When I was taking piano lessons early on in life, I had a bad habit of pounding on the keys. In music terms, I loved fortissimo. “Very loud” came very easy to me. Then my piano teacher taught me the value of dynamics. She explained how beautiful music isn’t just achieved by hitting the right notes–it’s also a reflection of the dynamics. The power of fortissimo doesn’t grab our attention in music unless we also embrace the pianissimo, the very soft movements.
Have you ever been in public when a parent blows a gasket and starts yelling at their child but gets no response? Here’s my bet. The very first time the parent reacted like that, their child responded. The reason why kids choose to ignore a yelling parent is because it’s a learned response. Kids are smart. It doesn’t take them long to learn that if a parent constantly yells but never follows through with any real punishment, then they can ignore the screams.
Loud is only effective when it’s louder than normal. If it’s always loud, then loud becomes the new normal. In other words, loud is not loud anymore.
The same principle holds when we’re trying to promote something in ministry. Here’s how it works. You commit to a promotions campaign to get people to a new series or a big event. You decide to go loud. You buy the billboards, print the fliers, hang the banners, create the viral videos and announce to the world, “This is going to be the best deal ever!” That’s great. The first time it may work. And, chances are it could work, again, sometime in the future as long as you have some long pianissimo movements in between.
But, if you choose to go loud with every series and every event, people will get smart. They’ll soon learn that “loud” really means “normal.” When that happens, you’ll be spending a lot more time, energy and money, but people will learn to ignore your yelling. Loud will not be loud anymore.
Before you “pull out all the stops,” make sure you’re really going to deliver what you promise. It better really be the best deal ever. If not, all that yelling will eventually lead to you losing your voice–your message will lose credibility. People will stop believing you, and they’ll stop responding to your message.
If everything is loud, nothing is loud.
Does the same hold true with worship music? Maybe I should forward this to the sound guys :)
(Just a guy that is getting old and complaining about them darn kids.)
Thanks for the confirmation, Tony! We’re looking at 2010 for series development and considering where to pour heavily into and where to hold back some. Excellence in both, just more “oomph” resources in some.
Great post Tony! It’s always great to remember the boy that cried wolf!
great post. i actually thought about this fact the other day. great analogy with the parental scream.
–Terrace Crawford
http://www.terracecrawford.com
http://www.twitter.com/terracecrawford
This is great. We have noticed this phenomenon at our church with “announcements.” We contend that not only is loud no longer loud after awhile, but too much promotion and hype of too many focal points makes everything blend together. One big loud blur. We try to stick to a 2 minutes ONLY rule for all of our announcements Sunday mornings. Makes us priorotize.
The challenge is communicating to each group with something to promote why less is actually more. So far, so good, on that count.
This same principle is what drives me crazy about the “self esteem” culture our kids have to grow up in – where no one keeps score for the kids playing soccer, and everyone gets a medal for “participation” on track and field day. Reminds me of the Incredibles nemesis Syndrome announcing, “..because when EVERYBODY’s special, NO ONE is!”
:-) Thanks Tony. Great post.
Fantastic thoughts. Thank you for them.
Great post. My dad puts it this way–You can’t sustain hype. If this series will be the best your church has ever ever heard, then the next one will have to be even better. Some pianissimo goes a long way :)
These are some excellent points Tony. Just a thought:
I also am one to “notice” tones, especially those high pitched “others oriented” ones.
However, I have saw a few times whereas folks just happen to get “louder” for a brief time here and there. Seems that — although, everything looked just like another case for just another ordinary day with some high pitched shouts intertwined — they really were [simply] choosing to enjoy the ordinary stuff of eventful norms. And turned out they weren’t promoting anything after all … When that happens [time to time] it sure reminds me that I should be mindful of judging anything by its “appearance” alone.
Nevertheless, your post does “positively” serve as a good reminder to be “conscious” of what volume level one actually “intends” turning up their speakers to, before the tweeters burst. Thank you. :)
yes. Yes. YES. YES! YESSSS!!!!!!
Excellent post, Tony. I would love to read your thoughts on a decision-making process to determine which series/event/effort should receive the “loud” focus!
Great thoughts Tony! I appreciate them very much.
Wow Tony! This is your best post ever! You should promote it on all the sites you can and we should all link it in our blogs. And then do the same with all your following posts…..oh wait. ha
I learned this from Andy Stanley too. He says they only really emphasize one or two series a year.
Good stuff!
Thanks for the wisdom!
I guess this goes along the lines of going for base hits instead of having to hit the homerun every weekend.
Lots of really good principles in there. Especially for the annoyingly loud TV commercials and guys who mix albums so that there are no dynamics, it’s just volume at 10 from the start to the end of the song. How boring.
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