Video Transcript: Tips On Public Speaking For Church Planters Inspired By Rich DeVos

A church planter is someone who does a lot of public speaking. You're  encouraging your preaching. Many times you're speaking at an event. Often you go to someone's house and you maybe say a prayer, you're often in the  limelight. Because you are leading a group of people to serve your church plant. It's important that you keep getting more effective at public speaking. So today  we're going to talk about tips on public speaking for church planters, inspired by  Rich DeVos, I say Rich DeVos inspired this because this, these were tips that  were observed of Him who is just an incredible public speaker, by Pat Williams  in Pat Williams books how to become like Rich DeVos, succeeding with integrity  in business and life. I also picked this book because Rich DeVos, as many of  you probably know, has been my mentor for many years. And I really saw these  principles in practice throughout my years of observation of Rich DeVos. But for  a church planter, this is a excellent that you have this opportunity to see some of those tips and apply them to your local situation. Pat Williams observation, how  to speak effectively if you want to inspire and motivate like Rich, then you need  to learn to talk like Rich the ability to speak effectively before an audience can  transform your life. Here are 10 powerful principles of effective public speaking,  that I learned from observing my friend Rich DeVos, I want to add one more  thing Rich DeVos is a very spiritual, God fearing holy, Spirit filled believer and  leader. And while we're going to talk about Pat Williams observations, I also  believe, in fact, I believe even more firmly that the Holy Spirit leads you in public  speaking. And then a lot of ways we have to get out of the Holy Spirit when it  comes to public speaking. But it is good also to keep crafting your skill. Keep  working on who you are, so that you can get out of the way of God's work. The  first of the principles is be prepared. Public speaking principle number one, be  prepared. As you prepare your speech, your sermon, your talk, whatever it is  you do as a church planter, be aware of the difference between written  communication and spoken communication. If you want to convey details,  statistics and data, it's better to put that information in a written form, such as a  handout or a flyer, if you want to inspire, persuade and motivate people, you've  got to give a powerful speech. And that motivation stuff is something where  you're just taught you're just speaking, you're communicating to the audience,  you're not distracting anyone in specific details. Above all, never be boring.  Make sure that every concept in your speech crackles with energy. Never plan  to start out slow and gain momentum. Instead, grab your listeners, by the throat  this is kind of no raw language that Pat Williams is saying, but I'm just gonna say how he says it. Instead, grab your listeners by the throat from the very first word  and don't let them go. Wow them, dazzle them, knock them dead in 30 seconds  and keep knocking them dead until your your big finish now, again, the language is is very businesslike here. I put it this way. Be prepared. Really give your best.  use metaphors in your preparation that you know are interesting to listen to.  Having the attitude that you're going to go up there and serve your congregation

your church plants by putting everything on the court so be prepared. While  you're prepared, learn how to speak in a relaxed style. Public speaking principle  number two, speak in a relaxed conversational style. Never read your speech.  Yes, I just said that many seminaries teach to just read a manuscript. I believe  some of you can be incredible readers and you know never might be too strong  of a statement for a pastor trained at a seminary. Few of you can read and it  looks natural. So those few that look natural great. But I would say most of you  never read your speech. Have a spontaneous dialogue with your audience. If  you're speaking, as if you are speaking friend to friend, those more spontaneous you sound, the more the audience will like you and trust you. And I would say  the more your congregation will respond, you'll be communicating with them.  Instead of writing out your speech, word for word, use brief phrases or symbols,  as notes and jog them in your memory. Your notes should only give an outline,  not a script. You know, I understand about this, reading speeches, you know, at  Christian leaders Institute, what we try to do is we try to do a lot of the dialogue  where you can see what I'm saying, especially for individuals who are looking at  English as a second language. So a lot of these classes I'm reading a lot of this,  if you've taken some of my classes, you know, I'll stumble over words and all  that I mean, I'm doing my best. But still, it's when I can be free and just share my heart. That's when I do my best. So as a church planter, that's how it's going to  be for you as well. Usually, eye contact. Public speaking principle number three,  good eye communication habits, don't just glance hurriedly over the audience.  Let your eyes, make a two or three second connections with various people  around the room as you speak. Let people know that you are speaking directly  to them. So eye contact is very important. In the people smart class, we've  talked about eye contact on the interpersonal level people to people, but learn  how to get better and better in the sermon preparation class. We talked about  eye contact, keep working on that eye contact and make it simple to make it  easy to make it emotional in terms of being not too quick. Eye contact is very  important. Communicate with energy. Public speaking, principle number five,  communicate with energy when you speak your face. And in fact, your whole  personality should radiate energy, enthusiasm, conviction, and I'll add this.  We're on the Lord's team. We're on the salvation team, the love team. We're on  the team that shares the gospel. If we don't have something to be energetic  about no one does. Your voice should resonate with energy, your eyes should  gleam with energy. Your smile should dazzle with energy. Well, it's true that  some people have naturally energetic personalities, we can all learn to be more  energetic and dynamic. When we speak. speaking skills can be taught, coached learned, as one of the most important skills of all is the skill of communicating  with energy. Now I have coached pastors, church planters for many, many  years, and I find it fascinating. Sometimes people will say to me, some leaders  will say, I'm just not energetic person. So what we do is we do this like practice 

skill, we do this exercise. And it's an exercise where we talk about fee fi fo fum.  And it's sort of like a British. A British fairy tale, but very, very short. So then we'll have people say, Okay, you're supposed to do the fee fi fo fum. So we go  around, we would we'd go around the room. And at first, those with low energy  go, they would be out of their comfort zone be doing things like fee fi fo Fum just a little more, it would say that's not enough. Fee, Fi fo Fum no more. And then it  gets to be this crazy place. Fee FI FOE FUM really incredible, and then they're  feeling embarrassed. And the whole point of the exercise is to get past that  embarrassment is to a get that energy tap into that energy. You know, when you  first start communicating with energy, and I remember that early in my ministry,  at first, I felt like Ooh, that looks too showy. But people were saying, Wow, we  could we could understand you more we paid attention more because we felt  and saw your energy. So communicating with energy is a very important church  planter. Public speaking skill. Be a storyteller. Public speaking. Principle number  six. Become a storyteller stories can create a powerful emotional connection  with your audience. Use funny stories to loosen up your audience. It puts your  listeners at ease, use dramatic stories to learn generate strong emotions and  empathy. Good stories, ignite the hearers imagination and makes your point  memorable, even unforgettable stories in print images on the listeners minds  and triggers, trigger strong emotions. I've seen that with Rich DeVos. When he  speaks at various places, he tells a story and people are caught in, he'll start a  speech with a story. Jesus, of course, is legendary. Not only because he is the  Son of God, the Savior of the world who rose from the dead. That's fact. Also in  his ministry, he was a storyteller, parables and stories that just brought poignant  truth and grace to his audience. Vary your voice pattern. Public speaking  principle number seven Vary your voice pattern. A monotone voice is boring and  puts your audience to sleep, you should rise and fall with the rhythm of your  speech. The air in the room should tingle with energy and enthusiasm in your  voice. Speak in a firm, clear voice that says what you mean to say, eliminate  words from your speaking vocabulary that make you seem tentative and  uncertain. So just well, the varying of voice you could just see, as I was talking  to you, some of you were watching us and I could just see in my imaginations,  I'm looking through the screen. But you're starting to get tired. Some of you  yawn, didn't you? If you're speaking in front of people have that interesting voice pitch, God gave you a octaves in your voice. They're beautiful. They're for  singing. And therefore speaking, these octaves are given by God. And you don't  want to pick two or three notes in the octive, you want to use them all. Genuine,  genuinely caring. Public speaking, principle number eight is demonstrate  genuine caring. Show your audience that you genuinely care about them and  their needs. If you're caring is just an act, it will show if you are if you truly enjoy  serving and helping people, if you take the time to truly address their needs in  your speech, you win them over and they will love you. And this is Pat Williams 

talking, I put it this way you will win them over and they will love God and love  their neighbor even more. You know, Malcolm Gladwell is someone that I've  read many of his books and one of the books, one of the interviews on YouTube, I was listening to a person ask him, so you've seen many successful people,  many leaders, many people who have brought change to the earth and many of  them were not even believers. And they were utilizing that just creational calling  to make a difference for humanity. Well, somebody asked him, What is one thing you see that's very effective, that communicates trust to people? And Malcolm  Gladwell said, That's a good question. He looked up in the, in the room a little  bit. He says it's this. The people that make the difference in this world are the  people who genuinely care deeply about what they're doing, what they're  saying. What they're seeking to accomplish. They care so deeply about it is  we're preaching as we're leading a church plant that is seen truly do you care  deeply does that caring deeply that caring, come through in all of your  presentations, if you're up there and you're just running through the motions, it  will be seen. Principle number nine is keep working on getting better public  speaking, principle nine is train yourself to be a more effective speaker. We get  all sharpened our speaking skills. We all have room for improvement. After  giving literally 1000s of speeches over the year, I would still ask for coaching  feedback from professional speech coaching. What's happening here, you see  that you gotta keep growing. You know, I know that feeling. You know, you  graduate, I graduated from seminary, I had my preaching class, I thought, Okay,  I've done that know I just can experience and improve. You know, what I found  happen is I found that I hit ceilings, there were places where I would improve  and they would just stay where they're at and stay where they're at. In that what  are the people in my congregation going to say and do? They're just going to  listen, they're going to enjoy some mild improvement. But it wasn't until I really  made this an intentional pursuit. But I saw you know what I can I can learn this  about my introduction, I can learn this about my eye contact I can learn this  about my the body of the sermons I can learn this about what to say what not to  say. Sometimes, I wasn't even aware of the fact that I was saying things that  basically were meaning one thing but I was meaning something else. So train  yourself to get better. In the preaching class, there are a lot of great principles.  But there's more. Ask mentors what they think. Ask your spouse what your  spouse thinks about your speaking. Keep training yourself to get better. Another  valuable tool for sharpening your speak speaking skills is video feedback.  Rehearse your speech in front of a video camera. If you have those kinds of  means. When you watch the playback, you'll be able to see yourself and as  others see you, you will identify both communicating strengths and bad habits  you never know you had. At first you will wince at your flaws and flubs, but stick  with it and you'll be guaranteed to see improvement. Never pass up an  opportunity to speak. That's Pat Williams. Principle number six is he has 

communicated with Rich DeVos. If you want to be successful and influential,  they can grab every opportunity that comes your way. Now, I will say this this  way is in church planter, you're always creating other stages. So you want to not grab every opportunity, then that hurts other people's opportunity to speak. What this is talking about is is you'll find as you give away one stage, another stage  will appear to you. So you want to have that servant attitude. And when they  come, you want to seize that moment, if no opportunities come to you then  make your own opportunities, go on the street and do some more street  evangelism. No speaking opportunity is too small or too large, whether you're  offered a chance to speak to a dozen Rotarians or in West in West overshoe or  an audience of millions on network TV seize it, make the most of it. That is what  I do. That's what Rich DeVos does. And that's what you should do too. Now, to  me, the speaking opportunities, especially to promote the church can be all over the place. Within your church, you want to keep making more opportunities for  others and not be the speech speaking hog. I've even seen the effective church  planters where they'll start the whole thing. And within a few years, they're even  sharing the pulpit and they're sharing so that others get that opportunity. But that church planter is still out there speaking, he's speaking to promote the work of  Christ in his community or her community. You know, if you think about how to  be a great speaker, I want to just go back to something I said earlier, it's still very spiritual, this is to feel deeply about something is to be called by God be filled  with the Holy Spirit. And we will get better and better in our skill level. But what's  the point? What's it for? It's proclaim the love of God, the resurrection of the  dead, to reclaim redemption, and to do everything we can to get out of the way  of this powerful ministry and message