To Change the World, Be a Writer – Part 2

Editors note: Joe wrote this for Minister. I can think it would be good for grandfathers too.

Go to To Change the World, Be a Writer – Part 1

Consider this article as one tiny step in the direction of encouraging ministers to learn to write well.

1. Minister, start writing today. Write some every day.

A pastor friend has an internet column he calls “Ask Mike.” People pose religious questions to him and he responds. It’s a great way to reach out to seekers, a good way to sharpen his writing, and an effective way to connect with his people.

In the decade of the 1990s, I kept a journal. At the bookstore, I bought a hard-back wordless book and opened it, wrote the date at the top, and proceeded to write down what was going on in my life then.

I kept the journal for the decade of the 90s. Fifty or so volumes occupy the bottom shelf of my home study. Once in a while I pull one out and read it, laugh at stories of my grandchildren, and decide to use some of the Bible insights or sermon illustrations recorded there.

What keeping that journal did for me was enable me to do what writers call “finding my voice.” Only by writing a great deal can one find the mode of expression that fits his personality, that feels comfortable, and which, when you read it, you decide, “Yep. That’s him.”

2. Read. Nothing helps your writing like reading.

Even if you do not pay attention to the way an author writes, even if you speed through the book studying its ideas and not the style of expression, you will still develop a sense for when something is written well and when it’s not.

But, since you are determined to learn to write more effectively, when you find yourself reading something particularly impressive, you will want to pause and study how the writer did what he did.

Gradually, little by little, if you continue writing some every day, your writing will improve. In time, some younger preacher will comment, “I wish I could write as well as you.”

3. You have been handed great tools for expression unheard of by your grandparents.

Even if you have no idea how to go online or start a blog and no desire to do so, you can buy a laptop and start writing. Write your sermons, record your thoughts, keep a journal.

Why use a computer? Why not pick up a pen and open a notebook and get started in the time-honored way of our past generations? Answers: you can do so much more with a computer and do it infinitely faster and more easily.

Editing something you have written is difficult when you pick up a sheet of paper on which you have scribbled something. You take your pen in hand, mark through some lines, insert words here and there, draw arrows to this phrase and that notation, and soon you have a royal mess.

But not with a computer.

With a computer, you “cut and paste.” You highlight a section you want to move, click on “cut” and then go to the spot where you wish to set it down and insert it. Right-click the mouse and then, click on “paste,” and lo and behold, you have it. Go back and delete that portion from the prior spot. Now, wasn’t that easy.

Do that once and you will wonder why you waited so long to get started on computers.

4. From the first, make up your mind to edit what you have written. Otherwise, forget it.

At first, just try to get your thoughts down “on paper,” as we say. Don’t fret over the details. But, then, a day or more later, come back and read what you wrote and make it better and stronger.

Kelly Gallagher recommends the STAR method of editing: Substitute some words, Take out others, Add in other places, and Rearrange some things you wrote.

Any writer will tell you that it’s not the writing that is difficult, but the editing. Successful writers work at editing what they have written. If you are not willing to edit what you have put down on paper, you are opting for mediocrity.

Reading papers from seminarians, I could tell which students edited their papers. Those who did not edit had obvious errors of the kind which we all commit when in a hurry. We left out a word, typed a sound-alike word instead of the one we meant, used a plural verb with a singular subject, that sort of thing. By simply going over what they had written a day later, they could have corrected all of this and gotten a letter grade higher.

But we’re not talking to students here. We’re addressing adults who are already out there in the Lord’s work. Do you have time to write, and time to edit? I know the answer to that.

Each of us has 24 hours in every day, 168 hours in every week. We have as much time as anyone else and all the time we need. We have time to do those things which are really important to us.

Years ago, when I saw a neighboring pastor had published another book, I asked how he found time to write.  “I get up an hour early every morning,” said Dr. Larry Kennedy. At the time, I was unwilling to pay that price.

Toward the end of his column, Philip Yancey confesses:

“I became a writer, I believe, because of my own experience of the power of words. I saw that spoiled words, their original meaning wrung out, could be reclaimed. I saw that writing could find its way into the crevices, bringing spiritual oxygen to people trapped in air-tight boxes. I saw that when God conveyed to us the essence of his self-expression, God called it the Word. The Word comes in the most freedom-enhancing way imaginable.”

Now, I want you to do something…

Study that paragraph. It’s great writing. It’s powerful theology. And if I’m any judge, it’s encouragement to those called to be shepherds of the Lord’s people to write.

Now, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: No one told me, but I guarantee you that Yancey did not write that paragraph that way the first time. He labored over it. At first, he jotted down the gist of it, and may have said something about “spoiled words” and “people trapped in air-tight boxes.” When he came back the next day to improve on it, he picked up on those images and decided to strengthen them. And–I’m just guessing here–it was not until the third or fourth look at what he’d written that this paragraph attained its final form.

That’s how assembling words together on a page becomes great writing.

In one of his books, John Piper observes that books do not change people’s lives, paragraphs do. And in some cases, he says, it’s sentences that change people’s lives. Or even, just a word.

Such power words have.

They said of Job, Your words have upheld him who was stumbling. Your words have stood men on their feet (Job 4:4).

That’s the idea, Pastor. That’s what you want your words to do.

To influence your generation, be a writer.

To influence future generations, be a good writer.

Joe McKeever has been preaching the Gospel since 1961. He pastored for 42 years in various Southern Baptist Churches. He has also served as director of missions for the SBC churches of metro New Orleans. Joe has a BA from Birmingham-Southern College, and a masters & doctorate from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. For over 20 years, Joe has drawn a daily cartoon for the Baptist Press (www.bpnews.net/comics).  He writes columns for a variety of publications. He and his wife, Bertha, have published numerous books including, “Help! I’m a Deacon” (2015) and “Sixty and Better: Making the Most of Our Golden Years” (2017). As a blended family, Joe and Bertha share fourteen grandchildren. They live in Ridgeland, MS and enjoy telling friends they are “living happily ever after.” Joe’s life verse is Job 4:4, “Your words have stood men on their feet.” To discover more about Joe, visit his website. 

Featured Image by Helena Lopes from pexel.com