I was browsing around the movie section of a bookstore (because if you’re going to take a break from movies for books it should be for books about movies) and came across (what turned out to be) a staple handbook for screenwriters called Save the Cat by Blake Snyder. Reading through his first chapter, my mind exploded with implications for event producing. He concludes his first chapter this way: Well, whether this is old news or new news, the “What is it?” Is the only place to begin this task of ours. The job of the screen writer, especially one writing on spec, must include consideration for everyone all along…

Dorthy Sayers, in her speech, The Lost Tools of Learning, outlines how the use of language is the primary goal of education, not the subject themselves, It consisted of three parts: Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric, in that order. Now the first thing we notice is that two at any rate of these “subjects” are not what we should call “subjects” at all: they are only methods of dealing with subjects. Grammar, indeed, is a “subject” in the sense that it does mean definitely learning a language—at that period it meant learning Latin. But language itself is simply the medium in which thought is expressed. The whole of the Trivium was, in…

Spending five years in a context that saw a consistent line of itinerant speakers really gave me an appreciation for local church preachers. People get so impressed when an out-of-towner speakes for a special event and sufficently impresses everyone by presenting three hours of content they’ve presented 300 times before. Really, it’s the easiest gig in the world. I mean, if you can’t look impressive giving a practiced speech on your topic of choice to a fresh audidence, you really should quit show business. What is actually impressive is the guy who has to prepare 30-45 minutes of fresh content and presents it to same audience week after week after…

I’ve been wading into the details of the liturgical year, so I asked Evan if he had any threads I could pull on. He promptly handed me me Volume Five of Robert E. Webber’s eight volume project, The Complete Library of Christian Worship. Taking a survey of variety of Christian worship services among denominations, the section on Free Churches by Doug Thiesen makes a astute observation, which speaks really to every church to which I’ve been a part: One factor which keeps free churches in America from observing the Christian church year is the preaching style to which many of our congregations are accustomed. The vast majority of pastors preach in the expository style, taking…

On Matt’s recommendation, i listened through Suzan Cain’s book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. To date, I’ve never read a book in which I felt so understood. If you are an introvert or have one in your life, this is a must read. Here’s an excerpt from the opening chapter: I have seen firsthand how difficult it is for introverts to take stock of their own talents, and how powerful it is when finally they do. For more than ten years I trained people of all stripes—corporate lawyers and college students, hedge-fund managers and married couples—in negotiation skills. Of course, we covered the…