A few weeks ago Rick Warren held a conference called Radicalis. I was really interested in seeing the live stream of Andy Stanley speaking. They gave him a section to speak on preaching.
I missed it, but here and here are two blogs posts that wrote about it that are quite helpful. And if you never read the blog post where I reviewed and fleshed out his system you can click here.
It seems that in the world of speaking, there have been quite a few changes. A few years ago there was a trend to keep messages very, very short.
Recently, there’s been quite a few speakers out there that actually speak quite long (45 minutes to an hour), and yet they’re part of growing churches with many listeners on podcast such as Mark Driscoll, Rob Bell, Matt Chandler, and a few others.
One of the top speakers at the moment is also the pastor of the second largest church in North America: Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv. He recently wrote a short, but very interesting blog post concerning how long speakers should speak. You can read it here.
Here’s a great quote from it:
“As a communicator I try to guard against sharing material that I’m emotionally attached to that doesn’t hold a high impact value for the listener.”
In other words, there are things that are really interesting and fascinating to us, but that might not be that interesting or relevant to the listener. I’ve often made this mistake, but realize it only when I’m in the middle of sharing the story. Most often it happens in the middle of a message when I try to veer “off script.” I think of something or a story, and I launch into it. I can tell the story well because it’s my story, but I realize afterwards that it slowed the pace of the message down, and I could have done without it.
Make sure to to read the post and also the comments that follow. People ask him some followup questions and the answers he gives are quite fascinating.
For the record, I usually aim for 30 minutes, but normally end up speaking about 40 min.
What about you? How long are your messages usually? If you’re not a speaker, what do you think is the optimal length for a message?
[image by Catherine]
In the post titled Three Principles For Effective Communication I shared what I believe are some of the core issues regarding communicating well.
After some reflection, I’d like to narrow it down to one major rule and law every communicator should follow.
At the beginning of every presentation every communicator should think about one thing:
“What question am I trying to answer?”
That’s it. If you have that as your primary starting point, it will give your presentation, sermon, or speech an extreme level of crispness and clearness, which will engage your audience and help them to follow along with what you’re saying.
I think one of the best places to begin this principle is in your title. Let’s look at the title to this post: “The Most Important Rule Every Communicator Should Follow.” In the title, I’m being very clear about what I’m going to address in this post. As a result, this lowers the stress and anxiety of the reader because he/she knows exactly what I’m going to talk about.
Most of the messages that I preach will have similar titles. I just began a series called L.O.V.E. where the title of the first sermon was “It Is Possible To Love Someone Forever?” The follow up message is titled, “Your Best First Step In Your Relationship.”
By the way, this is no easy work. This is what usually takes me the longest time in preparing my message. I try to struggle and think about “what’s the one major question I’m trying to answer through this message.” Once I figure that question out, the writing flows easily and quickly. And I can deliver the message without having any notes at all, if I want, because I know that at the end of the day, there’s only one major question or issue that I’m trying to answer.
In coaching other leaders in their speaking I always ask them that one question: “what’s the question you’re trying to answer through this sermon?” I ask them to write it down in one sentence for me. If they can’t do that, then it means that they themselves aren’t clear about what they’re going to talk about. They may have an idea or a theme, but they aren’t clear. And if they aren’t clear, neither will the audience be.
And if you’ve ever sat through a presentation that is “all over the place” and hard to follow, it’s because the presenter didn’t take the time to answer that one question.
So what do you think? Does this principle have it’s limits, or do you think it’s something that can be applied to most styles and forms of communicating?
[image by doberagi]
I know, the title sounds a little suspect. Perhaps even more suspect coming from a pastor. The good news is that I didn’t make up the title. Below is a video that outlines the seven most powerful words in the English language that help people to make decisions. The video is from Kevin Hogan, a psychologist and expert in persuasion.
Earlier in the week I was in a training session with Nick Howard. He’s the founder of Cypress River, which is a Christian coaching firm helping leaders function at a higher level. It’s been a two-year process as part of a group that he meets with and I feel like I’ve learned quite a bit. The biggest lesson that I’ve learned comes in the area of learning to listen.
So I’d like to offer up three principles for effective communication. This is a gritty super-simple list. And I think these principles work no matter the arena that you work in. These are things that I’ve seen, but I’d love your help in refining this list and making it better.
1. Give a specific title
A better title would be something like “Why the Cross Still Matters.” This at least has a measure of direction. It’s going somewhere. Of course, to an unchurched person, and most church people (nowadays), this still doesn’t carry enough of a punch to beckon me to listen.
The second reason why a specific title is necessary is because it will give you direction. I was recently coaching one of my leaders through this process. He knew that he wanted to preach on Isaiah 58. So I asked him, “so what are you going to say about Isaiah 58? What do you want to communicate to the people based on the text?” And he began listing about 4-5 different ideas. I challenged him to be as specific as possible, and to address only one of the issues.
With a title like this you’re addressing a felt need in a very specific way. With a title like this you will have me on the edge of my seat as I listen.
By the way, I believe that every message has a definite question that you’re answering. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing an inductive, deductive, narrative, or expository type message. If you’re not answering or addressing a question of some type, then you’re just giving baseless information. I’m not going to sit before you and listen to you just spew out information. It’s a waste of my time and energy.
And when you frame something in terms of a question, it helps to give your message a razor sharp focus.
2. Use a bullet/big idea
“I have a conviction that no sermon is ready for preaching, not ready for writing out, until we can express its theme in a short, pregnant sentence as clear as a crystal. I find the getting of that sentence is the hardest, the most exacting, and the most fruitful labour in my study. To compel oneself to fashion that sentence, to dismiss every word that is vague, ragged, ambiguous, to think oneself through to a form of words which defines the theme with scrupulous exactness–this is surely one of the most vital and essential factors in the making of a sermon: and I do not think any sermon ought to be preached or even written, until that sentence has emerged, clear and lucid as a cloudless moon” (J.H. Jowett, The Preacher: His Life and Work, p. 133).
3. Apply it clearly
In the story of David: God can use the insignificant moments of your life (being a shepherd) to prepare you for moments of great significance (Bullet).
“Maybe right now you’re in a dead-end job and you think you’re wasting your talents…remember that God can use the seemingly insignificant moments of your life to prepare you for…” (Application)
In the story of Elijah: We often hear God the loudest when we’ve closed ourselves off to distractions (Bullet).
Maybe some of you are having trouble listening to the voice of God. You’re wondering if He still speaks. I want to encourage you that “we often hear God the loudest when we’ve…” (Application)
After you’ve answered the “so what?” you must now answer the “now what?” question.
Tell me what you want me to do. This is usually part of the application. Give me something specific to implement and tell me when I can implement it.
So if you were to make a really simple list of steps for effective communication, what would you add or takeaway from this?
I think we’d all agree that preaching and communicating well is very important. I’ve done a few posts about the subject here and here, but thought it would be a good idea to do a Q&A with someone that spends a lot of time speaking on the road: Matthew Gamble. 1. So what’s your day job?
“Talk about Jesus. Work as a consultant with the Center for Creative Ministry. Hang out with my wife.” 
2. What preacher/communicator do you look up to? Why?
“Mark Driscoll: Mars Hill Church Seattle, WA – While I don’t entirely agree with his theology, I appreciate his exegetical care of the Word of God. Further I am encouraged to see the fruit of their labor in Seattle (one of the most unchurched areas of the nation).
Rob Bell: Mars Hill Bible Church Grand Rapids, MI – Again, while I don’t agree with all of his theology, I appreciate his willingness to tackle difficult books of the Bible (ie Mars Hill launched the church by doing a sermon series on the book of Leviticus). I also value the creativity he brings to the table.
Matt Chandler: The Village Church (somewhere in Texas) – Again, I appreciate his focus on the Bible and his relevant approach to scripture.”
3. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see speakers making nowadays? What advice would you give them?
“Not preaching the Bible! I am a huge fan of expository preaching… meaning verse by verse, word for word. I believe that we make a huge mistake when we don’t preach this way because it tends to lead people to be Bible light. Conversely, when we preach word for word, verse by verse, people will automatically learn to study their Bibles on a deeper level, as opposed to simply doing topical studies.
Along with this, it is frustrating to listen to “preachers” that seem to stand up and give pop psychology messages. Please stop and preach Jesus!”
4. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from speaking to many different groups of people?
“Know your audience. Paul said that he became all things to all people and I believe that this is of great value for any communicator.
Be passionate about what you are talking about. I am not suggesting that you have to yell and scream, I am simply saying that make sure that the message is really burning in your soul before you stand up in hopes to, by God’s grace, get someone else excited about it. Furthermore, be creative in your communication so that people remember the message.
Be authentic. When appropriate, be vulnerable with the audience about your struggles and shortcomings.
Know what you are going to say and make sure that it is clear what you want other people to hear/know when they leave. Don’t hesitate to reiterate the main point over and over again.
Be available to people after you preach a message. I believe that some people never cross over the line into faith, because the preacher wasn’t there for them. Make yourself available to people.
Be surrendered to the Holy Spirit as He may point something out to you while you are preaching that He wants you to say.
Be aware of the audiences response to your message. While you are preaching if people’s body language is suggesting that they have no clue what you are talking about, don’t hesitate to stop and re-word something.”
5. Final thoughts?
“Remember that preaching is foolishness to those who don’t believe. Remember that you as the preacher are a broken/sinful man/woman who is not called to condemn people, but to point them to Jesus.”
