A Critique on a Speech by My Pastor

Chiderah Onyeukwu
Katie Schoonover
COMM 150 Lab
10 April 2013
Outside Speaker Critique For this critique, the speaker was my pastor, Pastor Frank Ofosu-Appiah. His speech was a sermon he titled “Overcoming Loneliness.” The purpose of this sermon is to uplift and inform the congregation, by giving them examples, stories, and analogies from with the Bible to help him do so. While doing this, there were some strengths and weaknesses that could be identified throughout the sermon. The underlying example Pastor Frank used was the story of David, the future king of the Israelites in the Bible. In my opinion, the thesis of the sermon was: “I know you are scared of that word (loneliness), but let’s confront it.” The introduction paragraph was a basic background on where, why, and how David found himself being lonely; this set the stage for the rest of the speech and allowed the audience to fully comprehend the examples that Pastor Frank would be using later on in the sermon. The body of the sermon involved a definition of the word “loneliness” and the use of many examples from different backgrounds that captured the idea of loneliness for the audience. Finally, the conclusion involved Pastor Frank summing up the examples from earlier and leaving the congregation with some encouraging words on how to battle loneliness they may feel in their lives. The use of transitions, although seldom, were apparent in the sermon. It seems like the few transitions Pastor Frank used were explicitly used with the purpose of moving from one part of the sermon to another, such as from introduction to body and from body to conclusion. Considering that fact, the speech was still very easy to follow because it was well organized and the different parts of the sermon were very distinguishable. No part of the speech sounded like another, a problem with I have seen in a lot of sermons; this causes the sermons to sound repetitive and allows the audience to quickly lose interest. In my opinion, the evidence used by Pastor Frank was appropriate for the audience, topic, and occasion; not one of the examples or quotes he used seemed out of place or something that would confuse or offend the audience. Throughout the sermon, plenty of quotations, Bible verses, bible stories, personal experience stories, and even definitions were used to help enhance his argument. The amazing thing is that none of the evidence, although many, seemed to contradict another or make Pastor Frank lose any of his credibility. As far as visual aids go, the only true visual aids used were some PowerPoint slides with the Bible verses Pastor Frank was using in the sermon; these were intended to help any congregation member who did not possess a Bible during the sermon. That is fairly common for most churches, as is the lack of any other visual aids, so as to not take away too much from the message the preacher is trying to portray. Too many visual aids can hinder a sermon as the audience gets distracted by the aids and loses focus; in my opinion, the limited number of visual aids greatly helped the message and did not have a negative effect. The single biggest strength, in my opinion, of Pastor Frank’s sermon was his delivery. Keeping in mind that his Ghanaian accent is an obstacle that faces an audience member that is not from Africa or not used to it, his tone was second to none. However, because most of his audience is used to him, he can relate very well to the audience and the accent is not much of an issue. He seemed very relaxed and at ease with the audience, almost as if the audience was his family at the dinner table. His posture was on point, and he moved around enough to avoid deeming stiff, but not so frequently that his audience was distracted. On a scale of 1-5, I would give Pastor Frank a 5 on posture and walking, a 5 on facial expression, a 5 on gestures, and a 5 on eye contact. Using that same scale, I would give him a 4 on volume, a 5 on conversational quality, a 4 on clarity, a 4 on pitch, and a 3 on rate. As the senior pastor of the church where the majority of the audience is registered members, I believe that any sermon Pastor Frank preaches is ethical. This one in particular is definitely ethical and the content within it is responsible information from a reliable source. His conversational tone and obvious knowledge of the subject proved that he had done his research and had spent time carefully crafting the sermon; making the sermon enjoyable to listen to and credible to the audience. Obviously, as a pastor, Pastor Frank’s credentials usually influence him to take the side of the audience and help them deal with issues such as loneliness, although there are rare occasions where he does not. The audience and environment, a church service on a Sunday morning, influence the way the speech is presented; the sermon definitely has a “preachy” feel, mainly because that is what the audience is expecting as the norm when they come to church. However, if Pastor Frank were presenting this same information at a seminar, he may present the information in a more informative and factual way; if he were speaking at a Q & A, he would have to tailor his answers based on the way the question was asked. All in all, the information was presented close to perfectly, was appropriate for the situation, and was ethical.