Saturday, April 21, 2012

Looking through the windshield

Yesterday I had a five hour drive to the Parchment Valley Conference Center in West Virginia where I will be leading a workshop on "Transforming the Small Church from Maintenance-Minded to Missional."  It was a beautiful drive to a part of the country I had not seen before.  Before leaving home I synced my I-Pod to add the new podcasts that had  downloaded onto my computer.  For much of those five hours I listened to podcasts by Dave Ramsey, Ravi Zacharias,William Lane Craig, Freakonomics, and Relevant magazine.  Talk about a great drive!  I turned a long drive into a very nice experience enjoying both the scenery and the material that was covered in those podcasts.

Zig Ziglar always talked about Automobile University.  He often said that with tapes and CDs a person could learn a great deal simply by using the time we spend in our cars listening to good material.  I had learned that long before I ever heard him say it and used to keep a number of teaching tapes in my car.  When everything went to CDs it became even easier, and now with I-Pods it's even better.  Fortunately, I have the capability to plug my I-Pod into my car's sound system so I don't have to fool with headphones.  It is much better that listening to a lot of the junk on the radio.  Don't misunderstand.  Sometimes I want to listen to music when I'm driving, and I've got well over 100 songs on the I-Pod as well, and they are all songs I enjoy.

If you spend much time in your car you should consider how you use that time.  Use it wisely and you can use that time to learn new things and grow as an individual and a minister.

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