Next level communicators know who they are talking to.
By now you should know these emails always begin with a reference to “next level communicators”. These gifted men and women tend to speak to a variety of audiences because, well, they have become students not just of their content, but also of the people they deliver their messages to. When we sit down to craft a talk, one of the first questions we have to ask is, Who am I talking to? Master the answer to that question, and you’re more than a few miles down the road to success.
Nelson Mandela once said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.” Talks which move people are delivered in the heart language of the hearers. So before you engineer the presentation, take a few moments to answer the question, Who am I talking to?
Over the years I’ve pastored in vastly different cities. I spent twelve years preaching in Memphis. From there I helped to lead a church in New York City, then to Mountain View, California. Along the way, I learned the hard way to not repackage a talk I did in Memphis, and heat it up for our church in New York, or the bay area. It’s not that the content wasn’t good, it’s just the congregations were so different. I have a friend of mine who has a Ph.D, and is an amazing communicator. The challenge, as he once told me, is most of the people in his church do not have a college degree. He’s had to make some adjustments to how he delivers his sermons because his audience is different.
(Note: With each of these moves I went through a 12-18 month period where my sermons were off…less than what they should be. The reason for this had nothing to do with content. I just did not know the people and culture I was speaking to.)
Then there’s the reality some of us will have to navigate of being invited to speak to groups different from the ones we are used to. Athletic chapels. Business person luncheons. A holiday gathering. Next level communicators never take a talk they did in a different setting and force it on a new one with a different audience. They’ve learned the difference between a great talk and a flat one, rises and falls over the question of who is in the room?
Over the years, I have found the following to be essential in my ability to know my audience:
Spend a lot of time with the people you speak to. Here I’m thinking mainly about a person who is a pastor. The reason why I prefer pastoral preaching to conference speaking is because I can see faces of the people I serve in our local congregation as I write the message. We’ve shared meals. I’ve been to their homes. I’ve heard their stories, and prayed with them in their suffering. But this also applies to the organizational or business leader, whose job entails a lot of speaking to the people you lead. Be sure to spend ample time with them. Let’s not over spiritualize Jesus’ effectiveness as a communicator (And he was effective, ever read his Sermon on the Mount?). He spent a lot of time with the people he spoke to.
Be sure to solicit pre-message feedback. We’ve talked before about the importance of feedback, and especially before you give your talk. However, while the timing of the feedback is key (before the message), who gives you the input is just as important. Make sure the people you send your talk to represent the type of person who will be in the audience (The bullseye would actually be to have people who will be in the crowd give you pre-talk feedback).
Be sure to use illustrations and applications which connect directly to your audience. I’ve always encouraged the explanation/illustration/application framework for building out the structure of a talk. Where the audience especially feels a connection is when we use illustrations and applications which apply directly to them. This is where we get down into their hearts; so be sure to emphasize illustrations and applications which are relevant.
Just read a great book which could make my top ten of the year list: Dust to Dust: Aging Wisely in an Anti-aging world, by Jen Wilkin.
What I’m currently reading:
Bread and Bibles: D.L. Moody’s Evangelism and Social Action, by Gregg Quiggle.
