ch to have their marriages solemnized. Before each marriage is
performed, the minister should meet with the couple and help them
prepare for the relationship, and he should include in that preparation
the guidance that will help them to understand how indispensably
important to its preservation, and, therefore, to their life together,
are all the means of communication between them. Fortunately, more and
more ministers are assuming this responsibility; and fortunately, also,
more and more seminaries are providing instructions that teach
ministers how to minister helpfully at this strategically important
time. But much more needs to be done. Many marital breakdowns due to
failure of communication could be alleviated, if not prevented, by
giving young couples assistance when they are beginning their life
together.

But communication is indispensable in all relationships, and not only in
the personal ones like marriage. In labor disputes, for instance, the
bargaining relationship breaks down when either one or both parties
abandon the attempt to communicate with the other. Therefore, we may
conclude, in paraphrase of the Scriptures: If any man says that he loves
God and will not try to communicate with his brother, he is a liar!

But what is communication, and why is it so difficult to achieve? Most
people seem to think of communication as getting a message across to
another person. "You tell him what you want him to know." This concept
produces a one-way verbal flow for which the term "monologue" is
descriptive. Much of the church's so-called communication is
monological, with preachers and teachers telling their hearers, both
adults and children, the message they think they should know. The
difficulty with monological activity is that it renders the hearer
passive. It assumes that he is a receptacle into which the desired
message may be poured. It eliminates the possibility of his active
participation in the formulation of the message, and seems not to heed
that a part of the message is in the person who is to receive it.

Those who have studied the dynamics of communication and the process by
which it occurs are convinced that the monological principle is
contradictory to the nature of communication, and as a method is the
least effective. Reflective observation of our own learning indicates
that communication is most effective when we become a part of the
process and meet the message with our own content. Furthermore