Devotionals

---

A friend sent me a picture of President Bush calling Saddam
Hussein on the phone and saying, "Can you hear me now?" My
response to my friend, "He can hear, but he is not listening." -- like
some church members.

This is not just in church, but in school classrooms, seminars,
parents talking to children or wherever speakers have the possi-
bility for droning on and on. When people are in the position of
being in front of a group as a speaker, it is their responsibility to
make it of sufficient interest to hold the attention of the group. If
they can't, they may be in the wrong career.

Being a public speaker, first of all, requires a degree of innate
talent. Without that, we are in the wrong field. However, having
talent is not enough -- we need to train and develop that talent just
as we would in music, art or any other field. This applies to
preachers and Sunday School teachers as well. Try not to get
irritated at people who daydream and go to sleep on us. Keep in
mind that some folks do have physical reasons for going to sleep,
but for most people it is our responsibility to keep them interested.
That starts with being well prepared, sticking to the outline and
carefully editing the outline to eliminate the "filler." Make it
interesting!

I have never quite understood why we expect a trained speaker like
a pastor to finish preaching in 20 minutes, but we expect a non-
professional but dedicated person like a S.S. teacher to keep us on
the edge of our seats for 50 minutes. Will someone explain this to
me.

Ecc. 9:12 (nlt) says, "Whatever you do, do well..." This also
applies to public speaking. This is also a God commanded respon-
sibility for all of us regardless of our responsibilites.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE