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June 20, 2010
Two Minutes
This blog post was produced during our 2010 Leaders in Ministry Conference in Boston, MA
I was late today. I woke up already knowing that I had missed breakfast and hoping to catch the end of morning prayer but my clothes were wrinkled. Do I make morning prayer shriveled? Or be late but pressed? I chose the latter and decided to join the group at the start of the next session.
As I was waiting for the train to arrive I realized that I forgot my train pass. Decision- Do I go back to my room (which would take more time and more energy)? Or do I just pull it together and walk? I chose the latter, which was probably the second bad decision of the day.
When I finally arrived at the session tired and somehow back wrinkled, the speaker, Dr. Tiffany Steinwert, was already in progress. She discussed the process of shaping our own personal story. She made the argument for a story that went beyond just cognition and that touched the depths of ones emotion, a story that embodied our passions and values, and one that was filled with challenges, choices, and outcomes.
We were challenged to move from being mere listeners of others stories to actually crafting and shaping our own. For me it sounded easy enough - we own it, we experienced it, we tell it. I had more than enough raw material from which to build hours worth of stories.
I sat near the door waiting in anxious anticipation for the creative time to begin and then I heard, “make sure the story of yourself is told in under two minutes.“
“Two minutes,” I thought. I knew it was too good to be true. I was late this morning because it took me an extra 25 minutes to dress and 30 minutes to travel and now I am suppose to give the story of my self in under two minutes?
As I waded through the muddy waters of my own life and listened to the stories of my group I discovered how long two minutes was. It was long enough to be moved purposelessness to conviction, long enough to be transformed by what before seemed like lonely isolated incidents, it was long enough to move from the hay of Bethlehem to the cross of Calvary. Two minutes was enough time to build a bond between two people who thought they had nothing in common.
I had to make a decision. I could choose to share a story of self that unites and convicts or simply remain silent. I chose the former and I now my two minutes will never be the same. a
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