I was looking back over some notes I took last year at the C3 Conference in Grapevine, Texas, and found some pretty cool stuff I’d forgotten about. The notes below came from a Q&A session where Pastor Judah Smith was asked about how he goes about preparing to speak to a group of people.
Here are Pastor Judah’s 8 steps to delivering a message:
1. Greeting: Honor the audience, make a good first impression.
2. Read the Bible: Pastor Judah reads the bible story word for word to the crowd. He says no matter who is there or how the message is received, at least the Word was proclaimed. His dad taught him to do that.
3. Pray: Bless the service, and to announce that he is being used by God.
4. Introduction: Capture the audience with a story, or ask a question “have you ever?” Bring the audience with you on the journey.
5. Illustration: Tell the bible story creatively with passion. Infuse your Holy Spirit inspired ideas into the story.
6. Transition text: Connect the dots. Connect your illustrations to the word.
7. Conclusion: Tie in the introduction and main point of the message.
8. Call the people to something.
These, of course, were given spontaneously and as suggestions, but I found them to be very useful. If you’re a pastor, teacher, or occasionally talk to groups of people, maybe you will too.
