This title might seem crass and cheap at first glance, but let me explain. I was on a flight home from working with a speaker who is just beginning a tour in which she delivers five, 5-7 minutes talks to arenas filled with Jr. High kids. An audience NOT for the faint of heart, I might add!
We had spent 2 days together, weeks before the tour, crafting the talks she’d written, getting the right words and thoughts together, finding the best scripture translations, and worked on her storytelling. Since this girl is just 15, what she was saying needed to sound like how someone that age would say it, as opposed to how an adult would.
We also had to think about her audience and make sure what she was saying made sense and was relevant to how a Jr. High mind thinks as well.
I then worked on helping her creating some moments; we worked on pacing, delivery and dynamics, making sure the speeches had an ebb and flow to hold the audience’s short attention span.
After that, we worked on staging, and making each speech ‘look’ a bit different… how she entered the stage, where and when to move, when to draw the audience’s attention to what was on the screens, and even certain props to use.
When I left town, it was up to her to now memorize the speeches and work on the things I showed her. We met again to work during tour rehearsals and saw what the actual stage would be like, and then figured out final details. Now it was go-time!
I knew she would do well, but also knew it may take her a few times to really start to feel comfortable in front of a real audience. I knew she knew the material and believed what she was saying. It was time to now move from her head to her heart.
To be believable to the audience, she now had to convey these words to the crowd with passion and conviction. Without those elements it would just be a good memorized speech.
See, our passion and delivery from the stage is what moves people. Audiences are moved by human behavior. Yes, we’ll ‘hear’ the words a speaker is saying and learn something, but we are touched emotionally when that person cares deeply about what they are saying.
Then, two weeks later on the first night of the tour, halfway through the second speech, it happened. This girl moved from her head to her heart, and she connected. And I got tears in my eyes, cuz it hit me too, before I was expecting it to! I was moved… I was sold.
And so were others. Afterwards, young girls flocked to this young woman’s table to meet her, get her autograph and even asked her to pray for them.
I can’t say I was surprised that the connection happened, because I knew her heart and her spirit. I was just blown away at how soon!
