Preparing and delivering a Marriage Seminar talk

Mentality 

The mentality that presenting couples have in approaching how they give their talks is vital in communicating the essence of the message of Celebrate Love. This attitude needs to one of humility and service. This is not about being ‘in the limelight’ or being ‘more knowledgeable’ than others on team. All are vital in delivering the seamless message. Presenters are invited to present after discernment and prayer. It is God’s work that presenters are called to and it is God’s work they are achieving. Any sense of entitlement or superiority does not belong in this role or anywhere in Celebrate Love.

Presenters need a mentality of total service to the participating couples. All efforts are towards making their experience as meaningful, powerful and holy as possible. Presenting couples need to be proactive in preparing their talks, writing their sharings and getting feedback from their workshopping couple as early as possible.

Presenting the talk

Many Marriage Seminar presenters are professional speakers and it is wonderful to have such skills available. However, Marriage Seminar presenting is not like giving a speech and professional speakers often find it as challenging as inexperienced speakers for two reasons:

  1. In marriage seminars, you will be presenting as a couple. This means that your message must be coordinated. If the more confident speaker dominates, the message is compromised. It is vitally important that couples practice by saying their talks aloud to ensure that they have an appropriate rhythm and balance. It is important to think carefully about when to change speakers during the talk.
  2. Most marriage seminar talks require intimate sharing. This can be very confronting for the presenters, especially when the sharings are of a confessional nature. At all times avoid making jokes or sidetracking with stories that are not part of the talk.

The usual rules of good presenting apply along with some special ‘couple’ rules:

  1. Volume – speak clearly and project your voice to the furthest person in the room. Usually the Facilitators will signal to you from the back of the room if you can’t be heard.
  2. Pace – avoid galloping through the talk but don’t go so slowly that people lose interest.
  3. Expression – avoid reading in a monotone. You are proclaiming the good news that God is intimately invested in their relationship! Speak with authority, urgency, passion and the appropriate amount of drama.
  4. Scripture – When reading the scripture pick up the bible with reverence and read from the bible (or from the marriage seminar bookmarks if the bible is not a NRSV translation). Read with appropriate expression.
  5. Eye contact – make sure that you scan the room when you look up and make eye contact with the couples. Be familiar with the talk so that you can comfortably do this. A common pattern, especially in the initial stages of presenting, is for the person not speaking to follow the words on the page. Try to minimise this as soon as possible. There are strategies to avoid needing to follow the words.
  6. Touch – stand together, but be careful not to overdo the affection as this can be distracting to participants. If you are comfortable standing arm in arm, do so, but avoid caressing each other. It’s also okay to stand a little apart at times. Be conscious that your sacrament is the primary message and the way that is presented is through your interactions with each other.
  7. Listen to each other. When your spouse is speaking, listen to what he/she is saying for the bulk of the time. Spend some time making eye contact with the participants
  8. Tone – it’s great to be playful with each other but take care to honour the tone of the talk. For example, playfulness would be out of place during the reconciliation talk. It is inappropriate to make jokes that belittle or minimise the impact of the content.
  9. Adlibbing vs Reading– the talks from the seminar have been carefully worked on and revised and revised to get the right message across to the participating couples. The content needs to be followed carefully. It is appropriate for some words to be replaced, but only with words that don’t impinge on the message. Some couples have attempted ‘adlibbing’ in the past – this often adds time onto the talk and people can get sidetracked. It is a sign of respect when the outlines are adhered to as closely as possible. Some people come from a tradition where spontaneous testimonials are given. While this is most often an inspired and Spirit led process, it doesn’t follow that reading from a prepared text is not inspired and Spirit led. Please do not think that you must speak spontaneously in order for God’s Spirit to be effective. Some of the most inspired words from the Holy Father come after months of careful deliberation and workshopping by theologians and advisors.

Overall, you are the role models that all participating couples will be looking towards throughout their seminar experience.  You need to be prepared spiritually as a couple (refer to Presenter e-news from Oct 08) to be able to present as a united, strong symbol of God’s love in the world.

Authors: Luke & Vanessa Van Beek, Francine & Byron Pirola, Michael & Tricia Casey.