Christian Communication Skill 9

Pastor Spell explores the empathy response cycle and how you can confidently respond with empathy in every conversation. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Welcome to Know Your Bible Institute, where we study the Word of God to learn and grow spiritually, how to understand what God is saying to us. We learn this through an examination of the scriptures. Today's session is on Christian communication skills. We want to discuss in today's session empathy and action, moving from understanding to response. Understanding empathy intellectually and practicing it in real conversations are two entirely different skills. You might grasp the theory perfectly, you know what empathy is, why it matters, how it differs from sympathy, but still freeze when someone shares something difficult with you. Your mind goes blank, you can't find the right words, or you default to unhelpful responses like advice giving or minimizing. This gap between knowing and doing is where most empathy education fails. Today's session bridges that gap by providing you with a clear, actionable framework for translating empathetic awareness into empathetic response. The four-step empathy response cycle, notice, feel, understand, and respond gives you a mental roadmap to follow in any situation where someone needs empathetic connection. It transforms empathy from an abstract concept into a concrete concrete practice you can implement immediately. The genius of this cycle is that it slows down what usually happens automatically and unconsciously. Most people skip directly from hearing someone's words to formulating their response, missing the crucial middle steps where genuine misunderstanding or genuine understanding develops. They notice the surface situation, bypass the emotional resonance and meaning-making processes and jumps straight to reaction. This short circuit produces responses that, while well intentioned, often miss the mark entirely. Consider what typically happens when someone shares a problem. I mean, your friend says, My boss criticized my report in front of everyone today, and your brain immediately starts generating responses. That sounds like harassment. You should report it. Or don't take it personally, or the same thing happened to me some time ago. Well, all of these responses might have some validity, but they're generated without truly understanding what your friend is experiencing or what they need from you in this moment. The empathy response cycle interrupts this automatic process and inserts intentionality. Step one, notice. This requires you to become aware of all the emotional cues beyond just the words. Voice, tone, body language, facial expressions, energy, what's being left unsaid. This step is a place where you're gathering data about the person's actual emotional state, not just the surface content of their message. Step two, you want to feel. This allows you to allow someone's emotional resonance to develop with their experience. This doesn't mean becoming overwhelmed by their emotions or losing your own center. It means you're opening yourself enough to sense what they might be feeling. The embarrassment of public criticism, the hurt of feeling attacked, the anger at the power dynamic, the fear about job security. This felt sense guides you toward genuine understanding rather than intellectual analysis. Step three, understand. This involves making meaning of their experience from their perspective. Why would this situation be difficult for them specifically? What needs might be unmet? What fears might be activated? What values might be threatened? This third step understand requires you to temporarily suspend your own perspective and fully inhabit theirs, seeing the situation through their eyes, given their history, personality, and circumstances. Only after these three steps have created genuine understanding do you move to step four, which is respond. And now your response can be truly empathetic because it's informed by actual understanding rather than assumptions. You're responding to what they're experiencing, not to what you imagine they're experiencing or what you would experience in a similar situation. In this session, we discuss specific language patterns for empathetic responses, reflection responses that mirror back what you're hearing, validation responses that normalize their reactions, and support responses that offer help while respecting autonomy. These aren't scripts to memorize, but templates to adapt based on what the situation truly calls for. Perhaps the most valuable thing in today's session is we want to help you recognize when you've missed the empathy mark and how to repair it. Even skilled empathizers sometimes respond ineffectively. They're tired, distracted, triggered, or simply misread the situation. The ability to notice when your response hasn't landed well and to try again is what separates adequate empathy from excellent empathy. This session will help you deal with one of the common fears of saying the wrong thing. The truth is imperfect empathy delivered with genuine care is far better than perfect technique delivered mechanically. People can kind of sense when you're truly trying to understand them versus when you're just going through the motions. This empathy response cycle gives you a framework to follow. But your authentic care and presence, your sincerity are what make your responses truly empathetic. By the end of this session, you'll have a practical, memorable process for moving from empathetic awareness to empathetic action. You'll understand not just what to say, but how to arrive at what to say through genuine understanding. And you'll have the confidence to practice empathy in real time, knowing that you have a reliable framework to guide you when someone needs your understanding and support. And so what are the steps again of the empathy response cycle? Step one, notice. Step two, feel. Step three, understand, and then step four respond. Again, four steps in the empathy response cycle to first notice, then feel, next understand, and then lastly respond. Step one notice. Noticing requires us to be present and attentive. In our distracted world, this is often the most challenging step. What should we be noticing? Changes in voice, tone or pace, body language shifts, facial expressions, energy energy levels. We want to notice what's being said and what's not being said and patterns in behavior. Listen to this story about the noticing nurse. Emergency room nurse Janet was having a particularly busy shift when an elderly man was brought in with chest pain. His test came back normal, and the doctor cleared him for discharge. But Janice noticed something others missed. He seemed reluctant to leave. He kept asking questions about symptoms he'd already discussed. His wife looked anxious and kept glancing at him, and he mentioned living alone since the kids moved away. Instead of rushing him out, Janet sat down. Well, Mr. Rodriguez, I have a few minutes. Is there anything else you're concerned about? He hesitated, then admitted, this is the third time this month I've had chest pain. I kept keep thinking, what if next time no one's around to call 911? Janet realized he wasn't just dealing with chest pain, he was dealing with fear, loneliness, and anxiety about living alone. She was able to connect with him and provide him with resources and support that addressed his real needs. Step two, feel. Allowing yourself to feel what others are feeling doesn't mean becoming overwhelmed by their emotions. It means opening your heart enough to understand their experience from the inside. Healthy emotional resonance. What is healthy emotional resonance? Well one you feel with them, not feel instead of them. You can't take the pain from them by feeling it. You maintain awareness that these are their feelings and not yours. You can always step back when needed. And you use the feeling information to guide your response. You don't own it. Listen to this story of the feeling father. When eight year old Sophie came home crying because her best friend had said mean things to her, her dad's first instinct was to minimize. Don't worry, honey, kids say things they don't mean. But then he paused and let himself feel what Sophie might be feeling. He remembered the sharp pain of childhood rejection, the confusion when someone you trust hurts you. Instead of minimizing, he said, Sophie, that must have really hurt your feelings. When someone we care about says mean things it can feel awful. Sophie nodded and climbed into his lap. It did hurt Daddy. I thought she was my friend. I can understand why you'd feel confused and sad. Tell me what happened. By allowing himself to feel the echo of Sophie's pain, Dad was able to respond in a way that validated her experience rather than dismissing it. Step three, understand. Understanding goes beyond feeling. It's about comprehending the meaning and context of someone's emotional experience as well. Here's some questions for understanding. What might this situation mean to them? What needs might be unmet here? What fears or hopes might be involved? How does this connect to their values or past experiences? Listen to this story about the understanding manager. Team leader Rachel noticed that her usually reliable employee Tom had been making uncharacteristic mistakes and seemed distracted during meetings. Her first thought was performance management. But instead of jumping to correction, she sought to understand. During their 101, she said, Tom, I've noticed you seem to have a lot on your mind lately. How are things going for you? Tom hesitated, then shared that his teenage daughter had been struggling with depression and had recently started therapy. He was worried about her, losing sleep, and having trouble concentrating. Well, Rachel understood that Tom's work performance wasn't about lack of caring or competence. It was about a father's deep concern for his child. Tom, thank you for sharing that with me. That must be incredibly stressful. Let's talk about how we can adjust your workload temporarily while your family navigates this. And the last step, step four, respond. Empathetic responding is an art that combines emotional attunement with practical wisdom. Again, it's an art form. And each person will perform it differently. But we will use the same skills. Here are some elements of empathetic responses first, acknowledgement of their experience, validation of their feelings, support that matches their needs, respect for their autonomy, following through on commitments. So here are some common empathetic response patterns. These will be most helpful for your empathy toolkit. Things that can help you respond with empathy. Number one, the reflection response. Here is what the reflection response sounds like. The reflection response is you're trying to reflect back what you're hearing. And so you begin it by simply saying it sounds like you're feeling. Presenting to the executive team is a big deal, and you want it to go well. So this response, empathy response, makes their feelings legitimate and valid. And then lastly, the support response. This response sounds like what would be most helpful for you right now? And this response offers help while respecting their autonomy. This response is one that we lean in towards because it shows promise for progress, improvement, fixing a situation, if at all possible when we offer support. Here's an example. A family member says, I'm overwhelmed with everything I need to do. Here's a support response. That sounds really stressful. What would be most helpful for you right now? Someone to brainstorm solutions, help with tasks, or just listen. And so you open up with the support response, a door for a person to meet some needs that may be unmet, causing those feelings. Here's a story about the school pickup. Five-year-old Maya ran to her mom crying after school. What Maya said Emma didn't want to play with me today. Here's a non-empathic response mom could have said. Don't cry about it. Other kids to play with. Maybe you did something to upset her. Well don't worry about her, she's not a nice friend anyway. These responses, although well intentioned, completely missed the mark. Here's an empathic response. Oh sweetie, that must have felt really sad and confusing when Emma didn't want to play. Tell me what happened. You see, this second response acknowledges Maya's emotions, it validates that her feelings make sense, it invites her to share more, and most of all it doesn't dismiss, blame, or jump to solutions. Consider this story about the worried wife. Margaret's husband comes home stressed about a work situation. What he said. Well, don't take it personally. At least you got a job. Well, what did you do wrong? An empathic response to the contrary? Well, that sounds embarrassing and frustrating, especially being called out in front of your colleagues. How are you feeling about it? This response reflects both the situation and likely emotions. It shows understanding of why it would be difficult and it asks for more information rather than making assumptions. One more example. The struggling student. Chemistry is challenging and it must feel overwhelming to worry about failing. What's been the hardest part for you? You see, this response provides empathy because it validates the emotional experience, it acknowledges the legitimate difficulty, and it acts for specifics to better understand the situation. And so, in conclusion, consider again the four-step process for empathizing, to notice, to feel, to understand, and then respond. Which of these steps is most natural for you? And which step do you find most challenging? Think of a recent conversation where someone shared something difficult with you. How did you respond? And how might that conversation have gone differently if you employed an empathy process? And so we're going to open up the line. If there be any questions from today's session about the empathy response cycle, you are free to make your question ask your questions or provide comments. How do you find yourself sharing empathy?

SPEAKER_01 21:26

All participants are unmuted.

SPEAKER_03 21:39

Questions about the empathy response cycle? Comments about the empathy response cycle. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

For people who take your notes? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

The first step is notice. Notice their emotional cues. The second step is feel. Allow yourself to feel their emotion. The third step is understand their experience. And then the last step is respond. Notice, feel, understand, and respond. This is available. This book is book one of a beginner's guide to effective nonviolent communication strategies. This is part one, the foundation of empathy. Well, if there are no more questions or comments, we will conclude our session on today. Evangelist Louise.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

You'd unmuted yourself.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Yes, I did unmute myself. But say if you're a stranger to those things to you, how do you recognize how do you use that cycle towards the end with them?

SPEAKER_03 23:47

With a stranger or someone you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

But with a stranger.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

You you would what you offer in terms of support is going to be limited to what you could offer. And so if it's someone that's a stranger, I'm what I'm I'm gonna limit what I suggest to offer as support to what I could provide. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

I'm just uh I was thinking because uh we was uh out of the vanuizing and uh the other venue, she said uh she said, would you like question? He said, Oh yes, I need it. And then so we prayed with him, and then he walked away. He said, I just need something to try to just deal with this cancer diagnosis and so you know so after he walked away, you know. I said, we can reveal that before we start playing, because you know, normally nobody tell you specific. You deal with you know, you put in general, you know. So it's like so we have to go, you know, we listen different ones for it, and some of them tell you what they want, some you know, some just they went to release, you know, before you try to make decisions for them in different things. That was a couple of ones this past Tuesday. So it's hard. It's not with a glass, you know, it makes you more aware of what you need to be concentrating on when you do speak to your loved one or standing on the street that you're witnessing to.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

Amen. Amen. And I would encourage you, hold on one second, Reverend Smith, Evangelist Louise. I'd encourage you to have the compassionate conversation in before prayer. So many times when I'm with uh uh Sister Candy's on the line, uh she was on the line, I can uh tell on her for a second. So when I'd first uh come to who's giving me feedback when I first come to I was at the church and Sister Candy was telling me situation with a family, and she wanted me to pray for her. And I stood there and started asking questions and you know, empathizing because wanted to practice what I knew, and it was funny because uh apparently I was taking too long, and Sister Candy said, Can you just pray? And I I I just laughed to myself because it was funny in that moment. I was trying to empathize, and she she she didn't even she didn't need that that time. She she just needed me to pray. That's all she needed. She just wanted me to be in prayer with her. But the thing that and and but that's different because of course I know, right, Sister Candy. She, you know, I I it's not the same as a stranger, so I knew more what to pray for. But when I would go visit in the hospital as a chaplain, of course, and you know, patients are there, family members are there, we we're listening to what their needs are before we begin praying or asking God for anything. They may be in the hospital for hip replacement or knee replacement, and you would think that oh, they need help recovering from this surgery, but the thing that's really stressing them out is that child that's living in a house that won't go get a job or whatever, you know. That's their that's what's really bothering them, and you you wouldn't get to knowing that without allowing them to express themselves. So even on the street corner, when I'm praying with people or connecting with people, I'm first trying to see them. That's the whole piece where we read in scripture Jesus had compassion on them. First, I want to see them. What's your name? What's going on? How's your day been? How's your family? You know, asking those kinds of questions shows interest, it shows concern, and it allows you to feel, and it won't take too many questions before they'll open right up and they'll begin to share with you. One Saturday, we'd gone out last year, I believe, was it earlier this year, where we walk through the neighborhood and we're praying with people and passing out flyers. We probably should do that this weekend. So anyway, we get invited into one of the folks' homes, and we just offered to pray with them, let them know we were at church, and when we went over, I didn't immediately jump into praying. I immediately saying, How you doing today? What's your name? I'm so-and-so, and it's your family. Wonderful, how are y'all doing? And immediately he lets me know he's, you know, going through uh dialysis treatment. His wife just died not too long ago, his mom had died, and he and his son were just in grief. And so it gave us that context. So empathy is going to make praying much more effective and impactful. And just to show it to you, turn with me in your Bible to James chapter five. And you'll know this passage because we want to read chapter five. Let's start reading at verse fourteen and go all the way through sixteen.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

So starting at James five, fourteen and sixteen, y'all see it?

SPEAKER_03 30:53

It says, Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. So, this last part about confessing our sins is conversation, is opening up, and that's what empathy allows us to do. Alrighty. Well, final comments for today. Well, Evangelist Louise, praise God, every day is your day.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

I was gonna say something, but you you said, wait a minute, and I did win past it.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

I'm sorry, come on back, Reverend Smith. I I was trying to respond, but Evangelist Louise said before I forgot.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Okay. One of the things I just wanted to say was this lady that I met at the funeral home, she she was out there parked by my car. And I was at Winfield Funeral Home at the funeral?

SPEAKER_03 32:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

And at that time, I didn't know who she was. She knows who I was, but she said I saw you, I saw your car parked here. So you're ribbing a preacher. I put the name what she asked me. I said, ma'am, how many help you? She said, I need prayers right now. I need prayers. This lady now has gotten and gave us some material on top of the find out. She wouldn't give us a name even, okay? Until I finished talking about it. So I said, Why do you want to talk to a strange person? Well, I feel a girl and put her there, put me there to speak to her. So when she started talking to me about different things, I was able to give her spell material concerning prayers and concerning the program. And this lady lives in Mary, Louisiana. Now she comes online and kind of told her with her body, okay? She said she had to have surgery on her body. She was with her daughter that came there and getting some information on the pillow that they had earlier. So I was able to speak to her while she was waiting for her daughter to come back to get her in her car. I was able to talk to her, able to speak to her, and so we had a good conversation. But I find it's important sometimes just to have some things that you want to give someone and they will accept them if they want cause, if they really want the cause, they will accept what you give them. And this man did accept those things. And now I call her to find out how she's doing. She doesn't move, okay? And she's been she's been on a car line at 12 o'clock. So she didn't receive information and she had surgery recently. So what I'm saying to you is we have to just continue to trust God and put the right people in our lives so we can continue to ask God to bless them. And that's what I did. So I'm just telling you, if we just continue to trust God and see us through, He will send people to us who are looking for prayers and understanding of what they're going through. That's what I find about people and what they do.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

Well, that's what look, that's what empathy, that's what empathy will do for us. That's what empathy will do. You empathize with that woman before you prayed with her. You had a whole conversation. And that's what empathy is. The conversation where we take the time to hear what a person is going through before we try to offer any help or solution to them.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

I had I had her to write her name in my book in one of my little my little uh notebook, composition book. She would have making me and I still have it. So I talked to her on because she calls me and I talked to her earlier. So you know, we have to continue to continue to trust God to see with people who need God's help. And we we we we we become that provider through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

He uses us to help others.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

Amen. Thank you. So praise God, beloved. We're gonna go ahead and close today with a word of prayer. Won't you pray with me? God, our Father, we come back before your throne of grace in Jesus' name, thankful and grateful for the privilege of prayer, for the blessed opportunity to study and grow, to learn, to be increased in knowledge and understanding that we can live and not sin against you, but be more productive and useful for your kingdom and your service. Bless these, their children, your children, oh God, who listen, who learn, who come, who grow, strengthen them and provide for them, protect them, dear God, on every side and increase them, Lord, in thy service. Grant to them, O Father, fulfillment, completion in thy service. We love you, God. We thank you, and we ask these and all blessings in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen.