Holy recklessness… I like that. Thanks Peter.

It reminds me of something that’s really been on my mind lately, the word ‘careful’. Growing up in the church, a lot of youth devotions/Sunday school lessons seemed to be centered around the idea of being careful not to slip into certain things/relationships. But I have realized that a lot of kids ‘go off the rails’ not because they are being too reckless but actually because they are being careful. Careful to fit in with the right people, not rock the social apple cart at school/work/uni and not run the risk of being considered weird to society.

At the end of the day, being a Christian is becoming less and less of a socially acceptable activity. Maybe we need a little more ‘Holy recklessness’ -being willing to lose our lives for the sake of him. As scary as this might be, at least it’s not boring and boring is what I find young people hate more than anything.

Anyway, thanks again:)

Thanks. That’s really helpful. I do something similar when speaking.

I often hear of people who just write down their main points but I find it helpful to write out a message as I would speak it to clarify my thoughts and get the right flow.

I refer to my notes sometimes more, sometimes less when presenting but I find the process of writing helpful. Most times I just glance at the notes when speaking to ensure I’m following the flow of the message.

Again, thanks. As someone who has never undertaken formal studies I’m always keen to learn from others with wider experience.

I try to work from a fairly full script, though I don’t read it, and actually very rarely refer to the notes at all. So why then a fairly full script? I find that writing it out helps me to be sure in my own mind that I know what I want to say and that I can be confident that it makes sense. It also helps to think about how long it will take to say it and gives me at least one possible way to say it.

But once written, I feel free to abandon it. So I am just back from preaching this message for the second time today, and in both cases I left out point four (help comes from unexpected places). Just didn’t seem necessary and I didn’t want to break the flow of what I felt God was doing. And both times I added an extra illustration that is not in the script that is on the blog… the point on cross carrying required where an illustration just seemed necessary at the time, though not when I wrote it.

So I guess I am saying that I find a full script helps me to be sure that I have prepared properly, but I then try to remain open to what I sense God is trying to do at the time.

And yes, it did take a little bit of extra work tidying the script up to be ready to post on the blog – though I am sure that a fair number of typos still slipped through. But then I figured it was worth the time as it makes is accessible to a wider audience. If you are going to do the work, why not make it available to as many as possible…

Thanks for asking.