{"id":38,"date":"2008-08-29T00:43:15","date_gmt":"2008-08-29T04:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/?p=38"},"modified":"2008-08-29T00:43:15","modified_gmt":"2008-08-29T04:43:15","slug":"the-lost-art-of-the-great-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/29\/the-lost-art-of-the-great-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lost Art of the Great Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I love speeches. No, actually, I hate most speeches, I love great speeches. That is why I watched much of the Democratic National Convention this week. I was on the lookout for great use of language.<\/p>\n

There are so few people who write for the spoken word, and so few speakers who can deliver those well-crafted words so they impact the listener, change lives and live on in history.<\/p>\n

Part of what I do professionally is help pastors and other leaders fine-tune their message, crafting the words, adding media to strengthen the impact and add pacing and drama — all parts of\u00a0 effective speaking (and preaching).\u00a0 Not just to have a great discourse, but to effect change; to take people with you on a journey and then watch them at the end of the speech take the action that you passionately proposed.<\/p>\n

At the DNC we saw two great speeches delivered by two great speakers: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Skillful phrasing, great word play, and an ability to deliver well crafted words with passion. I am not discussing politics here, and I am not suggesting they told the truth or didn’t made promises they cannot keep. My point is simply to point out the intense power of potent words in the mouth of a great speaker.\u00a0 Barack gave this speech on the anniversary of another great message (I have a dream) delivered by a masterful preacher (Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.).\u00a0 Barack’s message was not as earthshaking as Martin’s, but it was very good.<\/p>\n

This week two politicians (Bill Clinton and Barack Obama) gave a master class in oration, and most evangelicals probably can’t get past the political party they represent long enough to learn anything from them.<\/p>\n

As Phil Cooke says in Branding Faith<\/em><\/a> (why some churches and non-profits impact the culture and others don’t), \u201cthe world tells bad stories really well, while the church tells the greatest story really poorly.\u201d [sorry Phil if I screwed that up a bit – I know I’m close!]<\/p>\n

My take-away from all this: be excellent. Tonight Obama put on an excellent show, but it would have been futile if he didn’t deliver on the message — and he really nailed it.\u00a0 Compare the speech tonight with the rest of the convention (with the exception of Bill Clinton’s speech)… I can\u2019t tell you anything about Hillary\u2019s speech or Biden\u2019s speech, and my God, don\u2019t even bring up Al Gore\u2026 all well trained, highly paid professionals, who should be inspiring, but they were just so boring.\u00a0 They tried hard (many even worked up a sweat and in some churches that would be a sure sign they were under the anointing!), but they were ineffective. What a waste.<\/p>\n

How often does that happen on Sunday morning?<\/p>\n

I don’t for one moment believe that the delivery of the message by word is more effective than the preaching of the message by deed, but if you are going to open your mouth in support of our Lord, do it well.<\/p>\n

If you need help, let me know.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love speeches. No, actually, I hate most speeches, I love great speeches. That is why I watched much of the Democratic National Convention this week. I was on the lookout for great use of language. There are so few people who write for the spoken word, and so few speakers who can deliver those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesindorf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}