Teaching/Preaching Advice, Part 6: Talk Slow

The Sixth Thing: Talk Slow…

Often, when someone gets excited about the message God has laid on their hearts for others they act, well, a little too excited. This overexcitement leads to nervousness, and nervousness leads to talking…fast.

Because of this nervousness and excitement, for some reason your mind and body transforms you into an almost unoticeable (to yourself) speed-talking machine. This makes it almost impossible for your audience to catch what you are saying.

Speed-Talking is probably the most common mistake amongst those who are new at teaching/preaching. Add it to some of the other problems we have spoken of thus far (not using a Mic, having a hard to follow complicated message, and assuming your audience knows about what you are talking about when they don’t) and you have a public speaking disaster on your hands. But don’t worry, with a little work, you can get this bad habit under control.

When getting up to speak, consciously talk very slow. It actually be much faster than you think.

Take a break, and a breath, between each sentence.

Don’t be affraid of a few seconds of silence for reflection. This will really help slow you down, and will help you use words like,” and” and “um” much less.

Think of public speaking as an art form, not just information that you’re trying to get across to someone. Savor what is said and carefully craft how you say it. Read some Dr. Suess books and get a feel for how he turned simple Children’s stories into rythmic masterpieces. And don’t be affraid to use rythm and flow in your messages.

Listen often to other speakers with different styles or tastes than you. One such speaker that can dramatically help in this area is Rob Bell. Listen to how he uses effective pauses, sing-song-rythmic sentences, and rhetorical questions. For extreme cases of this, watch his Nooma videos. And after listening to him for a while, don’t copy him, but utilize some of the positive things you will learn from his unique communication style.

And finally, pray that God will help you deliver this message of His most effectively- and do it often.