Church Voices

The Brazen Carreerist, Penelope Trunk brings us five tips for public speaking that I think applies to preaching.

1. Tell stories
2. Look deeply at individuals in the audience
3. Be honest about how you’re doing
4. Smile, even if it’s fake
5. Relax

She has some interesting observations.  This one was particularly interesting.

We do this because it’s so hard to talk in an unengaging way and look someone in the eye. And most public speakers are not particularly engaging. You can test yourself - to see if you’re really connected - by forcing yourself to look at one single person while you make a point. Get out the whole idea before you let your eyes move to the next person.

This is a way to know for sure if you are connecting with your audience when you talk. Sticking with one person for each point is painful and nearly impossible if you are not truly connecting your material to that person.

Time is a funny thing  when you’re preaching.  When you first start preaching regularly everything feels like its coming at you at light speed.  You don’t have time to take in how the audience is reacting.  Its everything you can do to spit out your sermon without doing something stupid. But, after you get some experience the experience slows down a bit.  You’re able to see how your audience is reacting, you get a sense for whether you’re communicating or not.  And if you’re not, ending a sermon early is a mercy.

Then there’s this:

Your nonverbal body language influences people’s reactions to you more than what you say. For example, Allan and Barbara Pease spend a whole chapter of their book, The Definitive Book of Body Language, dissecting the power of a smile. If you smile at your audience, they are likely to smile back. And a smile engenders good feelings and a true connection — even if the smile is forced

If you serve at a church as the preaching minister, you can do more than just control your body language (though this is important).  You control the entire environment.  From decorations, to room configuration, to lighting. All of these things communicate something, just make sure they’re communicating what you want them to.