Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Advice To A Young Communicator

I love the passion that many young leaders have in ministry. I have also seen many struggle in the area of communicating because no one was there to mentor them.

Whether you call it preaching or teaching it can be intimidating standing up in front of others. I spent many years winging it and learning to be a communicator.

Here are a few tips for anyone starting out in ministry:

1) Learn to be you - early on you may emulate others as you gain experience...eventually you just need to be you.

2) Talk about one thing - Don't flood your audience with lots of material. Talk on one point, give stories and scripture to back it up.

3) Treat it as a craft - Teaching is a high calling and it takes working on to be better. Seek as many opportunities as you can. Study great communicators and books on communicating.

4) Be real - Don't try to be something you aren't. People will connect because they can relate to you.

5) Have fun - Take the pressure off and relax. Some of my greatest and memorable times come from behind a podium. It is ok to have fun up there.

9 comments:

INTELBLKMN said...

Great advice

Jason Curlee said...

thanks david

Anonymous said...

Good post.

Jason Smith said...

I will never forget the first time I started communicating. I knew what I wanted to say but the delivery was somewhere between myself and some guys I had watched on T.V. As the years went on I started to get the fact that God had called me and was going to us me...not another version of me. When I started being the same person on stage that I was off ministry through communication became fun, more genuine and much more effective.

Jason Curlee said...

@ jonathan ellis - thanks...just passing the wisdom learned

@ jason smith - nice name ;) ... I agree it does become fun as you go along. I love communicating.

Anonymous said...

Jay,

Good stuff man. If you want to, next week I'll be posting on young pastors /church planters. I'm going to be having a couple guest bloggers giving some input you might be interested in.

Boyd Bettis

Jason Curlee said...

Hey Boyd....thanx and you can count me in!!!!!

Terrace Crawford said...

Jason,

I might also add that they should read "Communicating for Change" by Andy Stanley. What an incredible book on communicating.

/TC/

Jason Curlee said...

Great book Terrace for anyone learning to communicate. That book took me to another level. It and "The Big Idea"