When you have the opportunity (or curse) to stand in front of people and talk, do you revert to sharing information or inspiring the group to greatness? Which one would you rather do?
Andy Stanley's book "Communicating for a Change" outlined a great system for communicating and recently put his thoughts in a Leadership Podcast:
A few things strike me:
-Plan out my messages in advance: I've started to do this by planning out worship themes for the whole year. This has helped chart what sermons looks like from week to week. It certainly has helped me remember the message since I'm marinating on it for longer than 3 days. But I still need to work on getting the details of my sermon movement worked out ahead of time (this will certainly give my .ppt person smiles!)
-Tangible item: For every sermon, I think of questions and thoughts for the people to take home with them so the sermon lasts longer than 30 minutes. I encourage people to talk about these questions over their lunch or later on in the week. Now my challenge is to give them something tangible to take with them as a visual.
What about you? What changes do Andy's insights cause you to make when you're faced with a public speaking setting?
Loved Stanley's book. I liked the notion of "there's always next Sunday." Don't try to cram all the info into one week. Trim the message down to one or two points and leave the rest for future weeks. I also liked the part about "owning the message."
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to read one book on speaking/preaching a year. Any suggestions for this year??
I would recommend "Say It in Six" by Ron Hoff. It's not a book about preaching, but it's a book about communicating in front of a group of people and getting them to interact with the message you are sending. I've applied that book to many sermons, meetings I've lead, etc etc. It's a great book on public speaking and focusing your message on THE ONE THING and getting people to interact with it.
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