SPIN: Can We Just Admit It?
Several years ago, I was on a teaching team at a church. We crafted a summer sermon series together entitled, “Heroes & Bums.” The idea was to highlight various Old Testament characters and portray them as either a “hero” or “bum” based on their behavior.
I was pretty excited about this series. In fact, the idea was mine—so I was REALLY EXCITED about “Heroes & Bums.”
Looking back, I’m rather embarrassed about the whole thing. It took some serious finagling to fit these Bible characters in either the “Hero” box or the “Bum” box. The heroes weren’t all that heroic and they had quite a few shady bum tendencies. The bums weren’t all bums either—every once in a while, they had bright heroic moments.
What’s embarrassing to me is the amount of spin required make this sermon series work the way we wanted it to. We left large amounts of information out, and we emphasized the bits that reinforced our angle… Read More
