Wow - there’s a lot going on these days it seems. The Presidential Primary’s are right around the corner. Summer is upon us. Gas is nearing $4 a gallon. Cats and Dogs are living together . . .
So here’s what’s been happening
I’m coming up on finishing my first five months at my new job at Irving Bible Church as “Storyteller” (I still have to stifle a giggle every time I tell someone my job title) and it is clearly one of the best things that has ever happened to me beyond asking God to fill my heart and brain with His presence and reconciling with Lisa.
There is lots to do but anytime you have great people working all around you - the task is some much easier. I have a great boss, great people who work for me (a bit of a misnomer in that working “for me” isn’t really what they do in the classical sense. Yeah sure at the bottom line they work for me but it’s been a very long time since I’ve found myself so in sync with a group of coworkers. That they are 20 years younger than me speaks to their maturity and my lack of maturity as much as anything else) and all the great people in the other areas that I support.
In so many ways my role is support, vision and guidance. I constantly have to remind myself of what I’ve been entrusted with. In the process of serving God . . . I have to serve His story. I’m always watching for how that story telling can be improved. More often than not it is less about improving the story telling and more about removing impediments to telling the story.
It’s a fine line that I walk. So often the “telling” of the story gets in the way of the story itself. You see this in media all the time. The mechanics obfuscates the message. A perfect example is the news channels that have a box on the screen with the news reader and at least two crawls at the bottom, several subordinate boxes and a couple of branding logos . . . all on the screen at once. The noise floor is so high that no amount of screaming cuts thru the clutter.
The other example is the “all flash - no substance” approach in which all the substance has been squeezed out of the content. It looks good but it’s like eating cotton candy. When you’re done every thing's sticky, you feel sick to your stomach and the hunger is still there.
So - my desire is to always focus on the story, make sure that all aspects focus on the story and that we are diligent in trying to identify those things that are impedments to the story . . . and eliminate them sooner rather than later.
What’s so exciting is identifying all the different ways the story can be told. That comes down to things as small as the font that is used on every printed piece to as large as the banners that are placed throughout the building. On Sunday, It’s the songs that are sung, the images that are projected, the announcements that are made and making a conscious choice to weave the story into every single element that is used as we . . . well, tell the story.
It may not be the story of $4.00 gas or Hillary vs Obama but it's the best one I've had a chance to tell in a long long time.
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