A LOUD VOICE

“And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,” (Luke 17:15)

That verse comes from the story of Jesus’ healing of ten lepers in Luke’s Gospel. Prior to there being any actual evidence of healing, Jesus commanded them to go and show themselves to the priests. The implication was that by the time they got to the priests, they’d be totally healed. In fact, that’s what happened! On the way to see the priests, they were healed. Only one, however, came back to thank Jesus and with a loud voice he glorified God. We Pentecostals believe that praising God with a loud voice is a good thing.

I have a very loud voice. When I’m just speaking at what for ME is a normal comfortable volume, I’m blasting everybody out! If I yell, I can probably be heard for a quarter mile with no microphone...no kidding! Even my “whisper” is loud. A guy I knew years ago told me I have a “stage whisper”- like what actors use in plays.

Now, in my PREACHING ministry, the loud voice has been a good thing. When I’ve been taped, the tapes always came out very well. Even if the equipment wasn’t the best and you couldn’t hear a lot of “stuff” on the tape, you could always hear Bob Baril! An older woman in our congregation in Framingham used to say, “I can’t hear most people, but I can ALWAYS hear Pastor Bob!” Some of you may know my wife has a hearing loss. When we got married, one outspoken woman told me we were a perfect match because, “You talk so loud and she can’t hear!”

To those who have “normal voices”, however, you have no idea of what a handicap this sort of voice can be. The 5% or so of people who have one of these BOOMING voices are often accused of SHOUTING at people. We can also easily get on people’s nerves as they overhear us and really don’t want to. When I was a kid growing up in the Prospect Street/Independence Street neighborhood in Canton there were two grownups who had such absolutely booming voices. One was my father, and the other was “Mrs. Berardi” who was also an elementary school teacher. The Berardi house was diagonally across the street from ours. We could be in our back yard and Mrs. Berardi could be in her back yard, but we’d hear her CLEARLY saying things like, “Karen and Michael, wash your hands, it’s time for dinner.” We really didn’t WANT to hear everything Mrs. Berardi said. After awhile, you kind of felt like you were eavesdropping, but that’s just how she talked.

My father was the same way. He was a night owl, and he loved to talk on the phone. He and my Aunt Flo would be up talking until 2:30 in the morning. I don’t know how my Dad would be able to get up and go to work at the Registry the next day. I would be upstairs in bed and I could hear my Dad speaking JUST AS IF HE WAS RIGHT NEXT TO MY BED! It was awful trying to sleep. No joke, I got some good quality earplugs so I could sleep. His other sister, my Aunt Estelle, also had one of those booming voices. When Aunt Estelle would call, you could not only hear Dad throughout the house, but you could hear Aunt Estelle coming through the phone through quite a bit of the house! Both Gene Baril and Estelle Baril Winchester had amazingly booming and penetrating voices. My Dad, like me, did a lot of public speaking, and the voice helped him there, but in a restaurant when everybody could hear his conversation, it was kind of embarrassing.

But I understand. Like I said... if you have THIS voice, what’s a normal, comfortable manner of speaking for YOU blasts everybody out. My son Jon has also inherited “the voice”. Sometimes people have said to both Jon and me, “Stop yelling at me!” and we each have the same reaction. We look at them with incredulity and say, “This is not yelling. If I were yelling, you’d hear me a quarter mile away!”

On the one hand, at VIP answering service, I have been told I have a really good phone voice. Callers ask, “Is THIS the ANSWERING MACHINE?!” It gets annoying, but they’ve told me they thought I had to be a recording. But I’ve also been told I’m way too loud in the call center. One coworker has actually waved her arms at me because she could not hear her own call...and sometimes she has passed me a note saying “inside voice, please!” Last week, I came in and took a few calls, and my Supervisor sent me an instant message on my computer screen saying, “You’re very loud today.” Honestly, when you have “this voice” you don’t hear that. It sounds like just a normal medium or even below medium volume. I guarantee my Dad and Aunt Estelle and Mrs. Berardi would have attested to that. When the supervisor sent me that I.M., I was pretty embarrassed. I sent back a quick I.M. saying, “Sorry. I’ll tone it down.” And I had to WORK at deliberately talking soft which honestly feels very unnatural to me.

As a Pentecostal pastor, I was never shy about praying for people “around the altars”; you know, all the loud, “in the NAME of JESUS!” stuff. To me, that’s what ya do! I was humbled and pleased when Pastor Gary at Bread of Life asked me to join with the staff and anoint and pray over people for an altar call today. Mary Ann helped me. After I’d prayed for a couple of people, Mary Ann leaned over and told me I was way too loud. I realized at this large (and truly very spiritual church) they do a lot of praying for people, but it’s not usually all the loud, “in the NAME of JESUS!” stuff. I was verbally and inappropriately overpowering everybody and you could hear me all over the room. Once again, I was really embarrassed. I made sure when I prayed for other people I “toned it down”.

In this culture that’s overly politically correct, and overly “disability conscious” I almost wonder if they’ve got some sort of name for those 5% or so of us who have the booming voice that drives everybody crazy (but that we feel fine with). I guess I wrote this for a several reasons. One is to publicly share this struggle I’m having and to hope friends will help me with this problem but not in a condescending way. Another is to help you understand things from the loud talker’s point of view, and to share that we really don’t MEAN to blow over and overpower everybody, and we’re pretty embarrassed that we do it.

You know the famous evangelist Benny Hinn? I know he’s VERY controversial. Some people say he’s a phony. I’ve actually met Benny Hinn and been in his presence many times...all over twenty years ago before he was famous. Whatever you think of him, in his services, he likes to get people very quiet and reverent. He will get a huge auditorium so QUIET that you could hear a pin drop.

In his Arabic accent (he is half Palestinian and half Greek and his first language is Arabic) he will say, “I would like EVLREEbuddy, dew to velly QUIET., velly QUIET,” and again, you could probably hear a pin drop. No kidding, I thought about getting a little photo of Benny Hinn’s face to tape onto my computer at work so I will see that face and think of “velly QUIET” and modulate my voice accordingly!

So being a better steward of the loud voice is what I’m trying to deal with right now...what are YOU dealing with?