A number of years ago I read Stephen King's book on writing appropriately entitled "On Writing" (speaking of writing, Amazon just got the Small Group Leaders' Handbook in stock and ready to ship...just thought you should know).
In one part of King's book he talks about the dangers of falling in love with your own work--with each successive page you become more and more enamored with what's developing and your own brilliance at communicating.
Until finally the story comes to it's conclusion and you're intoxicated with this thing you have created. You read it over in a rush of self congratulatory emotion: "Bravo!" King writes in his typically genteel way, "You're f------ Shakespeare!"
King's advice to authors: write it. Then sit on it. In his typewriter days, he would plunk out a manuscript and put it in a drawer for six months. Six months! Then he'd look it over and see if it was any good.
Over the past couple of days I've recycled two talks/sermons that I've given in the past--one of them on hope, one of them on freedom from shame and guilt.
In the past, re-gifting talks was not my forte. I always gave it better the first time because it was fresher for me, I had more energy and more invested in it.
Now, however, I think I'm learning Stephen King's lesson. I'm giving them better as I work with them again. Content-wise, my presentations Sunday morning and Monday night were both more clear and more to the point than they were before.
Blogging does not encourage me to be a more thoughtful communicator--I plunk these posts out in about fifteen minutes usually. But working with a talk, coming back to it several months later, and then re-crafting it has begun to teach me something new about the art of communication.
Bravo, indeed.
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