The first chapter in part one of Andy Stanley’s book titled Communicating For a Change, is about people not listening. This chapter, and the first part of the book for that matter are written like a story, with the main character being Pastor Ray Martin. In the beginning of this chapter, pastor Martin is preaching when he begins to realize that the crowd is not listening at all. In fact, they are so unentertained that it is starting to throw off his whole sermon, so he makes a brilliant decision; he decides to grab his notes and leave the pulpit in order to gain their attention. This really resonated with me because it is similar to my preaching style. I am a youth pastor, so I usually walk around for two reasons. One reason is that it helps me to relax and have a more conversational tone, and the second is that it engages the audience and I am able to see if people are actually paying attention. In the second chapter, pastor Martin decides to go see a preacher that he thinks will be able to help him learn to become a better pastor. When he gets there, he meets a man by the name of Willy Graham. Eventually pastor Martin finds out that Willy Graham is essentially a truck driver-preacher and he becomes obviously …show more content…
Graham says that he has always looked at a sermon or speech as a type of journey, and like in any journey there has to be an end point or else you are just going in circles. Sadly, this is how many preachers communicate with their congregations. The way that I see it, there are two reasons for this; either they have not been taught to pick a point, or they are completely unprepared. This chapter also introduces what Stanley refers to as a “one point message.” The one point is the ultimate destination at the end of the sermon, and as the speaker, you have to do everything in your power to guide the congregation
Lee includes Scripture, Gospel, Hymns, Prayers and concludes the sermon in an “Amen” (37) by switching the posture to the audience. Perelman examined, “Every technique promoting the communion of the speaker with his audience will decrease the opposition between them” (79). Since Lee’s meaningful sermon consisted of the most essential techniques, her audience recognized her authority and capability to preach. She not only knew about the role of a minister, but also knew how to carry out her responsibilities as a minister, which enforced the appeal to ethos from the audience’s point of view. Lee compelled the audience to reconceive their discrimination of women
Edwards does however lighten the tone at the conclusion of the sermon by explaining how the people c...
James C. Petersen (2007), author of Why Don’t We Listen Better, offers practical advice on how to communicate effectively and connect with others. In order to help his readers, communicate effectively, Petersen (2007) divides his book into five divisions. Each division builds on the content in the preceding portions. Every segment provides a great amount of information, which will aid people in how they choose to communicate.
He speaks with some allusions and phrases that show the audience that he is well educated in the subject that he is speaking on. He says that, "Who knows the power of God 's anger" (Edwards 43)? This is an allusion from Psalm 90:11 in the bible and he just assumes that his readers are aware of what he is referring to when he says this. Since Edwards was a respected preacher of that time the sermon meant more to the people because of his qualifications and his experience ("Using" 14). Also throughout his sermon he refers to a happening of that time which was known as the great awakening. When speaking of this Edwards stated "Many are daily coming from the east, west, north, and south; many that were lately in the same condition that you are in, are now in a happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him who has loved them" (Edwards 44). He told them about the others who have already came and been converted to Christianity and hopes that showing them the others that have came they would also change their ways and be converted. Also, this being the time of the great awakening he wants the unconverted of his congregation to become a part of it and referencing to this event helps contribute to their
In the essay “Letting Go” by David Sedaris, he writes about his experiences with smoking. Throughout the essay Sedaris expresses his views and experiences with smoking. Sedaris grew up in the 1960’s and 70’s when smoking was a common thing to do, so much so that grade school students in his native North Carolina, would have field trips to tobacco factories where they were given packs of cigarettes to give to their parents. Sedaris describes views about smoking that changed throughout his life-time. At one stage in his life he was against smoking, and was even bothered by the smell of cigarettes. Then Sedaris himself, in a different stage of his life became a smoker. Smoking caused Sedaris’s mother to gain some health problems due to her smoking
While the world is full of Christians, few actually take this commissioning seriously. It is regarded as impractical or even impossible. For one servant of Christ, Billy Graham, impossible does not exist in the realm of the faithful. The Bible teaches that with God all things are possible, and looking at Graham's resume, one would almost be convinced that was true. Graham is quite possibly the greatest preacher of all time. He has preached in 185 countries to over three billion people. That number is more people than even the apostle Paul preached to. He has been personal friend and minister to ten United States presidents. For thirty seven years he has been on the Gallup organization's list of the ten most admired men in the world. His is a ministry that has been heard and felt around the world, beginning in the nineteen fifties. It is this beginning decade that perhaps gives the most insight into the ministry, how and why it started, and how people reacted. It is the strength of the ministry built in this decade that continues to carry Graham's ministry to this day, even while Graham is now slowed by Parkinson's disease. A look at the man in relation to the decade reveals some interesting facets of the national attitude in the fifties, and his reaction to the issues strongly shows what was on the minds of the people. As instrumental as he was in shaping the moral outlook of the era, a look at the issues of the fifties would not be complete without a look at this preacher to the nations, Billy Graham.
Mark Drolsbaugh’s Deaf Again is a biography about his life between two dimensions of the Deaf world and the Hearing world as well as the implications he faced throughout his journeys’. Mark Drolsbaugh was born from two deaf parents and was basically forced to adapt to the hearing world even though his parents are deaf. When Drolsbaugh was born he was hearing, however, by first grade his parents and teachers discovered he was losing his hearing. As time went on Mark realized the issues he faced from trying to adapt to the hearing world. Mark Drolsbaugh quotes in his biography, “Deafness is bad. I am deaf. I need to be fixed. I must be like them, no matter what, because deaf is bad.” However, no matter what his family believed that he
McEwan begins the chapter with a quote from Convey (1990), “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” This quote speaks to the importance of communication because it describes the importance of
Speeches functioned as great tools for inspiring and motivating people. A passionate and charismatic speaker could often change a group of people’s view of the world with just a short speech. A perfect example of this phenomenon can be seen in the leaders of religious groups such as Matthias and Joseph Smith. These two men both possessed the ability to make people pi...
At the beginning of the semester our class was introduced to a new term, listenability. The level of listenability is at the mercy of the speaker, not of the audience. During our semester, we were taught to harness the listenability keys of strategy, structure, support, and style in order to achieve a high level of listenability. Examples of listenability include when a speaker engages the audience by asking questions, using narratives or stories that people can relate to, and has stimulating visual support and content. These are only a couple of keys used to create a listener centered speech.
"This is the Hour of Decision with Billy Graham, coming to you from Minneapolis Minnesota" Billy Graham, has preached to more than 210 million people through a live audience, more than anyone else in history. Not only that, but Mr. Graham has reached millions more through live televison, video and film. This has led Billy to be on the "Ten Most Admired Men in the World" from the Gallup Poll since 1955 a total of thirty-nine times. This includes thirty-two consecutive more than any other individual in the world, placing him as the most popular American for about forty years. This essay is going to talk about Graham's personal life, and what kind of family he grew up in and im also going to talk in detail about how he became an evangelist, because I feel it is very important yet interesting. His accomplishments in the fifties are uncomparable, so I will be including a considerable amount of information concerning that topic. Finally I will be talking about his personal achievements, books written, and how he has been a companion to some of the American Presidents. William Franklin Graham Jr. was born in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 17, 1918. Graham was raised on a dairy farm by William Franklin (deceased 1962) and Morrow Coffey Graham (deceased 1981). In 1943 he married his wife Ruth McCue Bell, and had four children Virginia 1945, Anne Morrow 1948, Ruth Bell 1950, William Franklin, Jr. 1952, and Nelson Edman 1958. At age eighty, he keeps fit by swimming, playing with is nineteen grand children, and from aerobic walking, in the mountains of North Carolina, where he currently lives. (Billy Graham Best Sellers, 1999) Billy Graham told Time Magazine in one article about his life before becoming a preacher. "I lived on a farm. The only difference was I had to get up early in the morning and go milk cows. When I came back from school that day, I had to milk those same cows. There were about twenty cows I had to milk. By hand. That was before they had those machines. I loved being a farmer. But God called me to this work that I'm in now. I knew it was God calling. I said, "Yes. I will follow what God wants me to do." And so I went to two or three schools to get education.
Love Yourself as Hearers. Above all, the preachers should consider first the audience or “hearers” when preparing a sermon. As stated in this book, “we need to learn how to introduce, develop, and conclude our subjects in a way that interests hearers” (Galli and Larson, 1994, p. 16). In other words, we need to learn how to modify our words, sentences, paragraphs, stories and illustrations to deliver the message and impact the lives of our audience.
Listening leadership entails more than just the appearance of listening; it is a transformation where the leader becomes a listening communicator who does not pay false attention, pretend to comprehend, or ignore members (Stillion Southard & Wolvin, 2009). In fact, t...
As The Gift of Listening describes, “Opening one’s heart and listening at a deep level does not come easily and is rarely achieved simply by life experience” (Browning & Waite, 2010, p. 151) There are different aspects to being a good listener that are often difficult to achieve and lead to poor listening. One significant challenge to listening is the attention needed in order to actively listen to another person. Proper listening does not occur due to a passive process but instead it takes deliberate action and thought towards what a person in saying. Like previously stated, actively listening is achieved by sitting in a comfortable and open way and maintaining good eye contact. When a person does not exhibit these techniques good listening often does not occur. The challenge of utilizing different techniques in order to listen to others in a better way often gets blocked by barriers that make active listening unable to occur. In our society today one major barrier to listening is technology. In a casual setting, proper listening often doesn’t occur due to someone being tied to their cell phone. The millennial generation is often guilty of passively listening to others due to the mobile technology that is being used today. Many conversations occur without eye contact or full focus on what the other has to say and instead is spent staring at a
Using this method, he successfully engages the congregation through descriptive narratives and relating ideas to current times. As part of the narratives he includes descriptive biblical stories beginning with the story in his text, claiming it as a “scary story”. He further re-enforces this scary story concept by sharing two more biblical passages where a scary story exists. These biblical narratives are the beginning of what Wilson would call the second page of the sermon where the trouble in the text is given. This of course was preceded by his first page that discussed the idea of having scary stories in our lives today (trouble in the world) by using a vivid personal illustration. He continues to use vivid illustrations to hammer in his focus on the church needing to be friends to the downtrodden because God responds that way. He designs the third page to share the Gospel in the text reminding us that God responds to continual injustice by sending his son to be the friend that everyone needs. The one who stands up for injustice and never leaves your side. Finally, he concludes with the fourth page by demonstrating how churches can live the gospel in the world today. They do this through friendships with people in their surrounding community whose stories might be