Furmanifesto

Have you ever overlooked something that was really obvious? I mean it was right there in plain view, but you couldn’t see it?  To make matters worse sometimes the pressure is really on and you’ve got to come through for everyone, but you don’t know what the answer is or even where to find it?  You know the type of situation I’m talking about don’t you?

Like finding the “Yes” button on the debit card reader at the grocery store.

Isn’t it about time that we finally adopt a standardized button layout for these machines?

I know that the button is there on the machine, but where?

Sometimes the button says, “enter”,

Other times it says “accept”.

Occasionally it doesn’t say anything at all because the words have been rubbed off.

Sometimes the words on the screen are by the button you are supposed to push,

but sometimes you have to tap the screen with a stylus.

If you’re lucky the button is green,

but sometimes it’s blue.

You may know where the button is on the machine at a Safeway, but go into an Albertson’s, and you need Tommy Lee Jones doing a hard target search of every henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse in the county to find it.

So you stand there paralyzed,

Staring at the PIN pad,

While a woman behind you is clearing her throat and pointing,

And you finally see it…

It’s right there on the pad,

 A stationary button that doesn’t move.

It’s been there the whole time.

It wasn’t hidden.

It just wasn’t where we wanted it to be.

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In the spring of 1939 A young actor named Ronald Reagan began work on a movie called “The Code of the Secret Service”.  In the film he played a hard-boiled secret service agent named  ”Brass Bancroft”.

Throughout the fall of ’39 the movie was drubbed by critics and audiences alike.

It seemed very few people enjoyed the picture, even Reagan himself referred to the “The Code” as his worst performance.  In the midst of all of this criticism a 10-year-old Jerry Parr of Miami, Florida managed to see the film at least twice.

He liked it, no matter what anybody else said.

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When you’re a young pastor you imagine giving the kind of sermons that will really produce a change in people’s lives.

This is hard because no one in your home church will let you get up and preach when you’re just starting out, they usually farm you out to other churches and camp-outs to get “experience” before they put you in front of people that you will have to see again the next week.

When you first get these opportunities you immediately begin preparing like this is the most important thing that you will ever do and the only time that you will ever get to do it.

The whole time you’re preparing the sermon you’re writing with the end in mind… and by end I mean: “People coming up afterwards to tell you how awesome the sermon was.”

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