Wednesday, February 15, 2006
once on a cold winter's day
The words rang in my ears and seemed to hang in the air for a relentlessly long time.
When I first heard them that day they impacted my life and so changed my thinking that today, as I write, I still find myself stirred by them.
The year was 2004 and it was a crisp January afternoon in Texas. I was attending a seminar given by a man who has become a real mentor in my life.
We all have people whom we can listen to for ever. They can be talking about anything, and we seem to be gripped by their eloquence, or even their accent, or both. Malcolm Muggeridge is one of those men for me. He could speak about the inside of a ping pong ball for days and I would not lose interest, nor grow tired of hearing him speak.
Jim Slack is another man who grabs my undivided attention. He was the workshop leader that memorable day, and I was spellbound by his grasp of the subject matter, his ability to convince his audience, and yes, I admit it, by his Louisiana accent!
But, it was the two words that he said right after the session that ended up cutting deep into my life like the breeze outside, that hit my body only minutes later, as I made my way to the car to return home. The doorway where they were spoken seemed to amplify and cause them to resonate deeply in my being as they filled the empty lecture hall with sound.
“Story everything!“, he said.
Story everything. Simple stuff. Not even profound words, necessarily. But, for me, life-changing.
Those two words have so touched me that they have, I suppose, become the foundation for this site and for this ministry, story4all. As a homesick follower of Jesus Christ, I have seen in my years on the mission field that the most effective ministry I have ever been privileged to be involved with was always linked to telling a story, usually from the Bible. Jesus tells us there that we are to go and make disciples of all nations and therefore I know this Story is for all peoples.
But It is also my passionate belief that to reach this world’s remaining un-reached people (and peoples) we must story everything - story for all situations.
Hence the birth of this ministry, web site, and, coming soon, “storying” podcast. Story for all. story4all.
When I first heard them that day they impacted my life and so changed my thinking that today, as I write, I still find myself stirred by them.
The year was 2004 and it was a crisp January afternoon in Texas. I was attending a seminar given by a man who has become a real mentor in my life.
We all have people whom we can listen to for ever. They can be talking about anything, and we seem to be gripped by their eloquence, or even their accent, or both. Malcolm Muggeridge is one of those men for me. He could speak about the inside of a ping pong ball for days and I would not lose interest, nor grow tired of hearing him speak.
Jim Slack is another man who grabs my undivided attention. He was the workshop leader that memorable day, and I was spellbound by his grasp of the subject matter, his ability to convince his audience, and yes, I admit it, by his Louisiana accent!
But, it was the two words that he said right after the session that ended up cutting deep into my life like the breeze outside, that hit my body only minutes later, as I made my way to the car to return home. The doorway where they were spoken seemed to amplify and cause them to resonate deeply in my being as they filled the empty lecture hall with sound.
“Story everything!“, he said.
Story everything. Simple stuff. Not even profound words, necessarily. But, for me, life-changing.
Those two words have so touched me that they have, I suppose, become the foundation for this site and for this ministry, story4all. As a homesick follower of Jesus Christ, I have seen in my years on the mission field that the most effective ministry I have ever been privileged to be involved with was always linked to telling a story, usually from the Bible. Jesus tells us there that we are to go and make disciples of all nations and therefore I know this Story is for all peoples.
But It is also my passionate belief that to reach this world’s remaining un-reached people (and peoples) we must story everything - story for all situations.
Hence the birth of this ministry, web site, and, coming soon, “storying” podcast. Story for all. story4all.