5) Engage the audience - what's your plan to capture and keep their attention?
- It's tragic that pastors spending hours pouring into a sermon, only to have no one remember anything or even talk about the sermon afterwards
- Attention and retention is determined by presentation, not information - a principle all marketing agencies embrace. Presentation matters, a lot.
- The stories and messages are always the same, but it's how you frame it that makes the difference, to present it in a way that shakes people out of their apathy
- The more interested we are in a topic, the easier it is to engage us... there is always high attendance when a church is going to talk about sex
- If the interest is high is because that is answering a question people already have, they already have a felt need, and it feel relevant to them. If that need isn't originally felt, the presentation's job is to make that need felt, so the relevancy can be seen. Thus, an introduction might be the most important part of a talk.
- Three questions to ask for introductions (assume no interest):
1 - What is the question I'm answering? How can I get my audience to want to know the answer?
2 - What is the tension I'm resolving? How can I help the audience feel the tension?
3 - What mystery am I solving? How can I make the audience want a solution?
- Five suggestions to help you keep them engaged throughout:
1 - Check your speed - pace can communicate importance, so suggested speak faster than normal, but not overwhelmingly fast that people can't follow
2 - Slow down in the curves - slow down during transitions
3 - Navigate through the text - God's Word should be the most engaging part... to help:
- Pick and make people turn to only one central text
- Don't read long sections without comment... comment along the way
- Highlight and explain odd words or phrases
- Voice frustration or skepticism about a text
- Help people anticipate the main point
- Deliberately read the text to bring notice to that the opposite isn't written
- Have audience read certain words out loud for emphasis
- Summarize text with short, crafted statement
- Use visuals any time you can
- Resist to share everything you learned in your research
4 - Add something unexpected to the trip - unexpected is always engaging... always.
5 - Take the most direct route - being over direct can be better
- Learning to be engaging is a continuing process
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