Churches will often have guest speakers in to talk to their congregation about a certain topic or event. It is important to make your guest speaker feel welcome and appreciated by giving a short response speech after they have finished. A response speech allows the typical speaker at a church to thank the guest speaker for coming to visit and touch upon some of the topics that were mentioned and possibly bring them to a more local level.
If you are preparing a response speech, you should try to keep it short and simple. It is a tidy conclusion to the ceremony and should not be of a similar vain to the welcome address that has taken place. Make sure to thank the visitor on behalf of yourself, the rest of the clergy and the congregation. If the visitor has travelled far to be with you, emphasis that you appreciate the distance they have travelled. Give the audience a little information about the speaker; any information about where they are talking next or how they can contact the guest. Ask to see the speech in advance so that you can prepare a short summary of the address and suggest some of your own ideas about how the topic can relate to your particular church. Keep your speech informal and short, do not be too wordy and try to prepare as much of it as you can in advance. If you appear confident and settled, your audience will too. Open the floor to any questions from the congregation and give them the chance to query the visitor’s speech. Once you feel that you have reached a comfortable conclusion to the questions and answers, thank your speaker again before finishing in your usual fashion. Choose a prayer or a hymn that fits with the address the visitor gave and ask the guest speaker if they would like to recite it.
If you are preparing a response speech, you should try to keep it short and simple. It is a tidy conclusion to the ceremony and should not be of a similar vain to the welcome address that has taken place. Make sure to thank the visitor on behalf of yourself, the rest of the clergy and the congregation. If the visitor has travelled far to be with you, emphasis that you appreciate the distance they have travelled. Give the audience a little information about the speaker; any information about where they are talking next or how they can contact the guest. Ask to see the speech in advance so that you can prepare a short summary of the address and suggest some of your own ideas about how the topic can relate to your particular church. Keep your speech informal and short, do not be too wordy and try to prepare as much of it as you can in advance. If you appear confident and settled, your audience will too. Open the floor to any questions from the congregation and give them the chance to query the visitor’s speech. Once you feel that you have reached a comfortable conclusion to the questions and answers, thank your speaker again before finishing in your usual fashion. Choose a prayer or a hymn that fits with the address the visitor gave and ask the guest speaker if they would like to recite it.