As long as I have known Bruce McDonald, I have known a dear brother and mentor who has had his fingers in the stuff of some guy's heart promoting spiritual health through love and conversation. When he was a church planter in Austin, Texas he was next to the University of Texas football team in Bible Study, evangelism and discipleship. I joined a Spring break ministry team from Cedarville University in 1980 and we packed down to Dallas and enjoyed a week of ministry. Bruce asked me to lead the Bible study...at the football dorm for the University of Texas Longhorns. I thought of that great night back in 1980 watching the BCS championship game and pulling for Texas the other night (Ok, we lost! Go Tide!). I had not thought of it in a while.

I planned the Bible Study trying to think of something that would capture their imagination and would be useful for them to think about. I was headed to be in front of a bunch of strong men. So off to Judges I went meticulously studying the life of Samson. Strength, temptation, indulgence and renewal were all themes I thought were relevant. Needless to say, I was a little nervous.

Bruce and I drove over to campus. It was obvious that Bruce knew his way around, but the football dorm was a secure facility and you had to have access through a player that would come down and get you. We waited by the elevator once we arrived at the right building.

I was a little tight as I stood next to the elevator door. The elevator door opened and a behemoth of a man got out and greeted Bruce. It was Kenneth Sims. He would go on to be awarded the Lombardi Award and UPI Lineman of the year award in his senior year in 1981. This All American was the first pick in the 1982 NFL draft. He was a tower of a man, six feet five and two hundred and seventy five pounds. It was all muscle and steel to me as I watched him get off of the elevator. We got in the elevator and I was even more nervous in the elevator with what was a very close encounter with a very big tough man. I was trying to think of something to ask to break the ice of conversation. Did I tell you that Kenneth had a baritone voice that was deep and resonate? Finally, breaking the silence, I took a stab. "Kenny, where are you from?" A short terse answer came right back and ended the attempt at conversation. "My name is Kenneth." I look at Bruce who was biting his lip. It was only later I found out that inside the guy was laughing his guts out at this nervous stiff on the elevator with...well, Mr. Sims.

We went onto have a great study. They were very attentive and engaged. I was impressed. It was my first Bible Study that was punctuated by repeated expulsions which had a distinctive and oft heard sound into chew cups. You could not dare swallow that stuff, had to spit it out. Words, spit, drop. Words, spit, drop. The only other thing I was impressed with was their love for Bruce and attachment to his leadership. The guy has marked so many lives.

Mr. Kenneth Sims brought us back down and we went to the car. My heart was full of gratitude to God for a great experience. Then we got in the car and my spirit was quenched, before we broke into laughter that when brought up is still enjoyed these thirty years later. Bruce broke the awkward silence in the car as I was savoring the evening with, "So Kenny, where are you from?"

"My name is Kenneth." Our only hope for difference making is that God uses us in spite of ourselves. Let's all keep going...and whatever we do, let's get the names right!

"The preacher sought to find out acceptable words; and that which was written was upright, even words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. And further, by these my son, be admonished:" Ecclesiastes 12:10-12

The garage tools of a preacher are words. We seek to craft them in such a way as to enchant and delight the listener and smuggle unwittingly (for the resistant) the commodity (truth) right to the point of need. To the compliant listener, the work of communicating is less difficult. Their love for the truth leads them to a predisposed trust of the substance of what you are trying to communicate to them. A few of them can keep you going.

Communication is tough. The days are now gone (from Colonial times) when the preacher's voice was the dominant influence in the community. Now we face what one has called the "ubiquity of communication" in the media. There are a lot of word-competitors out there. For years we have been able to hear hours of preaching every day on the radio and now, we can go 24/7 with podcasts of everyone on the internet. And that is just preaching. There is talk radio and anything you want to hear on the internet...all the time. There are cable news networks with ceaseless repetitions of breaking news in real time...moment by moment contact with stories and uninterrupted analysis of what is going on. Go to the internet and watch whatever TV you want and missed. Or, go to Best Buy and get the whole season. Watch 24 in real time...and then go for therapy! Who said we could not drink out of a fire house? Although, some are identifying new disorders of separation from ourselves that are breaking out in this sea of information that we are unable to reasonably process at all. But that is for people who are actually giving a little time for reflection. Who has time to even think any more? The prudent are giving time to such a discipline. There is nothing like the power of unplugging for an hour and thinking about what we just heard. But that is for another blog.

I love words. I love the vocabulary of the English language. Words fascinate me. Who knows why? Maybe it started in college when J. Don Jennings told me about devouring each month's Reader's Digest word list as a boy growing up in West Virginia. You are not supposed to use words like that if you are from West Virginia, are you? By the way, you can only say that if you have some origin from the great mountaineer state. My people are originally from Mingo. I love that. Some of you who have heard my subject verb agreement and listened to tortured grammar can now say, "We'll that explains a lot." I love their simplicity and affection for family and hard work. There is nothing quite like their lives devoid of our complexities. But I have been working for years trying to recover from Appalachian English which has nuanced rules you just pick up by osmosis listening to the Elders.

Early on, I thought it all hung on words. I am getting over that a bit. I still work very hard (and I love the work) to communicate. With a prideful heart, you conclude it all depends upon your words. With godly perspective, you come to understand that in spite of you (the vessel), God uses His powerful Words to pierce the darkness of our hearts. I still work hard to make my communication clear and directed to needs in our heart. But it is not being cute that matters. I remember a few years ago D.A. Carson, a brilliant New Testament scholar at Trinity Seminary, wrote on a sermon outline I submitted to him, "Cute, but without substance." That was good for me. Cute can never pass for substance. In the end it is not "enticing words of man wisdom" (I Corinthians 2:4). It is still the demonstration of the Spirit of God's presence with power. While reaching for clarity, I lean into the Spirit of God desiring His authenticating passion. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. What else do we need to communicate? The Good News certainly does not need any of my jet fuel added on!

But on we communicator's go. In college when I would speak on campus I most usually would conclude it was awful and go to my dorm room horribly defeated. I would retreat to the solace of going to bed and pulling the sheets up over my head and hiding from the faces I could still see in my mind's eye who were stabbing me with eyes that seemed to say, or so I was convinced, "This is some of the worst stuff I have ever heard." My roommate Drew would come in and find me in the fetal position under the covers and gently ask, "Ok Mounts, who did you speak to on campus today?" He already knew my sense of how it went before asking. I am still am convinced that my judgment was not that far off in college. We still laugh about using the "sheeties" for such retreat.

But on we speaker's go using words. By now I have matured a bit in my perspective. These days, I just lay in bed on Sunday nights and laugh at ridiculous missteps I have made. I lie there picking out pieces of my Johnson and Murphy's that lie lodged between my teeth. If you dental floss with titanium cable, you can get those parts of your shoes out from between your teeth before you go to sleep on Sunday nights.

Last Sunday as the service closed one of our Elders approached me about a plumbing emergency we had going on in the building. It closed down virtually all of the bathrooms in one section of our building. I was to give instructions about a select group of available bathrooms. My mind was racing. We were at the close. It is always difficult to call God's people to a summing response, followed immediately with instructions about which bathrooms were available. I was going to have to use a series of unpremeditated words of instruction. Racing off in thought, I got up and opened my mouth...communicating, kind of. International travel and speaking has taught me how closely I am tied to colloquial popular speech and metaphor in the current American context. Desiring to end positively and yet wedge this bathroom announcement in, I took off...spinning and crafting words. Clearly, we experienced a train wreck when I identified the available bathrooms with the concluding instructions that these bathrooms were "good to go". "Good to go", what kind of speech is that in relation to available water closets? What idiot conceived of such expression? It was me! The place erupted in deserving laughter...yes, laughing at me. I joined in.

So now when I get into the "sheeties" on Sunday nights, I no longer hide in the fetal position. Some Sundays I feel the same way I did back in college. But I have made an ounce of progress to realize that communicating God's truth is a miracle. The miracle is that God uses weak vessels. The story of Balaam's Ass has always carried obvious encouragements to me. God speaks through His Word. He uses the likes of me to speak. It is more of a glorious witness of God's greatness that is flows through such cracked pots.

So on it goes. I'll use some more words tomorrow. Then I'll come home and then I'll go to bed and know that whatever was accomplished was not because I was cute or even substantial, but that God speaks in His word and when united with faith it powerfully transforms the hearer...a transformation that is the ultimate apology for the usefulness of the communicator.

"Man does not live by bread alone. But by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Matthew 4:4.

"For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." I Corinthians 2:2