Free Crash the Chatterbox: Hearing God's Voice Above All Others by Steven Furtick

according to what God says, not what we see.
Meet the Press, Beat the Devil
    When our church first started growing, we got a few requests for local media interviews. This was new territory for me, so I asked a friend with lots ofexperience what I should know to keep me from saying stupid things that would end up on TV. He recommended a media consultant.
    So we brought in a guy for a day’s worth of training. The first part of the day was pretty entertaining and informative, watching clips of pastors saying dumb stuff and feeling glad it wasn’t me. In most cases what the pastor had actually said was innocent. But by the time it had been edited for broadcast, the pastor looked ignorant or arrogant and in some cases downright evil.
    I took lots of notes, then asked, “Okay, so how do I avoid ending up on your little highlight reel in the future?”
    “Well, number one,” he said, “be very careful whom you talk to.” Eve should have hired this guy.
    “But when you
do
talk,” he continued, “there are some guidelines that will leave
you
in control no matter what questions the interviewer asks. And that’s what the rest of the day is about.
    “Now I’m going to hammer you,” he continued. “I’m going to ask you about fifty of the most common questions that news media would be likely to ask you. Some of them are straightforward; some are designed to trip you and destroy you. We’re going to record all your answers, and later we’ll make a transcript. I’ll evaluate your answers as we go, and I’ll let you know how you did. Sound good?”
    “Yeah, sounds amazing, man.”
    “Great. Question one: Pastor Furtick, what do you think about __________.” In the blank he referenced a national scandal that was happening in some other church at that time.
    I said, “Well, I think these kinds of scandals are awful and hurtful …”
    I had more to say about integrity and accountability, but he interrupted me. “Stop. You’re already doing it,” he said.
    “Doing what? Answering the question?” I said.
    “Nope, you’re answering
their
question on
their
level. You’re letting the question dictate your answer,” he explained.
    “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? Isn’t that the point of the interview?” I asked.
    “No, the point is that, no matter what you say in response to that question, you lose. Because they’re going to peg you as an opponent of the other church,and it’s not going to turn out well. So when they ask you what you think about what so-and-so church is doing—no matter the details of the question—your answer should be something like, ‘We celebrate all the ministry that churches are doing for Jesus Christ, and we pray for all those involved, and our goal at Elevation Church is to do ministry so that people far from God will be raised to life in Christ.’ ”
    “That’s it?” I asked.
    “Nope. Because then they’re going to do a follow-up question, and they’re going to say, ‘Yeah, but what about the person who said
this
in criticism of your ministry?’
    “You’re going to want to defend yourself. But don’t play defense. Just change the wording a bit from what you said the first time and say, ‘At Elevation Church our hope is that we can always do ministry in such a way that people far from God will be filled with life in Christ.’
    “Don’t ever let your response get dragged down to the level of their question. It doesn’t really matter what they ask you. You go in there knowing what you want to communicate—knowing
who you are
—and you just use their question as a launching pad to deliver the content you’ve already decided to deliver.”
    I was disappointed. “Isn’t that what politicians do?” I asked.
    “Exactly,” he replied. “And that’s exactly what I want you to do.”
    “But I’m not a politician.”
    “But it’s not about
you
or what you actually say,” he said. “With some exceptions most of their questions will be designed to