The #1 Reason Students Stop Listening to You When You Speak

Not this again.

Week after week, you get up in front of your students to deliver a message from God's Word, and they tune you out.

You feel your frustration reaching a boiling point. Your head is about to explode.

"Don't they care about Jesus anymore?", you ask yourself.

Before you begin throwing accusations their way, take a few minutes to stop and evaluate your message content and delivery by asking this question:

Am I boring?

Chances are, the answer is YES!

Boredom is the #1 reason students stop listening to you when you are preaching. It may be that you have crafted your content in a boring manner or that your delivery is a snoozefest... or both. Either way, you need to take action immediately and remedy your propensity to be boring.

Here are 5 things you can implement immediately to combat boredom in your messages:

1. Simplify your content.

Too often, youth pastors put way too much content into their messages. There is nothing wrong with being thorough in your Bible study and preparation; however, you will have a major problem holding their attention if you do not cut your content down to 20-25 minutes.

2. Improve your storytelling.

You MUST include stories when you communicate with students. These can be personal stories, Bible stories, current event stories, or even stories about your cat. Be sure that when you TELL the story you are incorporating as many of the five senses as possible. Engage your students by helping them feel like they are smack-dab in the middle of an amazing story.

3. Analyze how you handle Scripture.

Try reading the scripture passages in bite-sized chunks. If you happen to have an unusually long passage to read, break it up. Have the students act it out. Try telling the Bible story from a character's perspective. For example, I recently heard a youth speaker tell the story of Jesus turning water to wine as if he was one of the disciples witnessing the event. The students were on the edge of their seats! One final thought, you don't have to include every verse you studied in preparing for the message, just the main ones that are pertinent to make the point.

4. Use your voice.

Be sure to use vocal inflection when you speak to students. Don't just vary the volume of your voice with loud and soft, try using a fast and slow rate of speech. Put in a few character voices during your stories. Insert a few well-timed pauses. Whatever you do, don't be monotone!

5. Move your body.

The two most damaging things you can do with your body when you speak are:

a) Be a statue (lack of movement is boring).

b) Constantly pace back and forth (most youth pastors who use only an outline do this and it's very distracting and leads to boredom).

When you move as you deliver your message, MOVE WITH PURPOSE!