taking a leap...

So, I'm about to try something new.

For those of you who preach this'll be interesting.  For those of you who don't this'll seem pretty geeky.

Okay...

So, the laptop is running my Bible program.  I use it to study, dig, confirm, check. Basically it helps me make sure I don't have to fire myself for being a heretic.  I'd like a better one but we need to save up the $'s to get it.

To the right is my Bible and first notes (the black binder).

Beneath the laptop, dead center, is a new sketch book.  I'm going to try and mix things up a bit. See, I've always written my entire sermon out in great detail.  The reasoning behind this (when I started) was I wanted to be able to write them out in book form some day, so figured I'd need exhaustive notes to do so properly.

Duhh...transcription service, or voice recognition software?

To be fair, when I started out, VRS didn't exist.

Anyway, I've realized I don't need to write exhaustive notes anymore.  But, when you've been doing a 'thing' as long as I have when it comes to preaching (17 years at this point) you get pretty set in your ways.

So, this week (I've been feeling a little restless) I decided to try something new.

Yesterday when I spoke at the Bible College I did so from only POINT FORM notes, trusting my background, my preparation, and the GHOST to effectively fill in the gaps.

I think it went alright.

Alright enough that I'm going to try it at THE WELL this Sunday.

So instead of my typical 14-18 pages of 'transcript' I've ended up with TWO pages of point form notes in a sketch book, which is like four pages in a notebook.  Notice that--because it's a sketch book--I'll be able to see the entire thing all at once.  Gonna' need a bigger pulpit though. For now I'll use two music stands side by side.

I feel a little nervous, but because I like new experiences, the nervousness isn't enough to get me to chicken out and go back to what I 'know'.

I'll let you know sometime next week how it went...

SUNDAY.

T

a passage...

Cool moment just now.

Just finished writing my first sermon 'back at it' after a three and a half year hiatus.

It clocks in at 15 pages which makes me a bit nervous as I'm speaking as a guest at another Church and they try to stay at a half-hour in terms of the length of sermon.

I've got no intro written, I'll just get right to it and it's typically all the embellishments and detours you take along the way (which can be really fun and sometimes helpful) that tend to stretch the time so here's hoping I'll be alright.

What was significant about this process was that I haven't forgotten how to do it.  I mean, three and a half years is a long time not to do a 'thing'.  I worried that I might have 'lost it'.

But it just came back, like riding a bike.

I was starting to cry near the end.

My hope in sharing this with you is to encourage you to maybe consider picking that 'thing' back up in your life that you've been ignoring for a while.

You might be a screenwriter who hasn't written a script in a long time or a preacher who's stopped doing his best work.  You might be a creative person who hasn't painted or written a song in a dog's age or maybe you just haven't played soccer with you kid in a while and you don't know why.

Maybe you can't remember the last time you told her you love her.

Or Him.

Maybe you should get back up on that bike.

With love and respect.

T

Editing, editing, and more editing...

Oyyyy....

This is my life right now.  The picture tells the story.

That's the truth behind all the fancy movies and TV shows you love to watch.  A couple guys (sometimes more, almost never less) locked in a basement or a bedroom with a 'Final Cut' system arduously, painstakingly, never-endingly working their way through crafting an episode or a film--making something from next to nothing.

As I pulled up to my editor's place yesterday (or was it the day before?) I had this moment where I realized that if I am to be successful in this new phase of my life (the producer/director phase) I had better get used to spending endless hours in edit suites.

(seriously, I'm fantasizing about what kind of leather couch I'm gonna' put in my suite once I 'make it'...)

And it's not like I haven't put in my time already.  Dude, I was supervising edits back when all we had was online reel to reel...

Yes, I was your friendly neighborhood tyrannical teenaged producer.

But seriously, this is where we live.  Sweating it out, hour by hour, working working working to try and find the best way to say a thing or show a thing.  Fixing things that don't work, making things up when there's no way to fix it, endlessly trying to keep ourselves entertained and fed long enough so that we'll be able to finish the race.

Sounds an awful lot like the dozens of hours your average preacher spends each week, alone in his office sweating blood to try and come up with a sermon that's worth the salt.

I often wonder what it is that drives people like that to do what they do.  I mean, you've got to be pretty possessed and absorbed to fritter away endless hours of your life in a dark room while the rest of the world chills at the beach.

And I guess, when it all comes down to it, I already answered my question...

They're possessed.

Of a passion, a drive, an ambition, a need to tell a story or tell THE story and tell it right.  Tell it in such a way that it connects, makes a difference, impacts the audience, turns darkness to light.

That's why we put up with day upon day of pizza and coke (with a little bourbon thrown in from time to time just to keep it 'live'...) and night upon night of late to bed and morning after morning of early to rise--because we love to tell the story.

No amount of money or fame or respect or praise would be enough to compensate you for the pure drudgery of doing this part of the job.

You've got to do it because you must.

No other reason will do.

'Cause it's just the editor and the pizza and you.

T