Greg's Weekly Word: "lede"

When the newspaper does an article on your church, you may have ridiculous pictures like this one that are published.

I'm pretty sure I was saying, "Please don't use this photo."

It is a great story, though, and I certainly hope you'll take a few moments to read it if you haven't already. I especially like the first line of the article:

Members of Augusta Heights Baptist Church plan to downsize their facilities and expand their ministry.

In journalism they call this the lede - the introduction to a news article that is the main point or essence of the story. And Angelia Davis (who wrote the article above) certainly did not "bury the lede." The whole point of our project at the church is to expand our capacity for ministry, even as we downsize our facilities.

As we move forward with the plans for our project and with the project itself, we will also need to make sure we don't bury the lede... to stay focused on the essence of our story, which is sharing good news and doing the work to which Christ calls us... to remember (in the words of the '90s contemporary Christian song that is almost as cringe-worthy as my picture above),

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing

Or, to quote one of my favorite hymns,

I love to tell the story

'Twill be my theme in glory

To tell the old, old story

Of Jesus and his love

Let's continue to lead in our community by telling the story - with our words and actions - of Jesus and his love.

- GJD