is enough boring talk in the world today without you and I adding to it. After all, we who have the greatest message ever should take pains to make certain we get a good hearing when we begin to share it.

“Set a guard upon my mouth, O Lord.”