The guy who invented post-its, so the story goes, used a batch of defective glue to stick bits of paper to his wall and take them down again. The batch lasted for years until someone realised the application of this brilliant invention.
At this point I imagine he kicked himself, then, having slowly peeled his own sticky foot off his backside, accepted that invention is useless without application.
This is a shout out to all the geniuses who have invented new ways of doing things but have no idea that their methodology is of wider use. Tell others. If you have found something that is good, that works and that makes a difference, dare to allow a further supply of humanity to have the opportunity to see if it works for them.
And if you can't see the application of that metaphor to a church's evangelism you'd better go kick yourself. Your foot will not need peeling off.
3 comments:
This is so true in so many fields. No application, no redemption.
A bit “off-message”, but this is my favourite post-it story. Apparently, some years back, a woman had written to British Rail (remember them?) complaining of fleas in an overnight sleeper berth. She received a reply assuring her that there were no fleas on British rail sleepers (the trains that is, not the wooden bits between the rails) – unfortunately there was a yellow post-it note stuck to the letter with the hand written instruction “send the usual flea letter”
Steady now st, you have just activated teh ggeek-gene present in each and every engineer!
The story of the post-it note is one that keps many engineers talking long through out the night.... it was an invention that was waiting for an application. First the man applied the glue to a noticeboard and not the paper, then the man was aked to work on something else so he replicated the equipment in his shed / cellar. Then his boss agreed with him it was a great invention but where did one use it.... the bossman applied llittle bits of it to small strips of paper and used them as book marks for marking out the hymns in church on a sunday morning, his previous attempts at bookmarks fell out onto the floor; at the end of the service he removed the non-sticky stickable bookmarks and replaced them in his wallet, something he continued to do for weeks on end. Then one day he heard a comment in the sermon and wanted to note it down, so he wrote on one of his bookmarks and stuck it on his desk and from that moment onwards the application of the invention grew and grew.
regards,
Graham D
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