WORD PEOPLE (Part 1)

One week before the opening of the 2018 Manila International Book fair (MIBF), OMF Lit hosted a Book Dedication event that gathered all of its staff, writers, and illustrators, to offer to God all its published books. It was to be a time of oneness, of praying and encouraging one another in our chosen ministry: Christian literature. 

OMF Lit’s theme this year encapsulates the company’s essence:  “Turn to the Word.”

I was tasked to deliver the message. Let me share with you the excerpted version of what the Lord led me to talk about.

As a former creative writer in an advertising agency, I have always been an exacting word person, a wordsmith. I counted words that would sell a brand in 30 seconds. 

Words were all I knew. I ate them for breakfast, lunch, and supper. I breathed words every hour. 

But one day, by divine intervention, I suddenly had a paradigm shift. I swerved and faced words of a different kind—The WORD. I left writing words for a living; from that day forward, I started writing about how grace found me. My view of ordinary things, as though by magic, turned extraordinary. 

I am sure all of you in this room are just like me. We may have come from different wombs, different experiences, and different eras, but we are all WORD people—you and I. Everyone involved in Christian publishing produces and markets one product: The WORD. 

Like a manufacturing firm, we all painstakingly develop this product and market it to as many demographics as possible. To reach them, the staff, writers, and illustrators of OMF Lit have to work closely together. 

Our raw materials for the only product we produce and sell come from only one Supplier—the Supplier of the Truth, which is The WORD. And that ever loyal supplier is also the God we serve, and for whom we market the product through our OMF lit titles. 

This commodity, therefore, must be an authentic representation of The WORD. 

Our mandate in producing this authentic product of truth is manifold. But let me lump them all into three. In advertising, words are few and simple, they are distilled and cut into bite-sized pieces.  The key word is deliberate. We must . . .

1. Deliberately understand the Word more.    
2. Deliberately pray more for the Holy Spirit to guide us in this quest for understanding. 
3. Deliberately be more cautious in living a life modeled by the Living word,  JESUS.

First, in crafting words in our own distinct voices, we need to seek the depth of The WORD so we don't pervert the truth. This takes thorough and relentless study of Scripture—in all our waking and sleeping hours. 

(To be continued next post, part 2)