Excerpt #8. Your Elevator Speech

Pat Morley, David Delk, and Brett Clemmer

Volume 195
August 28, 2006

In conjunction with the release of our new book about men’s discipleship ministry, No Man Left Behind, we are publishing 12 excerpts to give you a taste of the book. This one is from Chapter 8, “Vision: A Compelling Reason for Men to Get Involved.”

Chapter 8 begins by demonstrating the importance and power of vision, then goes on to give you a three-step process to develop your vision. Step Three is, “Your Elevator Speech,” which we’ll cover in this excerpt.

Train your leaders to share their passion for your men’s ministry with other men. Help them develop a four or five sentence explanation about why they are excited about what God is doing through the men of your church. This is called an “elevator speech.” Imagine you are getting on an elevator and one of the men from your church walks on as the doors are closing. He says hello and then asks, “I know you are involved in the men’s ministry at church, and I’ve been thinking, why should I get more involved?” He then pushes the button for the fifth floor and you have twenty seconds to convince him. What will you say?

Begin training your leaders to give their elevator speech by working on a short script that contains:

The Introduction - (“Eddie, I’d love to quickly share with you what God is doing in our ministry to men”);

The Vision - (“As you may know, we are training men for the battle. Nothing has the power to change the world like reaching men…”);

A Success Story - (“I don’t know if you’ve met Jose Aguilar yet, but he has a great testimony of how God is working. Ted Rogers invited him to our outreach lunch last fall and Jose joined a small group. One of the other men led him to Christ, and now Jose and his wife have joined our church. It fires me up to think that his three precious children have a whole new future ahead of them with a godly dad.”); and

A Next Step - (“We have some great ministries going on right now – small groups, service projects, and our annual retreat. Also, if you’d like to sit in on one of our leadership meetings we’d love to have you join us as our guest. Our next meeting is a week from Sunday.”)

Take a few minutes and write an elevator speech that quickly explains your vision for men’s ministry in your church in the space below:

Share your elevator speech with other men as often as you can. Have your emcees use their version at each of your events. Use it when you invite men to participate in activities, events, or groups. Keep your vision in front of as many men as possible as much as possible.

For the glory of Christ and no other reason,

Pat Morley, Ph.D.

Click here to learn more about our new book No Man Left Behind.

Each week, Pat shares biblical insight and encouragement on leading issues impacting men on Man2Man Express with Brian Doyle and David Beguerie. Click here to listen to Pat's latest broadcast.