Tag Archive - speaking

Do You Have A Feedback Loop When You Speak/Preach?

February 24, 2009 in Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media with 11 Comments

I hate being captive in an audience when the people on stage don’t have a feedback loop going with the audience. We’re used to living a two-way life online and expect it when in an audience too. Our expectations of speakers and people on stage have changed, for better or for worse. Robert Scoble

public-speaking-picI just finished reading the article by Olivia Mitchell, How to Present While People are Twittering, which can be found over at Laura Fitton’s blog. THIS IS A MUST READ IF YOU SPEAK!

And now I’m asking that question, “Do you have a feedback loop when you speak?”

It’s a question I have been wondering about for a while…and not just in conference speaking, but in preaching. The conference speaker and the preacher are essentially the same…not in content of message…one is evangelizing the gospel of Jesus Christ and the other is evangelizing a product or idea. BUT, they both come into the engagement with the expectation of a one-way conversation. Though honestly it can’t be a conversation if it’s one way…CORRECT?

Whatever the scenario, the pulpit or the podium, those who stand behind it expect the audience to sit, listen and be attentive.

I think those days are over, or at least coming to an end. Both the audience and the congregation want more engagement and interaction with those who speak from up front. They want more of a conversation…more of a dialogue.

The reality is this. I think some conference speakers will get it and some preachers will get it. They will seek methods and tools to engage the audience and provide more of a real time experience through the use of a feedback loop such as Twitter that is mentioned in the article above. And others will not get it. They will continue to speak to an audience and congregation, demanding one way conversation.

Why is that? Their theology? Fear of losing power and authority? Difficulty in doing it? Tradition? Training?

I’m not saying this needs to be mastered now, but it’s something to be thinking about. It will take a very different kind of leader and speaker to engage audiences in the future whether you are evangelizing ideas or the gospel.

What do you think?

Tim Keller’s Preaching Notes: How Do You Prepare Your Notes?

October 6, 2008 in Ministry-Theology, Technology-Social Media with 3 Comments

I found this link to Tim Keller’s preaching notes here, thanks to a link from DJ Chuang’s site who compared them to something belonging to Jason Bourne.

It’s just fascinating to me to see the many different ways preachers, speakers, teachers, etc. prepare speaking notes. Everyone has their own method that works for them. More recently I have been getting into arranging my talks and teaching ideas around a mind map. I have been using tools like Mind Meister to help me with the process. Thanks to Tony Steward for helping me with this stuff. He is great at mind maps.

It’s amazing for me the connection between therapy, ministry and social media when using mind mapping. Therapy often involves genograms and family systems thinking that is helped by maps and symbols; social media and technology often flows out of ideas that are represented in charts, symbols, graphs….think white boards everywhere. Only makes sense to me that I should carry this creativity over into ministry and move away a bit from the number, bullet point, bullet point, number, bullet point, bullet point method. Know what I mean?

What types of notes do you prepare for preaching, speaking, teaching, etc.? Does it work well for you? Any suggestions for us?

I Can’t Listen To Another Sermon!

January 28, 2008 in Ministry-Theology with 11 Comments

I believe that the time of long lectures, when someone spoke for an hour and the audience was condemned to sit and listen to whatever they were given, is…perhaps over–not just for me but for everyone. What we need in theology and in the church is–Oh, I don’t want to use that wretched word again–”conversations”. What I mean is simply that we should talk together and try to arrive at answers together, instead of someone trying to present something to other people as though the Holy Spirit has dictated it to him in person.

I posted that quote by Karl Barth back in August of 2006 when I was really wrestling over the topic of preaching. And I’m still wrestling over this topic.

You can see some of my thoughts on this topic below:

But it just seems like I can hardly sit through a sermon these days. This is probably more a statement of my own heart and disposition right now than it is anything about a sermon. But maybe also, I’m just tired of the way we have been preaching sermons for years and years. My students are probably pretty sick of the way that I go about preaching sermons as well, that’s why I have been wrestling over the topic for years.

But what you have is a vicious cycle that continually reinforces itself. You have the tradition of the typical expository sermon, presented in three steps or points, coupled with the expectation from the audience to hear that same method of presentation. But while this cycle continues, I often get the sense, and often hear the conversation, that both the preacher and the congregation are wanting something different. We just don’t know how to get out of the cycle. Or maybe we do, but we just don’t have the courage to try something different, take some risks, fail at some things. So what you have instead, is people literally bored out of their minds every Sunday while someone up front speaks at them in a very non-engaging style. And what you probably have as well is speakers and pastors up front bored out of their minds as well.

As I mentioned before, my former student, Brian Kiley, who is now a college pastor, has been posting some fascinating stuff on the topic of preaching. Read his posts Am I a Speacher? and Implication vs. Application. In these posts, Brian is reflecting on Doug Pagitt’s book, Preaching Re-Imagined.

Drew Sams is trying to figure this out as well, as he is in the midst of a blogging series on the use of story in youth ministry.

I’m obviously a firm believer in preaching….I’m just wondering if we need to change some of our methods. I know I need to. So let me leave you with another quote from Barth about the power of preaching.

This is why the movement of the Word as preaching was so crucial to his interpretation of the Word as threefold event. By the logic of his doctrine of the Word, it was only as Christian preaching that the Word remains ongoing. The Word becomes present as preaching in the same way that the Holy Spirit makes God present to us. That is, just as the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, the Word as preaching proceeds from revelation and scripture. Barth’s point was not that the revelatory and scriptural forms of the Word cannot be made present. Rather, just as the Father and Son are made present only through the movement of the Spirit, the Word as revelation and scripture are made present “in, with, and under” preaching and only through preaching.

By “preaching” Barth meant more than Sunday sermonizing or even the general ministerial work of pastors. Preaching included all forms of genuine Christian witness, including, “whatever we all ‘preach’ to ourselves in the quiet or our own rooms.” It included even the work of theologians, insofar as they understood and practiced theology in a ministry of the Word of God and therefore a form of preaching, he argued. (The Barthian Revolt in Modern Theology: Theology Without Weapons, pp.78)

I would love to hear your thoughts on preaching? What do you think? Is it just me, or are you feeling the same thing?