For those artistic thinkers out there, I’ve stumbled onto this great podcast called The Kindlings Muse. Typically it consists of interviews with great thinkers and cultural innovators. Right now the series is a Dick Staubs interview with the late Stan Grenz.
I was listening to the latest installment today (occasionally groaning because Grenz was a theologian…let’s not go there again), and I was struck with this idea of being “someone who transforms culture.” As a writer, as a communicator, that’s my goal…to effect and infect our culture for the better, for God. But I’m trying to understand what that looks like. I’m trying to reconcile that with writing for money. Certainly, one must make a living, and my perspective on that has certainly changed now that I have a wife to support, and at some point (although the idea scares me beyond belief) will have children in the picture as well.
So, how am I influential? I’ve always enjoyed helping people. I’ve been a youth minister, I’ve been a counselor. I enjoyed all of the above. Somehow, though, working with people directly has lost its appeal, at least in those settings. Perhaps I don’t want to be encumbered by titles or positions. I think, though, that, if I have a calling from God, it is to be a communicator of truth. That communication can occur in many forms, whether interpersonal or as public address. But I know that I am drawn to do that, that I have a passion for it. I know that I will have a hole inside if I don’t.
Now, I just have to discover how…