Resources - books and other resources that have been helpful
Do It Well. Make It Fun. - The Key to Success in Life, Death, and Almost Everything in Between - by Ronald P. Culberson
Ron Culberson recently led a preaching workshop for pastors in National Capital Presbytery. Since I was introducing him, he offered me some text I might use. "Ron Culberson ranks in the top 30 of his wife's favorite speakers. He's had the privilege of being a hospice social worker, a Director of Quality Improvement, the owner of a Harley Davidson motorcycle, and the 2012-2013 President of the National Speakers Association."
Ron, who has been elder and deacon in his local congregation (highest elected lay officers), does a terrific job in this book of demonstrating how speakers can find humor in their own lives and make it apply to make a point. He stressed to us preachers how our own situational humor is so much more lively than some joke we find on the internet (and which many of our parishioners will have already heard).
The book is full of such stories. In one he tells of going tubing on a river with his family when he was 13 years old. In addition to being banged around by the rocks, he rounded a bend and saw "what appeared to be a large balloon. In fact, it resembled that Porky Pig balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. As I got closer, however, I realized it was no balloon.
"It was a pig. A real pig. A real dead pig... (now it was ) the size of a small southwest Virginia mobile home. And what was worse, the river current was taking me right toward it."
(you have to buy the book to find out how this story turns out)
He then segues from this hysterical story to describe the mathematics of stress. Stressor + Interpretation = Effects of Stress. In the story he just related, the bloated pig was the stressor. "Life is like a river. There are rapids, rocks, slow sections, deep sections, and occasional dead pigs. We never know what's round the bend, but if we're successful in journeying along the river of life, we will not fight the natural flow but instead, discover how to maneuver with it. And if we don't we'll hit the pig. Worse yet, we'll be the pig."
Each of us experiences craziness and profundity. Culberson demonstrates how, when we are alert, we can mine these events and illustrate what the Lord is trying to tell us in scripture. Our sermons become more compelling.
Ron invited us to tell each other about one our own humorous experiences. I told my small group about how when one of our sons got his new Bible, The Good News Bible, as a third grader, he noted that "I like this version better than the other one."
"Why?" we asked.
"Because the other one says The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." while this one says "The Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need." I have pretty much everything I need, but there's a lot that I want!"
I commend Ron's book to you, both for how it will help you in your preaching, but also as you deal with the pigs and other hazards you encounter.
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