Yesterday, I shared 3 More Tricks Writing Preachers Can Learn from Fiction, which followed Friday’s rant about Why Preachers Write Awful Books. Today, I’m taking a lighter note and sharing one last tip.

See I typically take this route on my diagnostics for other writers. I figure if you’re diagnosing a cancer, people want the bad news first and then to end on an upbeat. Let’s end with the good news: preachers simply must write good books. They must find a way.

Regardless of what I think or believe, I’m friends with many preachers who actually believe they offer life to a dying world, hope to a hopeless people, rest for the restless, peace to warmongers and the oppressed alike. If they believe this, truly believe it, then they need to get this word out to as many as possible. I’d say the same thing to anyone with passion in any craft: if it’s worth preserving for future generations then preserve it!

There’s a reason they say “publish or perish.” Video may or may not last, we don’t know yet, but the state of film reel preservation doesn’t look good. Audio may or may not last, but we do know that far fewer people have heard the C.S. Lewis radio broadcasts than have read Mere Christianity (on Amazon). Preachers must find a way not only to publish, but to publish quality literature that works well as literature and will last longer than a few months on some obscure and irrelevant Christian Bestseller list.

That brings me to the last and most important tip preachers could learn from fiction. Fiction writers say this so often it’s nauseating. They repeat it in every book on writing and practice it every time they write a book. They use it, abuse it, recycle it into other forms and lecture about it in lecture halls. And yet, I hear the following from preachers only when they also happen to write fiction:

Find your voice.

The dumbest thing I’ve ever heard preachers say is, “I’m not [insert trait] enough to write yet.” I hear this all the time. I’m too young. Too old. Too fat. Too out-of-touch. Too slow. Too fast. Too smart. Too… too… too… sounds like a laser gun firing at any excuse that moves. Calm down people, I understand.

See this idea flows from two sources. The first goes like this, “Don’t write until you have something to say.” The principle behind this is that proverb, “even a fool is thought wise if he keeps his mouth shut.” Trust me: as a naturally inflammatory person, I get it. I’ve made dozens of missteps through overstatement and offensive phrases over the years. In conversation especially, it’s better to listen than to speak.

But that doesn’t stop me from writing. Why? Because there’s something more important at stake. I know one day I will suddenly be old enough, smart enough, in-touch enough to say something. And on that day, I’ll be ready. I’ll have logged hundreds of thousands of hours refining my voice, figuring out how to say things well, how to know what I want to say and to say exactly that. I’ll know how to sound exactly like me and no one else. I’ll have found my voice, a voice that will give weight to those things I simply must say.

The idea of “I’m not [insert trait] enough to write yet” also comes from anxiety. What if they don’t like me? What if I come off sounding like an idiot? What if no one understands? What if… what if… what if… ?

What if you never find your voice and so hide your message and legacy?

What if people never get the chance to hear you say whatever you’ve been dying to say in the way that only you can say it?

Story time:

There’s this missionary I respect. He’s like eleventy-three years old, spent most of his life overseas working with the poor and caring for those that needed him most, offering wisdom and water. This guy just started writing his memoirs and you know what he said? “I wish I would have started sooner.”

Me too. I wish he would have started writing when he was twenty even though he had nothing to say. I wish he would have started publishing at thirty-five when he was just over the acceptance threshold of the rejection letter barrier.

Then by his eleventy-third birthday, he probably would have come out with a book much like Eugene Peterson’s “Pastor” — a collective representation of his life’s work. I’m no prophet, but there’s a good chance this guy’s incredible life and story will pass away into obscurity in a few generations. And that’s a terrible, terrible thing. Why?

An incredible story is a terrible thing to waste. Start writing, even if you suck at it. Tell your story.

Find your voice.

And one day, when you have something to say, you’ll say it in the way only you can say it. And every one of us will thank you.