Carmine Gallo’s book, Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds, is one of those books that will instantly help your preaching. The reason is because preaching is communication and this book inspires its readers to be good communicators. The book also is a fresh look at effective communication theory and practice.

Like, for instance, the importance of having a conversation with our congregants.

Not every congregation will appreciate this. You may be in a church setting that expects a more traditional preaching style. If not, your faith-family may benefit if you practice what I call an intense conversation with their listeners.

In the section, Have a Conversation, Gallo writes, “Practice relentlessly and internalize your content so that you can deliver the presentation as comfortably as having a conversation with a close friend.” (p. 75)

One of my favorite compliments I’ve received over the years is from a relative of one of our attendees who attended one of our worship services. The visitor happened to be sitting near the front of the sanctuary and described her experience as having “sat with me in my living room.”

What’s important is to notice the unusual combination in the quote above. I experience this same oxymoron each week: practicing and sounding conversational.

If you listened with sanctified ears to pop music in the seventies, you may recall Rod Stewart singing, “You’re in my heart; you’re in my soul…” There’s a line in that song that goes, “your ad lib lines were well-rehearsed.”

Well-rehearsed, ad lib lines. That’s how conversational preaching occurs.

Gallo writes, “Authenticity doesn’t happen naturally….An authentic presentation requires hours of work…” (p. 76). Citing Richard Branson, Gallo states, “Prepare, then take your time and relax. Speak from the heart” (p. 244).

Not from your notes, but from your heart. It’s intense conversation.

You can do this naturally because you began writing out your sermon on Monday morning when you started studying your selected Text. You’ve been writing and rewriting the sermon all week-long and reviewed it late Saturday evening and early Sunday morning. The ad lib lines you’ll deliver are well-rehearsed.

Instead of delivering a sermon, have an intense conversation with your faith-family about what God has been saying to you so He receives glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal