Dr. Williams-Smith takes elders to school with techniques for public speaking that she uses with college students. She shares the essential components of speaking as well as how to bring a speech to a close.

GCAEC 1st Annual Elders' Retreat

<p>Dr. Williams-Smith takes elders to school with techniques for public speaking that she uses with college students. She shares the essential components of speaking as well as how to bring a speech to a close.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Georgia-Cumberland Adventist Elders Consortium (GCAEC)

Rachel Williams-Smith

Public Speaking, Form & Style

There's a lot of things we could focus on with public speaking, but I'm going to focus on 2 main elements today.

1 is the form, so talking about the structure of something, and that is several components that go with it, and then there's style or the presentation side of what you do.

Over on this table, hard to see for some of you, is a very ugly looking lump of clay.

And this represents the assignment you need to speak.

All right, you just know you gotta do that.

So that represents where you start and then here are several different lumps of clay that have been shaped into things and that's the finished, completed, haven't been used product that has accomplished its purpose.

There are 2 things that we have to consider.

So when we talk about form, what are we talking about?

We're talking about things like your topic, your purpose, your organization, your approach, and the content.

And we're gonna go through those right now.

So choosing a topic is kind of like deciding in advance what you want this lump of clay to become, right?

Do you want it to become a little, what do you call this?

What do you want this lump of clay to become?

That's what happens when you choose a topic with the requirement to do that.

So let me ask you, how many of you, when you're asked to speak, usually have a topic assigned versus how many of you have to choose your topic?

So if you usually have your topic assigned, please raise your hand.

Okay, So 1 person, in another word, sometimes and sometimes not.

How many of you have to choose your own topic?

That would be everyone else, pretty much.

And then there may be mixed circumstances where maybe there's a series.

And you're 1 of the elders so you're in that topic, you're in that subject string, but you still have to choose your own individual part of it.

So there are some things to consider when you want to choose your topic because you want to do this not randomly like oh I guess I have to do something you want to do it more thoughtfully than that.

Always Pick a topic that matters to you, that interests you.

Or like I like to say, pick something that you have a passion for.

Because if you have a passion for a topic, it's gonna be easier for you than if it's something that you just like, I've gotta do this.

Or if you've been assigned a topic and you have to preach on that, infuse into it something that does matter to you.

Infuse into it something that interests you.

But if you can pick the topic itself, that's better.

Also, it's good to have something you've studied.

If you've been spending time with the Lord on your knees and you've been asking him to show you things in his word, then you have something invested in that.

And you already have done some research probably, and so that's a great choice as well.

And what I'm saying is these are not exclusively 1 or the other.

Hopefully you can combine all of these into your topic choice.

There are some experiences in life and some things you know in life not because you read them, not because someone told you, Maybe not even because they're just in the Bible, but because you have lived and experienced, right?

If you can pick a topic that is uniquely yours, that will be much more authentic, powerful, and effective for your audience than if you're just picking something that is a topic of interest.

So if you can do it matters to you, it interests you, you've studied it, it's uniquely yours.

If it's all of those things, that's even better.

And then there is appropriate for your audience.

So whatever I talk about should be appropriate as long as it's about the Bible, right?

There's a lot of things in the Bible that may not be appropriate for an 11 o'clock sermon, right?

I know you know, because you sit in the congregation and listen to people preach and you know that some topics can help a general audience and some topics could only help a few.

Whenever you're asked to speak you want to reach the most people possible as opposed to the fewest.

So preaching a sermon on the details of calculating the 2, 300 days probably will not help the majority of people.

It may be important to know, and that might be an important thing to do in a workshop, but for a sermon, it's probably not the best thing.

I know some people who are, I'm gonna use the word obsessed because I tend to view it as an obsession, pardon me for my bias, but you have to remember that I did grow up in religious extremism.

So I know some people who are absolutely obsessed with a fine point of truth.

For example, whether you use the word Jesus or Yahweh, or for example, if you have to use God or Father preceding anything you say, or whether you have to kneel every time you pray.

Let me explain to you something very quickly.

There is 1 the truth and that is Jesus Christ.

And if you preach on him, you'll never go astray.

Now I'm not saying it has to be, oh, Jesus loves you.

But what I'm saying is if he is the center of what you speak on, it will always be good for your audience, always.

All right, and then appropriate to the situation.

You might have to speak for a funeral, for example.

That's not probably, well, it could be the day to speak on joy, yes, but probably not the importance of having fun.

Like joy in the midst of sorrow, that would be appropriate.

But just to talk about joy just for joy may not be the best subject because of the situation.

Similarly, if something has just happened, right?

Like We've just had an amazing week in history, haven't we?

If you had to speak this Sabbath, it would be very appropriate for you to mention some of the things that happened and use it to draw into your sermon.

Whenever people are in the moment, going through an experience, and then you speak about it, you're drawn to hear what they have to say.

So appropriate for not only the audience but also the situation in the church, in the community, in the world.

Settling on a purpose is much like choosing the function of this.

So what's the function of this right here?

It's a drink and this little guy well I just stuck my business cards in there, but You probably put little creamer or something like that, right?

And I know you can't really guess what this is because I actually made this 1 myself.

Public Speaking, Form & Style

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