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I made my first public speech at the tender age of eight. It was a Wednesday night at the tiny Sansom Park Baptist church in Sansom Park (suburb of Ft. Worth), Texas, where my father was the pastor. I stood on a chair so that I could see the smattering of smiling faces from behind the podium. It was a seminal moment for the kid who had been preaching to his sister and her dolls since he was four.
By the time I was 18 and headed for Bible College to learn how to preach, I had already been doing so with varying degrees of regularity – and success – for ten years.
From my hometown of Mineral Wells to tiny outposts like Ranger, Strawn, and Stamford, Texas to a youth revival in Memphis, Tennessee to a national private school convention contest at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, I pursued my passion during that ten-year span. There were Sunday morning children’s church sermons, filled with antics. There were Sunday afternoon rest home services where one old fellow asked me to talk louder and the woman beside him cupped her hands over her ears and made faces like she was being exposed to a sonic boom.
All of this preaching was sprinkled between rambunctious times of being a kid who strayed into one sin or another far too often. I vacillated between the profane and the divine, sinning and repenting and preaching, rinse and repeat ad infinitum. Or so it seemed.
Eventually, I found myself in full-time ministry, first as a youth pastor and then a senior pastor. This lasted for nearly 20 years. I finally found myself doing what I most loved three and four times per week.
That’s my background and my credentials. What follows is my best advice to the one who would pursue public speaking, whether in the sacred or the secular realm.
The best advice I ever received on the art of public speaking came from one of my professors at Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. All these years later, I argue with myself over precisely which professor said it, but I believe it was the diminutive fireball Dr. R. O. Woodworth. I know the advice was not original with him but he was the first to say it to me (well, not just to me…it was a classroom of aspiring preachers). Here it is…
“Stand up. Speak up. Shut up.”
It may seem silly to get worked up over such a simple, half-serious quote, but it has, my friend, provided the ingredients I have stirred into every discourse from that day to this. I have sometimes under-cooked or over-cooked a speech, but that is my own failing, not a shortcoming of the salient advice from that wise and wizened old professor and steadfast friend of aspiring preachers.
Let’s break this thing down and, to use an overused contemporary phrase, “unpack it,” shall we?
Stand Up
Among the things people fear most, public speaking is purported to be second only to death. It takes a certain panache to say, “Yeah, I want to be the focal point of everyone’s attention and have my every word, my posture, my personality, and my presentation judged by a group of friends, family, coworkers, peers, and/or strangers.”
Those who welcome – or at least accept – that reality find the first challenge is to steel the nerves and take the podium, to stand up front and center and say (without saying it), “Alright, folks. All eyes on me.”
Taking that spot requires balance…
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There is, first, the balance between unapologetic and unassuming. Finding the balance between an authoritative and humble approach is a challenge. It is easy to drift too far into the authoritative persona and come across as arrogant and condescending. It is just as easy to veer too far the other direction and cast doubt in the listeners’ minds as to your authority on a subject through false humility or by seeming uncertain.
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Second, is the balance between entertainment and education. You have information or wisdom to impart but you know it will only be heard if the audience is engaged. You may need to use humor without becoming a clown or drama without slipping into melodrama. Again balance.
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Finally, there is the balance between authority and accessibility. Building a rapport, a familiarity with the listeners is essential. You must, however, retain the notion that you have something they need or want, that you are the conduit to information, inspiration, or empowerment.
Stand up! Accept the exciting challenge to share your story or information.
Stand up! You have cleared the first hurdle.
Speak Up
In a seemingly anonymous world where every voice has a potential audience, people have become bolder than ever in their “speaking up”, especially online. Customers leave reviews that range from glowing to searing. Tweeters tweet their minds with reckless abandon, often creating a firestorm that spills over into the “real” world or network news. Everybody, it seems, is speaking up or speaking out, some responsibly and others recklessly.
For context, I am not discussing online chatter or debate. The focus here is on verbal communication, specifically when one person addresses a group or a crowd or a throng of people. From boardroom presentations to speeches delivered in great halls to large gatherings, this is the focus here. So, let’s keep that in mind as we move on.
Remember this: Before you say anything make sure you have something to say.
Don’t be like me when, as a kid, I would be chided by my loquacious father with the familiar refrain, “Boy, you just talk to hear your head rattle.”
Before you speak, ask yourself a few questions.
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Why am I speaking? If you don’t know why, then what doesn’t really matter.
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To whom am I speaking? If you don’t know your audience, how do you know whether you have chosen the correct approach to reach them?
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What is the purpose of my speech? What am I trying to accomplish here?
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What response am I looking for?
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Is this a call to action?
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Is it merely FYI stuff?
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Am I trying to impact or even alter behavior?
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Am I arguing a point to change minds or beliefs?
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A few things to know to make for a more effective speech:
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Know your subject matter, preferably better than anyone in your audience. It is easier to speak with authority when you know what you are talking about.
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Know your audience.
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To whom are you speaking? Are they young people raised on instant gratification and possessive of the attention span of a gnat? Are they older folks whose backs will hurt and may drift off to sleep if you go on too long? Who are they?
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How familiar are they with you? Will you need to break the ice, make a connection, introduce yourself and demonstrate your credentials (humbly, of course)?
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How well do they know the subject matter? They may be experts or totally unfamiliar or a mixture of the two and everything between.
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Know the environment. Is it a boardroom, training room, or webinar where you may be best served by a multi-media presentation? Is it a devotional in a break room at work where you have five minutes to talk while your audience scarfs their dinner? Is it a pep rally or some gathering in an open-air arena? Knowing the environment will allow you to prepare the best style of discourse and prepare for possible contingencies like rain or the background noise of machinery, etc.
Speaking up is what matters. Putting yourself out there, exposing yourself to the critics, the careless, and those who couldn’t care less. You have a message. Deliver it! You have a word. Speak it! If this is your gift, exercise it! If it is a passion, but maybe not a gift, nurture it, develop it.
Shut up
You have heard that “silence is golden.” May I suggest that the pregnant pause is one of the most powerful elements of an effective speech? Please do not allow your nerves to drive you to fill ever second with sound. Give your audience a chance to digest what you are saying. Let them catch up. You know where you are going. They are only discovering the path as you lead them. Besides, a little silence will cause the wandering minds of the drifters to return their focus to you.
That is one way to use the “shut up” part of Dr. Woodworth’s admonition.
Here’s the other: When you are done…stop!
I remember as a youth one of the worst phrases you could hear from a preacher was “and in conclusion.” It was almost always inevitable that the conclusion was out there somewhere. We just weren’t there yet.
Listen to the Hare. Start at the beginning. But don’t forget the timeless advice of the Mad Hatter! When you get to the end, stop! The fastest way to make a traveler forget a smooth flight is with a rough landing. The fastest way for a gymnast to lose points on a dynamic routine is to fail to stick the landing.
Nail it and then stop hammering.
My best to you on your next speech. Let me know how it goes.
