Pastor Mark Batterson Highlights the Importance of Saying ‘Please, Sorry, and Thank You’ in New Book

“It was born out of a season that was pretty intense for anybody in any kind of leadership capacity the last three years,” Batterson told Christian Headlines.

“It’s like everybody should just get an honorary doctorate in crisis leadership because, between a pandemic, political polarization, the racial tension and everything that’s swirling in culture, I realized that it was never enough and almost like you can’t win these days.”

Acknowledging the difficulty in communicating effectively, Batterson noted that he has continued to practice his communication skills and help others reassess their communication methods. He also urged Christians to strive for peace and unity in their speech.

“There are four principles of peacemaking,” Batterson explains. “Listen well, ask anything, disagree freely and love regardless. Those four principles are critical as we try to stand in the gap as peacemakers and as tone and grace setters in our culture,” Batterson shared.

He noted that he believes Christians can help build a brighter future by speaking wisely and following their God-given calling to be peacemakers.

Following the four principles – highlighted in Please, Sorry, and Thanks – will help Christians communicate the heartbeat of Christ, Batterson said. He noted that the Christlike action of genuinely saying “please, sorry and thanks” will allow others to hear us when we communicate the message of love, hope and grace that Christ offers to all who believe Him.

“There is an art and science to those three words, and they’re only as effective as they are authentic. I felt like, ‘Hey, let’s build these into a book. The world would be a better place if we would all get a little bit better at saying please, sorry, and thanks,'” he said.

“The power of life and death is in the tongue. Our words do not represent the world objectively; our words create the world subjectively. It’s the constructive conception of language. It’s this theory of linguists that our words have a powerful priming effect. Our words create culture. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So, to me, words are X-rays that give people a picture of how our hearts are doing …” Batterson asserted.

“I do think that words create worlds. Your words are going to create culture, so choose your words wisely,” he added.

Batterson has to do just that while ministering to his Washington D.C.-based church, whose congregants reflect all sides of the political spectrum.

But he realized the power of these three words only after being deeply convicted and seeking out a trained counselor.

“I had to go to counseling post-COVID, for grief counseling, because as a leader, most leaders, in fact, lost something in the process. I felt like, as a church, we stepped back 13 years in in-person attendance. I had to do a lot of grieving. Now we’ve gained back eight or nine of those years. But, you know, there’s a lot of loss in there that, if you don’t own it, it owns you,” Batterson said.

“I am a believer that everybody needs counseling for something at some point. The sooner you get it, probably the less of it you’ll need. If you wait longer, you’re probably going to need it more,” he said.

Through soul searching and remembering the weight of our words, Batterson explains that we can truly begin to experience gratitude for what God has and is doing. We can also, he shared, begin to understand how to use our words to reach a broken culture.

When asked if he had a favorite word among the three, Batterson said, “thanks.”

“The theology of Thanks was one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever written. Gratitude is one of our four family values: gratitude, generosity, courage and humility. I keep a gratitude journal every week. My wife and I start our Sabbath by sharing our ‘gratitudes’ with each other. Gratitude has become a little bit of an art form. If you looked in my journal, you would see numbered gratitudes every year. So, you know, giving thanks is probably the most enjoyable part to write.”

He continues, “I would go so far as to say that language is part of the image of God.”

In this claim, Batterson pointed to how communication is found among nearly all living things.

“Even trees communicate … all of creation, and let’s be honest … dolphins chirp, whale songs travel 10,000 miles underwater, meadowlarks have mating songs. So, I’m not saying that other parts of creation don’t [have] language, but they don’t [express] language the way that we do. We take, you know, in our case, 26 letters of the English alphabet, and we create poems and lyrics … So, language itself, I think, is part of the image of God,” Batterson argued.

“And it’s no coincidence that, you know, logos is a word in Greek. And that John’s gospel: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,'” he concluded.

Learn more about Please, Sorry, and Thanks here.

Photo courtesy: ©GettyImages/fizkes