Speakers

A few weeks ago I was having coffee with a friend who was lamenting the copious number of business presentations he was forced to attend. "The trouble is," he told me, "most of these people are horrible speakers and communicators. I've even seen some speakers who turn their back to the audience and talk to a screen. And many of these speeches are incomprehensible."

I considered this conversation recently when I happened upon an article about a writer who had served as a speech writer for both George W. Bush and, now, President Obama. It was an interesting parallel, given that many public speakers can't speak, and those who do often turn to writers to fill the void. Writers, of course, should be adept at crafting sentences.

Most people, when they consider the work that pastors do, week in and week out, are not easily impressed until they realize that pastors must craft a keynote speech every week. Regardless of the circumstances or the disasters that have been dropped into the pastor's lap, the sermon must happen. People expect it. And it had better be good!

No doubt, some of the best public speakers, bar none, can be found in pulpits every Sunday morning. In fact, I'd stack up the top pastors against the top Fortune 500 speakers any day of the week and twice on Tuesday, and the pastors, I'm sure, would slaughter these high-paid duds on a 1-10 scale for effectiveness and inspiration. In fact, it's easy to motive a captive audience who have paid $300 to attend a seminar. But try motivating a volunteer organization week in and week out and, over the long haul of a ministry, and still have something to say. Most of these gurus move from place to place, from city to city, and only have one speech which they recycle endlessly while they collect their fat-cat checks. (This applies to politicians, former-politicians, wanna-be politicians, celebrities, movie-stars, and countless media moguls . . . few of whom can string together fifty words that would be comprehensible to the average Joe--and nearly all of the above use writers to write their words. They couldn't do it themselves to save their own skins.)

Well . . . but then I'm a writer and no one has called me to write a speech of late. But when they do, I'll be ready. I've got some great speeches already on hand. My rate is $10,000 per hour. A bargain at any price . . . considering.