Empty Cup Responsibility
Image by Joshua Ommen
I’ve been in the process of watching the Catalyst West DVDs from the conference several months ago. I wasn’t able to travel out to California for the event due to other work that was going on here at GiANT, so it has been nice to be impacted by the DVDs.
As Andy Stanley was getting set to begin his opening talk, he said something to the effect of…
“I feel like I’m at a stage of my life where I feel like I’ve got a cup that’s about halfway full, and my responsibility is to dump it into as many cups as I can. I don’t pretend to think that I can fill up anybody’s cup, but my responsibility is to empty mine.”
In many ways I believe I am at a similar stage.
For the longest time I would sit on my hands (the online equivalent of zipping your mouth shut) out of fear of being thought of as egotistical. I have talked about writing a book for probably ten years now, but I’ve always relegated that goal to somewhere in the future. In fact, I’ve often told people who ask that I don’t want to write a book until I feel like I have something to say. To me, it doesn’t even have to be something overly profound - just authentic.
We leave today for a week long vacation on the beach with all my family - my dad & his wife, my sister & her family, and us. As part of this time, my brother-in-law, Kenneth, and I will be spending some time talking through book ideas and plans. We’ve committed to pursuing individual book projects alongside one another, and our conversations next week will mark the real start of that journey.
In a way, I feel like all of us should be in a place of “Empty Cup Responsibility” - shouldn’t we? Shouldn’t there be those around us that we are constantly pouring into and lifting up?
If you aren’t already, I’d encourage you to “pray and pour”... invest and impact the lives of those you are journeying through life with at this stage… family, friends, co-workers, etc.
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What Are Thin Places?
"Thin Places" are rich in Celtic tradition. They are the places in our lives where the divine and the natural worlds come so close together that we can catch a glimpse of God. For the Celtics these places were very real - places within creation where we could physically go. The Thin Places in our own lives are those moments where the space between us & the Kingdom is thin, when we are introduced to a greater glimpse of Who He is through our experiences and through the stories of others.
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Tina shared their voice on 07.17.2009:
Hi, Chris,
I can really relate to this comment: “I’ve often told people who ask that I don’t want to write a book until I feel like I have something to say.” I have said the same thing to friends. I look forward to hearing about your book project :) Thanks for sharing!