Snuggled In

I truly love every season. I especially love when a new season is beginning, and yesterday was a wonderful, rainy day to snuggle in and enjoy the end of fall and the beginnings of winter. The family decorated for Christmas on Saturday (more about that later this week), and I enjoyed the fruits of our labor on Sunday. We stayed in, turned on the Christmas lights and the gas logs and delighted in being snug in our home. Lovely!

One of the things that I've been doing during these shorter days is reading, reading, reading. For all you speakers out there, I want to recommend a book. At She Speaks 2 summers ago, I went to Micca Campbell's breakout where she taught Andy Stanley's method of message preparation. She outlined his book Communicating for a Change. I FINALLY read the book last week. It's fantastic, and all of you speakers need to read it. It's a simple message outline that revolves around ONE point. Shocking, right?!! Surely every good message has at least 3 points, 2 quotes and a poem!

Here's the thing. My goal in my messages is always that God would use them not only to draw women to Himself but for God's words through me to accomplish a transforming work. God is in the transformation business, and I want to be His assistant! I feel good about accomplishing change in my retreats, but I always feel that I fall short on the one session events. Those are much harder to me. I'm so excited, though, because I believe that Andy's idea will be one that focuses my messages to truly reach hearts. His idea is to simplify our messages so that people remember them long after the event is over. Application is based on the one point which also helps people to focus on change in one area.

I'm speaking tomorrow night in Greer, SC. I'm excited to meet the women and share what I pray will be a transforming message. In looking over the message that I'm sharing (which I originally wrote a couple of years ago), I was overwhelmed. It's one that I've given many times, but I had a hard time remembering where I was going. I took one of the points, rewrote the message focusing on that one biblical idea, and now I'm charged up!

So speakers, if you're looking for a way to sharpen your messages and make them laser-like, snuggle in, turn on your Christmas lights and read Andy's book on one of these dark winter nights. Make sure to register in January for She Speaks, too, and go to hear Micca's teaching. She'll make you laugh hysterically even while you're learning something invaluable!