Eliminate Distractions from Your Speaking Style
There are many ways that you and I can distract an audience when we are speaking or preaching. It will require a lot of concentration and practice to remove as many of those distractions as possible. Below, I have listed just three mistakes that we make from time to time. See if any of these bring to mind one of your recent deliveries.
If you are looking at a particular section of the audience while making a point, finish the thought. Don’t turn your head or walk to the other side of the platform. You started with them, now finish with them. You have their undivided attention, you’ve worked hard to get it. Now push it home as though that group of listeners are the only ones in the room that matter. Pause and move away beginning another thought.
Know your message so well that when you come to the end of a thought you can look the audience in the eye and say it. Don’t look down at your notes for the next part of your message. They don’t know where you are going with it. Only you do. Don’t preach to your pulpit. So often I have seen communicators come to the closing statement of a thought, that moment when you want to “nail it”, then, looking down, they tell the pulpit that magnificent statement!
Give your audience time to breathe. Don't rush your next thought. The listener is a few nanoseconds behind you. As you are moving on to the next word or phrase, they are just finishing the process of hearing, decoding and understanding what you mean. If you’ve given them something really meaty, something that is truly a Spirit led insight, they need time to process it. Ten to fifteen seconds between thoughts is easy for you. Take a breath. Look at your notes. They are still thinking. Now, pick up where you left off.
