Posted By allen on March 16, 2010

Phil Cooke had an interesting post on his blog ( The Change Revolution) a couple of days ago about body language and public speaking. In his post, he encouraged public speakers to get out from behind the podium and put some life into their speaking.

This sound advice reminded me of a rather humorous situation I found myself in as a young college student preaching at a church in central Louisiana one Sunday morning.

Several of my instructors and fellow students had criticized me for anchoring myself behind the podium when I spoke. My normal routine – which I felt relaxed me – was to walk behind the podium, look at the audience for a moment, place my notes on the stand, put one hand on each side of the stand, plant my feet firmly about shoulder width apart, and then proceed to read my sermon to the congregation. My presentations were not without some enthusiasm. I would underline areas where I felt I needed to be louder and put a (w) around places where I wanted to lower my voice. I even put in (p) where a pause needed to be inserted.

In an effort to get myself away from the podium, I started inserting symbols to remind me to step to one side or the other, lean forward, gesture, and so forth. I figured that if I constantly reminded myself of the things I needed to do during a sermon, it would soon come natural.

On this particular Sunday morning, I was the guest speaker at a medium sized church. The platform area was about 3 steps above the congregation. In the middle of the platform was a wide raised pulpit area. The four foot wide pulpit was an additional 3 steps above the stage.

I stepped behind the pulpit, looked down at the congregation, and started into my sermon. Even with the raised pulpit, I found that I could move around a little. As I got involved in the delivery of the sermon, I lost track of my position on the pulpit platform. I came to a part of my sermon that had the notation 2B which meant I was to take 2 steps back before making the next statement.

I realized that I had a problem when I was taking the second step back and my foot only found air. By then it was too late and I stumbled backward out of the pulpit. In trying to catch my balance, I fell forward on the platform level and ended up face down. There was total silence in the church – nobody even moved. I stood up, walked back into the pulpit area, and finished my sermon with both feet firmly planted in place.

As I was speaking to people at the back door after service, only one little boy mentioned my fall. He said, “Will you come back again? It was funny when you fell.”

Hopefully this good example of very BAD public speaking will help somebody.

Footnote: This incident was over 30 years ago. I no longer write out my notes or movement cues. I seldom use more than a small index card for my notes and tend to move around quite a bit.

Phil Cooke’s blog is at: http://www.philcooke.com/making_a_great_speech

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