Spiritual Insights Speech Assignment Explanation: A Faith Integration Assignment for a Public Speaking Course
Journal of Christian Teaching Practice, Volume 11, 2024 (January – December)
Julie Borkin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Taylor University
Abstract: The public speaking course requires informative and persuasive speech planning, practice, and preparation. At a Christian university where faith integration is encouraged or required, the opportunity to speak in front of others is a rich ground for inviting students to consider their own way of combining faith and course content. Through a specific assignment, the “spiritual insight” speech, students are invited to explore relevant spiritual learning, adapting to various audiences, and several ways of conveying spiritual truth.
Faith Integration
Although I have taught public speaking for many years, it was not until recently that I revised the course objectives and one assignment to include a more explicit application and reflection of what it means to be a Christian communicator. While my Christian university not only encourages but expects faculty to integrate faith into course content, faculty have great freedom to explore the most effective way to incorporate content and faith together. This can and does look quite different across faculty, courses, and disciplines.
I resonate with Smith & Smith[i] who take a very practical approach to integrating faith and learning, advocating for a posture of humble servant leadership that has become a goal for all of my courses. This humble hospitality – seeing the ‘one’ and planning for meaningful engagement, relies on a deep awareness that the instructor is a participant and facilitator but is not in charge, acting instead as a co-learner even though the subject matter expert. This sensibility impacts decisions large and small, including how chairs are arranged to facilitate discussion, calling students by name and looking them in the eye, planning a classroom pace that allows for a good balance of instruction, discussion, and reflection, and more. Echoing the excellent work of Parker Palmer[ii] and others in a coming together around content, this kind of collaborative classroom experience is focused on ways to support good thinking and listening opportunities for students and instructor alike.
Besides this pedagogical foundation of faith integration, in this course I previously also regularly referenced biblical principles and examples related to course concepts including ethics, audience analysis, perception and identity, and communication apprehension and anxiety. At that time, I did not prescribe or prohibit spiritual themes or resources as part of any of the assignments. Instead, as long as students met other assignment criteria, they could include or exclude faith in the speech topics and content as they preferred. For some time, this plan had seemed wise and invited students to use spiritual content without prescribing it.
And yet, while this definitely left room for those who may be struggling or doubting their faith, the public speaking class is a rich opportunity to consider how we understand and talk about matters of faith and explore how being Christian might uniquely direct the communication goals, language, or context. This faith integration approach echoes Osborne,[iii] attending to a good balance of disciplinary insights in communication with the place of theological truth. His call for a “faith as foundational” and “application with action” approach (n.p.) attempts to sidestep what he calls a fragmented blending of Christian and secular in presenting disciplinary content. As he explains it, instead of merely adding a prayer, an opening devotional, or a Bible verse related to content, his entire way of teaching, scholarship, and faith are not just frames or siloed components but are the holistic foundation for what he does and how he does it. In his model, one’s spiritual dimensions are not domains separate from disciplinary content but are the very fundamental identity on which content is understood and communicated.
The revised spiritual insight speech was designed to give students a platform to plan, apply, and reflect on how they understand and practice Christian communication concepts – their own invitation to consider a model of faith and content integrated together. In the course schedule, it is the fourth and final major speech assignment after students have learned all of the necessary public speaking concepts and have given full-length informative and persuasive speeches earlier in the semester. The option to include spiritual content or topics in those earlier speeches remains, but this speech requires intentional engagement of some spiritual concept or content with the needs of a specific audience in mind, either informative or persuasive.[iv]
Because students can be in such different seasons with their spiritual understanding, disclosure, and expression, some in-class discussion questions are included to welcome potential struggles with this realm of content. This extra processing conversation is particularly important as this is a graded assignment worth just over 10 percent of the semester’s grade.
After the speech, students turn in a brief self-reflection reviewing their speech planning, practicing, and presentation including some general wins and challenges, and also inviting specific reflection on their most significant learning from (any part of) this speech and how the process compared to other speeches presented throughout the semester. While these are not explicitly spiritually centered questions, it allows the student to consider how the faith integration requirements participated in the process.
Observed Benefits
While this is a newer speech assignment, student feedback has been incredibly positive, with many naming this as their favorite speech of the semester. Some students already engaged in ministry or aspiring to such roles have appreciated the opportunity to connect the invaluable tools of the speech preparation and practice process to what they previously knew in their previous public opportunities to share a devotion, short message, or testimony. Other students have admitted that even though they had spent years in various faith-based environments, they had never before publicly shared a spiritually based message or even considered how to do so. As one student explained, it was nice to be a “little vulnerable” with classmates through this speech and that it was the only speech he was not nervous to give. Another student celebrated that the assignment gave her a chance to reflect on and celebrate what God had been doing in her life through the preceding months and find a way to organize it into a meaningful framework to share with others.
Several recalled that my verbal instructions about the assignment helped them feel a freedom to choose from a broad range of spiritual topics that gave them the courage to disclose personal information or to choose a slightly less private focus as they preferred. While I have consistently offered for students to share a teaching from a Christian book or leader, none has chosen that particular direction as of yet. In general, the more personal speeches seem memorable to them and their audience and helps them begin to develop a spiritual vocabulary with personal examples, even when sometimes lacking in substantive supporting evidence despite my emphasis on these in the planning and preparation process.
In sum, my preference toward a collaborative co-learning environment likely weights the process over the outcome in this particular speaking assignment. As Christian faculty attending to increasing student angst about evangelistic efforts[v], I long to hear how others are using course assignments to help students consider their calling and identity as Christian communicators.
Spiritual Insight Speech Assignment Explanation
In this speech, you will research and present an engaging spiritual insight speech on a topic of your choosing. For this speech, you will choose your preferred audience (this class, those expressing interest in Christianity, those hostile to Christianity, etc.) and target your content to that audience. The best speeches have a specific audience in mind. Your content should be centered on and spurred by a spiritual truth that is impacting you personally and will also incorporate all of the presentational components you have learned through the semester. Your extemporaneous delivery should be energetic and dynamic, but not a performance. A partial speech outline is included below along with some discussion questions we will address together in class.
Requirements
Time limit: 4-5 minutes
Reference list: required, including in text and as references in preparation outline
Number of sources: five, including one Bible reference
Worth up to 10% of your semester grade.
Selected audience: identified, with specific adaptation strategies explained in preparation outline
Spiritual Insight Speech Sample Preparation Outline (incomplete)
Title: Learning Where I Fit Target audience: a college-aged Christian audience familiar with spiritual concepts and language
General purpose: to inform
Specific purpose: to inform my audience how I am growing in understanding my spiritual identity through changes and challenges
Central idea/thesis: The changes and challenges I face help me re-examine my spiritual identity and connection to others.
Attention getter: (NOTE: write out in full or as main point one in preparation outline but practice so you can present it extemporaneously rather than reading it. The sample is written out in full here only to help you follow the story.)
I still have the actual greeting card somewhere but honestly, I can close my eyes and see every detail of the cartoon image on the cover. It was a birthday card, one of those humorous ones. The drawing is of a family gathering of some sort and a photographer is trying to herd everyone together for a group photo. A few stragglers are still doing their own thing, but most folks have gathered together, arranging themselves in rows and facing the camera. But the most telling part of the scene is a tall wooden fence at the back of the yard with one person climbing the fence, already halfway over.
The caption – “You’ve always been the one trying to escape.” It’s funny – perhaps. Maybe she thought I just did not like getting my picture taken but beyond that, because she knows me so well, I suspect she knows I feel like I do not fit in our family and even worse, I think she believes I do not want to fit anymore.
Relevance to audience: Each of us faces different changes and challenges and it can cause us to question who we are, where we fit, and what God wants for us and from us.
Establish credibility: The theme of fitting in has been a lifelong question for me as an only child, one of the only Christians in my neighborhood, and likely because of other challenges in my life. I have studied and journaled about this issue for a long time and through the preparation for this speech, I have done research that helped me learn even more. It is difficult for me to talk about something so deeply personal, but I hope it will help you see how God is at work in my life.
Preview: Today I’d like to talk to you about how I’m learning new things about trying to fit or wanting to escape – and about how this relates to how I understand who I am, how I handle my relationships, and how I am learning to navigate challenging circumstances. First I’d like to address the sometimes-confusing matter of what identity is and then I’ll talk about how I’m learning to own my identity and authority as a follower of Christ
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- My identity is bigger than my personal or group identities – including my biological family, church, or even my marriage
A. According to Turner, Oakes, Haslam and McGarty in a paper presented at a psychology conference at Princeton (1992), all of us have two identities – a personal and social identity – that make up the way we understand (explain)
B. Even though I know my true identity is in Christ, I have to keep relearning this through the changes in my life. As II Corinthians 5:17 explains, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here!”
C. But this feels confusing because according to Oswald Chambers in his popular devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, “When love, or the Spirit of God strikes a man, he is transformed, he no longer insists upon his separate”
Transition: So why am I struggling so hard in my connections to others? Sometimes my values and goals might be vastly different from even those I love very much.
2. I am learning what it means to walk in my new identity and authority as a daughter of
A. Oswald Chambers, in the same devotional, goes on to remind us that the true connection and fit that matters is our relationship to Jesus. In fact, he claims that we do not even get to our real identity until we are merged in oneness with Jesus. As he puts it, “Our Lord never spoke in terms of individuality, of a man’s “elbows” or his isolated position, but in terms of personality — “that they may be one, even as We are one.” If you give up your right to yourself to God, the real true nature of your personality answers to God straight away.” I become free in my identity and personality as I identify with Christ.
(Note: Stopped here – intentionally incomplete outline)
References
Chambers, O. My Utmost for his Highest, December 12 as found in https://utmost.org/classic/personality-classic/
New International Bible, (2011 ed.). Biblica. (Original work published 1769)
Turner, J.C., Oakes, P.J, Haslam, S. A., & McGarty, C. (1992). Personal and social identity: Self and social context. [Paper presented to the Conference “The Self and the Collective” Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ] 7-10 May 1992. Retrieved at http://psychology.anu.edu.au/files/Abstracts- Presentations-1-Personal-and-Social-Identity-Self-and-Social-Context-Princeton- 1992.pdf
Class discussion questions (after reading the assignment explanation and sample outline)
- What else do you think this speech needs?
- What makes this speech a ‘spiritual insight’ rather than something else?
- Could it be a ‘spiritual insight’ speech even if I had not used Scripture?
- Where could I get valuable info to finish this presentation outline?
- Are we as followers of Jesus Christ are called to a unique way of communicating?
- What could/should someone do to complete this assignment if they do not feel close to God or are doubting God?
- What do you think might be uniquely difficult about a speech of this kind?
Here are some things that others have mentioned that are difficult about choosing a topic:
Stilling myself enough to listen and ponder what God has been doing in my life recently
Not preaching – abstracting it to ‘we should’
Wondering if others would care about/understand my struggles Being honoring to those who are hard to love
Deciding on what research and verses to use
Deciding on how vulnerable to be about my past, my attitudes, my struggles
Here are some questions for you as you prepare your speech outline:
What do you need for your speech?
What should you do if you do not feel like you have a topic to share?
Where could you get good support for your ideas?
What do you think might be hard for you in this speech?
Who is your intended audience?
How can you leave room for someone who thinks vastly different than you do about God?
Notes
[i] David Smith and James Smith, Teaching and Christian Practices: Reshaping Faith and Learning (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2011)
[ii] For those unfamiliar, a summary of Parker Palmer’s pedagogical principles including excerpts from several of his seminal books is available in the essay The Heart of a Teacher: Identity and Integrity in Teaching available at https://valenciacollege.edu/faculty/development/courses-resources/documents/heartofateacherparkerpalmer.pdf
[iii] Jeremy Osborne, Faith as foundational: A holistic approach to faith and learning integration. Journal of Christian Teaching Practice, 5(1), 2018 https://www.theccsn.com/faith-as-foundational-a-holistic-approach-to-faith-
[iv] An astute reviewer of this article contended that spiritual communication is inherently persuasive. While I agree in principle, I intentionally avoid framing this assignment as a necessarily persuasive one, largely because of students’ often mentioned concerns about manipulating or disrespecting others (also see Barna endnote below). This distinction is an opening, surely, to important conversations about the Christian’s calling and opportunity for influence. For many of my students, this assignment is a scaffolded opportunity in self-efficacy and reflection that helps them see the value of speaking aloud about what God is doing that hopefully leads to more communication of this kind in a myriad of contexts.
[v]According to a recent Barna Group study (2018), almost half of Christian Millennials believe evangelism, or sharing their faith, is wrong. While Millennials (born approximately 1981-1995) are already beyond college age, I mention this example here to note a shift in the communal worldviews that may also influence the perspectives of the incoming younger college students. https://www.barna.com/research/millennials-oppose-evangelism/