Video Transcript: Session 30 Gestures

Welcome back, we're continuing talking about how to make your message  presentation effective, so that the people who are listening to you get the  message and get it in the most effective way possible. And we've looked at a  variety of not tricks of the trade, but things that we should have in mind. Well,  today I want to talk about this subject, using meaningful gestures or using body  language. Now, it is just a reality that how you use gestures will either support or detract from your message. Right now, in the United States, as I'm recording  these messages, we're entering a political election season. And people are  announcing who's going to run for President of the United States. Well, one of  the men who ran is running is named Beto O'Rourke, he's from Texas. And he  did an announcement, which he recorded, it was in his living room, he's sitting  on the couch with his wife next to him. And he announced that he wanted to run  for president because he saw all these things in the world that he wanted to  change. And he was going to change it. And this was part of his history. And  these are some of the things he saw wrong. And he knew that with the power of  the presidency to change. And anyway, his gestures were distracting, so much  so that one of our local comedians took that on, and you can find it as Beto  O'Rourke announcement. But one of our late night comedians took that on and  did a did a comedic skit just about his gestures, just to say, you know, so I love  America with every bone in my body said back, I only have a bone in my body  and that sort of thing. See, he had some wonderful things to say did Beto  O'Rourke about his passion for this country, about his love for it about how he  saw some things that were wrong. And he wanted to make them right, but his  gestures got in the way. Now, the reality is gestures or body language in the  more broad tense of this body, broad sense of this. Can can communicate a  great deal to your audience. In fact, here's a cartoon that I came across. Here's  the guy says, This concludes my lecture on nonverbal communication, any  comments or questions, while sure they're making comments, they are  communicating something they're communicating is a very real emotion about it, but they're not doing it verbally. Now, just think about with body language, there  are so many things that we can communicate, here's just one chart that  somebody came up with, by our ways of talking our pauses, or stress on words  that can communicate something to people, our posture, if you're slouching, it  communicates you're not really always interested in your subject. In fact years  ago, I was chairman of a board that was responsible for church planting in  various parts of the United States and Canada. And, and so I agreed to do a  video for them, and which I would encourage people to give to this cause. And  we've taped the video and I never saw it. It was edited and it was published. And when I saw it, come on, I was horrified. Because I was just kind of slouching in  the chair as I was talking. And I realized that I just, I'm looking at this and  thinking, Oh, no, this looks like I'm hardly interested in the subject. Slouching is  a huge body language thing. Our appearance are we tidy or untidy head 

movements nodding, that communicate something or they are shaking our  head, communicate something hand movements. The studies have shown that  even in social situations, people want to see your hands. Now it's all  subconscious, but they want to see your hands, if you don't see your hands,  there's something that they think is wrong. And so you know, whether your  hands are visible or not how they're moving eye movements. If I wink to you, it's  a nonverbal cue, but it says something to you facial expressions, we're going to  talk about that a little bit more later, our body contact, shaking hands. In fact,  those who study body language, say, it's a huge power play, if you grabbed  somebody's hand to shake it, and you pull them into a further embrace or putting your hand on their shoulder, that that communicates something about how you  want to relate to this person closeness, you know, if I leaned forward, or you're  talking to somebody who invade your space, that communicates something, and some politicians, they say, are really good at that they'll invade your space, you  know, sounds like oh, yes, you say something, and I start laughing. That  communicates something, but it's not verbal. It communicates that I can be the  case that either I found it funny or are not paying attention or whatever. And so,  these are just some of the nonverbal communication, body language things that  body language experts teach people to read. There are people who do judge  judging of juries, right. So they become consultants to lawyers, and as juries are being formed and the questions are going on, there will be those who are  evaluating body language. What do people look like? Do they sit like this? Do  they slouch or they eager Are they paying attention reading body language are  is is a huge art and people get paid a lot of money for it. But my point is that  body language is very important when you preach. For instance, one study  shows that communication is 7% verbal. In other words, only 7% of the words  38% are paraverbal, in other words, the pitch and tone and those things volume  that we talked about last time, and 55% of communication is nonverbal, think  about that 55% of the message that you're bringing is going to be received  nonverbally. Now, that's, that's one of my frustrations, frankly, with reading the  Bible. Because all we have are the words, and I can't wait until I can talk to the  people who said those words. You know, for instance, I what I do weddings,  sometimes I'll read out of Genesis 2, you know, where a God creates Eve says,  about Adam, it's not good that this man is alone, I'm gonna make a helper fit for  him, he creates, Eve brings it to her, brings her to him. And he says, At last, this  is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh shall be called Woman, for she was  taken out of man, or springs from man, depending on the translation that you  you read. Now how was that said? I suspect he said it. At last, This is bone of  my bone and flesh into my flesh, but we only have the word. And so sometimes  that's frustrating with the Bible, but you are presenting the Bible. And so you are  going to be bringing an interpretation to the Bible that is going to be interpreted  largely on your body language, your gestures. So what kinds of gestures can we

use effectively indebted here to a website that's called public power,  publicspeakingpower.com. And they just give all kinds of cues and some short  videos about how we can improve our public speaking. But they talk about four  different kinds of gestures, there are the descriptive gestures, you know, like  you're preaching on David and Goliath is a David, Goliath was nine feet tall and  you make the comparison and David was this little boy, you can make those  kinds of comparison gestures that allows people to get in, you can talk about  size or shape and say well he picked up a box and there was about this big, or,  you know, there was this shape of the globe, you know, the, the shape of the  globe that was in the room, or whatever. And you can create a gesture or body  language that mimics what you're talking about. You can depict movement, said, You know, they went from there, over to there. simple gesture, but it allows  people to tag into your message, or placement, you know, when they enter the  tabernacle in the Old Testament, and you turn over here, this is what you find  here, table of showbread. And then if you go to the center, you've got the altar of incense, we're representing prayers of God's people going to him, and over here and is the menorah, the light of the world, and etc, placement, and people will  picture it in their heads. And will help them grab onto your message, and to hang on to it. So we can do descriptive gestures, a second kind of gesture that we  can use emphatic or emotional, emotional gestures, there's just a ton of  emotions that can be expressed through body language, you can read about it,  and, and even read the words. But if you say, I was terribly angry, or I was  terribly angry, people are going to say, Well, what, and in fact, many studies  again, that have been done a public speakers say that if you include emotion in  the way that you present your message, people are going to listen more closely,  and remember it better. And so there's just a variety of ways, sadness, if you're  looking sad, you look sad, if you're going to be angry, look angry, if you're going  to be happy, you know, make that make makes a face that shows that exercise  is probably one of those stories that are legend. But it's a story about a man who was teaching preaching in a particular Bible college and he was talking about  when you preach about heaven, and he's telling all men and his class at that  time was saying you know men when you preach about heaven says Your face  has to glow with a glorious seeing the streets of gold have these these gates  that are just one pearl is a light from the Son God you let it glow with that said  when you preach about hell just let your normal face do it. But the reality is don't here's just some of the emotions that you can express with body language. This  woman just naturally Oh, I'm semi interested or, Oh, this is terrible. I can't  believe this is happening, or kind of coy, really, or tight. Let me think about that.  No, you don't really get all of these, the surprise, the reflection, the horror, the  anger, the all of these kinds of things you can express emotionally. And if you do your face with your gestures, express them, people are going to tune in better.  So there's the descriptive gestures. There's the emphatic gestures, there's the 

emotional gestures. And there's the suggestive gestures. For instance, if you are going to say, You know what, when I approached him, he just looked at me like  that. That's a whole different thing. It says, I'm closing myself off to you, right.  And this is something I think about a man and one of my churches, it wasn't too  happy with me. Every time I talked to him, this is what he did. Now, I could  describe it to him while he crossed his arms and just kind of look at me. But if I  do this, all of a sudden, there's a picture that goes with it, you know, I've talked  about picture language and talked about using visuals, gestures can fill that  need greatly for people. So there's a suggestion for you know, she welcomed  him with open arms, or I welcome you here this morning. You know, when you  give a welcome in church, such as we do in our churches, I get to lead worship  again, this week, I'm going to be able to say to people, welcome to this church  today. So glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. That's a gesture to say, if you  don't, or if I'm talking about all of you at all, what God loves, every single one of  you, or God loves every single one of you. See, the kinds of suggestive gestures you can get with just open cross, or a shrug. doesn't really make much  difference whatsoever. When you're speaking, and you're coming across that  kind of attitude, you say, you know, what he, he just took whatever I said, is just  something to be tossed away. Or even turning your back on someone talking  about God saying in Scripture and the prophets turned, I'm gonna turn my back  to you. Now, what does that communicate? But then when you're talking about  it, do it, do it. And those kinds of gestures will just let people tune in. So four is  prompting gestures. So, if you want people to raise your hand, say, Hey, if you  know this scripture passage, raise your hands. Well, what you do is you raise  your hands, and you're prompting people, but you're giving them direction to do  that. Or if you're saying, you know, you're reading, clap your hands, all your  people Shout to God with a voice of triumph, and you start, you start the  clapping of hands. It's a suggestive gesture that allows people to say, oh, yeah,  I'm going to join in with that. That's another means of body language, another  means of a gesture well, okay, so that's a listing of various gestures that you can use and ways to use them. Some tips to using effective gestures. And the first  one is to eliminate in your life distracting gestures. Now, if you're not used to  preaching, you probably develop some nervous habits when you're in front of  people. Here are some of the common ones. One is touching your face. As it  says there, it might make you seem nervous, and can be a distraction for the  listeners or people in the conversation, touching your face, unless it's in a  gesture. Oh, my. But if it's a nervous habit, be aware of it. It's a very common  one. And people who are inexperienced speakers will do that they'll just touch  their face, or they'll touch their neck or et cetera. Be aware, if you do that sort of  thing. Here's another one. Posture is another body language thing that you know if you it's one of the first things people notice. So are you walking? Are you  standing with confidence? Are you doing face to face communication? And how 

do you hold your head? How do you hold your body how you hold your head is  important. And so you may have some some inappropriate kind of gestures or  ones that aren't helpful about you know, how do you move your head and can  create some dissonance for people and so be aware of your posture. I here's  here's one of the ones that just drives me crazy. women in particular, especially,  you know, putting the hair behind the ear, and it's a nervous habit, you see  people do it. And after a while, you say, Wow, what are they doing? Why are  they doing that, and they do it over and over again, can be very distracting to  listeners, or this one, it's awesome. Nervous people will just start playing with  their ring. And so how do you do your gestures? When your public speaking?  Now you may have to record it, in order for you to see that. Or you may have to  ask people, you know, do you notice any gestures? And the latest session, we'll  talk about? How do you help people evaluate you, so you can improve. But right now, just be aware that you're going to have to eliminate distracting gestures.  And then secondly, watch your gestures in conversation. You're most of us when we converse with someone, or gesturing. We do it naturally at that point. And so  be aware of which gestures you tend to use in a conversation with somebody.  And we tend to use less of them. And that's okay, too. We'll talk about that in a  second. But it's okay to use less of them in your conversation. But just note,  which ones are natural for you, how they how it's just, it is just the way you talk.  And those are ones that you're going to want to especially emphasize, when  you're having a conversation with a larger audience. So watch your gestures.  Thirdly, I talked about this already to a degree, Project emotion. People who  project emotion again, in their speaking, are thought to be more engaged with  their subject matter. And the subject matter is better received by listeners. Here's a male showing a variety of emotions, you know, how in the world that you could do this in a public speaker. But it happens, right? The best ones do. They'll talk  about it, and you'll notice that you will be able to grab onto their anger. Last time  when we're talking about visual or a couple of sessions ago using visuals in our  messages. You know, I held up that sledgehammer. And I was so angry, but I  didn't say it that way. Did you notice? I didn't see it as well as I should have  angry with him. I went and talked with a counselor about how do I handle my  anger. And then take the sledgehammer. Those kinds of things allow people to  say, I understand that I've been there. Because they're feeling the emotion, not  just hearing about it, they're seeing it. Fourth tip to effective gestures is to  prepare and practice. Now sometimes when we start public speaking, and we're  just getting into it, gestures will feel so patterned. And sometimes you can see  people like that, that it looks like they have in their notes reach hand up now.  And it seems fake. And that's okay at first. But as you do that, it becomes more  natural. One person I read this past week compared it to learning to drive a stick shift. Now I grew up driving a stick shift. And it just was a lot from the time I was  like 10 years old, I was driving down our street, which was out in the country, it 

didn't make any difference. But when I got married, we had automatic  transmission car, and then I bought one that had a stick shift, and I found my  wife having to learn how to drive a stick shift. Now if you've never done that, it's  complex. Because there's so many things in motion at one time, you've got to  steer, or you've got to push that clutch in, let off the gas, change the gear, let the clutch out and engage the gas together in such a way that the car keeps moving forward. And it's a little bit complex. And at first, when you're learning how to do  that, it just feels like I can't keep all this stuff together all in my head at one time.  And so when my wife began learning to drive with a stick shift, she would only a  shift going straight, she wouldn't shift on a turn ever, because she had to think  through all of this stuff. Well, when you're first learning to preach, and you're  thinking about expanding the amount of body language you can use, it may  seem unnatural. And so you are going to have to practice, prepare and practice  and eventually it becomes the norm. My wife drove a stick shift for years after  that and did it normally and with a sense of joy because we're getting better gas  mileage for that time. So prepare and practice and then finally, be more  animated than you normally would be. When you're speaking to a group of  people. You look small to them, you are at a distance. Depending on the size of  the auditorium you may be at a great distance from them. And so you have kind  of over exaggerate your gestures over exaggerate your body language, because you are looking small to them. Unless you're on one of the churches that  projects you on screen at the same time, then you can take back some of this.  But that's part of it, too. Use a broad expression in your body language that  people will interpret more small because you look more small. And so I didn't put on there, but you know, move around. When I preach, I tend to move around.  And people have found that helpful. And in fact, we'll talk about later, you know,  should you preach with notes or not notes? How do you do that sort of thing.  We'll talk about that another time. But for today, I want you to practice some new gestures. Think about which gestures will be most effective in getting your  message across and use them even if it's leaning into people to say, this is  important stuff, and it will help your listeners get the word of God more  effectively. I'll see you next time.