It was so nice to see your questions popping into my email box this week. This Q & A series may spur some of your own, so keep ’em coming! My email is . I’ll make this an open-ended series until we run out of questions.
Here’s the first question..
I am a new Christian Speaker and Author. I am a Christian of 5 years, who has been intentional about following God for the past 2 years. I am 45 years old.
There is no doubt in my mind that God is leading me to write and speak. He created me with natural talents for both, and He has given me many examples of His power to share with others.
My question is how to put myself out there to speak in venues other than my own church? I find it difficult to “convince” others I have a firm grounding in my faith that Jesus is Lord, God is Our Father and His Spirit lives in me. Others who hear I have had a late in life conversion experience want some tangible evidence that I am true to my word! ~Julie
I found this an interesting question. I think there are actually 2 questions embedded within the one. The one I’ll reword and handle first is–Do I need to be spiritually mature to be a speaker?
My short answer is yes. I believe spiritual maturity is very important for a speaker, and for me, one of the greatest indicators for maturity is knowing that God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways higher than our ways. When you listen to spiritually immature people express themselves, there’s usually lots of opinion and overly-high esteem for themselves. A spiritually mature person is marked by humility and a high value on scripture.
Having said all that, there’s not always a direct correlation between the number of years you’ve been a Christian and your spiritual maturity. I’ve known people who have been believers for decades who are very immature in their faith. These are people who haven’t invested in the spiritual disciplines or much self-discipline.
Conversely, I can think of two personal friends who became Christians as adults who, because of their passion and discipline, grew into maturity with shocking speed. I was personally convicted to see what God can do with a life that’s completely surrendered to Him.
Julie, if you have surrendered and matured quickly, I would say you’re qualified. Not only that, but you have a very unique platform. You have rare insight into how God works in an adult’s life not only to save but to transform. That’s powerful stuff for you to share!
Since you are young in spiritual years, this scripture immediately popped to mind when I read your question. I hope it encourages you! (Claire the wonder-intern made it especially for you!)
The second question is this– How much information is enough when we’re communicating with event planners?
I don’t mean that any speaker should hide things and certainly not that we should lie. However, we do have to decide what is important to share on marketing pieces like biosheets. Often, our life experiences can be mentioned as credentials as well as letting event planners know a little about our background. Julie, I suggest that you create a biosheet and write this information something like this…
Julie’s late-in-life connection to Jesus has allowed her the rare ability to give her audiences insight into their unchurched friends’ minds.
See how that works? What people have considered a negative isn’t hidden, yet you’ve just allowed people to view the positives that come with your experience. Speakers who are divorced, single moms, or have other challenging parts of their pasts should ask themselves this question. What did I learn in that season that could be valuable to my audience? Weave the two together and you have magic instead of a liability.
Tune in next week, for question #2!
“I had the opportunity in late October to speak (and facilitate) a 90-minute session with an international group of 250+ women representing Dress for Success affiliates around the globe at the organization’s worldwide conference in Charlotte. While it was a secular presentation I was able to incorporate some of what I learned working with you, and to infuse a Christian ‘other-centeredness’ in the information I shared. The feedback I received was extremely positive and the experience was SO rewarding!
“Friday’s session with the varied topics about how God created us, chose us, etc was a near bust when I recorded it with my dog (remember she was in the intro?) and then she kept wanting in and out of the room. I had to edit the video where I was doing that and thought it would ruin everything, but as it turns out the girls LOVED those moments and said it felt very real.
