How Much Do I Share When I Speak–if It Concerns Others?

My story is about learning how to say “God, you are enough.”

When I share my story, I do so to challenge women to open up their hands, and say, “God, you may have given me many blessings, but ultimately my life is based entirely, and solely, in You. You are my Source. You are enough.”

And I do that by sharing my story of loss–my son who passed away, my fiance who walked out.

Yet those losses only make sense in a wider context–namely, that of growing up with rejection because my father left. His actions made me who I am, and God ended up using it all for good. Yet I cannot tell my story without his.

When I asked on my Facebook Page a while ago what the biggest challenge is for people when it comes to speaking, a number mentioned, “figuring out how much to share”. That is a challenge, and it comes in two forms. Let’s look at both:

Sharing when your story involves others doing things wrong

That’s my case. And how do you share about things others have done that have hurt you? What if a large part of your story is abuse, for instance. Do you name your abuser? What if a large part of your story is your husband’s–or ex-husband’s–pornography addiction? Do you talk about it? It impacted you. It made you who you are today. But do you mention it?

Here are some thoughts to consider:

1. Are you in a reconciled relationship with that person?

If you are in a reconciled relationship, ask them if you can share. Say that you will put boundaries around it, if necessary–like you will only share that story out of state.

If you are not in a reconciled relationship, and it is unlikely to ever be reconciled, then I think, personally, that it is okay to share. That’s the conclusion I’ve come to in my own life. To not share means that I miss out on telling what God has done, and often through my story people in the audience are touched. You can do it tastefully, but I do believe that God wants to work in people’s lives, and if we keep things under wraps, we take away some of that opportunity.

At the same time:

2. Are there others who would be affected by this?

I spoke recently to a woman who had been in a horrid marriage where he had used porn and had sexually abused their children. When the abuse became known (the mom hadn’t known) she immediately left her husband, sued for custody, and got a restraining order.

She went through a horrible time of grieving and of trying to repair broken relationships. Now she wants to warn other women about the dangers of staying in a marriage when you know something is terribly wrong but you can’t put your finger on it. What should she share?

This is a harder case, because her story is intricately wound up in that of her children. While she does not owe her husband the right to privacy, she does owe it to her children. Talking and praying with them about what is all right to share, and when, would be crucial.

God still wants to use her story, and praying that He will open doors to minister, even if it’s not done on a large stage, is important. But it could be that with healing,  her children are willing, even eager, to have her share. Nevertheless, I think their feelings and needs are paramount here.

3. Can you share without sharing details?

Finally, at times there are opportunities to share without spelling everything out. So, for instance, if your uncle sexually abused you, but you are now reconciled, or your uncle’s children are prominent in the church and don’t want it known, you could talk about how as a child someone you trusted violated your trust. You don’t need to name the person.

You can, however, focus on the details of how this made you feel, which is really far more important than what was done. Remember, people in the audience will relate to you around feelings, not actions. It is very unlikely anyone in the audience will have gone through exactly what you did. But everyone in the audience understands betrayal, and shame, and fear. Talking about those emotions is far more important than the exact details of what was done.

Now let’s look at the second scenario about deciding what to share:

What I Share Can Affect My Reputation in other Circles

I’m the sex lady. I never meant to be the sex lady, but I became the sex lady with the publication of The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex. And my husband and I speak at marriage conferences, where we always do the sex talk.

That’s not really that big a deal–until the conference is in your home town, and your mother-in-law is in the audience. Do you really want your friends and family knowing all your funny and personal anecdotes (don’t worry, we don’t get too specific, but we are funny!). That’s just awkward.

And I’ve had to learn that awkwardness is one of the sacrifices that you make for God. It’s one of the things that we offer Him, as a sacrifice of praise. Because the speaker that touches people and that leads them more and more to God is the speaker who is real. When we cover up our foibles, and our fears, and our mistakes, we aren’t real. People can’t relate to a “perfect” version of Christianity. They relate to God doing something in the struggles of ordinary people. If you don’t share your real-ness, your ordinary-ness, you protect yourself at the expense of ministry.

Sometimes God wants to humble us.

At the same time, there are lines. Jessica Harris, for instance, wrote this on my Facebook Page:

I am a high school teacher who speaks about pornography addiction, so it’s hard to keep my ministry life and my school life separate! haha. The last thing I want my students to remember is that I was the teacher who used to watch porn.

I am blessed that my speaking engagements have been outside of my immediate circle of influence, so there’s no worries of ‘cross contamination.’ Some of my school parents know what I do and tell their kids, “Did you know we know a celebrity?” And I say, “No, no. To them I am just Miss Jessica.”

She wants to be real. She wants to minister to people. But she also is right in that this could cause awkwardness at her day job. In this case, keeping them as separate as possible is likely a good idea! And keeping your boss in the loop about what you are doing, and about the steps that you are taking to separate the two, is also likely a good idea, so that nothing would ever happen that would take your boss by surprise.

It is a difficult thing to decide how much to open up. Am I just seeking attention? Do I just want to hurt this person who hurt me? Am I trying to find my own healing through speaking, and am I hurting others in the process? These are all questions we need to honestly ask ourselves and pray through with God.

Ultimately, though, your story is your story. If your story leads people to God, then pray that God will open doors and show you how to share it effectively and with integrity, even if it means that you do offer him a sacrifice of your own pride.

Want to learn how to share your story the most effectively, so it leads people to Christ–and not just focusing on what you went through? My audio download, Crafting an Effective Signature Talk, teaches you how to do just that!

Telling the Gospel to Those Who Haven’t Heard It

I’m sorry that my posts have been infrequent lately–I’m trying to take some time with family this summer, because my year coming up is going to be so busy!

But I have some things on my mind that I thought I would share with you.

One of the things that happens once a speaker has been speaking for a while is that we tend to get known outside of our traditional circles. For instance, while I speak mostly to evangelical church groups, I also write a family column in our local paper. And so lots and lots of non-evangelicals know who I am, and they know I speak.

And so every summer, when many ministers take vacations, I get asked to guest preach at small rural United Churches near the town where I live. For my American friends, think a combination of Episcopalian and Methodist. Very mainline.

I never charge my full fee. I consider this a real honour, and a real responsibility that God is giving me. It is one thing to speak to an evangelical audience and challenge them. It is another thing entirely to be asked to speak to a mainline church to people who may never have heard the gospel properly.

That is a humbling thing indeed.

I’ve been praying all week about what I will say, and the message that I have settled on is about drifting: you cannot drift towards heaven. It has to be something deliberate.

I’m going to open with the story of an experiment that took place off of the Brazilian coast. Two identical wine bottles were dropped, with messages inside, off of a boat. One drifted east, washing up one hundred and thirty days later off the coast of Africa. The other drifted northwest, landing in Nicaragua one hundred and ninety days later. They started in exactly the same place. They ended up half a world away from each other.

We can never drift closer to something we care about. We only ever drift apart.

And so I am going to talk about how we cannot drift through life; we need purpose, and we need to know where we are aiming. And I’ll take it from there.

One thing I have found when speaking before mainline audiences is that they are passionate about things like faith and purpose. They aren’t as comfortable with Jesus. But if you can open with the things that they are passionate about, you can then bring in Jesus afterwards.

As always, I find that bringing in humour, and even props, helps people to listen better.

And so even though this will be one of my smallest audiences this year, and even though it may look rather insignificant, I am considering this one of my most important speaking engagements. And if you all could take a minute to pray for those who will be listening, I would so appreciate it!

Have you had this sort of blessed opportunity, to present the gospel to those who may not have heard it? What did you do? Let me know!

7 Ways to Bore Your Audience

photo © 2005 Jason Scragz | more info (via: Wylio)
It’s every speaker’s worst nightmare. You’re speaking, and you look across the audience, and everybody’s looking dazed. Some are obviously texting. A few are nodding off. And a bunch are writing things down–but you’re pretty sure it doesn’t have anything to do with what you’re talking about. It’s probably a shopping list.

Boring people silly is awfully easy to do. In fact, all you have to do to bore people is follow these 7 steps:

1. Don’t Tell Anything About Yourself

If you want to bore your audience, keep the talk very impersonal. Don’t tell stories about yourself; just focus on the biblical text. In fact, don’t tell stories at all! If you’re talking about prayer, tell people how to pray, but above all, don’t give any illustrations of people who have prayed. Don’t tell anything inspirational; just lecture people on what they should be doing.

And if you do tell stories, make sure they’re not about you, because audiences actually enjoy hearing about the speaker. If you tell people about what you’ve gone through, it gives you credibility, and it makes people’s heads shoot up and listen to what you’re saying. So instead, steer clear of anything personal, and try to lecture, as if you are better than they are. Nothing glazes people’s eyes over more than that!

2. Read Your Whole Talk

If you have to read it to remember it, then people will realize that your talk is really very forgettable! So they won’t listen, either. I know that learning to give your talk without notes is tough, but at least when you get to the story part of the talk, try to do that without looking down.

Much of the emotion in a room is conveyed from body language–eye to eye contact. When you’re not making any eye-to-eye contact, they won’t pick up on the emotion, even if it’s a powerful story, and even if you’re being quite funny. They need to see your eyeballs.

When they don’t see your eyes, they’ll tune out and start thinking about other things. So reading verbatim is a great way to turn people off!

3. Teach People In-Depth

If the cure for boredom is engaging stories, then often the cause of boredom is too much lecturing! Yes, you may have a ton of knowledge that you want to impart, but if all you do is impart knowledge, telling them what they should be doing and how they should be doing, without offering any illustration of someone who did this and is now better off, or someone who didn’t do this and is now worse off, or even something completely different, like an illustration from nature, then you’ll bore them for sure.

People learn not by hearing what they should be doing; they learn by emotionally engaging with the speaker and the speaker’s stories, and then taking that emotion and combining it with the head knowledge  you’ve already given. That way they buy into the message! If you just give head knowledge, it likely won’t move to their hearts. And it’s also less likely to enter their ears, because they’ll realize “this isn’t really relevant for me”. And they’ll stop listening.

4. Use Too Many Points

Do you have six points? Seven points? Are you sharing the 8 Ps of Prayer? Or going into depth on every single one of the fruits of the spirit?

That’s too many subjects for people to focus on, and it will definitely result in boredom. Often speakers have the audience’s attention for the first two points, but they lose it when they keep saying, “next”, or “and another thing”. It’s better to take far longer on each point, and only have 1 or 2, then to have 13 or 14. People will realize, “I can’t remember all this, so why bother listening?” And they will stop. And they will be bored!

5. Speak in a Monotone

Have you ever been trying to make a toddler go to sleep by reading a story, like Goodnight Moon? How do you read it? Chances are you speak slowly, in a monotone, so that you don’t arouse any emotion in that child except perhaps that urge to close one’s eyes.

So if you want to bore people, pretend you’re tucking your grandson into bed! Talk in that monotone. Don’t change the speed, or the tone, or the pitch of your voice. Speak always equally fast, or equally slow. Be like background noise when someone’s trying to drift off, like a fan. You’ll lose them for sure!

On the other hand, if you speed up during your interesting stories, and then suddenly slow down when you’re making an important point, you’ll jerk them out of their stupor and they’ll start listening to you again. If you vary your pitch, making your voice lower when you’re making a point you want them to take home, and higher when you’re being funny, then they’ll have an easier time following you, and they won’t drift off!

6. Put all your main points and sub-points on PowerPoint

Put cute pictures of kittens up on Powerpoint, and people wake up. Use Powerpoint to show interesting illustrations or pictures, and people will start engaging in what you’re saying.

But if you want to bore them, write out all your main points on Powerpoint, complete with bullets and subpoints, so they can read along with you as you speak. Little bores people more, so this is a sure winner!

When you have all your subpoints on Powerpoint, then people know exactly what you’re about to say, and when they can read it in black and white, it quite frankly does not look all that interesting. By putting it up on a screen, you also subliminally give the message, “you won’t remember this just from my voice, since I’m not interesting enough, so I’m going to put everything up here so you can read it, too.” That way you give the impression that they really don’t need to listen to you. And they’ll plan their grocery shopping list in their heads instead!

7. Use Proof Texts for every second sentence

A final surefire way to turn off your audience: proof text everything you say. Sure, you may have a main Bible passage that you have read, and you may have one or two verses which illustrate it nicely. But if you want people to lose interest, the best thing is to find not one but five verses that say the same thing, and read them all. And everytime you make a statement, even if it’s relatively obvious, like “prayer is a good thing,” read a verse which says that, too.

Sure, if you use a lot of Bible verses it shows people that you know your Bible well, and that you’re only saying things which God already said. But you also tell people something else. You say: I’m nervous about my talk, and I need to prove to you that I have authority to say this.

Everybody wants to hear a talk grounded in the Bible, but they also are here for your interpretation. That, after all, is why you were asked to speak. If you need to take a walk through every book of the Bible to show something fairly rudimentary, then you’ll cause people to drift off for sure. They’ll think you have nothing new to say. You have nothing relevant to our culture to say. You have nothing authoritative to say. A speaker who keeps their audience engaged keeps coming back to the main passage they use over and over to reinforce that passage. But a speaker who wants to bore his or her audience jumps around like crazy to add gravitas, and it almost always backfires.

So there you go: a 7-fold plan to bore audiences! There are times when cynically I must admit I think they teach these things in school, because I hear people following every single one of these rules. If you want to bore your audience, by all means, do so. But if you want an engaged audience, who listens to what you say, thinks about you say, and then applies what you say, you’d do best to run in the opposite direction!

This summer I’m thinking of running some webinars on helping people perfect their anecdotes–those little illustrations we use when we speak. Would you be interested in that? Then be sure to sign up here for information when we start!

Don’t Settle on a Niche Too Early

photo © 2010 Jason Meredith | more info (via: Wylio)
I get the emails almost everyday: “I feel called to speak to women about depression.” “I feel called to speak to women about surviving abuse.” “I feel called to speak to college women about deciding on God’s will.” Or whatever it may be.

And it’s a wonderful thing to think that you have a very specific message for people! I would, however, warn you that this is not the most ideal way to start a speaking ministry–and could easily backfire.

Let me explain. In general, in the Christian church today, when you are hired to speak, you are hired to speak to general audiences. You aren’t hired to speak to just single aged college women, or to just abuse survivors, or to just those suffering from depression. You are hired to speak at a spring outreach for ALL the women in the church, or at the launch of their fall women’s Bible study, or at their monthly dinner. Such events are frequent, and often have a budget for speakers. That’s where you will begin your ministry.

Thus, you must remember these things:

1. If you are called to be a speaker, you need a message that is timeless that resonates with everyone.

Maybe God has specifically talked to you in the areas of abuse, or purity, or depression, or anger, but you must find a way to take that key message of your life and make it something that all can relate to. For instance, if you’re talking about abuse, you can use that as an illustration, or one of your points, but your whole message should be about how God is close to the brokenhearted, or how God helps you through getting over hurts. If you’re message is on purity, your whole talk could be about the blessing of holiness, and how God wants us to live holy lives, and that could be one subpoint.

Take your subject and look at what part of this appeals to EVERYONE–and then turn it into that talk.

2. Speaking is Not Therapy

I don’t mean to be harsh here, but I fear sometimes in talking to new speakers that they feel called to speak because God has done something so amazing in one corner of their lives that they want to share it. That’s wonderful, and we should all be sharing our testimony. But speaking can’t be used as a way to further healing–or at least not that primarily. I believe that speaking does enhance healing, but you have to speak first and foremost because God has called you to be a teacher, not just because God has called you to share a message.

If God has called you to be a teacher, then you should be able to teach a wide range of people, not only people specifically like you. If you can only teach people specifically like  you, then it’s unlikely you’ll be able to grow your ministry, and you could be too emotionally enmeshed in your topic that it becomes difficult to give the talk the objectivity it needs to teach it well.

Yes, some people have amazing testimonies, and they become speakers based on what seems to be their testimonies alone. But that is really few and far between. If you want to become known and get hired, you need to be able to speak to a generic audience, and that means that you have to have some flexibility.

3. Speaking Starts with the Audience, not with You

When you are designing a talk, you have to ask yourself, “what does my audience struggle with?” “What are the issues my audience faces?” “What are they going through?” It is the audience that you start with; not  you. You have to think to yourself, what message will most resonate with them? Sometimes when we have a great testimony, we want to only share that, because we feel that it is so powerful. But it is powerful because it happened to us; that does not mean that other people will see it in the same way. Who you speak to must be your starting point.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying don’t share your testimony. Every time I speak I share about childhood rejection and I share about my son dying. But I frame it around generic issues: how we women try to control our lives so that nothing bad happens. How we live in fear that things we love may be taken away from us. I start from their issues, and then I use my own as illustrations. I don’t start with me.

4. Realize that God will open doors when you are ready

Maybe I’m depressing you, because you really do feel called to speak to college-aged women, or to depressed women, or to abuse survivors. But let me assure you: I am not saying that you never will. I am just saying that “niche” events, that occur just for a certain subset of women, are very rare. They tend to be workshops at conferences, or regional conferences that attract only that group of women. They’re few and far between. So to get your name known to be hired where you eventually want to be, you need to get experience speaking first. And that experience will likely be with generic events.

Once you have some of those under your belt, and you get better known, you can approach some conferences and offer to do workshops. But often these niche markets don’t really pay, and it can be harder to make a living at it.

Maybe you dream of speaking in front of hundreds of women who are just in your niche, but think about this realistically. How often do hundreds of women in that niche get together to listen to a speaker? Likely it’s not very often. But how often do those same women mingle with others and get together for outreach events? Likely quite frequently.

So find a way to make your talk generic, and you can touch these women where they already are in big events. Don’t label yourself as a speaker to “abuse survivors”. Simply say that you are an inspirational speaker who talks about how God can help us overcome past hurts. Do you see the difference? Then your ministry is bigger, more effective, and more likely to take off!

If you’re having a problem seeing how you could make your story generic, my audio download, “Crafting a Life-Changing Signature Talk“, can help. It takes you through the process of figuring out what God’s main message is to you, and then looks at how to incorporate your life story in a way that people of all backgrounds can relate to it! Look at it here.

When You Feel Like Giving Up

I wrote this post while speaking at a weekend retreat recently.

It is a Saturday afternoon as I write this, and I am sitting on a dock in eastern Ontario, watching six geese fight it out on a lake. The air is filled with the sounds of birds, and the crystal clear lake seems to be smiling at me. All is peaceful.

And yet my heart was not peaceful for the last week. I know I have written about this before, but I struggle so much between the two extremes of wanting to rest and wanting to work. At times I go on a working jag, and I spend all my free time writing and fixing my blog or setting up Facebook or planning my next speaking campaign.

Other days I just want nothing more than to knit and think up new things to put in my crockpot.

I was having some of those latter days last week. I have been traveling so much this spring that it is wearing on me, and I found myself saying to God, “Can’t I just stay home? Can’t you let me off the hook sometimes?”

Of course, God just smiled, because it wasn’t Him who overcommitted me to so many engagements this spring; that was my own folly and my own pride.

And last Friday I pulled up my bootstraps and got myself in my car as I drove two hours to a retreat where 150 women were awaiting me, excited.

As soon as I arrived I felt convicted. These women were so excited to be together, and for me it seemed like more time away from my family, when I just wanted to knit. And to top it all off, I had forgotten one of the four knitting needles necessary to knit the pair of socks I’m working on at home. So I couldn’t even knit in my downtime to relax.

But the first thing that happened as I arrived was we were each asked to take a “blessing”–an inspirational thought printed out. I chose one, and it said,

I have given each of you a gift, for you to use to bless others. Go and bless those I give to you.

I smiled. I had been saying to God, “is it necessary for me to speak? Do I really make a difference? Is this really what you want me to spend my time on?” And He said a big, loud, “Yes!”

I had a wonderful feedback from the weekend, and the idyllic setting helped me to just quiet my heart. I spoke Friday night, and Saturday morning, and Saturday night, and Sunday morning, yet I had all Saturday afternoon to rest and think and pray and type.

It’s Saturday now, though this post won’t be up until later. And again I am struck by God talking to me about purpose. I told the women this morning, as I have mentioned on my personal blog before, that the two big lies that our culture believes are, “You deserve to be happy“, and “you would be happy if you just tried a little harder.” And even though I know these things are lies, I tend to fall into them. I tend to think that the purpose of life is for me to relax and have fun, and hence work interferes with my purpose.

But work is our purpose. I am not saying that we all need to be superwomen, but there is a balance, isn’t there? Our lives should mean something. We are put on this earth to get to know God, to learn to serve Him, and to introduce others to Him. There is great joy in that. Everything else is secondary. Part of getting to know God, of course, is also learning to abide in His rest, to appreciate quiet moments, to find joy in solitude. It is not that we need to be super busy all the time. And yet getting to know God also involves finding what we were created to do.

For whatever reason, and I don’t mean this in a proud way, I was created to communicate truths about God to people. I feel hopelessly inadequate for the task. I do not spend two hours in contemplation everyday. There are days when my prayer life is rather abysmal. And yet God still pushes me out there, and He still does wonderful things through me–or perhaps I should say despite me.

Most of you reading this blog also feel called to speak. You know that God has given you a message, and has gifted you to deliver that message.

Don’t take that for granted. Don’t think “I’m only doing this until retirement,” and then I can rest, or “I’m only going to be this busy until the kids grow, and then I can calm down.” Perhaps your life will be less busy, but don’t ever let it be less meaningful.

I think we believe too much that we work hard now in order to rest–as if resting is the goal of life. We would be happier and more at peace, I think, if we took periodic rest now so that we could know God, feel God, and thus be energized to live for Him, not just now, but forever. We are not to work ourselves out of work; we are to rest enough that we can focus on God and continue to work, in whatever capacity He calls us, until we go home.

So I will keep asking God to make more more excited about work, and to help me take the rest I need when the opportunity presents itself. And I will stop telling myself that my goal in life is to have limitless time to go on vacation and knit. Knitting is wonderful, but I can do that while I work. If only I remember my needles.

A version of this post was first published on my personal blog, To Love, Honor and Vacuum.

Use Your Words: How to Stand Out in a Crowd

Sheila Gregoire speaking at Girls Night Out

In today’s Use Your Words BlogTalkRadio show I got kind of riled up. Passionate. A wee mite upset.

So listen in! It’s a 30-minute radio show that is totally free to listen to! Here’s the gist of it: I think we are far too focused on imparting information than we are on actually inspiring change.

I was reading in my devotions today about wisdom in Ephesians 5, and the book I was using as a guide said this:

A fool is not a fool because of what he knows. He is a fool because of what he does.

That’s so true! In Proverbs, when God talks about what a fool is, it’s someone who actually does something stupid. It’s not someone who believes something stupid (although our actions do stem from our beliefs); it is the actions that matter.

Yet what do we focus on when we speak and write? I have heard far too many talks that are focused on getting people more information, but information is not what we need. We need to be encouraged, inspired, exhorted to change. We need to be invited to go deeper with God. Part of that involves teaching from Scripture–and all of our talks must be rooted in Scripture. But I fear that a big reason that the church is losing so many people is that we are not focused in making God real in our lives; we are focused in making sure people believe a certain way or know a certain amount.

Knowledge is important because it leads to action; it’s not an end in itself. Information is not life-changing; God is life-changing. We need to teach so that people know how to get in touch with God and understand what God wants. But if our teaching is just so they know more ABOUT God or know more ABOUT the Bible, but they don’t do anything, then all we’re doing is contributing to the noise.

I’ve talked a ton on this blog and on my radio show about how to grow word of mouth for your ministry. But I really should have started at first principles, which is what I’m trying to do today:

Word of mouth will only grow if people have had a real encounter with God through listening/reading you. And then you will stand out, and they will want to share it.

So if you want to stand out, here’s how:

1. Encourage Change and an Encounter with God

When you speak, don’t only teach. Don’t tell people the 15 things they need to understand about the book of Ruth, or what all the fruits of the Spirit are. Show them how to get those fruits of the Spirit. Show them why they should want to. Show them what the Holy Spirit can do for them. Show them why living as they are, without fruit, is horrible. Lead them to a change where they go deeper with God. That, in and of itself, makes you different, because the majority of Christian teaching in North America today is predicated on the belief that if we just tell people enough stuff, they’ll change. No, they won’t. Our church loses young people faster than children go through Hallowe’en candy, because we’re not authentic and we’re not real. We’re just engaging in an intellectual and emotional exercise, and they know there’s more to it than that. Be part of that “more to it”.

2. Be Transparent

People also yearn for authenticity. They want to know, not just what God says, but how you have walked the walk. How did God work in your life? Did you wrestle with this? Did you ever resist God? How did God bring you around?

When you are transparent and share your story, rather than just spout facts or Scripture indiscriminantly, you have authority to teach. So be transparent!

Remember 1 Peter 3:15, which says in part:

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.

We are to give an answer about OUR hope. We are to make it personal. Do so, and you will stand out from the crowd because you are authentic.

3. In your writing, teach a skill, don’t just give information

We live in an information overload world. And sadly, when speakers sit down at their keyboards and try to update their web presence, they tend to contribute to this. We think that if we simply write out on our web pages and our blogs all that we know about a certain subject, then we show that we are knowledgeable and important.

But do people even care about posts like that anymore? The web is full of posts that answer the questions “What” and “Why”: what God wants in marriage. Why you should submit to your husband. Why you need to forgive. Why bitterness is bad. What God wants from a mom. These posts tend to be quite dry and rather depressing. You read them and it’s all a list of why we should be perfect and why everything we’re doing is wrong. And they don’t stand out, because this is the vast majority of posts on the internet. It’s explaining what God wants.

That’s not enough. If you want to stand out, don’t JUST answer “What” and “Why”, but concentrate first and foremost on “How”. It’s the “How” posts that get shared on Facebook: How to make worship part of your everyday experience; how to speak more gently to your toddlers; how to find God in housework; How to rejuvenate a dying marriage; How to find more friends.

People want to know how to actually do something. Tell them that, and you will stand out. They will want to share what you have written.

I can write on and on about specific ways to build word of mouth, like writing newsletters, recording yourself, putting up videos, starting a Facebook Page, and I have done all of this. Just click on the marketing category on the right and you’ll find lots of practical posts. But remember: you can’t build word of mouth for something boring or not really useful. Word of mouth only builds if you actually are useful and if you invite people to have a real encounter with God. Do that, and put your marketing plans in place, and people will come. Try to just teach and impart knowledge, and you will bore people.

God is not about just teaching people things; He is about teaching them so that they change. Our role on this earth is not to learn everything about God; it is to learn how to serve Him. In your ministry, are you teaching stuff about God, or are you teaching people how to follow Him? That makes all the difference.

Listen in to this radio show right here!

And if you’re afraid you don’t know the difference between teaching to impart knowledge and teaching to inspire change, check out  my download: Crafting an Effective Signature Talk!

Don’t Overpromise God’s Answers When You Speak

Photo by Esparta

I know she meant well. But as her talk opened with the statement: “we should never doubt God’s desire to bless us,” I felt a little nervous. She had a wonderful personal testimony of God intervening in miraculous ways in her life. But I knew that sitting in the audience was a woman whose husband had just walked out on her and their four children. At the back of the room was a woman whose son had been killed in a car accident three years previously.

God does do amazing things, and He does want to bless us. But those blessings do not always happen in this life. In fact, many of us will be asked to bear enormous burdens in this life. The fact that there is suffering does not mean that we have a lack of faith, or that God is angry at us. In fact, over and over again in the New Testament God talks about how we will be tested and we will suffer because of Jesus.

Suffering is not a sign of God’s disfavour or of our own shortcomings.

Sometimes suffering is just a symptom of living in a fallen world. And when we speak, we must be aware of that. God will not heal all diseases; not even Jesus did! He watched His own earthly father, or stepfather, or whatever you want to call Joseph, die. He didn’t heal all the people who were brought to Him. And death still happened, even to every last one of the apostles. He did not come to spare us suffering in this earth; He came to give us abundant life in the here and now, even if it does involve suffering, and then eternal life in the hereafter.

So be careful how you share your testimony. Maybe you, like this speaker I heard, have a great story of God’s provision. But as you tell it, make sure to acknowledge that many in the audience will not experience God’s  help as dramatically as you did, and this does not mean God doesn’t love them. The real miracle, after all, isn’t God saving you from suffering; it is God redeeming you from this sinful world. And that is a miracle He does for everyone.

I have listened to speakers who honestly meant well, but who wounded with their words. I have read books by people who really ascribe to the “name it and claim it” gospel, that God wants us to live perfect, healthy lives. I do not see that in Scripture. What I see is that no matter what happens to us, God will carry us, and that is the message that we need to be giving.

If you do have a marvelous story of God’s provision, by all means, do share it. But be sure to temper it with another story of God’s grace despite hardship. Think of Joni Eareckson Tada, for instance. God did not heal her quadrapalegia. But he has worked in incredible ways through her life that would never have been possible before, and He has given her life abundantly. Share both sides of the coin, so that you do not show a distorted picture of God, and you do not needlessly wound those who listen to you.

We all want to be inspirational, but I think what God is really looking for is not people who have faith that God will act in a certain way, but faith even if God doesn’t act in a certain way. God wants our devotion and our hearts, not just our belief that God wants to make life hunky dorey for us.

When you’re speaking, always picture the person in the audience who has the potential to be hurt the most from your message. Now, what can you say to lighten their load? What hope can you give them from Scripture today? If  you’re able to minister to the most hurting, then your message will certainly be effective, and will certainly be used to change lives!

When Speaking, Relate on Feelings, not Circumstances

Speaking for Mountainview Christian Reformed Church

One of the most important elements of speaking is making that connection with the audience. When audience members like you, feel as if you are “one of them”, and agree with what you are saying, they are more likely to apply it to their lives.

That does not mean, however, that you need to have gone through exactly the same things in this life that they have. None of us has lived an identical life to anyone else! We don’t have to relate on circumstances per se; what we do have to relate to is on feelings.

Now, one caveat: often at the beginning of a talk is good to find things in the audience that you can laugh about together, that all women do. Such things aren’t necessarily circumstances as much as they are habits or cultural attitudes. Women are worried about our weight. We try to do too much. We’re insecure.

Here’s an excellent example, by Anita Refroe, a Christian mom comedian, of relating to her audience at the beginning of her talk by putting all the things a mom would say in a 24-hour period into a  3 minute song:

What if you’re not a mom? What if you can’t sing? It’s okay! You can still make fun of us women in other ways. You’re not doing it to put women down; you’re just doing it so that we can laugh together, and shared experiences always make people laugh. We’re nervous that we have runs in our stockings. We’re nervous about parallel parking. We can’t go anywhere without talking to the clerk and the people in line. We’re always trying to make closer relationships. You know what you’re like, and chances are others can relate to you! Maybe it’s the differences in living in a city or the country. Again, people often laugh at these sorts of things.

But when you get into the meat of your story, that’s where you’re driving home the main lesson that you want people to take home. What if your experiences don’t mirror those of your audience?

It’s okay. Few of us share circumstances; almost all of us share feelings. For example, I speak about my son dying, but I don’t relate to the women on the basis that I have lost a son; few women have (though there are always some in the audience). After I tell the story, I then say something like this:

Have you ever felt like you couldn’t get out of bed in the morning? Have you ever cried rivers of tears that never seemed to dry, and tormented yourself asking God “why”?

Most of us have. It probably hasn’t all been for the same reason, but it’s that feeling that we share that is going to move us closer to God and closer to the message that we’ve got for people.

Don’t worry, then, if your circumstances don’t line up exactly with those in the audience. Share your circumstances, but share them as examples of feelings: feelings of loss, of fear, of anger, of bitterness, of hurt. Don’t dwell as much on the circumstances as on how you felt and how you felt towards God.

The good thing is that this frees up those speakers who haven’t experienced great tragedies to still be strong speakers. My daughter, for instance, would like to be a speaker, but nothing really, really bad has ever happened to her (yet). But she can still relate to the feelings that all of us have: not fitting in; doubt about faith; anger; shame. She may not have a dramatic story, but she can still talk about what feelings and circumstances brought her into a deeper level of commitment and trust to God. What pushed her away, and what brought her back? Chances are those in the audience will be able to relate to these things.

When you’re sharing your story, then, whether it’s one of divorce, or abuse, or grief, or shame, or bitterness, certainly share what happened, but don’t glorify it. Remember that you are not relating based on these details. You are relating based on the feelings. Talk about your reaction to the circumstances far more than the circumstances themselves. This has the added benefit in that you don’t glorify ugliness, especially if you are talking about a life of abuse, but it also puts the focus on how you dealt with things, and how you responded to God (and how He responded to you). That’s the part of your message that’s going to make the biggest impact, anyway.

So don’t worry if you can’t relate to all the circumstances in the audience. It’s the feelings that bring us together. When you read the Psalms, do you find them often echoing your heart’s cry? Likely you do. And yet you have never been an ancient king of Israel, fleeing your homicidal predecessor. Nevertheless, you still can relate to David. Likewise, people will be able to relate to you if you do what David did: be honest about your heart’s cries, but then put the focus back on the promises of God and how He rescued you. That’s the human condition that we all have, and that’s how you will help touch people’s hearts and point them to God!

What Is Your Heart’s Message?

Photo by Tamara Plugers

“If you can’t say the main message of your talk in a sentence, you can’t say it in an hour.”

That’s one of my favourite quotations when it comes to speaking, and I tweet it every now and then to remind all my speaker followers (You can follow me on Twitter here). But recently, while doing some one-on-one coaching with a speaker, I was hit again with how hard it is for many of us as speakers to figure out what the main message is that we have to give.

Let me try to take you through my thought process on this. When I started speaking, I had only been out of university for a few short years. I had done two post-graduate degrees in my twenties, and I was still very much in “teaching” mode. I had my 4 or 5 points I was trying to make about every Bible passage I mentioned in my talks, and I was trying to teach.

It didn’t work. What I began to notice was that people sat up straight and listened when I told stories; eyes glazed over when I tried to teach my countless points.

And I started to question whether I was going about this the right way.

After thinking about it, practising, and reading a great bookon the subject, I decided to go back to what my grade 9 history teacher taught me when it came to essays:

Before you write it, decide the one thing that you’re trying to show.

You need a thesis. And for people in the audience, who tend to be quite passive listeners, you need a definite destination that you are taking them to or they will miss it.

In other words, don’t try to teach 5 main points. Try to teach one main action point, and have all your stories revolve around that. All your anecdotes, all your teaching points (and you are allowed to have them!), need to revolve around an action point.

Here’s what I mean. Let’s say that you want to talk on prayer. You can give a talk that is “The 5 Methods of Effective Prayer”, or you could give a talk that is “Prayer and Peace go Hand in Hand”. What do you think people will remember more? What do you think they will be able to incorporate into their lives better?

Interestingly, in the second talk, where you focus on how prayer brings peace, you might mention those 5 methods of effective prayer. You may even use the same Scriptures. But your point isn’t to make everybody remember 5 main things, and all the subpoints from those main things. It’s to help them realize that prayer brings peace so that they will pray more. That’s the message: pray more, more peace.

Do you see the difference? It’s just in the approach and how you frame your talk.

But what if you’re stumped about the main message you should give? I suggest praying through your journey with God. Get out your journals, if you have any. Go for a walk of memory with the Lord and ask Him to bring to mind the major mountains and valleys that you have walked through. What has God been teaching you in your valleys? What has been your heart’s cry? Is it having a thirst that only God can satisfy? Declaring that He is enough? Living a life of trust, not fear? Entering into deeper worship? All of those things are perfectly valid, but they all have a slightly different slant, because God works with each of us differently.

What is your slant? How has God worked with you? Think about it, pray about it, and ask God to show you what the takeaway point–the ONE takeaway point–you should have from your talk!

And if you want to see how to use that point effectively, my audio download, Crafting an Effective Signature Talk, walks you through this process, and gives you a skeleton of what you’ll need to write a life-changing talk. Find it here!

How to Make People Realize They Need to Make a Change

Why do you speak?

Think about that question deeply for a moment. Why do you get up in front of a bunch of women and speak?

Perhaps some answers might be:

• I have a story I want to tell.
• I want to tell them about Jesus.
• I want to share what God has done.
• I want to bless others.

These are all good answers. But I don’t think they are enough. We need to go deeper.

The reason we speak, I believe, is to move people to a place where they are open to hearing from God. In other words, we speak to encourage change in people’s lives. Only God can effect that change, but we speak for the purpose of God working through us so that people are willing to let Him change them. Change is our focus.

If you are simply speaking to “share your story”, then you’re speaking to transmit information. Transmitting information is great, but just because someone knows something does not mean they are going to do something about it. You need to speak not just so that you share your story; but instead so that through sharing it, others are touched and want to go deeper with God.

We touched on this in the last post: you can’t sell the solution until you’ve sold the problem. One of the first jobs of a speaker, then, is to help people laugh at themselves and realize that they do indeed have a problem. Then you tell them the solution.

And then you play Nathan. Do you remember the prophet Nathan? He told King David this long involved story of a rich king who took a poor farmer’s only ewe lamb, his special lamb that this farmer loved, and killed it because he didn’t want to eat any of his own many thousands of sheep. And David was so incensed he ordered the rich man killed. But then Nathan turned, and looked at David the adulterer and murderer, and said, “You are that man!”

In our talks, too, we need to take the same approach. You’ve told people they have a problem. Now it’s time to tell people they ARE the problem.

For instance, in my talk about how we women are control freaks, trying to control every little thing in our lives, I get us to laugh at ourselves and admit that we do try to control things because that’s what our culture tells us to do. Then I show them how this is the wrong approach. And then I get to the conviction part of the talk:

I tell them, this controlling behaviour is making you miserable, and it will continue to make you miserable until you take it to God. It’s no one’s problem but your own. You are hurting yourself.

In the beginning you told people they had a problem, but you didn’t personalize it. Now it’s time to personalize it, and show people that they are the ones that are feeding this problem. It’s not the media’s fault, or your husband’s fault, or your family’s fault, or even God’s fault. You are doing it. And you need to stop.

You don’t have to do this in a super-serious way. I use a great illustration from Finding Nemo for one of my conviction moments in one of my talks. But it drives the point home: you are only making yourself miserable. You are only hurting yourself.

In your talks, do you make sure that people own the problem? Do they believe they have a problem, and then do you take them to point where they see they ARE the problem? If they don’t, it’s much harder for women to feel as if they need your solution. I don’t mean that we should do a major guilt trip; but it is a rare person indeed who decides to change without first realizing that what they are doing now is not working.

Before you speak next time, take a look at your talk, and ask yourself: am I spending time helping people laugh at themselves about the silly things we worry about or the silly things we do? Am I spending time showing people how hurtful this ultimately is? Or am I simply offering them a solution without ever showing them it’s a problem?

Make sure you’re being honest and creative about talking about the problem before you offer the solution, and I think you’ll find that more people will be moved to an honest, deep prayer time with God afterwards!

If you need help crafting a talk that takes towards that journey of change, check out my teleseminar, Crafting a Life Changing Signature Talk.