Video Transcript: Session 25 Make It Memorable word pictures
Welcome back to this class on making and preaching sermons. We've been looking at many things together after some introductory remarks, we went to how do you prepare to preach a sermon and we talked about prayer and study and figuring out what kind of sermon you're going to preach and all those sorts of things. And then we've talked about developing the sermon about how you go about doing introductions, and how do you structure the body of it? And how do you do conclusions. And so you have a lot of the tools now, to develop a sermon, what we are going to be moving now into, you'll note on the side there, presenting your sermon presenting is vitally important to whether your message gets through to people and whether they remember it. So you'll notice in the center there, the theme of these next several sessions is going to be make your message memorable. How do you make your message memorable, today, we're going to talk about word pictures, and how that can make your message memorable. Now, if there's anything that has been a criticism of preaching, it's this kind of picture where somebody's standing there, they're wanting to give a message. They're trying to give a message, but people are, are drifting off to sleep. Now, sometimes that can happen for a variety of reasons. I, I did a summer ministry in a church in Ontario, Canada, and many of the families in that church were dairy farmers. In other words, they were up really early on Sunday mornings, they would go out and get the cows from the pasture into the barn, they milked the cows and get them back out into the pasture, they take care of any problems. And then they come to church, and they would come and sit down in the pew. And they would go out. I mean, they would just fall asleep in droves. And I remember being offended by that. At one point, until God finally talked to me and said, You know what, they need a day of rest, too. Well, that's one reason people might snooze through a sermon. But in today's world, there are other reasons. A big one might be just the fact that you're a boring speaker. I think I've shared with you the time the man said to me, You know what Everything you said was right. Everything you said was right, but people stopped listening. So how do you make your message memorable? How do you keep people awake? Well, here's just, this was a University of Texas study that was done years ago now, but tried to figure Okay, what do you make something memorable for people and you'll notice that people remember 10% Of what we read, we remember 20% of what we hear 30% of what we see 50% of what we see and hear 70% of what we discuss 80% of what we experienced and 90% of what we teach now, if you are somebody who just is the monologue preacher 20% of what you they hear, that means by Wednesday, they don't remember much of your message. So today, we're going to talk and in the next sessions are going to talk about how do you make combine these things, but how do you make a message in a presentation of what you've studied? What you've developed, as far as the theme of your message, the style of message, the kind of message? How do you present that in such a way that it makes a difference is
caught by people. Here's a general truth, presentation trumps information. In other words, you can have the best information in the world. But if it's not presented, well, people aren't going to tune in. Now that first pastor when I was on a summer assignment, and he said those words to me, you know, everything you said was right. But people weren't listening was a huge moment for me. It gave me the opportunity to work with him during that summer to talk about how to make messages memorable. And today, we're going to start that process of talking about how do you do it? How do you make something memorable? The first trick to that is using picture language. Now the picture that I've got here is of a man standing at a gas station, because this is true at my gas station, where I stop usually to get gas is that they've got a video going while you're pumping gas. And many grocery stores you walk in in the United States, and you're in line in in the line to checkout. And here's a video running. Now why did they do that? Well, they know that we are geared toward pictures nowadays. In fact, they've done studies about kids. And if you watch kids, if there's a screen on somewhere, they'll automatically be paying attention to the screen, you aren't going to be on screen necessarily. Some of you might be you might have a video projection on an alternate site. I don't know how that works for you. But for most of us, we're not going to be on a screen. But one of the ways we can duplicate that effort is to start using picture language. Now this is something that speech coaches not just in the preaching world that speech coaches teach a great deal about and so here's a short video. It's it's a speech coach talking about using picture language to describe things that will make a difference for people's ability to hear and listen. So enjoy, and I'll see you after that. Hi, I'm Bill Lampton with a speech coaching tip for today. And the tip is this an average speaker just uses words. On the other hand, an excellent speaker creates pictures with words illustrate that very quickly. I'm describing to you my new boss. If I do that, in an average way, I just say, my new boss is a very big guy, wait till you meet him. End of description. On the other hand to be much more picturesque, vivid and memorable, the excellent speaker will say, using the five senses. When I first saw this boss, I knew that I was in the land of a physical giant, because I'm almost six feet tall. And as I looked up, I was really straining my neck to have eye contact with him. Next comes a sense of smell. He was smoking a cigar shouldn't have been in the office setting, but he was. And I'll never forget the stench of that smoke. I can smell it even today. Now, for the sense of taste, he gave me a cup of coffee. Very, very bitter to taste. I appreciated the gesture, but I didn't like the coffee. Next comes the sense of touch. When he gripped my hand he squeezed so tightly with his overwhelming handshake, that I thought every bone in my body might break. And as for sound, What a big gruff voice I heard I wondered if the windows in the room might shatter or, would my eardrums be damaged. Now whose description is more real to you which one is more memorable, certainly, the one where they
presenter uses words not just alone, but to create a picture, which is unforgettable. That's your speech coaching tip for today. And if you have an important presentation coming up a job interview, a presentation where you're seeking venture capital, speaking to an important professional association, speaking to a civic club or in your church, whatever it is, I'm available as your speech coach, give me a call and let's talk about it. 678-316-4300 I'm Bill Lampton. Thanks for being with me. So, you use picture language, you describe things, where you see them, you describe things for your audience, so that their minds start to catch in on the pictures. So where do you find pictures? How do you find these pictures that you are going to describe to people how do you develop word picture language? Well, one of the things you do is just study the passage that you study. The Bible is full is full of picture language. For instance, here's one in Acts 17. Where you remember, Paul is in Athens, and he's talking to people he notices this incredibly religious culture, he finds that altar to an unknown God. And he uses that to talk to people while people are hearing him speak. And they ask this question, what is this babbler trying to say? Now, that babbler is an important word. It pictures in fact, the name of here's here's one different kinds of babbler bird pictures a little bird and their kind that go from here to here to here picking up just grains and dirt and sand and stuff to eat. But they flit around, they flit from one place to another, and so that word babbler is a wonderful picture word of what they believe Paul was doing. In other words, he didn't have any original thought. It was just he was picking up ideas here and there and he was packaging them, throwing them out to people. And so There's a picture for you. That can be used that all of a sudden people get an idea. Oh, yeah. What does that babbler say my, well, no, but that's not who Paul was because he'd gotten a message directly from God about Jesus Christ. He'd met Jesus Christ face to face on the road to Damascus. And so he was not a babbler. Now, there are a lot of people around you to talk about in a message who are babblers, just tune in on your TV, listen to your radio and you'll find babblers, pick pick pick, pick from here and there, package something. And boy, you know, I in my lifetime, I can't tell you how many people have predicted the end of the world by taking this this this this business and putting it together in a book and selling it. That's not who Paul was. What is this babbler trying to say, while he's trying not, he's not there to babble he's there to tell you the truth. So where do you find these kinds of picture language, and we'll do more of them in the next time too. But you can find them in the passage like that. You can find them in commentaries. Or you can find them on website Bible studies that there will be people who will give you the word pictures that are in the scriptures. In the passage of sermons of others, I referred to sermoncentral.com. Before next time, I'm going to say a little word about plagiarism. But here just to note that in other people's sermon, sometimes you'll catch that they'll be really good at this. And you can do that Logos a Bible study program that people purchase and
have on their computers, Biblegateway.com. For a small fee, you can get all kinds of research material about any passage that you look up on their website. And so there are places that you can find pictures, but using picture language is one way that it will be memorable. So where do you find the pictures? Well, you find them in the passage, that's what I've been talking about. You find them in literature, there are all kinds of opportunities to say, you know, I was reading this book recently, or I was reading this article recently. And I came across this story, this picture, this house, I got a brother in law who's rereading classic literature and you can talk about the house of Seven Gables is fine trying to find truth, and you're going from one house to another to another to another. And then you can describe that kind of house and then talk about this is what some people do. And there are modern illustrations of that. The movie of a few years back, Eat, Pray, Love, you know, well, I tried this, while I'm trying this, I'm trying this, to try to find a wholesome life. So you can find it in literature, you can find it in life, there are all kinds of pictures around you that you can describe, there are people you can describe who had an impact on you, there are situations you come into where all of a sudden, that can be a picture, you know, for instance, you know, as a kid, there was a huge drainage ditch near we were we were it wasn't just a ditch, but they had these huge, big concrete cylinders that had been put together. And as kids, we used to go in there with flashlights, I mean, it was pitch dark. And we would just try to figure out where we were. And we made it a long way in there until we came to a barrier where there was a pool. And we didn't know how deep the pool was. And we weren't sure we could jump across it because we had to be hunched over in order to go through that tunnel. But here we are in this darkened terminal, trying to find our way with a light that is starting to dim as a result of batteries. And you can talk about somebody as a picture, there's a picture of somebody who is trying to get through life. And what they're trying is not working. I'm thinking of a man I know that spent his life with a goal to have built a company that had 50 employees. And he got there and said, he realized that I've been running through a tunnel all my life. And I've gotten what I wanted. I thought this was the end and turns out it's a dead end. And I got to figure out what life is about. And I've got to get out of this darkness. Well, let me tell you about Jesus Christ, my partner in ministry led him to the Lord in that one conversation, just because he was able to look at his life in a picture and realize he'd come to a dead end in a darkened tunnel. So you can find it in life wherever you go. But here's the point. Use pictures in your language, use pictures, and you're going to be far more effective in being memorable. People will be able to catch on because we are a visually oriented society. They'll be able to catch on to what you're saying, and they will rejoice with you in the saying of it. And hopefully by Wednesday, they'll still be thinking of this picture that they have in their minds of what you said. So blessings, next
time we're going to continue this conversation about how do you make your message memorable so see you next time