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HOW TO BE HEARD

(Mastering five overlooked fundamentals of clear communication)

By: Fred Smith

1. Establishing a friendly _______________

To a large degree, the _____________ we establish will determine how effective our

sermon is going to be. _______________ is created by both our verbal and nonverbal messages.

Things to avoid: sloppy opening ______________ .

If so, what kind of impression do these introductions make on the listeners?

People need to know how you feel before you start to speak. They want to know whether

youre friendly or worried or mad. The most difficult discipline in speaking is going in with theproper ____________ . if I dont want to speak, it is so difficult for me to speak well.

2. Encouraging _______________, not observation

Another way we all can improve is by remembering that our goal is not simply to have

people sit quietly while we talk but to have their minds actively __________ by our subject

matter. One of the keys to ____________ people is using a conversational style. People listen to

it without antipathy.

The minute somebody starts yelling, people mentally distance themselves. Many

preachers think theyre doing it for emphasis, but generally it doesnt work that way. It

deemphasizes.

If I want to say something really important, Ill lower my voice and people will kind of

lean forward to hear what Im saying. In a sense, youre putting intimacy in a point by lowering

your voice. Youre saying, This point means something to me. Im telling you something from

my heart.

What else can we do to encourage participation? Not necessarily by providing

entertainment. If people are listening for the next story or next joke, Ive become a performer.

My goal is not to have people say, Oh, youre such a great speaker. Then I know Ive failed. If

they are conscious of my speaking ability, they see me as a performer. They have not

participated. My goal is for people to say, You know, Fred, Ive had those kind of thoughts all

my life, but Ive never had the words for them. Now Ive got words for them. Then I feel, Ive

given them a handle for something. Ive crystallized their thoughts and experiences into a

statement or story and made it real for them. Ive enabled them to give it to somebody else.

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3. Ensuring Im _______________

I keep a constant watch on my _______________ . Ive got to practice what I preach.

Unless I can believe me when I make a statement, I wont make it. As credible speakers, weve

got to establish some authority or theres no reason to listen to us.

You can establish your authority by being a researcher or a Bible scholar, or by relating

certain life experiences. But whatever your authority, you have to be careful of extrapolation

taking a principle from an area you know and trying to apply it to an area you dont know.

Extrapolation is where most speakers show their ignorance, and it undermines their

genuine authority. So Im careful when I extrapolate. Do I stick to thing I know? When people

see Im pretending to be familiar with something Im not, that hurts my believability.

4. Making my voice _______________

Few speakers have great voices, but most have ones perfectly adequate if people can

understand the words. But Ive found people are turned off by preachers who have a seminarybrogue, who have developed an intellectual pronunciation, or who preach as if they were reciting

Shakespeare. I immediately say, Theyre performing.

If Im conscious of a speakers voice after listening for two minutes, then the voice has

become a distraction. In the first two minutes, people should make a decision about your voice

and then think no more about it. Its exactly like your clothing. When you stand up, if people are

conscious of your clothes after once seeing you, theres something wrong with your clothes.

Youre either overdressed or underdressed. Youre not properly dressed to speak. The same is

true of the voice. It should come across as natural.

But theres more to it than that. The voice should always contain some ____ --conviction, animation. ______ in the voice means that the mind and the voice are engaged.

Theres a direct relationship between an active mind and an active voice.

Fire in the voice has nothing to do with having a good voice or a poor voice. Some of the

whiniest voices Ive ever heard come from the best speakers. But audiences will listen to a poor

voice as long as theres ______, because as soon as the audience realizes the voice is real, they

adjust to it.

5. Using __________ effectively

Gestures have a vocabulary all their own. The Spanish painter Goya charged as much to

paint the hands as to paint the face, because the hands are the most difficult of all parts of the

body to paint. Delsarte studied for several years how the hands show emotion. He got so good at

it that he could sit in a park and tell whether a baby was held by a maid or its mother by the

intensity of the hands.

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My friend Haddon Robinson has one of the finest pair of hands I know. Ive tried to

count the different formations his hands make, and the number gets astronomical. Yet theyre

absolutely spontaneous, and theyre in harmony with what hes saying and with the sound of his

voice. He has a large vocabulary of both gestures and words.

Ive found speakers cant develop mastery of gestures quickly, but they can give

themselves permission to improve. Heres one to start with. If youre going to be delivering a

climactic statement, instead of getting intense too soon, its better to relax your body and back

away a half step from the audience. Then just before you come into the climactic statement, step

toward the audience and straighten up. That way your body as well as your voice projects the

message.

Gestures also include giving people your _____ . in speaking, ______ are almost as

important as the voice. Everyone knows the importance of eye contact, but the temptation I have

is to zero in on a few people up front who are attentive. Maybe Im insecure, but its easier to

talk to those people. I have to remind myself not to neglect those out on the wings. Like the

farmer whos feeding the chickens, you have to throw the corn wide enough for everyone to getsome. So, I tell myself, remember the smaller chickens on the fringe. I want them to know Im

thinking of them too.