Framing the Story We Find Ourselves In

Helping people discover the bigger story they are living in is a critical role of leaders. Recently I was talking to my friend Scott Beck who had just spoken at a morning prayer breakfast of 400 or so guests. I asked Scott what he spoke on. Apart from sharing his faith story he spoke on priorities. He said something like the following. “When it comes to priorities we don’t need to guess what our priorities should be. God has shown us that he is to be our first priority and if we are married, then our mate is our second priority and if we have children, then our kids our our third priority, so what we ar talking about is really our fourth priority.” I thought that was good but it got better. Scott is the Chairman of the Board for FamilyLife. So here is where “framing the story” comes in. Scott told the staff of family life his thoughts on priorities and then added this caveat: “If your fourth priority is helping others discover and live out priorities 1-3, then that’s the best job a person could have.” I imagine that for many of the FamilyLife staff Scott not only made their day but helped them frame the story of the critical nature and privilege of such a job.