Thomas Umstattd Jr.

Generation Y on Abortion

The following video is by Lia who is only 12 years old. She gave this speech to her 7th grade class. Are the public figures emerging? Generation Y, my generation, is much more pro life than Generation X and the Baby Boomer generation. I can’t wait for the male baby boomer pro-life establishment to be augmented and replaced by young women. From a public speaking standpoint I want to point out...

How to Use & Edit Wikipedia (New Media Monday)

So what is wikipedia? Why is it so important? How can you use a wiki and even wikipedia? These questions and more will be answered in today’s New Media Monday. Wikis in Plain English Wiki Tutorial Video 3m Filter Friendly Video Link What is Wikipedia? Wikipedia is the source of truth for many people. When they look for the facts they ask google and google sends them to Wikipedia. Anyone can...

How to Use Skype (New Media Monday)

Chances are you’ve heard someone talking about Skype . But what is it anyway? In short, Skype is a way to call anyone in the world for free. How Skype Works Skype uses a technology called VOIP that uses the Internet to place a phone call instead of a traditional land line.  This cuts the cost of the call down to virtually nothing for the VOIP provider. The most famous VOIP provider is Skype...

An Upate on My Dad

Before I begin, I just wanted to thank all of you for your comments, prayers and emails. You have made this season a lot easier than it could have been. You have demonstrated our need for the body of Christ. It has now been almost three weeks since my dad’s heart operation. He just seems a lot healthier now that his heart is getting 25% more blood. But, I can tell he doesn’t have as much...

The Failure of Jesus Christ (and why we need to fail to be like Him)

"Success is a poor teacher." My dad must have repeated this maxim a hundred times as I grew up. There are some lessons that only failure can teach. If you want to mature, you need to fail. Jesus failed. So should we. Jesus’ Failure After bringing Jesus out of the desert, God calls Him to preach in Nazareth where he is unable to do many miracles because of their lack of faith (Matt...

The Ladder of Abstraction

If you are a writer or a speaker this will help you understand how words work and how to make you message stick. This talk comes from the books Presentation Zen by Garr Reynold and Language in Thought and Action by S. I. Hayakawa. Here is a recording and slides for the Ladder of Abstraction talk that I gave at the Austin Rhetoric Club a few weeks ago. Transcript Download MP3 | View | Upload...

Eternal Debate

Since we are on the topic of confidence, here is another post from the archive. The world says, “be self-confident.” Jesus says, “put your confidence in me.” The world says, “you can do anything you put your mind to.” Jesus says, “you can do nothing apart from me and all things through me.” The world says, “look out for number one.” The Word says, “think of others as more important...

5 Reasons Why Enthusiasm is Better than Confidence

As you can see from my last post I am not a big fan of self confidence. So often presenters struggle with fear and so they compensate for their insecurities with self confidence. The Bible has a word for self confidence. The Bible calls it pride. Confidence might make you feel better but it can turn your audience off. Our confidence should be in Jesus Christ alone. I found these not to long ago and...

Don’t Believe in Yourself

I am going to start reposting achieved posts from my old blog on the first of each month. The enemy thinks he can purify pride with Disney films and encouraging posters. Motivational books tell people they need more self-esteem in order to succeed. Many say, “If we only thought higher of ourselves we could accomplish more.” Just “believe in yourself” the cartoons say. Yet, throughout the Bible...

5 Tips to Avoid Boring PowerPoint Presentations

When I gave a talk at a Rotary Club I could just see everyone cringe as I pulled out my projector. As soon as a presenter shows their first slide riddled with text we know we are in for a long boring talk. But PowerPoint does not need to be boring. A guy named Cliff Atkinson author of the book Beyond Bullet Points opened my eyes to a radical new way to present using Power Point. I used his approach...