By Brady Boyd
Brady is the lead pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, CO. He
is married to his college sweetheart Pam and is the dad to two great
kids, Abram and Callie. He has just written a book called Fear No Evil and he's really serious about caring for the people of Colorado Springs by opening numerous Dream Centers.
Pastors tend to spend a lot of time obsessing about preaching and
teaching, while the rest of society thinks about it, like never. But
it’s Monday, and I spoke at New Life yesterday and still wonder if I’m
any good (this is the part that is supposed to motivate you to give me a
lot of compliments), but Pam and the kids thought it was great and
that’s most important.
Anyway, about a year ago, I underwent a philosophical shift in the way I
preach each week. For years, I was a part of a world that primarily
taught sermon series on various topics for four to six weeks, each
series complete with a cool logo, title and sermon bumper (that is the
trendy video that plays right before the pastor magically appears on
stage).
Strengths of the sermon series approach to preaching:
1. You can tackle topics that are important to the
congregation in a timely way. For example, if marriages seem to be
struggling, you can talk about marriage, etc.
2. You can go deeper on topics that need extra time to
teach, like eschatology (that’s a fancy preacher word that means the
end times).
Weaknesses:
1. You can skip over the hard topics and just talk
about the happy ones. In other words, we can talk about the blessings
without talking about suffering or sacrifice.
2. You can drain the life out of your creative team
trying to be better or more clever than the last series. Cool one-word
titles can slide down the cheese hill very quickly. Our title for the
teachings from Luke is … Luke.
My approach for the past year has been to walk through books of the
Bible story by story, capturing all the big ideas of the book. I have
preached through Ephesians, 1 Peter, and for the past 30 weeks, through
Luke. I plan to tackle Acts for the first part of 2012.
Strengths of the book approach:
1. You cannot skip over the hard topics. The past two
weeks I have taught out of Luke 16, which focuses on two difficult
topics for most pastors—hell and money.
2. Hermeneutics (another fancy word for studying the
Bible) is embraced more completely. Who wrote the passage? To whom was
he talking? Why did he use specific language? What was going on in the
culture at the time?
3. You have to teach on all of the topics and ideas
that Jesus and the apostle’s taught their churches and followers. It
builds a more complete disciple in the long run (just my opinion, but it
is my blog).
Weaknesses:
1. Missed opportunities to preach about topics that
are trending socially. For example, on the 10-year anniversary of 9/11,
we were in Luke 14, which did not contain a ready-made memorial message.
2. Missed opportunities to camp out for several weeks on topics that need deeper explanation.
For the record, I think both approaches have merit for the local
church, and it’s the job of the pastor to listen to what God is saying
and to obey. Don’t get stuck in a sermon rut. It is possible, and even
probable, that some fresh new ideas may be exactly what all of us need.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
4 Problems with Passionate Preaching
By Peter Mead
Preaching with a contagious passion for God, His Word, the gospel, and the people is a good thing. But we always need to be careful not to let our passion slip into offensive or off-putting communication styles.
Preaching with a contagious passion for God, His Word, the gospel, and the people is a good thing. But we always need to be careful not to let our passion slip into offensive or off-putting communication styles.
Passion that becomes aggressive can offend.
We must always be aware of how we are coming across when we preach. What might feel like a passion for the truth on our part can easily become unnecessarily offensive to the listeners. Every word and sentence counts, so be careful not to make a carefree assertion that might unnecessarily offend sensitive listeners. Listeners are not always the best at hearing statements in context. Hearers of “quotes” from Sunday’s sermon never really hear those quotes in context.Passion that becomes “shouty” can be bothersome.
It's so tempting for some personalities to convey their enthusiasm by shouting. It feels powerful and full of conviction at the time, and you can almost guarantee some misleading and positive feedback from some insecure folks who feel they need to say something nice to you afterwards. Being known as a shouting preacher won’t help you on several levels.Passion that becomes distracted can be hard to follow.
Sometimes our passion for something leads us off on a wild goose chase of anecdotes and illustrations or a wild safari ride through the canon of Scripture. Let your passion drive your main idea home, not drive your listeners to distraction because they can’t follow you in your distraction.Passion that becomes too intense can drain.
Even if we don’t shout, a certain level of intensity, if maintained consistently, will drain an audience of energy and focus. Give them a break, a chance to breathe, a chance to recalibrate. Intensity turned up a notch or two and left there can become simply too much to take. It's not worth it—better that they hear what you’re saying.Why I Pace Before I Preach?
By Walter Wangerin Jr.
Walter Wangerin Jr. is writer-in-residence at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana and author of The Crying for a Vision (Paraclete, 2003) and The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel (Zondervan, 1996)
On the night before I preach, I pace—back and forth in my room, mumbling sermonic thoughts, testing them, scorning a hundred thoughts, exulting in one or two that shine like coin, investing those.
I grow breathless when I pace. I make strange noises. But the house must be as silent as death. And the mighty God must stand by to save me, because there surely will come great waves of doubt to drown me, and then I will splutter, “Help me, Lord!” and gasp, “What do you want me to say?”
Not all the scriptural interpretation in the world will save me from this nighttime ride on stormy water: I’m going to preach, and I get scared. In the few hours I sleep, I dream. In my dreams I arrive at church too late, and people are leaving. I can’t find my vestments, my clothes are shabby, and people are impatient. Or (the second greatest horror) smack in the middle of preaching, I notice that I’m in my underwear. Or (the worst) I’ve forgotten totally what I’d planned to say.
I wake at 5:00 a.m. I don’t eat because I can’t. My internal self is as unstable as water. But when I meet the people, my external self has donned a smile, speaks softly, touches everyone, and moves to worship with aplomb. And lo, I preach.
And on any given Sunday, I succeed. No one expects a pastoral collapse. Everyone takes this sermon for granted, while I breathe secret reams of gratitude to God. But when Saturday comes again, I pace again, wild-eyed and terrified.
You too? Does success astonish you as well, since the prospect of preaching had cut you at the gut?
When I was young, I thought experience would calm my fears. It didn’t. For years I prayed God would grant me a pre-sermon peace. God didn’t, and I accused myself of faithlessness.
But now I wonder: Perhaps the fear goes with the office. Perhaps, because this task requires the whole of the preacher, our entire beings become involved in the tension of preparation, and so our tummies start to jump.
It is—but it is not only—a function of our intellects to preach. We are doing more than passing pure thought to the people. Our souls are required of us, that we believe what we say. Moreover, to believe means that we have ourselves experienced what we declare: it’s a part of our personal histories, real in our suffering and joy, real in our sin, real in forgiveness and grace and freedom. So we become a standing evidence of what we preach, and the whole of us—soul and mind and body and experience—participates in the holy moment of preaching.
It is Christ who saves. But in human community, it is this particular vessel whose voice, whose person, and whose preaching proclaim that Christ. No, I can’t hide in my cape of authority and still persuade the people of a dear, incarnate, near, embracing Jesus.
I can never abstract my self from the preaching, nor ever be wholly nerveless before it, since the very purpose and the passion of the task involve my love. I preach because I love, love twice. These two loves define my being.
For I love the Lord my God with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind. I’ve nothing more important in all the world to communicate to anyone than the One I love completely. This is a stupendous responsibility. And it is my own, because I can’t divide my beloved from my loving, nor my loving from my self. When I speak of God, my passion is present: In passion do I make God known! But the glory of the Lord makes me self-conscious. Am I worthy to whisper the name?
I have no choice but to try. For I love these people, too—these faces, these eyes—with a sharp, particular, personal love. The best that I have to give, I must give to them. To them, in their language, for their individual lives.
And on Saturday night, I worry: Will they hear it? Will they let the hard word hurt them, the good word heal them, the strong word lead and redeem them? Will I speak it so that they receive it from me? O, people, people, the depth of my love is the depth of my fear for you!
So I pace.
Walter Wangerin Jr. is writer-in-residence at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana and author of The Crying for a Vision (Paraclete, 2003) and The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel (Zondervan, 1996)
On the night before I preach, I pace—back and forth in my room, mumbling sermonic thoughts, testing them, scorning a hundred thoughts, exulting in one or two that shine like coin, investing those.
I grow breathless when I pace. I make strange noises. But the house must be as silent as death. And the mighty God must stand by to save me, because there surely will come great waves of doubt to drown me, and then I will splutter, “Help me, Lord!” and gasp, “What do you want me to say?”
Not all the scriptural interpretation in the world will save me from this nighttime ride on stormy water: I’m going to preach, and I get scared. In the few hours I sleep, I dream. In my dreams I arrive at church too late, and people are leaving. I can’t find my vestments, my clothes are shabby, and people are impatient. Or (the second greatest horror) smack in the middle of preaching, I notice that I’m in my underwear. Or (the worst) I’ve forgotten totally what I’d planned to say.
I wake at 5:00 a.m. I don’t eat because I can’t. My internal self is as unstable as water. But when I meet the people, my external self has donned a smile, speaks softly, touches everyone, and moves to worship with aplomb. And lo, I preach.
And on any given Sunday, I succeed. No one expects a pastoral collapse. Everyone takes this sermon for granted, while I breathe secret reams of gratitude to God. But when Saturday comes again, I pace again, wild-eyed and terrified.
You too? Does success astonish you as well, since the prospect of preaching had cut you at the gut?
When I was young, I thought experience would calm my fears. It didn’t. For years I prayed God would grant me a pre-sermon peace. God didn’t, and I accused myself of faithlessness.
But now I wonder: Perhaps the fear goes with the office. Perhaps, because this task requires the whole of the preacher, our entire beings become involved in the tension of preparation, and so our tummies start to jump.
It is—but it is not only—a function of our intellects to preach. We are doing more than passing pure thought to the people. Our souls are required of us, that we believe what we say. Moreover, to believe means that we have ourselves experienced what we declare: it’s a part of our personal histories, real in our suffering and joy, real in our sin, real in forgiveness and grace and freedom. So we become a standing evidence of what we preach, and the whole of us—soul and mind and body and experience—participates in the holy moment of preaching.
It is Christ who saves. But in human community, it is this particular vessel whose voice, whose person, and whose preaching proclaim that Christ. No, I can’t hide in my cape of authority and still persuade the people of a dear, incarnate, near, embracing Jesus.
I can never abstract my self from the preaching, nor ever be wholly nerveless before it, since the very purpose and the passion of the task involve my love. I preach because I love, love twice. These two loves define my being.
For I love the Lord my God with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind. I’ve nothing more important in all the world to communicate to anyone than the One I love completely. This is a stupendous responsibility. And it is my own, because I can’t divide my beloved from my loving, nor my loving from my self. When I speak of God, my passion is present: In passion do I make God known! But the glory of the Lord makes me self-conscious. Am I worthy to whisper the name?
I have no choice but to try. For I love these people, too—these faces, these eyes—with a sharp, particular, personal love. The best that I have to give, I must give to them. To them, in their language, for their individual lives.
And on Saturday night, I worry: Will they hear it? Will they let the hard word hurt them, the good word heal them, the strong word lead and redeem them? Will I speak it so that they receive it from me? O, people, people, the depth of my love is the depth of my fear for you!
So I pace.
Preacher to Preacher: Why Do We Do It?
By Leslie Holmes
The Rev. Dr. Leslie Holmes is professor of ministry and preaching at Erskine Theological Seminary in Columbia and Due West, SC. A Presbyterian minister, he was most recently senior pastor of Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church in Augusta, GA
If you have been to seminary, you've most likely gone through a three-year, graduate-level course of studies with at least two unfamiliar languages, history, philosophy, hermeneutics, homiletics, counseling, and much more. Have you ever thought you could have given the same period of time and almost certainly multiplied your earnings, had more control over your personal life, taken less abuse and probably had more professional respect as a lawyer, physical therapist, dentist, or as another type of professional?
In fact, in almost any other course of study, after three years on top of four years of college, you would have come out with the title Doctor rather than a master's degree in a field the value of which is not widely recognized or appreciated beyond the church world. Have you, as have many others, ever stopped to ask yourself, "Why did I do that?" If red blood flows through your veins, you know you have! I am persuaded that all of us have at some point asked ourselves if it is all worthwhile. After all, they beat up the best preacher who ever lived and killed Him on a cross.
If you are like me, you have ended up concluding that while there may be many other things you could have done, you give your life to preaching the gospel because for you it is a thing called "God's call on my life," which, let's face it, a whole lot of people don't understand. Sure, we all could make more money and have more control of the daily events of our lives, but there is an impelling force inside us that simply will not let go.
The mighty Paul, no slouch when it comes to scholarship, phrased it this way: "Necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!" (1 Cor. 9:16).As I write these words, the nightly news about a capsized fishing boat and resultant loss of life off the coast of Mexico brings back memories of a motion picture I saw recently. The inherent dangers of the fishing industry, as seen through a crew's eyes, are described in detail in that movie, The Perfect Storm. Out of their need to bring home the best possible catch, the captain and crew of the Andrea Gail determine to risk everything and travel to a remote but fertile fishing ground called the Flemish Cap. On their way back to port in Gloucester, Mass., they encounter the perfect storm. Set in 1991, while many improvements in shipbuilding, navigational instruments, and rescue support have improved the lot of boating for most people in this age, the lives of people who make their living fishing are still at risk. In fact, more fishing crew members lose their lives per capita than in any other occupation in America.Some things are better than they used to be, but for the crew of far off-shore fishing vessels, going to sea for extended periods of time is not much safer than it was a century ago. Out there (and I have been on a vessel out there) you are on your own. Most days, there is nobody else near enough to help. Lack of fear and an abundance of courage are two lines near the top of a fishing boat crew member's unwritten job description.
The same is true for those of us who have felt Paul's necessity of fishing for souls. Technology has improved, electronics have lightened our load; but the fact is that neither our call has changed nor has our message. Some of my students come to class with all their books downloaded on their iPads! I have more than 5,000 books in my library. These books have become my masters. If I stop preaching, what will I do with them?
Just think, if my seminary students quit, they will not have to stress about what to do with their library as it all will be on one device about the size of a single book! Many years ago, William Sangster, at the time among Britain's leading preachers, confessed before a preaching conference gathered in his church, "I long to go into every manse and vicarage in the land and confront the men who live there with this question: Do you truly believe in preaching as the primary means by which God brings men to salvation, and therefore as your primary task, to the accomplishment of which you will devote your best hours and greatest energies?"
Fifty years after his death, William Sangster's question still has validity, and every assertion he made is even more urgent in our iPad world. Whether we preach from a manuscript, a 3x5 card, an iPad, or without notes, preaching is still the primary means through which God hooks a human soul for salvation. It is always our primary task, and we still need to devote to it our best hours and greatest energies. We never can forget God had but one true Son, and He sent Him to Earth to be a preacher. He was unwelcome in many places, given a hard time and beaten. Yet, "for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising its shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb. 12:2). If we would sit there among those who are seated beside Him, so must we. That is why we do it! Isn't that why you do it?
The Rev. Dr. Leslie Holmes is professor of ministry and preaching at Erskine Theological Seminary in Columbia and Due West, SC. A Presbyterian minister, he was most recently senior pastor of Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church in Augusta, GA
If you have been to seminary, you've most likely gone through a three-year, graduate-level course of studies with at least two unfamiliar languages, history, philosophy, hermeneutics, homiletics, counseling, and much more. Have you ever thought you could have given the same period of time and almost certainly multiplied your earnings, had more control over your personal life, taken less abuse and probably had more professional respect as a lawyer, physical therapist, dentist, or as another type of professional?
In fact, in almost any other course of study, after three years on top of four years of college, you would have come out with the title Doctor rather than a master's degree in a field the value of which is not widely recognized or appreciated beyond the church world. Have you, as have many others, ever stopped to ask yourself, "Why did I do that?" If red blood flows through your veins, you know you have! I am persuaded that all of us have at some point asked ourselves if it is all worthwhile. After all, they beat up the best preacher who ever lived and killed Him on a cross.
If you are like me, you have ended up concluding that while there may be many other things you could have done, you give your life to preaching the gospel because for you it is a thing called "God's call on my life," which, let's face it, a whole lot of people don't understand. Sure, we all could make more money and have more control of the daily events of our lives, but there is an impelling force inside us that simply will not let go.
The mighty Paul, no slouch when it comes to scholarship, phrased it this way: "Necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!" (1 Cor. 9:16).As I write these words, the nightly news about a capsized fishing boat and resultant loss of life off the coast of Mexico brings back memories of a motion picture I saw recently. The inherent dangers of the fishing industry, as seen through a crew's eyes, are described in detail in that movie, The Perfect Storm. Out of their need to bring home the best possible catch, the captain and crew of the Andrea Gail determine to risk everything and travel to a remote but fertile fishing ground called the Flemish Cap. On their way back to port in Gloucester, Mass., they encounter the perfect storm. Set in 1991, while many improvements in shipbuilding, navigational instruments, and rescue support have improved the lot of boating for most people in this age, the lives of people who make their living fishing are still at risk. In fact, more fishing crew members lose their lives per capita than in any other occupation in America.Some things are better than they used to be, but for the crew of far off-shore fishing vessels, going to sea for extended periods of time is not much safer than it was a century ago. Out there (and I have been on a vessel out there) you are on your own. Most days, there is nobody else near enough to help. Lack of fear and an abundance of courage are two lines near the top of a fishing boat crew member's unwritten job description.
The same is true for those of us who have felt Paul's necessity of fishing for souls. Technology has improved, electronics have lightened our load; but the fact is that neither our call has changed nor has our message. Some of my students come to class with all their books downloaded on their iPads! I have more than 5,000 books in my library. These books have become my masters. If I stop preaching, what will I do with them?
Just think, if my seminary students quit, they will not have to stress about what to do with their library as it all will be on one device about the size of a single book! Many years ago, William Sangster, at the time among Britain's leading preachers, confessed before a preaching conference gathered in his church, "I long to go into every manse and vicarage in the land and confront the men who live there with this question: Do you truly believe in preaching as the primary means by which God brings men to salvation, and therefore as your primary task, to the accomplishment of which you will devote your best hours and greatest energies?"
Fifty years after his death, William Sangster's question still has validity, and every assertion he made is even more urgent in our iPad world. Whether we preach from a manuscript, a 3x5 card, an iPad, or without notes, preaching is still the primary means through which God hooks a human soul for salvation. It is always our primary task, and we still need to devote to it our best hours and greatest energies. We never can forget God had but one true Son, and He sent Him to Earth to be a preacher. He was unwelcome in many places, given a hard time and beaten. Yet, "for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising its shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb. 12:2). If we would sit there among those who are seated beside Him, so must we. That is why we do it! Isn't that why you do it?
An Illustration on Eternity
By Francis Chan
Francis Chan is an author and church leader, formerly the pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California. Chan has authored several books, including Crazy Love and Forgotten God. He is also the founder of Eternity Bible College and sits on the board of directors of Children's Hunger Fund and World Impact. Francis lives in California with his wife, Lisa, and their four children.
Francis Chan is an author and church leader, formerly the pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California. Chan has authored several books, including Crazy Love and Forgotten God. He is also the founder of Eternity Bible College and sits on the board of directors of Children's Hunger Fund and World Impact. Francis lives in California with his wife, Lisa, and their four children.
Making the Message Memorable
By Larry Osborne
Larry Osborne serves as senior pastor and teaching pastor at North Coast Church in Vista, CA, a multi-site ministry with more than 7,000 in attendance each week. He just released his newest book, Sticky Teams: Keeping Your Leadership and Staff on the Same Page (Zondervan); he’s also the author of Sticky Church: Slamming the Back Door Shut (Zondervan). For more of Larry's thoughts, check out his blog at LarryOsborneLive.com or NorthCoastChurch.com.
Like most pastors, I learned early on that if my preaching was to be powerful, it had to be memorable. That sounded simple enough—until I had to pull it off week in and week out.
All too often, I’d spend hours putting a sermon together hoping to change lives—only to find out later that the only thing anyone remembered was the funny story about my kids or the illustration about getting lost in Seattle instead of the biblical principle it was supposed to drive home.
So-called communication experts told me I needed to use more props and compelling stories. Other people told me to get rid of the gimmicks and stick to the meat of the Word. Some warned me to shorten my messages in light of shrinking attention spans, while others pointed out that most of the best-known and most listened-to pastors were seldom brief in their remarks.
Over the years, I’ve tried all kinds of things to drive home a point and make it stick—from shorter sermons to lengthy discourses, from narratives to hyper-practical "Five Steps to Whatever," from verse-by-verse to hot-button topics. For a while, we even stopped in the middle of the sermon to allow time for questions and discussion (something the extroverts loved and the introverts absolutely loathed).
I also made use of a cottage industry of illustration services, books, tapes, and seminars that were available to help. And nowadays, you can add to that a host of online sermons and Web sites offering outlines and downloads full of fresh ideas and insights.
Some of the stuff was pretty good and helpful. Some was pretty goofy. But frankly, none of it came close to approaching the impact of something I stumbled upon years ago: Home Bible studies built around a discussion of the previous weekend sermon.
Now, I know that small groups are nothing new. And here at North Coast Church, they've been the hub of our ministry since the mid-1980s. But combining the sermon and our midweek small groups into a lecture/lab combo was not only new, it was risky.
We'd always offered choices. Tying everything to the weekend message meant we were bucking our own tradition and the conventional wisdom that said people want more, not fewer, choices. To some of our folks, asking everyone to use the same sermon-based curriculum (and writing it ourselves) felt like we’d suddenly gone high control—especially to those who’d thrived in a free-market of self-selected topics and book studies.
Still, we went for it because we liked the potential upside. We thought it might offer significant educational benefits to study one thing and study it well rather than studying lots of things, none of which we ever covered in depth. We also hoped it would positively impact our shared sense of unity and mission. And finally, it seemed like it would be a lot easier to find people who could facilitate a discussion of the sermon than inductive Bible study leaders who could lead a traditional Bible study.
But one thing I didn’t expect was that it would make me a better preacher; maybe not a better preacher in the eyes of the homiletics connoisseur—but a far better preacher in terms of my messages being memorable and life changing. Here’s why.
INCREASED ATTENTIVENESS
The first thing I noticed was that once we started connecting our small group questions to the sermon, people were noticeably more attentive. I wish I could take credit for improved material, delivery, or style. But I hadn’t changed. What had changed was the congregation's awareness that they were going to discuss the message later in their small group. As a result, they were much more attentive.
And to my surprise, I discovered that attentiveness is contagious. When everyone else in the room is dialed in, it seems to send a subtle, perhaps subliminal, message that this is important stuff—don’t miss it. So most people work a little harder to hang in even during the slow (should I saying boring?) parts of the message.
INCREASED NOTE TAKING
The most obvious sign of the congregation’s increased attentiveness was a marked increase in note taking. That alone had a significant impact upon the memorableness of my sermons.
Educational theorists have long pointed out that we forget most of what we hear unless we also interact with the material visually, verbally, or physically. In short, taking notes dramatically increases recall. And tying small groups to the sermon dramatically increases note taking.
It’s not just the neurotic note takers who benefit (you know the kind, the folks who get a nervous twitch if a blank is left unfilled or a point skipped). We found that the note-taking bug also bit folks who would have normally sat back and listened. But aware that they would be discussing key points in the message later in the week, they began to take notes as a way to “lay down some crumbs” to find their way home again when their group met.
But if truth be known, for most of our congregation the frantic pace of a typical week quickly pushed Sunday's sermon to the background. The thought of sitting down and carefully reviewing what they'd heard on Sunday never entered their mind. They were too busy. Shoot, so was I!
But once we started tying our small group questions to the weekend message, nearly everyone took the time to review their sermon notes because it was an essential part of their preparation for their small group’s meeting. Even if someone rushed through the homework a few hours before the meeting or even on the way to the meeting, I was still far ahead. The stuff we talked about on Sunday was no longer on the back burner of their subconscious. For a few short hours, it was once again front and center. And I’d become a more memorable preacher!
This process has worked so well we’ve never gone back. Twenty years after our first sermon-based small groups, we still have 80% of our weekend attendance meeting to discuss in greater depth the meaning and application of the previous weekend’s sermon. And it’s a concept that has scaled easily with our growth, from 180 to over 6,500 in weekend attendance.
Many of you may have tried something similar if you worked your way through 40 Days of Purpose or any similar study. The good news is that you don’t need to go through the hassle of making video presentations to be shown in the home. It can work just as well to put together a series of questions that review, dig deeper, and look at a parallel biblical passage or two. That’s all we do. We put a note sheet and the questions in the weekend bulletin and let people prepare for their group meeting at their own pace.
It’s become the core of our ministry’s health—and the secret to making my preaching more memorable.
Larry Osborne serves as senior pastor and teaching pastor at North Coast Church in Vista, CA, a multi-site ministry with more than 7,000 in attendance each week. He just released his newest book, Sticky Teams: Keeping Your Leadership and Staff on the Same Page (Zondervan); he’s also the author of Sticky Church: Slamming the Back Door Shut (Zondervan). For more of Larry's thoughts, check out his blog at LarryOsborneLive.com or NorthCoastChurch.com.
Like most pastors, I learned early on that if my preaching was to be powerful, it had to be memorable. That sounded simple enough—until I had to pull it off week in and week out.
All too often, I’d spend hours putting a sermon together hoping to change lives—only to find out later that the only thing anyone remembered was the funny story about my kids or the illustration about getting lost in Seattle instead of the biblical principle it was supposed to drive home.
So-called communication experts told me I needed to use more props and compelling stories. Other people told me to get rid of the gimmicks and stick to the meat of the Word. Some warned me to shorten my messages in light of shrinking attention spans, while others pointed out that most of the best-known and most listened-to pastors were seldom brief in their remarks.
Over the years, I’ve tried all kinds of things to drive home a point and make it stick—from shorter sermons to lengthy discourses, from narratives to hyper-practical "Five Steps to Whatever," from verse-by-verse to hot-button topics. For a while, we even stopped in the middle of the sermon to allow time for questions and discussion (something the extroverts loved and the introverts absolutely loathed).
I also made use of a cottage industry of illustration services, books, tapes, and seminars that were available to help. And nowadays, you can add to that a host of online sermons and Web sites offering outlines and downloads full of fresh ideas and insights.
Some of the stuff was pretty good and helpful. Some was pretty goofy. But frankly, none of it came close to approaching the impact of something I stumbled upon years ago: Home Bible studies built around a discussion of the previous weekend sermon.
Now, I know that small groups are nothing new. And here at North Coast Church, they've been the hub of our ministry since the mid-1980s. But combining the sermon and our midweek small groups into a lecture/lab combo was not only new, it was risky.
We'd always offered choices. Tying everything to the weekend message meant we were bucking our own tradition and the conventional wisdom that said people want more, not fewer, choices. To some of our folks, asking everyone to use the same sermon-based curriculum (and writing it ourselves) felt like we’d suddenly gone high control—especially to those who’d thrived in a free-market of self-selected topics and book studies.
Still, we went for it because we liked the potential upside. We thought it might offer significant educational benefits to study one thing and study it well rather than studying lots of things, none of which we ever covered in depth. We also hoped it would positively impact our shared sense of unity and mission. And finally, it seemed like it would be a lot easier to find people who could facilitate a discussion of the sermon than inductive Bible study leaders who could lead a traditional Bible study.
But one thing I didn’t expect was that it would make me a better preacher; maybe not a better preacher in the eyes of the homiletics connoisseur—but a far better preacher in terms of my messages being memorable and life changing. Here’s why.
INCREASED ATTENTIVENESS
The first thing I noticed was that once we started connecting our small group questions to the sermon, people were noticeably more attentive. I wish I could take credit for improved material, delivery, or style. But I hadn’t changed. What had changed was the congregation's awareness that they were going to discuss the message later in their small group. As a result, they were much more attentive.
And to my surprise, I discovered that attentiveness is contagious. When everyone else in the room is dialed in, it seems to send a subtle, perhaps subliminal, message that this is important stuff—don’t miss it. So most people work a little harder to hang in even during the slow (should I saying boring?) parts of the message.
INCREASED NOTE TAKING
The most obvious sign of the congregation’s increased attentiveness was a marked increase in note taking. That alone had a significant impact upon the memorableness of my sermons.
Educational theorists have long pointed out that we forget most of what we hear unless we also interact with the material visually, verbally, or physically. In short, taking notes dramatically increases recall. And tying small groups to the sermon dramatically increases note taking.
It’s not just the neurotic note takers who benefit (you know the kind, the folks who get a nervous twitch if a blank is left unfilled or a point skipped). We found that the note-taking bug also bit folks who would have normally sat back and listened. But aware that they would be discussing key points in the message later in the week, they began to take notes as a way to “lay down some crumbs” to find their way home again when their group met.
SPIRITED DISCUSSION
When I first entered the ministry, I dreamed of communicating God’s
Word so powerfully that people would discuss it during the week. I
envisioned impassioned discussions of deep truth leading to radically
changed lives.But if truth be known, for most of our congregation the frantic pace of a typical week quickly pushed Sunday's sermon to the background. The thought of sitting down and carefully reviewing what they'd heard on Sunday never entered their mind. They were too busy. Shoot, so was I!
But once we started tying our small group questions to the weekend message, nearly everyone took the time to review their sermon notes because it was an essential part of their preparation for their small group’s meeting. Even if someone rushed through the homework a few hours before the meeting or even on the way to the meeting, I was still far ahead. The stuff we talked about on Sunday was no longer on the back burner of their subconscious. For a few short hours, it was once again front and center. And I’d become a more memorable preacher!
This process has worked so well we’ve never gone back. Twenty years after our first sermon-based small groups, we still have 80% of our weekend attendance meeting to discuss in greater depth the meaning and application of the previous weekend’s sermon. And it’s a concept that has scaled easily with our growth, from 180 to over 6,500 in weekend attendance.
Many of you may have tried something similar if you worked your way through 40 Days of Purpose or any similar study. The good news is that you don’t need to go through the hassle of making video presentations to be shown in the home. It can work just as well to put together a series of questions that review, dig deeper, and look at a parallel biblical passage or two. That’s all we do. We put a note sheet and the questions in the weekend bulletin and let people prepare for their group meeting at their own pace.
It’s become the core of our ministry’s health—and the secret to making my preaching more memorable.
5 Ways to Diagnose Passionless Preaching
By Peter Mead
Peter Mead is involved in church leadership at an independent Bible church in the UK. He serves as director of Cor Deo—an innovative mentored ministry training program—and has a wider ministry preaching and training preachers. He also blogs often at BiblicalPreaching.net.
Recently, I talked about passion that can become off-putting. But what about the preachers who are devoid of all passion, preaching sermons as limp as soggy cardboard? If you know one, I’ll leave you to figure out how to get them to read this article. If you know you are one, perhaps this will help.
Peter Mead is involved in church leadership at an independent Bible church in the UK. He serves as director of Cor Deo—an innovative mentored ministry training program—and has a wider ministry preaching and training preachers. He also blogs often at BiblicalPreaching.net.
Recently, I talked about passion that can become off-putting. But what about the preachers who are devoid of all passion, preaching sermons as limp as soggy cardboard? If you know one, I’ll leave you to figure out how to get them to read this article. If you know you are one, perhaps this will help.
1. Hear what people are saying, and hear what you are saying.
If people are saying your preaching is dull, you need to hear that feedback. Don’t blame them. Don’t ignore them. Hear them. Equally, if you will just listen to yourself or watch yourself on video, you will see just how bland the sermon presentation actually is. You may say, “Oh no, I am much more passionate than I come across!” OK, but you don’t come across as passionate, so it is actually irrelevant how passionate you may be on the inside.2. Is it frozen delivery?
It is common for speakers to freeze when presenting to a crowd of people. What feels so fiery on the inside comes out as a restricted vocal range, monotonous tone, limited gestures, solidified facial expression, and the natural movement of a broken robot with fading batteries. It may simply be that you need to grow in the area of delivery, not learning to be someone else, but learning to be yourself freely in front of the folks.3. Is it personal fatigue?
Maybe you are preparing half of Saturday night and then skipping breakfast and preaching on empty. Sometimes emergencies occur, and we have no choice but to preach on an empty tank. But generally speaking, it isn’t a good idea, or good stewardship of your ministry, to eat poorly, sleep inadequately, exercise rarely, and preach in a state of physical breakdown.4. Is it a loss of vision?
Ministry can take its toll. Well-intentioned dragons can sap energy like nothing else, like the repetition of services with minimal response, or an overloaded ministry schedule because you are the only person active in ministry in the church, etc. Before long, you are struggling to preach with any vision other than getting it done for another week. Not good.5. Is it eyes unfixed and heart gone cold?
Here’s the big one, whether it is true or not. Preaching without passion comes across as if what you are preaching about isn’t really that important. Unbelievers will be put off the gospel and believers will be discouraged. The greatest solution to the greatest problem in passionless preaching is to get your eyes fixed back on Christ and allow the sunshine of God’s grace to bring your heart back to the boil. When we taste and see that the Lord is good, it becomes much harder to preach without passion.Biblical Preaching Is About Life Change—Not Sermon Form
By John Ortberg
John Ortberg is teaching pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California and author of several books, including The Life You've Always Wanted and The Me I Want to Be. Taken from Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching, The by CRAIG BRIAN LARSON; HADDON ROBINSON. Copyright © 2005 by Christianity Today International. Used by permission of Zondervan. www.zondervan.com
The core value of preaching that changes lives is that it’s biblical. You and I don’t change lives. God changes lives. For two thousand years, he has used the power of this Word to convict stubborn hearts of sin, to move cold spirits to repentance, and to lift faltering lives to hope.
The question that causes a fair amount of controversy is: What makes preaching biblical?
It’s Not About Form
Often people think what makes preaching biblical is a particular style or structure. Where I grew up, people talked about three categories for preaching: topical, often regarded as not very biblical; textual, where the main point comes from a Scripture verse, which was considered more biblical; and expository, which is difficult to get a clear definition of. Expository is a word that gets thrown around a lot. Some people think of it as verse-by-verse preaching, or where points and subpoints are from one text in Scripture.
There are a number of problems with thinking one particular style or structure of preaching is the only kind that’s biblical. One problem is Jesus didn’t do that kind of expository preaching. Mostly he told stories and the implications for listeners’ lives. The apostles didn’t do that kind of expository preaching. In the New Testament you don’t see any sermon that goes verse by verse through an Old Testament text. I’m not saying that kind of preaching is a bad thing. It’s important that people become biblically literate. But what makes preaching biblical is not its structure. To be biblical does not mean the preacher follows a particular form that, after all, human beings created.
It’s About Relevance, Application, and Enablement
William D. Thompson, author of Preaching Biblically, writes, “Biblical preaching is when listeners are enabled to see how their world, like the biblical world, is addressed by the Word of God.” It is important not to be superficial when it comes to what makes preaching biblical. How many Bible verses a sermon has does not determine whether or not it’s biblical. You can have a hundred verses in a sermon and misinterpret every one of them. It is not the structure. Biblical preaching occurs when people listen, are able to hear that God is addressing them as God addressed the world of the Scriptures, and are enabled to respond.
Far too many sermons have lots of information about the Bible but are not really biblical preaching because they do not call and enable people to respond to the Word. There is lots of information about the Bible—exegetical, historical, or theological—with maybe a few applications tacked on the end.
It’s About Working the Soap of the Word Deeply Through the Stained Fibers of Hearers' Hearts
What happens when the Word addresses people? In Ephesians 5:25–26, Paul has a wonderful metaphor. He says, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the Word.” The church is to be made holy by being cleansed with the washing of the Word. Why do you wash something? Because it’s dirty. What happens when you wash something? Soap and water move through the fibers and lift out impurities from the fabric.
When we and our congregations come before God, our hearts are like that. They are cluttered with false beliefs and attitudes, misguided intentions, and wrong perceptions.
I could tell you what a few of mine are. I’m walking down the street. Somebody wants money. I find myself looking away from him because I don’t even want to be reminded of that need, and I don’t want to feel guilty by not giving him something. Or I’m at a convenience store in a line of people, and the person behind the counter doesn’t speak English well, and my reflexive thoughts are, I’m in a hurry. Why can’t they get somebody who speaks English well around here? Or another time I’m in church standing next to somebody who’s important and the thoughts that run through my mind are, This is an important person. I wonder what I might be able to say to make a connection because he or she is important.
Those are just a few thoughts in my mind that are dirty. They equip me for bad works. They make bad feelings and behaviors almost inevitable. Imagine having a mind cleansed of all that. Imagine when you’re with somebody, your first thought is to pray for them and bless them. Imagine that if you’re challenged, your first thought is to look to God for strength.
That’s what it would be like to have a mind washed by the Word, and that’s your goal for the people to whom you speak. That’s the goal of biblical preaching. The goal is not to get vast amounts of exegetical information into people. My goal is not to get people all the way through the Bible. My goal is to get the Bible all the way through people.
Biblical preaching answers three questions: What must hearers know, feel, and do? To do that I ask three questions. What do I want people to know? What do I want people to feel? What do I want people to do? I think about these questions for every message I preach because if I don’t address the mind and heart and will—if I can’t answer those questions—then I need not deliver this message because it’s not going to wash their minds in the Word.
Your goal is to wash the minds of your people in the Word so that Christ is formed in them. That’s biblical preaching.
John Ortberg is teaching pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California and author of several books, including The Life You've Always Wanted and The Me I Want to Be. Taken from Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching, The by CRAIG BRIAN LARSON; HADDON ROBINSON. Copyright © 2005 by Christianity Today International. Used by permission of Zondervan. www.zondervan.com
The core value of preaching that changes lives is that it’s biblical. You and I don’t change lives. God changes lives. For two thousand years, he has used the power of this Word to convict stubborn hearts of sin, to move cold spirits to repentance, and to lift faltering lives to hope.
The question that causes a fair amount of controversy is: What makes preaching biblical?
It’s Not About Form
Often people think what makes preaching biblical is a particular style or structure. Where I grew up, people talked about three categories for preaching: topical, often regarded as not very biblical; textual, where the main point comes from a Scripture verse, which was considered more biblical; and expository, which is difficult to get a clear definition of. Expository is a word that gets thrown around a lot. Some people think of it as verse-by-verse preaching, or where points and subpoints are from one text in Scripture.
There are a number of problems with thinking one particular style or structure of preaching is the only kind that’s biblical. One problem is Jesus didn’t do that kind of expository preaching. Mostly he told stories and the implications for listeners’ lives. The apostles didn’t do that kind of expository preaching. In the New Testament you don’t see any sermon that goes verse by verse through an Old Testament text. I’m not saying that kind of preaching is a bad thing. It’s important that people become biblically literate. But what makes preaching biblical is not its structure. To be biblical does not mean the preacher follows a particular form that, after all, human beings created.
It’s About Relevance, Application, and Enablement
William D. Thompson, author of Preaching Biblically, writes, “Biblical preaching is when listeners are enabled to see how their world, like the biblical world, is addressed by the Word of God.” It is important not to be superficial when it comes to what makes preaching biblical. How many Bible verses a sermon has does not determine whether or not it’s biblical. You can have a hundred verses in a sermon and misinterpret every one of them. It is not the structure. Biblical preaching occurs when people listen, are able to hear that God is addressing them as God addressed the world of the Scriptures, and are enabled to respond.
Far too many sermons have lots of information about the Bible but are not really biblical preaching because they do not call and enable people to respond to the Word. There is lots of information about the Bible—exegetical, historical, or theological—with maybe a few applications tacked on the end.
It’s About Working the Soap of the Word Deeply Through the Stained Fibers of Hearers' Hearts
What happens when the Word addresses people? In Ephesians 5:25–26, Paul has a wonderful metaphor. He says, “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the Word.” The church is to be made holy by being cleansed with the washing of the Word. Why do you wash something? Because it’s dirty. What happens when you wash something? Soap and water move through the fibers and lift out impurities from the fabric.
When we and our congregations come before God, our hearts are like that. They are cluttered with false beliefs and attitudes, misguided intentions, and wrong perceptions.
I could tell you what a few of mine are. I’m walking down the street. Somebody wants money. I find myself looking away from him because I don’t even want to be reminded of that need, and I don’t want to feel guilty by not giving him something. Or I’m at a convenience store in a line of people, and the person behind the counter doesn’t speak English well, and my reflexive thoughts are, I’m in a hurry. Why can’t they get somebody who speaks English well around here? Or another time I’m in church standing next to somebody who’s important and the thoughts that run through my mind are, This is an important person. I wonder what I might be able to say to make a connection because he or she is important.
Those are just a few thoughts in my mind that are dirty. They equip me for bad works. They make bad feelings and behaviors almost inevitable. Imagine having a mind cleansed of all that. Imagine when you’re with somebody, your first thought is to pray for them and bless them. Imagine that if you’re challenged, your first thought is to look to God for strength.
That’s what it would be like to have a mind washed by the Word, and that’s your goal for the people to whom you speak. That’s the goal of biblical preaching. The goal is not to get vast amounts of exegetical information into people. My goal is not to get people all the way through the Bible. My goal is to get the Bible all the way through people.
Biblical preaching answers three questions: What must hearers know, feel, and do? To do that I ask three questions. What do I want people to know? What do I want people to feel? What do I want people to do? I think about these questions for every message I preach because if I don’t address the mind and heart and will—if I can’t answer those questions—then I need not deliver this message because it’s not going to wash their minds in the Word.
Your goal is to wash the minds of your people in the Word so that Christ is formed in them. That’s biblical preaching.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Steve Jobs' Speech at Stanford, 2005
譯者注：你或許讀過這篇演講稿，但今天重讀，你一定有不一樣的感受。蘋果公司共同創辦人賈伯斯二○○五年到加州史丹福大學畢業典禮演講，
後來被稱為「賈伯斯的人生三堂課」，曾感動無數人，在他過世後，昨天再度被全球網友瘋狂轉貼。他在演說中談到對死亡的看法、創業歷程和人生哲學，堪稱賈伯
斯畢生歷練的精華。特譯全文，讓讀者回顧與珍藏這篇歷史性演說。
從出生到被收養 一波三折
今天，我很榮幸和各位一同參加全球第一流大學的畢業典禮。本人大學沒畢業。老實說，這是我離大學畢業最近的一刻。今天我只說三個親身的故事。沒什麼了不起。就是三個故事。
第一個故事，是人生的點點滴滴如何串在一塊。
我在里德學院念了六個月就休學，但多待了十八個月才離校。我為什麼要休學？
故事得從我出生前談起。我生母是未婚的大學研究生，她決定讓別人收養我，更認為應該讓擁有大學學歷的夫婦收養我。原本有對律師夫婦準備收養我。但他們想要 的其實是女孩。所以在等待收養名單上的一對夫妻，半夜裡接到電話詢問：「這裡突然有個男嬰，你們要嗎？」他們說：「當然。」後來我的生母發現，我現在的媽 媽大學沒畢業，我現在的爸爸連高中都沒畢業。她拒絕在收養文件上簽名。直到幾個月後，我的養父母承諾將來一定讓我上大學，她才改變心意。
十七年後，我真的上大學了。但我太天真，選了一所學費幾乎跟史丹福一樣貴的學校。我的父母是勞動階級，積蓄全拿來繳我的學費了。六個月後，我看不出念大學 的價值到底在哪裡。當時，我不曉得以後要做什麼，也不知道大學要怎麼幫我理出頭緒。而我在這裡念大學，花光了父母畢生的積蓄。於是我決定休學，相信船到橋 頭自然直。在當時，這是個讓人害怕的決定；但現在來看，卻是我這輩子做過最好的決定之一。一休學，我再也不上沒興趣的必修課，開始上看起來有意思的課。
可這一點兒也不浪漫。我沒有宿舍房間，所以在朋友房間打地鋪，靠回收可樂瓶罐每個五分錢的退瓶費買東西吃，每周日晚上穿越市區，走七哩遠的路到禮讚克里西那神廟飽餐一頓。我樂在其中。那時候基於好奇心和直覺，碰巧栽進去的事物，後來大多都成了無價之寶。
里德學院的英文書法課大概是全國最好的。校園各個角落的每張海報、教室抽屜的標籤，都是漂亮的書寫體。我休學，不用上正課，決定學書法。我學到了襯線字體 與無襯線字體，學會在不同的字母組合間變換間距，認識活版印刷偉大之處。這種優美、兼具歷史感與藝術感的微妙形式，是科學無法捕捉的。我覺得它很迷人。
我從未期待這些東西能在我的人生中發揮任何實際作用。然而，十年後，當我們在設計第一台麥金塔電腦時，這一切突然重新浮現在我腦海中。我們把這些想法都納 入麥金塔系統的程式設計。這是第一部具有優美字體的電腦。假如我當年在大學沒上過那一門課，麥金塔就不可能有那麼多種字體以及字母間距協調勻襯的字型。且 因視窗系統抄襲麥金塔，假如我沒輟學，就不會去旁聽書法課，所有個人電腦恐怕都不會有今天各種優美的字體。我念大學時，無法預見如何將這些點點滴滴串在一 起。但是十年後再回顧，就非常、非常清楚。
各位無法預先串連人生的點滴，只能在回顧時將其串連起來，因此必須相信這些點滴總會以某種方式在未來串連。各位必須相信某些事情──直覺、天命、人生、因果，凡此種種。這樣的想法從未讓我失望，也讓我的人生更美好。
從車庫起家 到員工四千人
我的第二個故事，是關於愛與失去。
我很幸運，年輕時就發現自己喜歡做的事情。我二十歲時，就和沃茲合作，在我父母親的車庫創辦蘋果電腦。我們拚命工作，十年後，蘋果電腦已經從車庫二人組成 長為一家價值二十億美元、員工超過四千人的公司。我們一年前才推出最棒的作品──麥金塔，我剛滿三十歲。然後，我被解雇了。你怎麼會被自己創辦的公司解雇 呢？是這樣的，當蘋果日益擴大，我聘請一位我認為很有才華的人跟我一起經營公司，起初合作愉快。但我們對願景的想法開始不同，鬧到決裂。董事會挺他，炒了 我魷魚，公開把我掃地出門。我成年後的生活重心全部消失了，對我打擊很大。
我有好幾個月實在不知該如何是好，更覺得令企業界前輩失望了：他們傳給我的接力棒，掉了。我找了派克（惠普科技創辦人之一）和諾宜斯（英特爾創辦人之 一），試圖向他們道歉，因為我搞砸了。我是個眾所周知的失敗者，甚至想遠離矽谷。然而我慢慢領悟，我仍喜歡我本來做的事，我在蘋果發生的波折絲毫都沒有改 變這一點，即使人們否定我，可是我還是愛做那些事情，所以我決定從頭來過。
當時我沒察覺，不過被蘋果炒魷魚變成我人生中最棒的遭遇。成功的沉重被重新創業的輕鬆取代，每件事都少一點確定，讓我進入人生中最有創意的階段。
接下來的五年我創辦了一家叫做NeXT的公司，又創辦另一家叫做皮克斯的公司，還愛上了一個好女人，她後來成為我的妻子。皮克斯製作了世上第一部電腦動畫 劇情長片「玩具總動員」，它也是當今最成功的動畫製片廠。在某個奇特的形勢變化下，蘋果買下NeXT，我回到蘋果，我們在NeXT發展的技術成了蘋果重振 雄風的關鍵，羅倫和我也共組了美滿的家庭。
我敢打包票，蘋果沒開除我的話，這些事絕不會發生。這是帖苦藥，可是我認為良藥苦口利於病。有時候，老天會拿磚塊砸你的頭。不要失去信心。我很確信，我能 堅持下去的唯一理由就是我愛自己所做的事。你必須找到你的所愛，對工作、對愛情都一樣。工作會占去你一大塊人生，唯一能真正滿足的方法，就是去做你認為偉 大的事情。要做偉大的事，唯一方法就是做你愛做的事。如果你還沒找到，繼續觀察，不要停止。全心全意去找，發現時自然會知道。就像所有美妙的關係，隨時間 展延，只會愈來愈好，所以繼續找，找到為止。
從接近死神 到了解死亡
我的第三個故事，是關於死亡。
十七歲時讀到的一則格言影響了我：「把每一天都當成生命中的最後一天，你終會找到人生的方向。」過去三十三年，每天早上我都會攬鏡自問：「如果今天是我人生的最後一天，我會想做我今天要做的事嗎？」每當連續好多天答案都是否定時，我就會知道我必須有所改變了。
提醒自己快死了，是我做重大決定時最重要的工具。幾乎每件事，所有外界期望、所有名譽、所有對困窘或失敗的恐懼，在面對死亡時，全消失了，只有最重要的東西才會留下。提醒自己你快死了，是最好的方法，避免掉進患得患失的陷阱。你本來就一無所有，沒理由不順心而為。
一年前，我被判定得了癌症。早上七點半做斷層掃描時，發現胰臟裡出現腫瘤，我甚至不知道胰臟是什麼器官。醫生告訴我，幾乎確定是不治之症，頂多再活三到六 個月。醫生要我回家，交代後事。醫生對末期病人都會說這樣的話。這表示你要在幾個月內，對孩子說完本來是未來十年要告訴他們的話；這也表示你要把每件事安 排好，家人才會比較好過，這更表示你要向所有人說再見。
診斷結果讓我想了一整天。傍晚時，我被帶去做切片，他們把內視鏡從我喉嚨伸進去，穿過我的胃，進入腸子，把針刺進胰臟，取得一些腫瘤細胞。我打了麻醉，不 省人事，但是我太太在場，她後來告訴我，當他們在顯微鏡下看見細胞時，醫生們都脫口而出驚呼，因為這是一種很少見、可以用手術治癒的胰臟癌，後來我接受手 術，現在沒事了。
那是我最靠近死神的一刻，希望也是未來幾十年最接近的一次。有了這次經驗，比起從前死亡只是一個有用但純粹抽象的概念，我可以更確定的對你們說：沒有人想 死。即使那些想上天堂的人，也不想搭乘死亡列車抵達那裏。然而，死亡是我們共同的宿命，沒有人能逃過這個宿命，死亡很可能是生命獨一無二的最棒發明，它是 生命更替變化的媒介，它清除老一代的生命，為新一代開道。此刻的新一代是你們，不久的將來，你們也會變老，並且被清掉。很抱歉講這麼誇張，但是實話。
人生苦短，不要浪費時間活在別人的陰影裡；不要被教條困住，活在別人思考的結果裡。不要讓他人意見的雜音壓過自己的心聲。最重要的，有勇氣去追隨自己的內心與直覺。它們已經知道你真的想成為什麼樣的人。其他均屬次要。
我年輕的時候，有本很棒的刊物叫做「全球目錄」，是我這一代的聖經之一。這本刊物是一個名叫史都華‧布蘭德的傢伙，在離這裏不遠的門羅公園創辦的，他以自 己詩意的感受賦與這本刊物生命。那是一九六○年代晚期的事了，當時，個人電腦與桌上型電腦尚未誕生，所以，這本刊物全都是用打字機、剪刀與拍立得相機製作 而成，它就像紙本Google，比Google早了三十五年問世；它很理想化、充滿了很優的工具跟概念。
史都華與他的團隊發行了幾期「全球目錄」，當這本刊物完成使命後發行了最後一期。當時是一九七○年代中期，我和各位年紀差不多。最後一期封底，有張清晨鄉 間公路的照片，那是某種夠有冒險精神的人可能會在那裏搭便車的路。照片下面有一段話：「求知若飢，虛心若愚。」那是他們停刊的告別辭。
求知若飢，虛心若愚，我一直以此自許。各位現在畢業了，展開人生新的一頁之際，我也以此期許各位：求知若飢，虛懷若愚。
非常謝謝大家。
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out.
And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.
I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
從出生到被收養 一波三折
今天，我很榮幸和各位一同參加全球第一流大學的畢業典禮。本人大學沒畢業。老實說，這是我離大學畢業最近的一刻。今天我只說三個親身的故事。沒什麼了不起。就是三個故事。
第一個故事，是人生的點點滴滴如何串在一塊。
我在里德學院念了六個月就休學，但多待了十八個月才離校。我為什麼要休學？
故事得從我出生前談起。我生母是未婚的大學研究生，她決定讓別人收養我，更認為應該讓擁有大學學歷的夫婦收養我。原本有對律師夫婦準備收養我。但他們想要 的其實是女孩。所以在等待收養名單上的一對夫妻，半夜裡接到電話詢問：「這裡突然有個男嬰，你們要嗎？」他們說：「當然。」後來我的生母發現，我現在的媽 媽大學沒畢業，我現在的爸爸連高中都沒畢業。她拒絕在收養文件上簽名。直到幾個月後，我的養父母承諾將來一定讓我上大學，她才改變心意。
十七年後，我真的上大學了。但我太天真，選了一所學費幾乎跟史丹福一樣貴的學校。我的父母是勞動階級，積蓄全拿來繳我的學費了。六個月後，我看不出念大學 的價值到底在哪裡。當時，我不曉得以後要做什麼，也不知道大學要怎麼幫我理出頭緒。而我在這裡念大學，花光了父母畢生的積蓄。於是我決定休學，相信船到橋 頭自然直。在當時，這是個讓人害怕的決定；但現在來看，卻是我這輩子做過最好的決定之一。一休學，我再也不上沒興趣的必修課，開始上看起來有意思的課。
可這一點兒也不浪漫。我沒有宿舍房間，所以在朋友房間打地鋪，靠回收可樂瓶罐每個五分錢的退瓶費買東西吃，每周日晚上穿越市區，走七哩遠的路到禮讚克里西那神廟飽餐一頓。我樂在其中。那時候基於好奇心和直覺，碰巧栽進去的事物，後來大多都成了無價之寶。
里德學院的英文書法課大概是全國最好的。校園各個角落的每張海報、教室抽屜的標籤，都是漂亮的書寫體。我休學，不用上正課，決定學書法。我學到了襯線字體 與無襯線字體，學會在不同的字母組合間變換間距，認識活版印刷偉大之處。這種優美、兼具歷史感與藝術感的微妙形式，是科學無法捕捉的。我覺得它很迷人。
我從未期待這些東西能在我的人生中發揮任何實際作用。然而，十年後，當我們在設計第一台麥金塔電腦時，這一切突然重新浮現在我腦海中。我們把這些想法都納 入麥金塔系統的程式設計。這是第一部具有優美字體的電腦。假如我當年在大學沒上過那一門課，麥金塔就不可能有那麼多種字體以及字母間距協調勻襯的字型。且 因視窗系統抄襲麥金塔，假如我沒輟學，就不會去旁聽書法課，所有個人電腦恐怕都不會有今天各種優美的字體。我念大學時，無法預見如何將這些點點滴滴串在一 起。但是十年後再回顧，就非常、非常清楚。
各位無法預先串連人生的點滴，只能在回顧時將其串連起來，因此必須相信這些點滴總會以某種方式在未來串連。各位必須相信某些事情──直覺、天命、人生、因果，凡此種種。這樣的想法從未讓我失望，也讓我的人生更美好。
從車庫起家 到員工四千人
我的第二個故事，是關於愛與失去。
我很幸運，年輕時就發現自己喜歡做的事情。我二十歲時，就和沃茲合作，在我父母親的車庫創辦蘋果電腦。我們拚命工作，十年後，蘋果電腦已經從車庫二人組成 長為一家價值二十億美元、員工超過四千人的公司。我們一年前才推出最棒的作品──麥金塔，我剛滿三十歲。然後，我被解雇了。你怎麼會被自己創辦的公司解雇 呢？是這樣的，當蘋果日益擴大，我聘請一位我認為很有才華的人跟我一起經營公司，起初合作愉快。但我們對願景的想法開始不同，鬧到決裂。董事會挺他，炒了 我魷魚，公開把我掃地出門。我成年後的生活重心全部消失了，對我打擊很大。
我有好幾個月實在不知該如何是好，更覺得令企業界前輩失望了：他們傳給我的接力棒，掉了。我找了派克（惠普科技創辦人之一）和諾宜斯（英特爾創辦人之 一），試圖向他們道歉，因為我搞砸了。我是個眾所周知的失敗者，甚至想遠離矽谷。然而我慢慢領悟，我仍喜歡我本來做的事，我在蘋果發生的波折絲毫都沒有改 變這一點，即使人們否定我，可是我還是愛做那些事情，所以我決定從頭來過。
當時我沒察覺，不過被蘋果炒魷魚變成我人生中最棒的遭遇。成功的沉重被重新創業的輕鬆取代，每件事都少一點確定，讓我進入人生中最有創意的階段。
接下來的五年我創辦了一家叫做NeXT的公司，又創辦另一家叫做皮克斯的公司，還愛上了一個好女人，她後來成為我的妻子。皮克斯製作了世上第一部電腦動畫 劇情長片「玩具總動員」，它也是當今最成功的動畫製片廠。在某個奇特的形勢變化下，蘋果買下NeXT，我回到蘋果，我們在NeXT發展的技術成了蘋果重振 雄風的關鍵，羅倫和我也共組了美滿的家庭。
我敢打包票，蘋果沒開除我的話，這些事絕不會發生。這是帖苦藥，可是我認為良藥苦口利於病。有時候，老天會拿磚塊砸你的頭。不要失去信心。我很確信，我能 堅持下去的唯一理由就是我愛自己所做的事。你必須找到你的所愛，對工作、對愛情都一樣。工作會占去你一大塊人生，唯一能真正滿足的方法，就是去做你認為偉 大的事情。要做偉大的事，唯一方法就是做你愛做的事。如果你還沒找到，繼續觀察，不要停止。全心全意去找，發現時自然會知道。就像所有美妙的關係，隨時間 展延，只會愈來愈好，所以繼續找，找到為止。
從接近死神 到了解死亡
我的第三個故事，是關於死亡。
十七歲時讀到的一則格言影響了我：「把每一天都當成生命中的最後一天，你終會找到人生的方向。」過去三十三年，每天早上我都會攬鏡自問：「如果今天是我人生的最後一天，我會想做我今天要做的事嗎？」每當連續好多天答案都是否定時，我就會知道我必須有所改變了。
提醒自己快死了，是我做重大決定時最重要的工具。幾乎每件事，所有外界期望、所有名譽、所有對困窘或失敗的恐懼，在面對死亡時，全消失了，只有最重要的東西才會留下。提醒自己你快死了，是最好的方法，避免掉進患得患失的陷阱。你本來就一無所有，沒理由不順心而為。
一年前，我被判定得了癌症。早上七點半做斷層掃描時，發現胰臟裡出現腫瘤，我甚至不知道胰臟是什麼器官。醫生告訴我，幾乎確定是不治之症，頂多再活三到六 個月。醫生要我回家，交代後事。醫生對末期病人都會說這樣的話。這表示你要在幾個月內，對孩子說完本來是未來十年要告訴他們的話；這也表示你要把每件事安 排好，家人才會比較好過，這更表示你要向所有人說再見。
診斷結果讓我想了一整天。傍晚時，我被帶去做切片，他們把內視鏡從我喉嚨伸進去，穿過我的胃，進入腸子，把針刺進胰臟，取得一些腫瘤細胞。我打了麻醉，不 省人事，但是我太太在場，她後來告訴我，當他們在顯微鏡下看見細胞時，醫生們都脫口而出驚呼，因為這是一種很少見、可以用手術治癒的胰臟癌，後來我接受手 術，現在沒事了。
那是我最靠近死神的一刻，希望也是未來幾十年最接近的一次。有了這次經驗，比起從前死亡只是一個有用但純粹抽象的概念，我可以更確定的對你們說：沒有人想 死。即使那些想上天堂的人，也不想搭乘死亡列車抵達那裏。然而，死亡是我們共同的宿命，沒有人能逃過這個宿命，死亡很可能是生命獨一無二的最棒發明，它是 生命更替變化的媒介，它清除老一代的生命，為新一代開道。此刻的新一代是你們，不久的將來，你們也會變老，並且被清掉。很抱歉講這麼誇張，但是實話。
人生苦短，不要浪費時間活在別人的陰影裡；不要被教條困住，活在別人思考的結果裡。不要讓他人意見的雜音壓過自己的心聲。最重要的，有勇氣去追隨自己的內心與直覺。它們已經知道你真的想成為什麼樣的人。其他均屬次要。
我年輕的時候，有本很棒的刊物叫做「全球目錄」，是我這一代的聖經之一。這本刊物是一個名叫史都華‧布蘭德的傢伙，在離這裏不遠的門羅公園創辦的，他以自 己詩意的感受賦與這本刊物生命。那是一九六○年代晚期的事了，當時，個人電腦與桌上型電腦尚未誕生，所以，這本刊物全都是用打字機、剪刀與拍立得相機製作 而成，它就像紙本Google，比Google早了三十五年問世；它很理想化、充滿了很優的工具跟概念。
史都華與他的團隊發行了幾期「全球目錄」，當這本刊物完成使命後發行了最後一期。當時是一九七○年代中期，我和各位年紀差不多。最後一期封底，有張清晨鄉 間公路的照片，那是某種夠有冒險精神的人可能會在那裏搭便車的路。照片下面有一段話：「求知若飢，虛心若愚。」那是他們停刊的告別辭。
求知若飢，虛心若愚，我一直以此自許。各位現在畢業了，展開人生新的一頁之際，我也以此期許各位：求知若飢，虛懷若愚。
非常謝謝大家。
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out.
And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.
I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Learning from Amanda Knox's speech in court
Translation of Amanda Knox’s speech in court – October 3, 2011:
Dear ladies and gentlemen of the court:
It has been said that I am a different person than who really I am. One doesn’t understand who I am - I am afraid.
(Judge: You can be seated, if you want.
Amanda: It is ok.)
I am the same person I was four years ago, the same person. The only thing that distinguishes me from four years ago is that I suffered (what I have gone through). In four years I lost a friend in a most brutal and unexplainable possible way. My absolute trust in authority of police has been lost. I had to face accusations, absolutely unfair without foundations, and I am paying with my life for things that I didn’t do. Four years ago I was four years younger (in age), also I was basically a younger person. I never suffered in my life before four years ago.
In a sense before four years ago, I didn’t know what tragedy was. The only tragedy I could see was on TV. I’ve never faced such fear, such tragedy and suffering.
I didn’t know how to face it, how to interpret it and absorb it deeply, how I was feeling when we discovered when Meredith was killed. I couldn’t believe how it was possible, I was afraid, because one person with whom I spent my life, who had her bedroom next to mine, was killed in our house. And if I was there that night I would be dead, like her. The only difference was that I wasn’t there. I was with Raffaelle.
Fortunately he was there with me, not only at that moment, but also afterwards. I didn’t have anybody. He was everything for me at that moment. I was calling my family, it is true, but at that moment, in that specific moment, I had him. I had him.
And the other thing that I had was my moral obligations to help justice and police, in whom I had trust. Because they were there to look for who was guilty, and they were there to protect us at the same time. I trusted them completely, without any doubt.
And when I was completely available in those days, I was tricked. The night between the 5th and the 6th of November, I was not only stressed out and pushed, but I was manipulated. I am not what they say I am - a perverse, violent person; this is not me. The things that they say I did, I didn’t kill, I didn’t abuse, I didn’t steal, I wasn’t there (at the scene) during the crime. I didn’t know Rudy.
I remember the police asking me to list all people that Meredith, we knew in that period in Perugia. I remember I said something about that guy. I know that Meredith and I met him in the apartment of the boys downstairs. I know he was playing basketball with the boys, but I didn’t know him even by his name. He was like everybody else around, just a face. He wasn’t a person with whom I had any kind of contact. Also, when they (the prosecution) said that I knew him, I never did what they say I did, but they say it happened like that. And even sometimes they say I didn’t do things, they change versions of what they say. They say it happened.
But it is not like that. I had good relationship with everybody. (With) my roommates, I was messy, I had an open mind; we had a good relationship. We were always available to each other. I was spending my time mostly with Meredith. We were friends. She worried about me when I was going to work, she was always friendly and dear to me.
Meredith was killed and I always wanted justice for her. I am not running away from the truth, and I never escaped from the truth. I insist on finding the truth. I insist after four desperate years, on my innocence, and on our innocence, because it is the truth and we deserve to be protected, recognized.
I want to go back home, I want to go back to my life. I don’t want to be punished. I don’t want my life taken away from me, my future, for something I didn’t do because I am innocent. Rafaelle is innocent. We deserve freedom because we didn’t commit this crime.
I have lot of respect for this court and for how the court conducted this trial, and I am thankful, and for this reason I ask for justice.
Translation for KING5 by Paola Copolla-Kuvac.
Dear ladies and gentlemen of the court:
It has been said that I am a different person than who really I am. One doesn’t understand who I am - I am afraid.
(Judge: You can be seated, if you want.
Amanda: It is ok.)
I am the same person I was four years ago, the same person. The only thing that distinguishes me from four years ago is that I suffered (what I have gone through). In four years I lost a friend in a most brutal and unexplainable possible way. My absolute trust in authority of police has been lost. I had to face accusations, absolutely unfair without foundations, and I am paying with my life for things that I didn’t do. Four years ago I was four years younger (in age), also I was basically a younger person. I never suffered in my life before four years ago.
In a sense before four years ago, I didn’t know what tragedy was. The only tragedy I could see was on TV. I’ve never faced such fear, such tragedy and suffering.
I didn’t know how to face it, how to interpret it and absorb it deeply, how I was feeling when we discovered when Meredith was killed. I couldn’t believe how it was possible, I was afraid, because one person with whom I spent my life, who had her bedroom next to mine, was killed in our house. And if I was there that night I would be dead, like her. The only difference was that I wasn’t there. I was with Raffaelle.
Fortunately he was there with me, not only at that moment, but also afterwards. I didn’t have anybody. He was everything for me at that moment. I was calling my family, it is true, but at that moment, in that specific moment, I had him. I had him.
And the other thing that I had was my moral obligations to help justice and police, in whom I had trust. Because they were there to look for who was guilty, and they were there to protect us at the same time. I trusted them completely, without any doubt.
And when I was completely available in those days, I was tricked. The night between the 5th and the 6th of November, I was not only stressed out and pushed, but I was manipulated. I am not what they say I am - a perverse, violent person; this is not me. The things that they say I did, I didn’t kill, I didn’t abuse, I didn’t steal, I wasn’t there (at the scene) during the crime. I didn’t know Rudy.
I remember the police asking me to list all people that Meredith, we knew in that period in Perugia. I remember I said something about that guy. I know that Meredith and I met him in the apartment of the boys downstairs. I know he was playing basketball with the boys, but I didn’t know him even by his name. He was like everybody else around, just a face. He wasn’t a person with whom I had any kind of contact. Also, when they (the prosecution) said that I knew him, I never did what they say I did, but they say it happened like that. And even sometimes they say I didn’t do things, they change versions of what they say. They say it happened.
But it is not like that. I had good relationship with everybody. (With) my roommates, I was messy, I had an open mind; we had a good relationship. We were always available to each other. I was spending my time mostly with Meredith. We were friends. She worried about me when I was going to work, she was always friendly and dear to me.
Meredith was killed and I always wanted justice for her. I am not running away from the truth, and I never escaped from the truth. I insist on finding the truth. I insist after four desperate years, on my innocence, and on our innocence, because it is the truth and we deserve to be protected, recognized.
I want to go back home, I want to go back to my life. I don’t want to be punished. I don’t want my life taken away from me, my future, for something I didn’t do because I am innocent. Rafaelle is innocent. We deserve freedom because we didn’t commit this crime.
I have lot of respect for this court and for how the court conducted this trial, and I am thankful, and for this reason I ask for justice.
Translation for KING5 by Paola Copolla-Kuvac.
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