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CURRENTLY IN BOOKS
Captivating your audience to listen

John Unger

You Can’t Help But Listen: User-Friendly Oral Communication Charles R. Munson. Waterloo, Ont./Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 2001. 200 pp. $22.29.

A book on preaching with a forward by a major league ball player?

Indeed. Orel Hershiser and his teammates were so impressed by Charles Munson’s chapel presentation at the Cleveland clubhouse, Hershiser asked Munson to put his ideas on creative speaking into a book.

Munson commands a wealth of experience: national youth director for the Brethren Church, 35 years as professor at Ashland Theological Seminary, leader at local and national levels, pastor of numerous Brethren churches – these roles all provided challenges in packaging words that would create listening ears and minds.

Listening comes from wanting to hear. Munson’s mission is to capture audiences so they cannot help but listen. This book outlines practical ways to present God’s Word with imagination and conviction.

There are no shortcuts to solid preparation, but Munson divides the tasks of study and organization into bite-size pieces. He demonstrates how to develop an idea sheet, find the core unit, notch out the passage, write a power statement and locate pictures in the Scripture. In addition to comments on beginnings, middles and endings, he includes chapters on imagination (seeing two things at once in the theatre of the mind), multiple senses (adding sound, sight, taste, touch, smell), humour and laughter.

In the section on delivery, Munson offers insights on conversation-style presentations, audience responses, body language (you dare not let your hands be passive) and drama. He concludes with a chapter on self-examination: being authentic and believable.

A brief listing of recent resources for preaching, teaching and worship ministries is provided.

Munson insists presentations of God’s Word be user-friendly and irresistible. Apart from occasional quirky humour, this book is fresh, engaging and practical. Most speakers would benefit from it.

John Unger is a president of Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg.

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Last modified February 11, 2002.

© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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