Speak Up!

Last night we had our first ever "Speaker Training Session". Over 25 people crammed into the lounge and were a wonderful mix of young, old, male, female, experienced communicators and people who were 'just looking'. For some time, as a Leadership Team we have sought to identify and bring forward new people to share the Word of God. Sunday mornings are not always the best forum for people to 'have a go' as this is the key meeting of the week and it is not dis-similar to throwing people in at the deep end with no lifebelt! However, there are plenty of opportunities in Homegroups, Unique, Contend and for short contributions on a Sunday that will help people grow and develop in their communication gifts.

After some coffee and cakes we settled down to hear Pastor John deliver a keynote word. It was truly inspiring and sketched out some essential principles for all of us who seek to communicate God's Word to the Church in these last days. Here is a brief summary...

-Bring what you have - don't compare youself to others.
-It takes time to develop these skills so be patient and work hard.
-Women are important! We must have them share and teach in the Church.
-Different styles of preachers: "The Impressionist Preacher", "The Hammer and Nails Preacher", "The Shotgun Preacher", "The Thematic Preacher" and "The Clinical Preacher".

1. The Word of God is relational and our preaching should model this - Jesus is the Word and we relate to Him relationally. It is not intellecutal or coginitive. What we share in the public place must be an overflow of our relational walk with God in the private place.

2. Motives are very important - we need to care about the people. Too much preaching in Churches today can be fleshly self-aggrandisement. We must not perform or be hungry for people-approval.

3. Gifting is important - we must work hard at exercising these spiritual 'muscles' through research, reading good quality books and literature, meditating on our messages, checking with other more experienced and seasoned preachers for mentoring and advice and being diligent and taking seriously the responsibility we have...those who presume to be teachers will be judged more harshly.

After this, we broke into smaller groups combining more experienced people with those who had done little or no preaching. There were some very fruitful discussions and people were able to listen and learn from one another. All in all it was a hugely important evening and we will see how God takes this forward in the future.