What I Heard - What I'll Do

Since our DSL has been down almost all morning and into the afternoon, I've been watching DVD's and reading. Monday is that kind of day for me anyway. Today I spent an hour or so watching Donald Miller, author of "Blue Like Jazz" and others, talk about the power of "Story."

Miller, speaking to a group in Nashville, explains how finding your place in God's Story, and inhabiting the "story" God has created you for, can make all the difference. I think his seminar needs to be viewed by a great many Christians I know, and that the application of what he's identified as critical might just be a strong weapon in our battle for the redemption of the culture.

There is probably no communicator in the world more intent on getting their message across to their listeners than an evangelical Christian preacher on Easter morning.

Certainly others are intensely devoted to their craft. Most assuredly there are some who believe in the content of their presentation. But within the insider's groups I have belonged to - of other pastors and preachers, Easter is described as "The Super Bowl", "The World Series", "The Big Day", and other terminally superlative terms.

One of my gifted communicator friends said this about the intensity a preacher must exhibit on Easter this way, "If a preacher can't get 'up' for Easter, then he ought to quit." "Up" means passionate about the day and what God did - I'd agree 100%. But if "up" meant "performing at your best", I didn't. So I moped around yesterday evening, tried to put it behind me using a variety of analogies "Babe Ruth struck out XXXX times", "Michael Jordan missed XXX buzzer beating shots", and some spiritual consolation from a pastor friend. When I went to bed last night, I asked forgiveness and requested more of His wisdom for future messages.

I figured that when I got up this morning, God would have moved on to more pressing matters with far more important servants, but I was wrong. He still wanted to weigh in on the subject with me. While I was praying through what happened yesterday at New Hope with my part in the celebration of Easter, I did not get the message to quit.

But I did get a very clear message to quit frittering away my time and the attention span of the congregation unless I have a clear, cogent, and compelling story to draw them into. (Hey, three alliterated points. I must be having a stroke!) Every single time I lose sight of how God has wired me to communicate His Story, the result is so much less than it should be.

Mea culpa

So I am determined to seek and find more and better ways to communicate the truths contained in God's "Big Story", and want to grow my own "story line" so that when I come before the "King of Kings" and the "Lord of Lords" I will be breathless - having been snatched from another great adventure with Him.