HOW TO BEHAVE AT CONVENTIONS
A CONVENTION, Oswald, is a body of preachers entirely surrendered to gab. You must make it a point to attend conventions, otherwise you will be a back number, having missed all the oratory, the scheming, and the wire pulling common to these meetings.
The most important thing for you to remember is that you must make yourself known, and to stand out from the common crowd. There are several ways to achieve this.
Some preachers try to be different by dressing in some striking manner to attract the attention of people. Surely you will wear your professional coat. Perhaps you can assume a distinguished look by allowing your hair to grow long and wearing it slightly rumpled a la Paderewski. Try wearing odd or unusual shaped eye glasses, those with a long cord—you know, as if you had your eyes on a leash and were leading them about. A ten-gallon hat is very striking for convention wear.
Keep busy at something. Hand out programs and song books which will necessitate much running about, up and down through the aisles, and which will give the effect that you are one of the big men of the convention and responsible for its well being and progress.
Be seen with the more important men. Cultivate their friendship. Be persistent in this at all times. This is important. Then you can say “Jones said to me,” meaning the president of High Voltage University, or “my dear friend George told me this story,” referring to the well known Dr. George Moore Piety.
Slap them on the back familiarly when you meet them. Nudge them during the speeches to show them that you got the speaker’s point, and wish to call their attention to it. Lean on them for support when laughing heartily at the jokes from the platform. People who see you in such company and on such free and easy terms with them will assume that you are one of the choice group which will be very gratifying to you.
In order to be known to everyone in the convention, rise to your feet when opportunity offers, to take part in the discussions. Make your talk snappy and vigorous, impressing upon your audience your easy flow of words and your perfect poise and good judgment. Talk as often as the chairman will allow. If he calls you down, do not be discouraged. Rome was not built in a day. Some men are too jealous to recognize a man of wit and brains; they will want to keep you in the background, but you show them. Remember, the best apple tree in the orchard always has the most sticks thrown at it!
Lean on him for support when laughing heartily.
If you are given a small part on the program do not consider it as small. Regard your part to be as important as that of the main speaker on the program. Be brilliant and witty and your audience will be delighted to stay and listen to you an hour or two beyond the expected and normal closing time. You will wonder why you are left off the program next time.
Another way to achieve prominence and to gain the limelight, is to show up the little fellows. Pick some self educated man who is earnestly defending his side of the question. Make a speech opposing his views and close with a scathing denunciation of your opponent— “Brethren, this man never saw the inside of a seminary!” This will cause you to be admired as a plain, outspoken man, fearless in his speech. Some men may want to punch your head, but remember, Oswald, it is just envy, just envy.
In order to keep your name before the convention it might be well to arrange with your wife and a few close friends for them to have you called out to answer the telephone or for telegrams frequently during the convention sessions. It sounds well to hear your name called at a banquet—”Dr. Oswald Buggs Boloni wanted at the telephone.” “Dr. Oswald Buggs Boloni, a telegram.” People will whisper, “He must be very important and much sought after. He is a Big Man.”
Everybody takes notes at conventions. You will want to follow the usual custom so secure a small note book and a dull and inadequate pencil. Personally, I am always reminded of Bill the Lizard when I am in conventions and watch people take notes. The notes they take are about as important and coherent and last about as long as those Bill took on his slate with his finger. When some impassioned speaker rises on his toes and shouts, “Ours is a stupendous task,” write “Ours is a stupendous task.” When he cries, “These are perilous times,” write earnestly “These are perilous times.” When he begs for a deeper prayer life, write “More prayer.”
Two weeks later when you look these notes over they will resemble a recipe for Hungarian Goulash, written in Hungarian, or a Chinese laundry ticket. Your notes failing you, when you report the convention at home, you can say what all the delegates will say who find themselves in similar circumstances—”It was a most wonderful and inspiring convention. The address was just wonderful. I wish you all could have been there. I received a great inspiration.
The nearest you got to the committee session was the keyhole
If the entertaining church is providing beds for the visitors, go to a hotel without consulting the committee to see if hotel rooms are included in the arrangements. Check out without paying the bill, and tell the clerk to collect it from the church as they were supposed to provide rooms. If you are assigned to a home, complain and make them change you two or three times until you find a room that suits you. The committee will not mind the trouble; that is why they are there, to make you comfortable. If the Board of your state is paying your expenses wholly or in part, have the best of everything, the finest rooms, the most expensive meals. What do you care? Somebody else is paying for it all.
Do not forget to write to the program committee before the convention begins, to inform them that you have a very fine address that you will be glad to deliver sometime during the sessions and that you will sing a solo for them or conduct the song services. They will never know what you can do unless you tell them, Oswald. You may achieve a place on the program by doing this.
And, oh yes, Oswald, if Mrs. Oswald is on the program, by all means she must wear at least two bracelets, a sparkling necklace, a long slinky fur neckpiece, a hat that comes down well over the eyes, and a dress of large figured material which is made with a great deal of trimming. This ensemble will prove to be very fascinating to the audience.
If you are elected chairman of a convention be sure that everyone understands clearly every announcement made during the session. To insure this repeat each announcement after the person making it has finished. Also repeat parts of and comment on all statements, discussions, sermons, etc., of the convention. Emphasize every point that you consider worth remembering. This will help your audience to grasp and retain important truths that they might otherwise overlook. Do not be afraid to talk. After all, you were chosen chairman and it is YOUR meeting.
It is very odd, Ozzy, but I have so often observed that the preacher who can never stay in one place a year, and who never preaches to over thirty people, will make a great impassioned address on “How to fill our Empty Pews.” And the fellow who has not had a prayer meeting in his church in five years will talk on “How to Conduct a Successful Prayer Meeting.”
By all means, when the convention is over and you have returned to your church, preach a sermon to your people, Oswald, taking full credit for every forward movement launched by the convention. Let them know that your ideas and plans were adopted and that you set the whole group right, and that but for you the state program would be a sorry thing indeed. Your people will have no means of discovering that the nearest you got to the Forward Committee’s session was just to the keyhole of the room in which they were meeting, and that the only voice you had in the convention was when you timidly piped, “I move we adjourn.”
Posted in CHAPTER ELEVEN
You may try to persuade yourself that this is an ordinary book — in order that you may find comfort in the persuasion - but you cannot do so and be fair to facts.