Cheon Seong Gyeong Ⅱ - 394. Sermons that stir the heart
28 If you want to move an audience of hundreds of thousands of people, do not write a script. As a spiritual leader, you need inspiration. That is why your tears must never cease. You should be able to speak from a deep heart, such that tears burst forth without you even realizing it. Never lose that heart. If you lose it, you cannot resurrect people. This is a serious matter. How serious have you been to save one life? Compare yourself to a doctor. When a surgeon goes to the operating table, a person's life is on the edge of his scalpel. You as a leader are responsible for many lives. You should recognize that you who are dealing with many people’s lives are in a position far more serious than the doctor who is handling just one person’s life. I am not saying this just casually. If you are not that sincere, you are nothing but a swindler.( 231-203,19920602)
29 Do not expect to move the congregation through your sermon. Rather, it is you who should be moved first. You need to be inspired by the content you are delivering. You should think that you are giving a sermon to yourself. If you, as a person of high spirituality, are moved and inspired by your own sermon, then the congregation will go wild, receiving amazing grace and inspiration. Therefore, giving the sermon serves to cultivate you, not others. It is for your own growth, not for others. Therefore, you should quote my words as much as possible. Even more than praying, you need to read the books of my sermons. Read a sermon that inspires you once, twice, three times, and then speak focused on its key points. That would be better than studying for several weeks. The books of my sermons contain an enormous amount of material. My prayers, especially, have very pro-found content that you cannot access on your own.( 198-012,19900120)
30 Before going to the podium, first think about the posture you will take when you stand before the audience. Then think of a way to impress the audience within the first five to ten minutes. If the audience does not incline toward you within the first five to ten minutes, it will be difficult to move them. That being the case, it is important to know what to start with. Begin with a topic that catches everyone's interest. Or begin with something totally irrelevant, unusual or unfamiliar. Employ a strategy to draw them to you, so that they will want to listen to what you are saying. You need a strategy to draw them in.( 065-296,19730304)
31 Study people to figure out whether they are open-minded and cooperative or narrow and inflexible. By finding out the sorts of topics intriguing to a person, you should be able to discover his or her personality type. Study by making comparisons: "Ah, that person is the same type as this friend of mine. Among the one hundred people I know, he is like so-and-so." Select three or four people of different types and test how they respond to your sermons. Choose them from different categories, for example, a humble person, an arrogant person, a passionate person and an indecisive person. Then observe them. At a certain dramatic moment you may shed tears, or when you are preaching about forgiveness, for example, your expression should show your emotion. In this way, you should be able to move that person. You are fighting an invisible battle. For a person who has poetic sentiments, you can recite a poem. Recall a suitable poem, and during the sermon take a minute to recite the poem, losing yourself in poetic sentiment. For a person with literary sentiments, you can whisper to express intense emotion.( 054-177,19720324)
32 Wherever you are, when you lecture the Principle, whether it is Part One or Part Two, your lecture should be seamless and smooth. The Principle should become like a formula for you. If you use this formula to comprehend the whole world of phenomena, the knowledge you acquire will be so vast. You should find the Principle so interesting that you want to stay up all night reading it. If you are intoxicated by the Principle to that extent, it will bring internal growth. You will see progress in your daily life as well. Unless you study the Principle with that level of focus, you will hardly make any progress.( 029-190,19700228)
33 How can you become a great lecturer? Go listen to famous lecturers around the country. Record their lectures and evaluate them. Choose their best points and write them down in your notebook. Always have piles of the tapes you recorded. Collect the witty and useful materials from tens and hundreds of their sermons and use them whenever you give lectures. Then you can become a great lecturer. You should lecture more than eight hours every day. Lecture to even one new guest.( 068-094,19730723)
34 If you can shed tears when holding the Principle book, you can move your audience. Become a person who clings to the Principle book, staying up all night reading it, begrudging the fact that time is passing, and having amazing experiences from page to page. After you have had such experiences, try giving lectures while intoxicated with the Principle and see how spirit world moves the audience. Without fail, people will have new and moving experiences. If you are dead, things will lose their life force and atrophy, but if you are alive, things will definitely develop. When they develop, new things will come into existence. That is a natural law.( 030-130,19700321)
35 When you lecture, what do you want to give to the listeners? And when you speak, what message do you want to convey through your words? When you use your hands, what impression do you want to make with your gestures? When you do anything, what impact do you want to make? You need to have answers to these questions. Even when you walk a difficult path, always think of the legacy you will leave behind. Though your path may be arduous and tiring, to leave a legacy you have to be full of spirit and fun. You cannot afford to wallow in exhaustion. The more difficulties you face, the more you need to pay attention to this matter.( 096-331,19780213) |