Vonda here: Yes, it’s time for Part 3 of author, speaker, and threat to society, James Watkins‘ keynote at Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. But before you read today’s post, you’ll want to check out “Your ‘Write’ Role,” Part 1 and “Your ‘Write’ Role,” Part 2 first. This four-part Parting Words Fridays will be unlike anything you’ve ever seen here, or probably anywhere else for that matter!
So pull up a chair, put on your creative-thinking-and-real-life-application-hat, and hear Jim’s heart for Christian writers and speakers, Part 3, taken from 1 Corinthians 12, as paraphrased by the New Living Amplified Paraphrased King James Watkins Version for Writers.
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Your “Write” Role, Part 3
By James Watkins
3. You have an individual role in Christian writing
Paul writes, “Here are some of the parts God has appointed for the church.” It’s not a exhaustive list. There are other lists in Romans 12 and Ephesians 4. But here’s the point: everyone is an individual in the body.
The late, great author Calvin Miller wrote of me: “Jim Watkins is one in a million. Two in a million would be overkill.” I think that was a compliment. Right?
We all have a choice. I can try to be a second-rate Max Lucado, or I can be a first-class Jim Watkins. You can be a imitation Debbie Macomber, or you can be an original you!
Now, I tend to write and speak in a way that makes people squirm in their comfortable padded pews. I’m a firm believer that writers and speakers are here to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. (Vonda here: This is a great quote–you should write it down!) I don’t let people sit too comfortably, so in the Body of Christ . . . I’m a hemorrhoid!
And I’m determined to be the world’s best pain in the behind!
God doesn’t need another Billy Graham or Karen Kingsbury or whoever you wish you were. He needs you to be you. And as scary as it sounds, he needs me to be me.
In the words of the great theologian Theodore Giesel, better known as “Dr. Seuss”:
Today you are You, that is truer than true.
There is no one alive who is You-er than You!
And the closer you get to God, the closer you get to being who He designed you to be.
Okay, how to do we determine our role in the Body? Here’s my P-A-T answer:
Passion: Can you not not write? Do you live and breathe to write? Would you write even if you weren’t paid? I’m guessing that because you took vacation time and maxed out your credit card to be here, you can check YES. Writing is your passion!
Affirmation: Has someone—other than your mother, best friend or spouse—affirmed your writing? Have you been published in a paying market?
Be careful on this one, because even though I started writing for the high school paper and won an award in the national honor society; and even though I’ve now written and contributed to over 35 books over the past 30 years; and even though I’ve won three professional writing awards and four industry editing awards . . . I got a C in Freshman Composition in college. A C!
And so I stopped writing for publication from 1972 to 1982! Ten years wasted because some professor decided I was a grade C writer. I’d like to take my solid walnut and brass Campus Life “Book of the Year” award and smack him up up side of the head. But I’m not bitter!
So, be careful! Those who can write, write. Those who can’t write, edit. And often, those who can’t write or edit, teach!
But if you’re receiving good professional critiques, if you’re being published, then you can check YES. You’re receiving affirmation!
Talent: Does writing seem to be much easier for you than your friends? Were you that one weird kid in high school who loved term papers? And do you have those divine moments when you look at what you’ve written and think Wow! That had to be God!
When your passions, affirmations, and talents all converge, that’s probably where you’ll live out the purpose for which you were created.
I wrote to a writer friend in February 2015:
While I am not seeing the success I hoped for in writing and speaking, I am beginning to realize what an impact I am making in the lives of people in print and online, at conferences, at church and especially in the lives of my daughter and her daughters. I’m realizing it has been a “Wonderful Life” and that I am a success with so many friends in the church and writing community. And I’m looking forward to what God has planned in the future. And if it doesn’t involve a best-selling book or stadium speech, I think I’m okay with that.
You were born an original, don’t die a copy! God created you to be you—and no one else.
Like any good novel, this talk has a surprise ending that you didn’t see coming.
The original text of the Bible is not broken up in chapters and verses. Just one solid block of text. So, if you’re ever on Jeopardy and the final answer is, “It’s the first English Bible to be divided into chapters and verses,” you would write—in the form of a question, of course—“What is the Geneva Bible published in 1560?”
So, Paul doesn’t take a breath between 1 Corinthians 12 and 13:
So, earnestly desire the most helpful of all the writing gifts. But now let me show you a way of writing that is best of all.
If I write with the pen of the psalmist and win national book awards, and donate all my royalties to the poor, but have not love, I only a clattering printer or a pounding four-color offset press with burned out bearings.
Where there are magazines, they shall cease publication. Where there are speaking venues, they shall pass away. Where there are Web sites, they shall crash. But love never fails.
Here’s what blows my little mind . . . straight out my ears . . .
John writes in chapter 4 of his first letter:
No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us (1 John 4:7-12).
John also writes in his gospel, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The “author and finisher of our faith” has now given you and me the responsibility to take that “Word” and put it into our own words, to be authors of the faith.
You are important. You are interdependent. You are an individual. But most of all . . . wait for it . . .
Vonda again: Be sure to return next Friday for Part 4 of James Watkins’ Your Write Role. You’ll be glad you did…and so will the rest of your Body. 
Copyright © 2015 James N. Watkins
Bio: Jim wears more hats than his Aunt Luella!
*Associate acquisitions editor for Wesleyan Publishing House
*Conference speaker throughout the U.S. and overseas
*Director of programming for St. Davids Writers’ Conference
*Editorial advisor for ACW Press
You can reach Jim through his site at or
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Another hilarious–but real–writers’ take on 1 Cor 12 – Part 3 by @JamesWatkinsCom via @VondaSkelton #amwriting (Click to Tweet)
I pray God’s blessing on the work of your hands and your heart,
Vonda
