Jesus was the most effective communicator who ever lived. Dr. Charles Stone, a pastor with a background in the neuroscience of leadership, breaks down the brain science behind how he taught, connected, and moved people to change. Connection. Emotion. Memory. Action. This conversation will change how you talk to everyone in your life. ---------- See the full episode transcript below. 👉 Enhanced show notes: JesusSmart.com/379 👉 Explore more episodes: JesusSmart.com/podcast If this episode gave you a fresh perspective on Kingdom Living, share it with someone who needs encouragement. Be sure to follow the podcast. Each episode is designed to help you think more clearly and pursue the kind of life only Jesus makes possible. Stay current via The Smart Edit newsletter—Elevate your faith. Live smart. Make an impact. Free. Weekly. 5 minutes to grow. Sign up at JesusSmart.com/smartedit. ---------- EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Talk Like the Most Effective Communicator Who Ever Lived Brian Del Turco: Hey there, friend. Welcome to the podcast. This is Brian Del Turco, and this is Jesus Smart X. I'm glad you're here. This is episode 379, and you can find the show notes for this episode at jesussmart.com/379. This is a special required-listening episode: a recording from the past that we're surfacing again, because it's about communication, and communication makes everything work. Jesus was a master communicator, and we have a lot to learn from him. Here's Dr. Charles Stone, an expert on neuroscience and communication. Dr. Charles Stone helps us explore what it might look like if Jesus gave a TED Talk: eight neuroscience principles the master teacher used to persuade, whether in one-on-one conversation, small clusters, or massive crowds. We'll survey all eight briefly, then dig into a few in more depth, including creating affinity, leveraging emotion, and stimulating real life application. Dr. Stone is a pastor in Canada with an executive master's in the neuroscience of leadership, and he's currently working on his PhD. Here's my conversation with Dr. Charles Stone. Meet Dr. Charles Stone Brian Del Turco: I'm really excited about our guest today. He's an expert on neuroscience and leadership as it relates specifically to ministry, though I think there's application here across every life domain. Scripture tells us to love God with all our mind, to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. Is it too much to say that the mind of Christ in us involves a kind of neuroplasticity, that we can actually grow in the mind of Christ? Dr. Charles Stone: Not at all. The way God designed us to learn is through actual changes in our brain, and those changes reflect our values, our beliefs, and our convictions. Brian Del Turco: Communication makes the world go round. Does this apply beyond the pulpit, to relational communication in family life, friendships, teaching? Dr. Charles Stone: Absolutely. God wired us to communicate in a way that isn't just for someone standing up front on Sunday morning. Our brains are wired to pay attention, to respond, to feel safe or unsafe around others, regardless of the setting. Biblical communication principles apply across the board. Dr. Stone holds degrees from Georgia Tech, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Trinity Evangelical, plus an executive master's in the Neuroscience of Leadership. He's the author of *If Jesus Gave a TED Talk*, a title he borrows not because Jesus gave neat eighteen-minute talks, but because he masterfully lived out the best ways to communicate and make truth stick. He was God, so we don't have what he has, but we can still learn from how he taught. The Forgetting Curve That Sparked a Book Brian Del Turco: What prompted you to write this book? Dr. Charles Stone: As a pastor spending fifteen to twenty hours a week preparing a message, I had this nagging feeling: what difference is this actually making? None of my seminary professors ever taught the theory behind what makes a message stick. Then I came across research from a German psychologist, Hermann Ebbinghaus, who invented nonsense words, memorized them, and measured how quickly he forgot them. That gave us the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, and it's since been repeatedly confirmed: people forget more than 95 percent of what they hear in a teaching session within a week's time. That was a wake-up call. Are there tools, principles, that communicators can apply to increase retention? Absolutely. That's why I wrote the book, and why others are studying the neuroscience of learning and communication. Eight Questions, Eight Principles Dr. Stone built his framework around eight questions, one for each principle: where you want to take your audience, how to get them to listen, why they should listen, how to beat out distractions, how to help them feel the message, how to make it stick, how to help them believe they can change, and what you want them to do afterward. Those became eight principles: clarity, attention, affinity, capacity, durability, emotion, mindset, and transfer. For a full breakdown, visit the show notes at jesussmart.com/379. Affinity: Creating Real Connection Dr. Charles Stone: Connection happens on two levels. First, with your material. You've all sat through a class or a sermon where the speaker clearly doesn't know their own content; that requires homework on our part. Second, and bigger, is human connection. Psychologists call it in-group and out-group. When people feel you're in their in-group, they pay attention and follow you. When they feel you're in the out-group, they can subconsciously register you as a threat, and they simply won't listen as well. Sometimes when I'm speaking to a new audience, I'll show a picture of my family, my kids, my dog. It signals, this is a normal guy. It builds trust. And the more you actually know your audience's needs, the more you can tailor what you say to them. I once heard a speaker from the southern U.S. reference a Chick-fil-A item to a room of Canadian pastors, and half the room had no idea what he meant. Small thing, but it's a missed connection. People sense, subconsciously, whether you know them. Brian Del Turco: That's a powerful baseline human instinct: to be seen, heard, known. Emotion: Engaging the Heart Dr. Charles Stone: If we'd been a fly on the wall for Jesus's preaching, we'd have heard passion, present enough that crowds asked, "Who is this who teaches with authority?" Emotion isn't just about the communicator's delivery; it's also how powerfully emotional learning sticks. I remember exactly where I was when the Challenger exploded, and when the towers fell on 9/11. That's the kind of stickiness emotion creates. There's a flip side, though: cognitive dissonance. Push people too far ahead of where they are and you lose them. Stay a step or two ahead, not miles ahead. If most people aren't keeping a daily devotional habit, don't challenge them to an hour a day; challenge them to ten minutes, three days a week, then raise the bar the next week. Well-placed stories matter too. Jesus told parables. A good story pulls a listener inside it; they become an actor in the narrative, engaging mind and heart together. Transfer: Stimulating Life Application Dr. Charles Stone: The goal of teaching isn't to disseminate information; it's for something to change outside the room. That requires prospective memory: remembering to do something in the future. Simple cues help. Some churches hand out small cards with a question from the message; people tape them to a dashboard or refrigerator as a reminder to apply what they heard that week. A Word on Contagious Confidence Dr. Charles Stone: There's something called emotional contagion: people catch your emotions, good or bad. I once watched a fast-food manager berate his cook in front of a line of customers; he'd set a tone, and it spread. Walk into a room defeated or irritated, and people won't lean in. Bring an encouraging spirit and they believe, "I can actually do this." That said, authenticity still matters; naming a real struggle briefly, without becoming a weekly downer, builds empathy rather than distance. This ties to mentalizing, our built-in ability to intuit the feelings and intentions of others: part spiritual sensitivity, part the way God wired our brains to read facial cues. We can't compartmentalize the spiritual from the physical; it's one integrated human experience. Closing Prayer Dr. Charles Stone: Father, thank you for technology that lets us share these conversations. Thank you for designing our brains and giving us the ability to form words and meaning. Thank you for the beauty of language, even though we so often misuse it. Lord, I pray listeners would take even one nugget from this conversation, and that your Holy Spirit would embed it deep. You've shown us your way of communicating through the Gospels, through how Jesus taught and told stories. May we learn from him as the teacher of all teachers, and may we steward this gift well. In your name, amen. For more on this conversation and the full eight principles from If Jesus Gave a TED Talk, visit jesussmart.com/379.
