Ministerial Memos

Speaking at different churches each week over the past 11-years has afforded me the opportunity to be introduced from the pulpit by the pastor or someone he so designates. Some guys are very, very good at this. They do their research, either asking me for information (I have a press release) or finding info on my website (my bio is there). On the other hand, some guys just do not understand or haven’t been taught this simple common courtesy. Or perhaps, they just figure everyone knows the guy who is about to speak . . . but there’s always someone in the audience who doesn’t know the speaker.

I was at one church where the elder-in-charge of the service leaned back to me in the second row and said - “You’re on!” At that very moment I was Facebooking a photo of the worship team or someone singing and thus replied: “I’m not ready yet.” I finished my posting before climbing up to the pulpit. I figured someone would introduce me even if it was as simple as: “Our speaker this morning is Dan Allen. He will tell you about his ministry.” Incidentally, that type of introduction works, but it shows no imagination, a lack of interest and could cause a speaker to question if you are really interested in him and his ministry. What would it take for the pastor or his secretary to do a little research and write something up – 5-minutes; 15-minutes?

Okay, I’m whining in this post, but I think we need to do a better job in this area. You’d never see this outside the church during a public speaking venue. And the introduction doesn’t have to be glamorous. The goal is to honor the guest speaker and, at the same time, inform the congregation who this guy is. I did a banquet before the aforementioned “non-introduction.” The introduction was so good, imaginative and interesting that I started looking around to see who was speaker . . . then I realized he was talking about me!