In writing and publishing, there is the idea of “readability”. The “Flesch Readability Grade Level” calculation scores the level of readability of a piece of writing based on grade level.
From Paul Smith’s Lead with a Story: “Long, complex sentences with bigger words result in a higher ‘grade level.’ But unlike a school exam, a high score here isn’t better. The score doesn’t reflect the intelligence of the ideas, just the complexity of the writing style. So a high score doesn’t mean you’re smart. It means you’re a bad writer.”
He continues “. . . articles in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times typically score between grade level 8 and 10 on this scale. That’s about right for impactful, decisive business communication. Even popular fiction writers like John Grisham and Tom Clancy write around a 7 or 8 on this scale, which is one reason their books are such good reads . . . Unfortunately, many businesspeople write at a 12 to 15 on this scale, which is much too complex . . . It shouldn’t be a chore. Save their brainpower to think about the meaning and impact of your idea.”
What would happen if we in Christian media adopted the same idea on the understandability of spiritual communication? Imagine a system where we keep the “intelligence of the ideas” but we work toward clarity of understanding with our words, images, ideas. And we use grade levels to do it. Deep meaning delivered with clarity.
To paraphrase Paul Smith: “Long, complex sentences with narrowly understood words result in a higher ‘grade level.’ The score doesn’t reflect the profoundness of the ideas, just the complexity of the writing style. So a high score doesn’t mean you’re smart. It means you’re a bad Christian communicator . . . Unfortunately, many Christian communicators write at a 12 to 15 on this scale, which is much too complex. It shouldn’t be a chore. Save their brainpower to think about the meaning and impact of your idea.”
At Finney Media, we help with this. We believe in profound spiritual meaning delivered with widely understood, heart-connective words and ideas. We’ve done research to better understand what is widely understood so that it’s not a chore and that we save their brainpower to think about the meaning and impact of your idea . . . and that they hopefully take a step in the direction of Jesus!
