Sophia Network

Refreshing Preaching

The EA and London School Of Theology are holding a colloquium on on preaching at London School of Theology, Northwood on Friday, 23rd April 2010, called Refreshing Preaching starting at 10am, and finishing at 4pm.

The day will include a presentation of research into the effectiveness of preaching commissioned by the College of Preachers, followed by a number of short presentations from a variety of preachers, and plenty of opportunity for questions to be discussed. The afternoon will give time for discussion in focus groups. Participants include Andy Croft, Christina Baxter, Dotha Blackwood, Femi Popoola, Stephen Gaukroger and Vaughan Roberts. If you're a preacher and would like to attend this event, please contact Phil Green at the Evangelical Alliance (p.green@eauk.org). The day will cost £10, which includes refreshments, but not lunch.

Communicating with Impact in Bolton

Our final communications training day for 2009 will be on Wednesday 18 November at St Peter's Parish Centre, 347 Church Road, Bolton, BL1 5RR, hosted by Susie Mapledoram. A reminder of what the day is all about:

Whether you preach, teach, train, take assemblies, do presentations or talk with your team you’ll want to communicate with impact. This training day for women only will equip you to:

• build your authority and confidence through practice, feedback and discussion.
• learn to make more interesting and more productive choices in your communication
• project your voice effectively
• keep improving in the future.

With Ros Adler, actor, writer, voice coach and communication skills trainer. www.rosadler.com

Cost: £50 for Sophia Network members, £75 for non-members to include lunch and refreshments
Time: 9:45am to 4pm

Places are limited to ensure high-quality personalised training. Download a flyer for the Bolton event here

Details of how to book are on our events page. 

But don't take my word for it - this feedback is from someone who attended the same day in Warwick recently:

How would you sum up the day?
An incredibly helpful day, with personalised attention and concrete action points to take away.

What aspect did you find most helpful?
The small number of people meant for meaningful exchanges and Ros was brilliant at constructively encouraging and critiquing what we said and how we said it, with specific issues to address and improve.

What is the one thing you would change?
Not sure I'd change anything - it all worked very well although it was also a "very scary" day in many ways!

What will you do differently as a result of this training day?
I have already started to drink more water and am practising my breathing - and I'll always keep in mind the need for pictures in whatever I say.

Communication skills training - 2 places left in Warwick

The London communication skills training day is fully booked, but there are two places left for 24 September at CPAS in Warwick. And we're in the process of booking a third day in Bolton on 18th November - more details very soon.

Here's the blurb: Whether you preach, teach, train, take assemblies, do presentations or talk with your team you’ll want to communicate with impact. This training day for women only will equip you to:

• build your authority and confidence through practice, feedback and discussion.
• learn to make more interesting and more productive choices in your communication
• project your voice effectively
• keep improving in the future.

With Ros Adler, actor, writer, voice coach and communication skills trainer. www.rosadler.com

Time: 9:45am to 4pm

Venue: 24 September 2009, CPAS, Athena Drive, Tachbrook Park, Warwick, CV34 6NG

Details of cost and how to book on our events page.

Communication - top tips from TED

Danielle Strickland is an accomplished communicator who is much in demand. In her interview for us, she recommends listening to great speakers as a way of developing your skills: 'I used to listen to at least one or two speaks a week - just for fun! The web is great for this – there are lots of free sources of great speakers.'

A great place to start, if you haven't found it already, is the TED website where you can access talks from remarkable people across a range of disciplines. Recently I've enjoyed Nina Jablonski on how differing skin colours are simply our bodies' adaptation to different climates, and the classic from Ken Robinson on how schools kill creativity. It's worth a look precisely because these are not sermons. I think we can get so used to hearing a particular style of communication in church that we forget to critique whether it's really the most effective way of communicating. Listen to some of these speakers and evaluate what works and what doesn't, and what you could learn from them.

Sanctus1 blogged a while ago about the ten TED commandments that are required of each speaker - wise words in my opinion that are worth bearing in mind wherever you speak:

1. Thou shalt not simply trot out thy usual shtick.

2. Thou shalt dream a great dream, or show forth a wondrous new thing, or share something thou hast never shared before.

3. Thou shalt reveal thy curiosity and thy passion.

4. Thou shalt tell a story.

5. Thou shalt freely comment on the utterances of other speakers for the sake of blessed connection and exquisite controversy.

6. Thou shalt not flaunt thine ego. Be thou vulnerable. Speak of thy failure as well as thy success.

7. Thou shalt not sell from the stage: neither thy company, thy goods, thy writings, nor thy desperate need for funding; lest thou be cast aside into outer darkness.

8. Thou shalt remember all the while: Laughter is Good.

9. Thou shalt not read thy speech.

10. Thou shalt not steal the time of them that follow thee.

We produced our own Sophia top ten tips for communication here in case you missed them. Is there anything you would add?

Finally, don't miss our Communicating with Impact training days for women only - in Warwick on 24 September, in London on 5 October and in Manchester on a date soon to be confirmed. Full details here. The Warwick day is almost full and there are three places left in London, so do get in touch if you're interested. We've been able to put on these days thanks to support from Trust Greenbelt, the Church of England and CPAS.

Communicating with impact - top tips!

We're in the process of organising some training days on communicating with impact for women who  preach, present or otherwise want to get their message across. Details will be available in the next couple of weeks. We did a trial day last autumn and it was excellent. We want to encourage women to develop communication skills, and are thinking about how we can promote and develop women speakers, so watch this space. In the meantime, here are our top ten tips for communicating that some of you will have heard at our Youthwork the Conference receptions last year.

1. It's natural to feel nervous and worried about how you’ll come across, but focus on your listeners not yourself. What do they need to hear from you?

2. Develop your own style – don’t try to be like anyone else – you’ll be rumbled. Don’t be taken in by the popular blokey, shouty, stand-up comic style of preaching. Is that really the most effective way of communicating?

3. Breathing is key to getting on top of nerves. Breathe from your stomach, not your chest – makes you grounded and connected. Take time to centre, to be calm. Take heart – you’ll appear more calm than you are.

4. Tell stories. Personal anecdotes are always good – they reveal something about you. Allow a bit of yourself out. Audience want to see what you bring that no one else can.

5. Make eye contact. Don’t talk to the back of the room, or the wall behind people’s heads. People want to connect with you.

6. It’s hard to make a written script dynamic. By all means write it out in advance so you know what you’re going to say, and can check it has a good structure - but then speak from bullet points or notes.

7. Focus on the furthest place your voice needs to project to – the back row of your audience – and your voice will adjust to fill the space. If you focus on your notes, that’s how far your voice will go.

8. Be a tree! Legs rooted and grounded, moving top half. Or walk around - but don’t wobble, or cross legs over each other, or be too frantic. It can be distracting and undermine what you’re saying.

9. Have a clear objective for your talk – summarise in one sentence. You may need to prune out some good stuff in order to be more effective.

10. You are allowed, as a woman, to speak, to preach, to communicate, to persuade, to influence and to be good at it. We sometimes lack role models; some people want us to keep quiet BUT you are allowed… So practice, develop your skills, invest in yourself.

Christianity21

Christianity21 is an interesting event taking place in Minneapolis in October. The website has this description:

'We live in a time of epochal change. Many find this change exciting; for others, it’s a challenge. Call it globalization, pluralization, or postmodernism, this change affects our economy, politics, government, and education—all of society. And, of course, our faith and our churches are not immune to change.

So we have gathered 21 of the most important voices for the future of Christianity—21 voices for the 21st century—to speak into our future as people of faith in this age. They represent a diverse array of backgrounds, interests, and passions, and they will provide a wide range of innovative and challenging presentations.'

The nice thing is that the 21 voices are all women's. Tony Jones, one of the organisers says on his blog: 'That's not a gimmick, nor is it an affirmative action decision. Instead, it's our attempt to catalyze a chemistry at an event that's never been achieved before. It's an attempt to do something different. (If you're a guy (or a woman) who feels uncomfortable about that, probably all the more reason that you should be there!) ... We also thought it's high time that speaker/authors like me, Doug, Joe Myers, Shane Claiborne, Peter Rollins and others should be sitting behind the registration table, handing out nametags. And that's just where you'll find us.'

Interesting that they feel they have to namedrop a few guys who will be there, but how refreshing that they're taking risks and that they've given the platform away. I think some of the best speakers I've heard at Christian events have been people who I hadn't come across before, and maybe didn't agree with 100 per cent, but who spoke from the heart, made me think and gave me plenty to talk about over a drink afterwards. I know it's tempting to go for the safe names who always deliver, but there can be something rather dull and predictable about that. Could this kind of conference happen here in the UK? I don't think so at the moment. But I do think we need something radical like this to shake up our ideas of what it means to be a 'good' speaker and who is worth going to listen to.

Interview with Danielle Strickland

Danielle, tell us about your life – where do you live and what do you do?
I'm a Canadian living in Australia. I work as a Salvation Army officer, and currently hold the position of Social Justice Director. That means that I try to mobilise everyday Salvation Army members towards living justly and engaging in social justice issues and I inform the organisation regarding social justice issues and legislative changes regarding our advocacy in Australia. I live in an urban inner city suburb called Collingwood and am planting a cell-based Christian community there.

You came over from Australia to speak at Spring Harvest earlier this year. What do we need to do to develop strong and competent female speakers here in the UK?
There are a few things necessary in my opinion. You need bold women willing to learn, take risks and give it a go. You need good, solid modelling and mentoring -- women who will help to show how it's done and pass on gifts and opportunities intentionally. You need more opportunities for women to try out their gifts – including some flexibility around style and approach.

When you talk around flexibility of approach to speaking what do you mean by that? 
 I guess the only model we have are strong male storytellers who speak loudly and in a solo style. I think with today's mediums (media and creativity) we can do some other kind of speaking and invite different 'styles' of communication that would suit women speakers better. A much more conversational style can be helpful. I think by using media to illustrate instead of telling huge personal stories we show a different style. I don't think it's about saying that women can only speak in different styles but I do think we should experiment.

Quite a lot of women seem to struggle to find their 'natural' communication style and can fall into preaching in a traditional 'male' style. When you preach/communicate it seems effortless, any clues on how other women get to that place for themselves?
I've been speaking for a long time. One thing I used to do though early on in my speaking days was to listen to great speakers. The web is great for this – there are lots of free sources of great speakers and I used to listen to at least one or two speaks a week - just for fun!  That helps and then I also prepared my talks out loud. I never wrote things out in full.  I used outlines and I prepared them out loud. I took notes from my study but I think the whole art of communicating out loud is very different from writing. So if you write a sermon it most likely won't be the best spoken sermon as it is a different form of communication.

Women’s voices – a secondary issue, but not a salvation one?

Let me tell you a story. A Christian organisation approached a university CU to ask if they could send a speaker to talk about the opportunities that they provide for students. The CU was keen and started making arrangements until they discovered that the speaker who would come was a woman. She managed the project that would be promoted and so is the most knowledgeable and most obvious choice of speaker for the organisation. The CU explained that they only had male speakers so that they could focus on their core purpose of reaching the lost and not be distracted by secondary issues such as gender. Opinion within the organisation was split: some said they should send a man instead because the main aim is to inform students about their work; others thought they should make a stand and draw attention to the CU’s policy.

Let me tell you another story. A church approached another Christian organisation and asked for a speaker at their Sunday morning service. The organisation offered a very gifted and experienced speaker who has done hundreds of training sessions and speaking engagements for them, and who is also a woman. The church said that the woman couldn’t speak in the service as they didn’t have female preachers but she could do a ten-minute talk in the hall over lunch afterwards. The organisation decided that it was not ‘a salvation issue’ and that they would comply with the church’s restrictions. These are both true stories and both incidents happened in the last six months.

I’m intrigued by the CU’s policy. If the CU want to reach the lost, can’t they see that banning women from speaking in public will be anything but secondary for women and men who are not yet Christians, that actually it could be a huge barrier for many in coming to faith? Men and women in the university will be used to relating to each other as equal colleagues, partners and friends. They will have female lecturers, tutors and peers who contribute to their education. How are they going to be attracted to following Jesus if they think that he wants women to be excluded from these areas of life? Yes, Christians disagree over what men and women can and can’t do, but if the CU really thinks gender is secondary when it comes to the gospel, why don’t they make a point of allowing both men and women to be heard in the CU just as they are in the rest of the university - even if it upsets some of their members - rather than having a stance that could stop people from hearing the good news of Jesus.  Perhaps they really mean that gender is a secondary issue when it comes to unity within the CU, rather than for reaching out to people outside it. The CU constitution says that they have to abide by the Student Union equal opportunities policy which includes gender as an area where there should be no discrimination. I wonder how the CU justifies their policy of only male speakers; I wonder if the SU knows about it.

What do you think? Should organisations make a stand in situations like these and affirm the gifts and calling of their female employees in public? Or should they acquiesce to these requests out of respect for the CU and the church’s position?