Another Comment Answered

MDK asked: What kind of feedback did you get on your preaching?

The first bit of feedback I got came from the class. They asked if I had memorized my sermon, as I preached it without being tied to notes. That was humorous to me. They were astonished at how well I "knew" my sermon. (They wouldn't guess that I only practiced it once)

The second thing they said was that I was passionate about my topic. That I did well at making my sermon feel like it wasn't an academic excersize but was obviously something I cared about and had related to my own life.

Story telling and my ability to relate experiences the way I see them to the way they play out in reality was another point of strength.

Clarity and voice quality was a plus.

On the negative side, they wished I would have paused more. I did too. That is why it took me 27 minutes the day before (the instructor said it would have taken him 30+). It was a lot to get into 20 minutes, so there wasn't much time to allow the audience to take in what I was saying on the deepest of levels. I simply didn't pause enough.

Outside of that, the other negative feedback was a comment coming from the "grader" that countered exactly what the instructor had told us to do, so I didn't pay much attention to it. It was a word choice selection thing, and the instructor was clear on what and how he wanted our points to be presented. My classmates assured me that I did what the teacher had asked and to ignore what this evaluater (not the teacher) had said on that subject.