Apologetics Event Planning for Churches
This semester, I’m doing a video series on tips for churches–specifically for pastors or ministry leaders who want to bring an apologetics conference to their congregations. My goal in “tips from the road” will help you get started with the planning stage for your event.
My first tip was to build yourself a leadership team instead to trying to do it all yourself. My second tip was to define the key messages you want your people to walk away with after the event. Today, I share a few tips on taking care of your speakers. Check it out.
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Event Tip #3 Consider Speaker Care
After booking speakers for your event, consider how you can help them have the best conference experience at your event. For example, provide a point of contact for your speakers so they have a specific person in charge of helping them with whatever they need–whether it’s just a bottle of water or the WiFi code for your venue or anything else that will help them better serve your participants.
Talk to your speakers early on about any audio/visual support they might need. For example, if the speaker would like to use PowerPoint and advance his or her own slides, provide them with a presenter module like this (my personal favorite).
Also, consider what kind of microphones your speakers would like to use. For me, I don’t like using handheld mics as much as I do having my hands free to gesture and use a variety of props in my program. So find out if your speakers would prefer a face mic, as well. In my experience, most do.
Finally, ask your speakers for a short bio that the person introducing them can read. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen someone try to condense a full bio they found on a Web site into just a few sentences on the fly. It doesn’t work very well. But now that you’ve seen this, that won’t be you!
Free Resource
Did you know I recorded a series of 6 short webinars on planning, organize and coordinate a successful apologetics event? Sign up for How to Run an Accessible Apologetics Conference and get them all for FREE. You’ll learn how to:
- Strategically plan your apologetics event
- Set the best ticket price
- Promote your event
- Streamline registration
- Take care of your speakers…and more!
Dena Davidson is a friend who introduced me to the concept of speaker care and she did a great job helping me create this resource. Dena’s organized some awesome apologetics events in Northern California, including one with over 3,000 participants! Sign-up now.
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