How to Give a Great Sacrement Meeting Talk – Part 2 of 5: Arrangement

Part 1.5 here. Part 1 here. Part 0 here.

Now that you have all of your sources in order, it’s time to arrange them. The standard idea of having an introduction, a body, and a conclusion works well for sacrament meeting talks. Introductions and conclusions are often overlooked, even though they can make an otherwise good talk seem great.

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How to Give a Great Sacrament Meeting Talk – Part 1.5 of 5: Invention to Arrangement

Part One here. Part Zero here.

This section became longer than I expected. So, I’m breaking it in half. Instead of discussing arrangement this time, I will bridge the gap between invention and arrangement by discussing what sources could and should be used when creating your talk.

So, now you have a topic for your talk. Now, you need to fill up 10 – 20 minutes. The standard practice is to find appropriate scriptures, General Authority quotes, and a few personal (or otherwise) anecdotes. As far as it goes, that’s not a bad place to start.

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How to Give a Great Sacrament Meeting Talk – Part 1 of 5: Invention.

(Apologies for this being a day late. My Internet connection was down for a large chunk of time yesterday).

Invention, in the simplest definition, is coming up with the material to discuss – your topic, your thesis, etc. This is easy, right? After all, the bishop (or stake president, or whoever) assigns you a topic, and there you go. Invention is done for you. Now, all you have to do is find a few General Authority quotes, add a few personal anecdotes, and you have talk. Right?

Wrong. In many ways, invention is the hardest part of writing a talk, and it’s often where the talk goes wrong.

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