• Discussion Forum

  Why is it important to surface a need for your audience right away? Can you think of an example of a speech or sermon you’ve heard that spoke to your needs? How did the speaker accomplish this?

  Posted by info on 02/25/2021 at 14:53

  Joshua Mays replied 1 week ago 43 Members · 43 Replies

  • ML111-01
• 43 Replies

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  Joshua Mays

  Member

  06/18/2025 at 05:30

  When attempting to captivate the audience’s attention, relativity is one part; however, building a sense of how serious that portion of reality is another. Breaking down the intended audience’s attention can be difficult, but what I find is that sometimes a relative humor of the area, a personal story related to the subject, or simply a joke in general opens the audience up to the need.

  For example, when I am witnessing, it’s very apparent when the necks turn to the clock and wristwatches start coming up in the air, or when the phones come out, I’m either losing the audience or need to step up my game.

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  Rebecca Crone

  Member

  04/16/2025 at 16:08

  When speaking, the audience needs to know why they need to hear this information. If the need comes too late in the message, the audience has already given their attention elsewhere. A good way to address the needs of the audience is to make a connection with them. Ultimately, what they are hearing needs to be important and applicable to them. I am a teacher, so when I teach, I always try to connect with my students to something which they understand and can then apply it directly to the work that is expected. My pastor does a very good job of this, and the majority of his messages are very captivating to the audience, me included.

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  Lynda Park

  Member

  02/19/2025 at 10:40

  Showing your audience why they need the content of what you are speaking will get them invested in what you are saying. When I recently gave the devotional to the families of the young children in our church, I talked to them about how we as parents want our children to develop their own faith, so applying some of the strategies we use in Sunday School could also help them accomplish this at home.

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  Abraham Alier

  Member

  12/07/2024 at 02:25

  I believe people gather because their is something missing in each one them and want help to meet their needs. So people feel bore for anything not meet their need.

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  Stacy Colwell

  Member

  11/03/2024 at 16:01

  It is important to surface a need right away so that the audience feels connected to what you are saying. They will feel as though they will actually benefit from what you say, so it is worth their time. I am struggling to think of a recent example of when a speaker spoke to a need, but can think of a very recent instance when just the opposite was true. Just this morning I listened to a sermon in which the speaker assumed the entire audience fit into a certain category, and he was direct in insisting he was meeting a shared need that did not apply to me (in fairness, what he said was meeting a need of most of the people to whom he spoke, but it just happened to be the opposite for me as I was a bit of an outsider in the group as far as life experiences). The effect was that I had to make a conscious effort engage throughout the remainder of the sermon. I felt misunderstood and disconnected.

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