chapter 9 question 1

I have been influenced by a speaker several years ago at a retreat for college students. It was a retreat for United Methodist Churches in the area, and usually had a speaker every year, this one year I went, he spoke in a way that captured all of the audience. He made it relate to what it was like to a Christian, and just the experiences he shared captivated everyone. It was the experiences and how he told the stories that caught our attention, because as a Christian we believed you have to live the “perfect” life, but when this pastor was speaking to us, he was telling the opposite, how he sold drugs, and joined gangs, etc, just the most astonishing stories that you wouldn’t hear from someone of his stature. Public speaking is hard, since you have to attend to a very large audience, but to be able to approach them with shocking stories and how you learn from them it can be influencing. The worst speaker was once at my church when we had a big event we hired a speaker to discuss being “homesick” with God. He rambled on for over the time limit, like an hour more, you could see the audience was getting restless and the topic didn’t even seem to go with the theme we asked for him to speak about. The kids were confused, even I was confused and we kept telling him to wrap it up but he just continued. Listening to him was a big dreadful time for all of us, as much as I tried to listen to him, his topic seemed to go off tangent and kept all of us confused. After that we never recommended him for any other events. Speaking to a large group of people has to be able to connect and easy to listen to.