Throughout your life, there will be activities that fall into specific categories. For example, there are those things that you choose to do — you choose to go to work and you choose to pay your bills. These are your choices — you have power to do them or to not do them. You are in control.
Then there are those things that you get to do. Because you have chosen to keep working, you get to buy yourself a motorcycle. These are the direct benefits of the choice; the harvest of the decision — because of the choice, you receive the get.
And then there is the third — and the rarest category — which are those things that you are given to do. These are those tasks where you are called, where the tumblers click just right and you are allowed to play a role in something incredible and special.
It’s the right place and the right time, position. It’s when God has set everything in motion and you have the keys and the passcode and for however long it lasts you are given the chance to play a roll. You don’t deserve it, but you get to.
Six years ago, I got the call that started my given. And for every single second of those last six years, I have been grateful for it.
“Hello?”
“Hey, is this — Everett?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, this is —. This is Dave.”
“Oh, hey Dave.” — Dave? Dave who?
“Umm, I know this is going to sound — weird, but —. But I have this strange, this — Wow, — idea I wanted to run past you.”
And the given began.
The next day I was standing in our church sanctuary.
“So what do you think?”
The end of the sanctuary just — well, it ended. There was this — this, step in the back but then a wall. It was just a big room.
“Well a —. A stage would be —. Well probably need a stage first.”
And within a week — within four days actually — lumber was purchased and delivered and a handful of volunteers were building a fifty foot stage.
See, the challenge with most church Christmas plays is that the bar has been set so low that it’s difficult to raise — which sounds somewhat strange but it’s not. Because there is a hundred year tradition of kids standing in there bathrobes and pretending to be Joseph or a Wiseman and no matter if they remember their lines, if they forgot the bathrobe, or if they think it would be funny to burp the alphabet just then, the play will be a success. Because it’s just for the church. It’s not all that important and there isn’t a lot of skin in the game.
Dave’s idea was different.
What if you took the church Christmas play to an off Broadway level? What if you had a solid message but delivered it in an entertaining way? What if you had an original, tightly written script that could only be seen by you? What if you had music and choreography at a professional level? What if you had a budget that would allow you to get the right lights, costumes, sound equipment and props? Would if you found the best set designer — one that believed in what you do and helped guide you? What if you created an original musical where if people stepped foot in a church once a year, this would be it because it would be hard to stay away? And most importantly, what if you found a hundred people who were willing to volunteer countless hours and take the level of excellence that we give to everything else in their lives to sing, dance, act, carry props, operate lights and work at the absolute highest level they can, through months of the rehearsals and put on four shows each December?
Oh, well then you would have — this. This amazing thing that we get to do each year.
See, there was a young musical director who had this crazy idea and I was honored to be the person he called — which as a writer is actually a pretty sweet deal because writing is a very lonely gig. You write, you write, you edit and you write and then a long time later you’re read — just a little. But each year I get to make up characters and words. Then I watch my words be said by others. Then I help work those others to become those characters. Then I stop thinking of them as my words and they become the characters words. Then I get to spend time with those characters.
It’s ironic that the writing that I’m the most proud of is that which I give away — but as I think about it, guess that’s true for just about everything.
We didn’t have a stage. A script, a cast, a set. We didn’t have performers, a crew or props. What we did have was a blank sheet of paper and an idea and no rules — the same thing we start each new year with. And it has become this miraculous thing that logically shouldn’t happen —- none of this should work each year, we don’t know what we’re doing. But it does. Every year over a hundred volunteers create an original show that can’t be seen anywhere else at a level you won’t see within a hundred miles — that is absolutely free to attend. This year’s is called Finding Sergio.
Since the inception of 543skills.com we’ve never posted an invitation before. To anything. So here is the first. If you’re a few hours from Dover, Delaware on the weekend of December 12th, 2014, I am inviting you to see an amazing event, absolutely free of charge, that shows what a bunch of people who love God can do. Finding Sergio. And if you’re not in that area, if you send us an email here I’ll make sure you get the link for the video when it’s online.
Christmas is full of suggestions to get involved, to help, to find the true meaning and all of this is important and all of it is true. But the given, is more than just volunteering or donating. It’s more personal and it’s bigger. It’s the crazy idea. The insane one that will bring you no personal wealth or glory but is something that should be done or needs to.
In your life you will be given something to do — probably more than once. It will seem small or it will seem ridiculous and you’ll be right both times.
Enjoy it.
And Merry Christmas.
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