I gave this lecture to CGG’s Speech Club on February 22, 2025.
Heart to Heart
INTRODUCTION The Bible has many things to say about the heart:
- David was a man after God’s own heart (I Samuel 13:14).
- “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).
- “[Guard] your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23).
- “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
The heart stands for the inner man, his genuine, private, most personal thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. The heart contains all that an individual actually is; it is the person’s core of being. It is what we expose or reveal when we are being most honest, forthright, candid, and sincere. Most do their best to hide their hearts for fear of being exposed as something other than what they normally express because, in some way, we are all hypocrites, masking our true faces with a persona that is not entirely genuine.
SPS We will consider the #12 “Heart to Heart” speech, an assignment designed to get the speaker to peel back part of the mask, allowing his fellow club members to see part of the true man inside. In its dated way, the Ambassador-Spokesman Club Manual does a good job of explaining what this speech is all about. Make sure you give it a good study before you give this speech.
Other than the icebreaker, this is the one speech that you must talk about yourself: your ideas and feelings. It can contain other people, but they cannot take center stage: This speech is about your circumstances, thoughts, and responses, not them. You are to open your heart to the club and say what you really think, feel, or believe about something close to your heart. That “something” should be a significant part of what makes you the way you are—something foundational, central, precious, meaningful, crucial, and consequential.
Please do not make this speech maudlin. Maudlin, which means “effusively or insincerely emotional,” is a rare word these days, but it fits many of the “Heart to Heart” speeches I have heard. I am not saying it should not be emotional, but it should not be “effusively or insincerely” so. The emotion should be authentic and natural, not ginned up, not Oscar-worthy. This speech is not a “who can make the audience cry” competition but a frank and sober baring of your soul to the club, revealing a sliver of yourself few others know about.
What sort of things should you speak about? Anything is fair game, BUT use discretion. As the Manual says, “This is not a public listing of your sins!” The personal story you tell may contain sin(s), but the central facet of your speech must be the effect on your inner core of being—how it made you you.
Also, this speech should not be about your conversion, per se; it is not a testimonial. We all know God called you or is calling you—we want to hear something about you that we do not know!
Example topics:
- Wartime experience (many veterans do not like to talk about how war changed them)
- A non-military near-death experience (not of the “I saw Jesus in heaven” variety! Life is short.)
- Your stint in the state penitentiary (and how it reformed you: scared straight)
- Childhood circumstances (orphan, abuse, dysfunctional family, parent’s disability or absence, etc.)
- Personal* disability (speech impediment, chronic illness, dyslexia, etc.); *or that of empirical self
- Struggle to overcome personal vice (alcohol, drugs, cursing, theft, lying, pornography [?], etc.)
- Heretofore undisclosed passion/skill/experience/goal (interest/hobby, bucket-list item achieved)
- Personal realization that profoundly changed your thinking (“ah-hah moment”—but not conversion!)
And so on. This is not an exhaustive list.
CONCLUSION Remember, the central pillar of the #12 “Heart to Heart” speech is frankly, candidly, sincerely revealing, exposing, disclosing something that really matters to you that others know little or nothing about. In this speech, you are essentially telling the club, “We’ve known each other long enough that it’s time you knew about this hidden part of me. Here it is.” Then just talk to us like we are bosom buddies.