BLOCK

I spend a fairly large proportion of my working week writing.

When I first started working for a church I don’t think I envisaged quite how much writing it would involve, but I must have bashed out millions of words over the past 16 years.

There is the writing of sermons; writing small group study notes; writing training guides; writing emails; writing pastoral letters; writing blog posts; writing magazine articles – writing, writing, writing.

I guess not every church leader does as much writing as me (though plenty do a lot  more) but this is partly a reflection of my own personality and bias: I like writing. I like to get things down on paper, and I like to work on a sentence, a phrase, a paragraph. I like to see how words fit together, and to try and get the right punch! and flow in what I write. I hate reading poor writing. Many is the book that I have either discarded or taken an age to read, not so much because of weak content, but due to sloppy syntax. (This is a particular bane of Christian paperbacks.)

But sometimes in this torrent of words I get block. Like a hefty log wedged between the banks of a stream and stopping its flow, there are times when writing feels more a torture than a pleasure. This week has been one of those weeks. No inspiration for blog posts. Sermon preparation as laboured as a chain-smoking geriatrics breathing. Enthusiasm for other pieces of important preparation running at a crawl.

How to fix the problem?

Maybe writing about it will help!