Most of What I Know about God, I've Learned from My Children

Most any theological reflections I write are based on something that being a parent has shown me about our heavenly parent. It's true on this blog, but it's also true in the writing I do for work, on Ministry Matters, a website for church leaders. And that's nice, because I can use pics of Kate and Claire rather than purchasing new stock photos to illustrate our articles.

Did you know that 99% of stock photos related to religion are of somebody in a field raising their hands above their head? I'm only slightly exaggerating.

That's why Claire is currently front and center on my author page over at Ministry Matters.

Other things I've written recently include blog posts about the best sermon on sin I've ever heard and my debate over leaving out the scary last couple verses from the passage I preached on a few weeks ago (and the resulting sermon on parenting as an act of stewardship).

There's also an article about a rite of passage experience for boys, which I thought would be like something out of Mark Driscoll's church, but was actually pretty cool. And an article about how my blog friend Kim's hubby formed a unique partnership through which to plant a great new church in Lexington, Ky.

If you or someone you know is in ministry in any way—preaching, teaching Sunday school, shaking hands at the door, heading up a mission trip, or whatever!—I hope you'll share Ministry Matters with them.

And the rest of you can scroll through my previous articles to spot my kids among the smiling stock-photo kids!

Writing Conclusions

On the first day of my Advanced Composition class in 12th grade, the teacher handed out a list of random words and told us our assignment was to “arrange” the words in a way that made sense to us.

The next day, we shared our oddly-constructed sentences, and discussed whether it was easier for us to start the sentence logically and then trail off into less-sensical phrasing, or whether we had trouble starting but managed to make it logical by the end of the sentence. The teacher then shared a little house a previous student had built out of popsicle sticks, one of the words written on each stick. That was a logical “arrangement” for a very creative, outside-the-box thinker. Overachiever.

I was in the first camp—those who started off strong and then lost their focus by the end. The teacher told us that the exercise could give us an indication of our overall tendency in writing—the random-word sentence being a microcosm of longer essays we would write for the class. She was quite right, and I have thought back on that exercise many times over the years. (Give it a try yourself! Here are some sample words: house, grew, and, they, fish, unexpected, a, catnap, the, fell, older, had.)

In high school, when I was a devoted journaler, I often struggled to bring my entries to a close. Usually, I fell back on a lame self-condolence like “I’m sure everything will work out okay,” no matter how despairing the entry itself was. I think I even occasionally used the journalistic kiss of death, “A good time was had by all.”

My conclusions improved over the course of that class, partly because I was more aware of my weakness in that area, but in college, grad school, and even now as an editor and blogger, I still get hung up on the last few sentences. I know I’m not alone in this—given how often I edit a chapter and realize the author hasn’t made the strongest conclusion he or she could have, and I often agonize over how the author should wrap things up, just as I agonize over the conclusions in my own articles or blog posts.

Ironically, inevitably, I am actually at a loss for how to conclude this very post. Fortunately, there is a trendy blogger trick (theoretically designed to prompt reader comments, though I find that rarely works) that comes in handy here: the Question. So there you go...

Do you have trouble writing conclusions?

(If so, don’t worry. I’m sure everything will work out okay ;0)

Matt's First Book Byline

While Matt has written reviews and other articles for youth ministry magazines for several years, he was recruited to write for several new curricula that Abingdon Press is developing for youth. Coming out in 2007 will be "The Amazing Bible Race," a program challenging youth groups to read the entire Bible in two years (Matt wrote the commentary and study guide for Job, and Romans-Revelations), and "Claim the Life," a six-year spiritual formation resource for youth. Check them all out at www.cokesbury.com.

Those promise to be really outstanding resources, and will be used for many years to come. While another of Matt's writing projects will only be used during the Summer of 2007, it is still super-exciting to see his name on the cover of the book as the sole author of "Crosswind," the youth resource for Cokesbury's 2007 Vacation Bible School curriculum. Yay for Matt!