Do you want your idea to stick? Then skip the statistics and the data and the graphs. Just the thought makes me squirm and yawn. Don’t tell me that one of every five little boys will do something creative with chocolate syrup. (I made up that statistic.) I might keep the syrup under lock and […]
Contemplating in the Yard
Looking is the beginning of seeing. ~Sister Corita Kent (from God in the Yard) I don’t know if L.L. took a camera to the yard. So far I don’t see that she said I couldn’t. I often take a tray to sit on wet grass or table. It holds my camera, binoculars, small Bible, God […]
Stories–For Such a Time as This
Have you ever found yourself tapping your foot and thinking (or begging out loud), “Just get to the point?” Getting straight to the point is apparently not that sticky. And perhaps not the strongest way to inspire action. As it turns out, there’s more power in a story. A good story fires up our neurons […]
Hymns, Heartbreak, and Healing
Fractured hearts and ragged emotions. Some in our church are hurt and angry and scared. Because we’re going through change. Major change. Last month we switched from two Sunday morning services–one traditional and one contemporary–to one single service. Generations no longer divided. And our pastor believes this is of God. That He is leading us […]
A Testable Credential
Sometimes to make your message credible and sticky you’ve got to draw on a different well guzzle bacteria fill an emotional tank eat a shirt suffocate dance rattle some BBs sing with Sinatra eyeball the beef fool a player sit at the feet and drink from the well of the most incredible Source with a […]
When I Consider How My Life’s Been Spent
Glynn Young asked HCB members to consider a poem that “had an impact on you, that you remember, or that you enjoyed, and write a poem about it” as an offering for the group’s Random Acts of Poetry. “What poem do you come from?” he asked. I thought and thought and thought and finally chose […]
Concrete Compassion
Of the six traits of stickiness that we review in this book, concreteness is perhaps the easiest to embrace. It may also be the most effective of the traits. Kill the Curse of Knowledge. Show me. Don’t tell me. Engage my senses. Let me see and hear and touch and smell. Compassion International has a […]
