There has been a trend in recent years for Christian speakers to speak longer.....some do 45 minutes regularly. Some are of the opinion that if you do not speak long, then you are not being deep. I lean to shorter because I would rather be heard than considered deep.
Is there a PERFECT time length to speak? Maybe not perfect, but here is what some "experts" know and say.
TED Talks are 18 minutes long. Nobody gets more than 18 minutes. TED Talk Curator Chris Anderson says, "18 minutes is short enough to hold people's attention, precise enough to be taken seriously, and long enough to say something that matters.”
Biologists say the brain starts to tune out after 10 minutes. So, it is at the 9-10 minute mark that a gear has to shift or something done to bring the audience's attention back again. One motivational speaker who makes BIG money speaking says when he sees the audience's attention shifting, he will say something startling or he holds up one finger and says, "Let me tell you a joke."
I am convinced that stories catch people's attention and connect them more than any other thing a speaker can do or say. People relate to stories about other people or about you as the speaker and funny stories or self deprecating stories are really well received and draw people into what is being said. One of my first Christian speaker heroes was a man named Ed Seabough. Ed always told a story or two with maximum impact. He told me he did not just tell them off the top of his head, but that he would practice telling them out loud.
I learned from Ed. I practice not only a story out loud, but I do my public presentations out loud in a room by myself at least twice before I speak. And, unless it is a workshop setting with give and take discussion, I speak about 20 minutes. I would always rather people say, "I wish he had gone longer than I thought that was never going to be over."
You can find Arliss' books at Amazon.com/dp/B08CMD9CXX or just search Arliss at Amazon books.
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