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Maybe you’re like me – you read “The Elements of Style” once, twice, three times…but you still feel overwhelmed by the plethora of advice. Every page is seething with wisdom, but implementing it regularly is difficult.

That’s why I’ve created the “The Infamous Strunke and White Quick-Edit Guide” – it’s a way to keep the principles of great writing before you at all times. This, too, is available for my first time e-mail subscribers.

Here’s the intro:

Dear New Scribblepreacher,

We’re so glad you’ve arrived. In your hands you hold an invaluable resource – a quick guide to the most important writing book penned to date.

The rules may seem rigid at first, but master the basics and rule-breaking will come when appropriate. I’ve tried to word each question in such a way as to remind those who’ve read the book of the content. If you haven’t picked up a copy of “Strunke and White’s ‘The Elements of Style’” Do yourself a favor and grab a copy.

   If you choose not to, however, this guide will still prove useful.

Why is it so useful?

1. It’s a way to remember the content. There are lots of rules in Strunke and White, and it’s easy to be overwhelmed. However, even a cursory read through the questions in this guide once a week will help ingrain them. If you happen to use the checklist after blog-posting, even better
2. It’s a way to reveal tendencies. All writers are weak in some way – this checklist, even if used once a week – can reveal those naturally tendencies we all have to drift into lackadaisical writing.
3. It’s a way to increase the value of your writing. With the advent of the internet, writing is plentiful. But good writing is still sparse. Good writers stand out above the rest – take the time to learn the basics, and you’ll stand out.
4. It’s a way to hone your inner editor. Editing isn’t for every stage of the writing process. However, those who regularly practice good editing learn to write naturally in accordance with the basics. Use this guide often, and good writing will begin to come naturally. In other words, you’ll give your editing self less work!
5. It’s a way to keep first things first. How do I know if my writing is good? What should I look for? What do I need to improve? While this guide isn’t definitive, it is a definitive starting point. Start with these basics, and the rest will be icing on the cake.

Enjoy yourself, write yourself, be yourself,

Nicholas McDonald

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Two people walk into church every Sunday: older brothers and younger brothers. Some of us are “religious” – we believe we are righteous because we have followed “the rules”. Others are “irreligious” – truth is relative and life is about my personal fulfillment.

These two are what Tertullian calls the “Two Thieves” on either side of the cross: “Just as Christ was crucified between two thieves, so this doctrine of justification is ever crucified between two opposite errors.” That’s not to say the gospel is a “middle way”. Rather, it’s a third way: the only possible way to keep from being a Pharisee or a Sadducee.

When we preach, then, Keller notes that we must address both crowds (see “Preaching Christ in a Postmodern World: Lecture 4″).

1. We must address the religious. The reason we need to talk to the “religious” folks is two-fold:

1.) Non-Christians and visitors need to hear you separate yourself from their conceptions of Christianity. Whenever you preach the gospel, listeners will filter it through a moralistic lens – “Oh, he’s telling me to do better, try harder. He’s just like all the other bigots out there.” In order to present Christianity in its true light, it’s important for non-Christians to hear that you are NOT preaching religion.

2.) The religious crowd needs to hear it. Functionally, many Christians don’t believe the gospel. Yes, Jesus justified us, but we’re REALLY justified by our sanctification. Ironically, this mindset keeps us from obeying. It’s operating by “the law”: if I do better today, God will favor me. If I don’t read my Bible, keep from lust, etc., He’ll look down on me.

This kind of mindset: a.) Creates pride when we obey, and b.) Creates despair when we disobey. This is the life of a religious person. It is not “keeping in step the with truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:14)

2. We must address the irreligious. The second type of person will come in believing that all truth is relative, and that their main end in life is to find personal fulfillment. While it might be tempting to think this is a different beast altogether, it’s actually the same thing: believing self is the source of salvation, rather than Christ. It’s not as though:

1.) Christianity is best.

2.) Moralism is second best.

3.) Leniency is worst.

No – options #2 and #3 are equally evil. The root of each problem is a failure to look to Christ for salvation.

Application

Let’s think about how these two perspectives play out:

1. Discouragement: Moralists say: “it’s because you’re breaking the rules.” Relativists say: “you need better self esteem.”

2. Relationships: Moralism says “serving others is what makes me loveable to God,” and relativists say: “relationships are about each of us equally cashing out.”

3. Suffering. Moralists say, “It’s because I did something wrong.” Relativists say “Suffering is pointless and irredeemable.”

4. Sexuality. Moralists say, “Sex is dirty”, and relativists say, “Sex is about personal gratification.”

5. Family. Moralists say, “I must be a slave to parental expectations and the well-being of my children,” while relativists say, “I’m free to leave if I don’t like them anymore.”

6. Other races and cultures. Moralists say, “Our culture/race is superior” while relativists say, “All cultures are completely relative and perfect in their own way.”

7. Evangelism. Moralists say, “I need to convince everyone of my opinions because I’m right and they’re wrong,” while relativists say, “Keep it to yourself.”

8. Human authority. Moralists say, “I must perfectly obey my human authorities, uncritically,” while relativists say, “I either worship this person or despise their rule in my life.”

9. Guilt. Moralists say, “My God is too holy for forgiveness,” while relativists say, “My only failure is not getting what I want.”

10. Self-image. Moralists say, “If I’m moral I’m better than everyone, if I’m not I’m worse than everyone”, while relativists say, “If I get what I want I’m better than everyone, if I don’t I’m worse.”

11. ”Right living.” Moralists say, “I’m going to do the right thing so God will get me to heaven,” while relativists say, “I’m going to do the right thing to get me what I want.”

12. The poor. Moralists say, “They deserve to be poor; they’re failures,” while relativists say, “None of it is their fault; they’re helpless victims.”

So – on which side of the coin do you tend to fall?

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-Lenka, “Everything At Once”

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When I was a kid I had two imaginary friends: “Allegro” and “The Magician”. Allegro told me to be creative and wild and free, to be crazy and funny and paint the walls. He also had green hair. “The Magician” told me to count the quarters in my room and try to step on every tile in the grocery store.

There’s two selves in me – one, analytical; the other, creative (Hence: “Scribble” + “Preach”). I love them both. I can’t choose between my sons; I can’t choose my favorite personality.

I can segregate them, keeping one off the other’s back and letting the creative have a little time to play while the magician takes a rest. But I rarely release them together.

Blogging is my magician. I analyze, extract, categorize and filter information. But writing – real writing – novel writing – that’s my creative. I play around, go wild and free and loose and have fun.

But it’s struck me this week that I have a problem. I’ve been not so different from Dr. Jekyll, extracting one side of my personality and putting it on display while leaving the other in a dark alleyway. I hope I don’t turn into a freakish science experiment gone wrong (don’t make the joke you want to make).

The point is, every one of us has a few personalities we put off and on like hats (thanks, Frederich Buechner). When we’re always hiding a significant part of ourselves, that’s a problem. The best writers, the truest writers, write who they are. The reason you love them is you are them. You feel them on a deep, guttural, universal level. You laugh because you notice the same idiosyncrasies. You cry because you’ve felt that pain. You sigh because you’re comforted that there is someone out there like you.

So although it goes against blogging wisdom, I think it’s good writing wisdom: blog who you are. Even if it’s not “helpful” or “useful” or “10 Ways to XYZ…” I say have courage to be yourself, and you’ll be surprised by how helpful you are. At the end of the day don’t make it your goal to say, “That was good,” but to also say, “That was me.”

As for me? Well, don’t expect any dramatic changes to Scribblepreach.com. But don’t be surprised if a little bit more Allegro shines through.

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Satan overlooked all God made, eating from his jar of pickled baby-seals, scheming, scheming, scheming.

A brilliant idea struck.

“I have it, Wormwood,” he said. “I have a way to make miserable every English teacher on the planet; to implant excessive word-counts into future author’s manuscripts; to keep people’s vocabulary dull and stupid; to make all books and blog posts slow-paced and droning!”

Wormwood giggled with delight. Satan walked over to his vat of impurities, and concocted something to plague the world. He threw in two perfect ingredients and a dash of frog-juice. A putrid stench arose. Satan cackled, and drew forth from the vat his most hideous, wretched, banal creation yet. Wormwood shuddered and fell to the floor.

“What…is…that!?” cried Wormwood, shivering in fear.

“This, my dear Wormwood,” said Satan, “is called ‘the adverb.’”

“No!” cried Wormwood. “Take it away. Take it away!” Satan threw the stinking pile of filth onto the ground, and proclaimed:

“No longer will meals be delicious, but very tasty.”

“No longer will humans pierce one another’s eyes; they will look meaningfully.”

“No longer will men run; they will run quickly!”

Wormwood plugged his ears.

“I can take no more! No more!” He shouted.

Satan wiped his hands as a wicked smirk crept upon his cheeks, for he saw that what he had made was bad.

Very, very bad.

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“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”
-Roald Dahl, The Twits

Reminds me of an Abe Lincoln quote…10 cents if you can track it down for me.

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Hey Folks,

Good news. I’ve just finished my new E-Resource, “Preachable: 101 Questions Before You Preach”! If you want a piece of it and you haven’t subscribed through e-mail:

1.) Subscribe through e-mail.

2.) That’s all I’ve got.

I’ll be trying to get copies out to all my current subscribers soon (I’ll also be creating a writing version: “Publishable: ___ Questions to Ask Before You Publish” – this will be free to e-mail subscribers as well).

Here is the introduction:

Dear New Member of the Scribblepreach.com community:

Welcome! I’m so glad you’ve joined the Writing/Preaching Wrecking Crew. I hope you find using this e-book as beneficial as I have creating it. But first, let me qualify what this e-book is NOT:

• This e-book is NOT set in stone. Feel free to develop it to your own style and preferences.
• This e-book is NOT a tool to hammer yourself over the head with. You may look at this long list of questions and feel a twinge of guilt. STOP! Take a breath. What I’d like you to do is fill out this sheet once a week for 4-6 weeks. After that, take a look at the areas you regularly neglect. These are the areas where you can improve. You’ll never have time, as a busy pastor, to check off everything on this list! My personal suggestion: The things you can’t check off, CROSS them out. By that I mean – literally DRAW A CROSS over them. This keeps me focused on the point of it all.
• This e-book is not comprehensive. Some of the concepts and questions may be unfamiliar to you. That’s okay – stick around the Scribblepreach.com community, and we’ll work through them all over the years.

But here’s what this e-book is:

• It’s a great way to evaluate exactly where you need to improve as a preacher, by God’s grace.
• It’s a great tool to bring us regularly to repentance and the foot of the cross.
• It’s a great way to keep “first-things-first” in your life and ministry.
• It’s a great way to quickly and efficiently navigate through sermon prep without losing your way or getting too stuck in the details.

So, that being said, please read through this resource a few times. You’ll notice it’s divided up into sections:

1. The Person. This is about your personal life as a pastor and preacher. Use this to evaluate how your duties as a pastor flow into your duties as a preach.

2. The Preparation. This is all about exegesis – feel free to re-arrange, but this order works for me.

3. The Presentation. Here you’ll find lots of good questions to ask in order to preach a relevant, missional message.

4. Free Bonus – Post-production. This is for you to ask your preaching crew – hopefully including both believers and non-believers.

So print it out, enjoy, and get ready to make that next sermon truly preachable.

Grace and peace,

Nicholas McDonald

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One month ago, in response to a flare up of “equal” signs on my facebook account, I posted an article: “9 Rhetorical Flaws in the Gay Marriage Debate”. I pinpointed the faulty logic. I presented my case accurately. I was right. 

But I didn’t feel like a Logic-Warrior. I felt like a playground bully; like I stole the ice-cream from a paraplegic while everyone watched and cheered.

But hadn’t I generously spewed common grace over my friends and family? Didn’t I have a responsibility to fight injustice? Hadn’t I refused to deny Jesus before men?

Then why did it feel like I fell for a trick?

As I’ve reflected over the past few weeks, I’ve concluded that my post was wrong, for several reasons:

    1. It’s not what you communicate, it’s what they hear. We all want to believe we communicate our intentions. But we don’t. We communicate what people hear; and when people hear arguments against gay marriage through an online forum, they hear “bigoted”, “narrow-minded”, “political”, “judgmental” and “self-righteous”. Is that fair? No. But that’s reality.

    2. It’s not a necessary offense. The gospel is offensive, no doubt. God judges sinners, hell is a reality, Jesus is absolute truth, etc. These are all truths necessary to regeneration. But gay marriage? The sanctity of life? No – sinners need not embrace these truths to embrace Christ. Is it worth presenting political positions at the risk of winning a hearing for the gospel?

    3. It’s peripheral. Patching up the gay marriage issue is like putting a band-aid on a cancer patient. The disease isn’t politics; it’s the human heart. What do we believe will change the world – public policy or the parakletos? Why sacrifice the radiation therapy of the gospel for the obvious, but ultimately ineffective, quick-fixes? (Tim Keller, for this reason, never addresses homosexuality or abortion from the pulpit or public forums). I imagine that as we anxiously serve Jesus with our political debates, Jesus shakes his head and whispers: “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42)

    4. It’s a missed opportunity. Pastors shouldn’t retreat from the gay-marriage debate. But they should redirect it. A few weeks ago I spoke with a man in Barnes and Noble about the issue. Rather than attack his political case, I pointed him to the Divine Drama of Christ in marriage. I felt I’d done more for God’s kingdom in that conversation than I had for the 1,000’s of people who read my political post. Pastors should “make the most of every opportunity” to win a hearing for the gospel (Eph 5:16) (This article is a good example of how to do that). If the gay-marriage conversation doesn’t end up pointing to Jesus, you failed.

    5. Jesus wouldn’t do it. Before accusing me of creating Jesus imago dei, stop and think: do you really think Jesus would be vocally fighting for marriage rights as a U.S. citizen? Do you really think Jesus would be posting political commentary on facebook? Do you really think he’d be angry about legislation, outraged at the “state of the country”, tweeting about the injustice of the Supreme Court? Really? I’ve tried to answer “yes” to these questions, and I can’t. Jesus lived during a time of political injustice. But he refused to comment – it’s why he was crucified. Yes, he cared. But his solution wasn’t politics. It was Himself. He turned conversations about politics to polity, crowns to the cross and taxes to tithing. When people beg for anesthetics, Jesus insists on surgery.

Politically, gay marriage is a sexy, flashy issue – it’s what is most apparently harmful to the church. It’s potentially a real, harmful injustice. It’s easy to think that out of fear it’s okay to submerge the gospel momentarily for the sake of some political commentary. But we’ve crossed the line when our political statements detract from others hearing the gospel.

Rather than ripping on other’s narrative, we ought to paint something more beautiful: Jesus is the bridegroom, we’re the bride.

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Where I heard it: CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY, BYLINE: Even if you haven’t been to Venice, you know what one of the tourists gondolas looks like. With baroque silver ornaments, shiny black lacquer, and sumptuous red seat cushions, they’re unabashedly fancy, not to mention ubiquitous.

u·biq·ui·ty

[yoo-bik-wi-tee]  

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“I hope she’ll be a fool–that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool… You see, I think everything’s terrible anyhow… And I know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Ch. 1

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