As a young preacher, I learned one important truth: people will forget your main points but they will remember your stories. In fact, I've become convinced that I could preach the same points multiple times and people wouldn't notice -- but tell the same story and it's immediately familiar! That's the power of a story. Are you harnessing the power of stories? If you are a communicator, stories are your best friend. They take your main point from grayscale to full color. Stories do more than fill space: they motivate, inspire, challenge, and create memories that become portable. A well-told story is a gift to your listeners. It allows them to say in a different time and place, "That reminds me of a story." If you are a leader, stories become the glue that holds a vision together. "Do you remember when ..." is the beginning of a story that…
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If you're wondering, "Who in the world is John Cleese?" then you were probably born after 1980. For the rest of us, we remember him from Monty Python. Brain Pickings, a wonderful web resource/curator of interesting facts, has an old video of Cleese talking about the creative process. Here are the five main points: Space (“You can’t become playful, and therefore creative, if you’re under your usual pressures.”) Time (“It’s not enough to create space; you have to create your space for a specific period of time.”) Time (“Giving your mind as long as possible to come up with something original,” and learning to tolerate the discomfort of pondering time and indecision.) Confidence (“Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.”) Humor (“The main is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.”) What do you think? How do you approach…
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The Decker Communications blog has a wonderful summary of Andrew Stanton's presentation at TED. Stanton is an Oscar-winning writer who worked on Wall-E and all three Toy Stories. His TED talk is called "The Clues to a Great Story." It's a must-watch for anyone who wants to stand up before an audience and communicate with them. One line caught my attention: "Don’t give them four. Give them two plus two.” As the Decker blog puts it, make the audience work for their meal. Rather than give them the answer, teach them how to answer the question. Engage their curiosity. Leave a few blanks blank. Don't provide every conclusion. If your goal is transformation, then it's more important to teach them how to think than what to think. What to think may solve the immediate problem; how to think provides principles that can be used across many different circumstances.
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I'm passing this sermon series trailer along and it's not even from my church! It may be, however, one of the best sermon series promo's I've ever seen. Well done to Orchard Community. -----
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Have you ever licked a battery to see if it still had any juice in it? Me neither. In the days before rechargeable batteries, when a battery went dead you would throw it away. Now you just plug in your iPod or phone (or car) and recharge the battery. It's a wonderful thing! When it comes to your personal battery, there are two important questions to ask: What drains my battery? and What recharges my battery? It may be that what drains your battery is unavoidable -- life happens. We have responsibilities that must be lived up to. It takes effort to be productive. On the other hand, some of what drains our batteries might be unnecessary. Distinguishing the necessary from the unnecessary -- and reducing the unnecessary -- actually extends our battery life. How do you recharge your battery? Do you read? Exercise? Take a day trip? Have…
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