I had a thought the other day and even though I was driving, I was nearly to my destination so I was able to write it down when I stopped. The ADHD I’ve always had, combined with turning 50 in a few months, means if I don’t write it down it either never happened or it’s never going to, depending on the situation.
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We live in a noisy world. I have known that for a long time. Some of those noises are naturally occurring and some are voices trying to get or hold your attention. Some of those voices we should be listening to while others need to be tuned out. Only when I started recording the Read the Bible series of posts did I truly realize how hard it is to eliminate all sounds, whether they’re barking dogs and singing birds or traffic and locomotives.
I’m going to write this post for those that perhaps miss reading a long form blog post and also upload an audio clip that plays for about 15 minutes and hopefully illustrates what I’m talking about. You can hear songbirds and traffic but to my surprise no train went by during that 15 minutes and none of dogs barked even once. We need to be deliberate and intentionally about what sounds and which voices we pay attention to. Listening is a discipline and as such requires a little bit of effort; some work and practice to get it right.
We need to make a short list of things that deserve our attention and then prioritize the things on that list. Maybe everybody doesn’t have ADHD but like a lost of conditions and disorders it is becoming more prevalent. Identify the things that deserves your attention then give them priority over all other things. Maybe things further down on the list could be eliminated, or limited the time you give to each of them. There are only so many minutes in each day and like a CPU, in your laptop or cell phone, the human mind can only run so many processes at a time. If you run out of resources you could be looking at a crash – and your mind cannot be replaced like a cell phone. Let’s try to take care of what we have. (There’s another lesson in there about being a good steward but I didn’t think of that while I was talking.)
Click play to hear my stream of conscious rambling on this topic:
I am preaching through the book of Romans at Unity Baptist Church. As an aside let me say this: there is a long list of links in the RSS feed in the left-hand sidebar from our church website. The number of links to display is set at three (3) and always has been. One day it just started showing 10. I checked to see if the settings had changed and they had not. I changed the number to 10, updated my settings, went back into the design editor, changed it to three… and it still displays 10 posts, the maximum number allowed. At any rate, I am seven sermons into the Romans series and all of them are linked to the left of this post.
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I don’t remember where I picked up this little tip. I have read books and attended workshops on effective preaching. At this point in my life many of my friends are pastors and preachers but as a younger man I gave some time and attention to improving my craft. One piece of advice that would benefit any public speaker, it doesn’t have to be in the pulpit, is about effective illustrations. If you are going to use wiring in a light switch to make a point, make sure you know what you are talking about. There is probably at least one person in your audience, perhaps a professional electrician, that will know if your illustration is made poorly. If you are going to compare your topic to changing the oil in a car, planting a garden, sewing on a button, programming HTML or whatever might be helpful, make sure you are well informed if not an expert on the subject you use as a reference. Don’t assume no one will know the difference; someone will know if you say something wrong and then you will lose credibility. If they see you as poorly informed about building a bookcase, they may also lose confidence in your knowledge of the Bible (or whatever field you may be speaking to if it’s not the Bible). If you provide sloppy illustrations with erroneous information maybe you’re sloppy with your Bible study or lazy in sermon prep. As public speaking goes, teaching the Bible or preaching the Gospel needs to be done well.
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I came across a question about leadership this week in a Facebook group. What does good leadership look like? Several options were suggested ranging from control to chaos. It was a Christian group so I assume that Christian leadership was the topic. My response went something like this.
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How often do we say that? Maybe you run into a friend at the grocery store. You talk about recent events, ball games, what grades the kids are in and your friend mentions a relative in the hospital, some big life event or whatever and ends with “pray for us” and begins moving away. “I will” you say as you check your list and keep shopping. Sometimes we get real requests for prayer from people that are seriously hurting. Do we say “I will pray for you” just to make them feel a little better or do we really mean we are going to spend time in prayer with God interceding on their behalf?
“Hey, how are you?” is a casual greeting that doesn’t mean much anymore. We don’t really want to know, and might get annoyed if they set in explaining how they have been. “I will pray for you” needs to be more than that. It would be better left unsaid than casually dismissed in passing. Sometimes we say it in all earnestness but life happens and that person, and the need, slips away. The next time you say “I will pray for you” if at all possible stop and do it right then. It might have to be a 10 or 20 second sound bite if you’re at work or holding up a line somewhere. Saying you will pray is one thing; making it so is something else. It will ensure that you do not forget altogether and maybe you could pray again later as well.
I often tell people that I’ve learned two great lessons in life. I can’t think of the first one right now but the second is that I have to start writing stuff down. The biggest lie I tell myself is that if I have an idea for a sermon illustration or a topic for a blog post I will remember it when I need to. That’s just not true. So I’ve decided going forward that if I have an idea, a clever thought for an illustration, even a single point that might become an outline, I’m going to go ahead and drop them here. Instead of waiting for posts to magically finish themselves I will share ideas that you might see again someday as a complete article.
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The Master's Table 