Advent Thought 12 and Number 3 (again)

I have a soft spot for 3. For some reason it was decreed at some time or other that the best evangelical sermons should have three points. The best vision statements seem to wind up focusing on three targets and strategies.

It is a tradition rather than a rule. A bit like knowing the conventions in order to occasionally break them. I have preached a 26 point sermon. The congregation's faces when I announced that (possibly a mistake) still live with me. That said it was a good sermon and was well received. Each point lasted but a few seconds.

My church currently has three priorities. The danger, as we planned that out, was of stopping when we reached three rather than allowing our minds to think if there might be a fourth, and greater, call on our time.

My deanery has three priorities but we were very clear from the beginning that we had scope to prioritise four streams of ministry. It's just that the first three came easily and we couldn't agree on a fourth. We have left a gap in the fourth box so that we have time and energy to add something.

Then there are the initialisms, acronyms and tautograms (what you call it when all three points begin with the same letter) which often follow these phenomena around. Another danger - I can only make a fourth point if it begins with, say, C.

That said I am rather pleased with my four point approach to incoming correspondence:

Do it
Delegate it
Diary it
Dump it

A few years back I offered feedback to a group. I said 'I have three things to say. I don't know what they are yet because I can't think until I start talking.'

An audience member interjected; 'Why not hedge your bets and go for five?' Thanks Bob. Happy birthday.

Good point. I love three points but always carry at least a four point strategy planner around in my head and a willingness to go to five. Douglas Adams' increasingly improbably titled fifth volume of the Hitch-Hiker's trilogy refers. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit will be proud.

Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to your perfect light

As you wait, hope and rest today consider what limitations numbers from the past place on your thinking about the future.