Story

What is your story?  When you meet someone for the first time, in that great dance of getting acquainted where we doe-see-doe around, sometimes stepping on a foot as topics of politics or parenting or profit come up...what do you tell someone first?

Maybe it is your job.  I am a pastor first and foremost, which means that people already have an opinion about me before getting any deeper than that surface level piece of information.  Some want to tell me why they are "spiritual but not religious" or how they go to church every Sunday or how the church hurt/harmed them.  So maybe I am a listener first.

Or maybe you tell others about your family.  I am a husband, father to two amazing tweens...almost to be teens (pray for me).  I could tell about the loss of my mother...although probably not when we first meet.  I could tell about Iowa which is where I grew up and that soil shaped my soul.

Or maybe you tell others about where you are now.  Florida is always a great conversation starter.  The joke is when we hear a headline that starts, "A man was driving and ended up crashing into a boa constrictor store..." ever person I know immediately starts praying, "Don't let it be in Florida... don't let it be in Florida."  People can tease all they want...but fifty degrees IS cold.  And a walk on the beach with waves crashing as if to clap their hands is a spiritual practice.

Or maybe you start with a hobby...after all I am more than a job or a role in a family system or a neighborhood....I am created in God's image and try to life that out playfully and prayerfully every day.

Where would YOU start your story?  Because today is a good day to start.  And over the next few posts I will invite us into thinking not only about our own individual or isolated stories, but how that might connect with God and God's story that has been unfolding for centuries.  So, get ready.  Because this is going to be a blast.

Grace and peace ~