Video Transcript: Introduction

Henry - Welcome to the How to be Interesting mini course, Henry Reyenga here with Steve Elzinga. And hopefully as with our blue shirts our matching blue  shirts. Hopefully as we present this, we are interesting. Well, we asked why we  have blue shirts on to sort of start in the right clothing.  

Steve – I thought we were going to wear the red ones. That's why I wore a blue  one. So, why Henry, why? What do you think? Before we get into how to be  interesting why should we do it? What's the point? What are some of the  benefits of being interesting?  

Henry - Well, one benefit is just for your own personal enjoyment of life. Apart  from ministry, apart from anything, when you're interesting, when you grow, I've  seen you're happier. It's more fun. It's more fun. Interesting than not interesting.  

Steve - I think it also it helps you connect with people, people want to be around  people that are interesting. It helps you develop friendships, partnerships. In a  marriage, sometimes I see husband or wife, they go out to eat, and they sit  there. And they have nothing to say to each other. Right? Because they know  each other, there's nothing new under the sun for them. And there they sit, right,  and then nothing interesting to say to one another. So it's sort of the glue that  helps relationships grow.  

Henry - Ministry, I think that the ministry is to be interesting. sermons that are not interesting, in many times sermons are boring, are hard to listen, right?  

Steve - So you want to be an influence in this world in ministry, or in the world  with anything, and if no one's listening to you, because you're making a  presentation. I remember, when I first thought about becoming a minister. This  was my thought I thought, okay, ministers have a lot of good things to say I  believe in Christianity. I believe it was the truth, I believe, you know that this is  what the world needs. But I thought, half of them don't know how to say it in a  way that people can listen to it. You have all this truth but what good is it if no  one's listening to it? So being interesting, makes people pay attention, and they  actually get what you're trying to say. Right?  

Henry - And then being interesting to allows you to listen to people better.  Because, in a sense, people just start talking. But if you're, there's an active  listening, and you can active listen sort of like... Or you can, with a curious mind  active listen. right?  

Steve - Like, like you could be listening is someone boring. But if you said to  yourself, I'm going to listen to you so strongly that I'm going to find the 

interesting thing in your boring message. Or people you know, you get to get to  know someone may seem like an ordinary person. But if you ask enough  questions, to reveal something inside, you'll be surprised at how interesting,  boring people  

Henry – You can open people up to be interesting, by your interesting listening.  Pretty crazy, right?  

Steve - Okay, so what's the first, let's look at the first way to try to be more so  

Henry - this is about no interesting things. Proverbs 18:15, intelligent heart  acquires knowledge, and the ear of a wise seeks wisdom, that's that last point  the ear in an interesting listener.  

Steve - Alright. So the more you know about the world around you, the more you have to share, right? And people are curious about things that they don't know.  You know, when when people sit together and talk, it's like one topic sort of  leads to another topic. It's not a logical presentation about anything. It's just you  start talking about this, you're talking about a fire and then you end up talking  about wood, talking about a tree and then you end up talking about building a  house and it goes all over the place. So, if you have a lot of interesting  knowledge in your toolbox, right, then when a topic comes up, it sparks a  thought for you. And now you can be a contributing person to the group talk.  Right that makes connection with with people fun.  

Henry - But in the more you research and you have a curious mind, the more  confident you are to share what you learned, if you don't really acquire  knowledge, so You really get into it? It's hard to speak up because because  somebody will ask you a question. If you know nothing like you're taking  courses, these mini courses or regular courses, at Christian leaders Institute in  college and all of that, that is expanding your knowledge in areas about  Christianity and ministry, that will help you become more interesting right?  

Steve - In the communication class that I did for Christian Leaders Institute, one  of my suggestions was that if you're going to communicate something, you're  going to give a speech or you're going to give a talk or sermon. If you start with  stuff that, you know, you're going to have your best chance at doing well, right?  Because when you start talking about the things, you know, like someone starts  explaining what they do for work, all of a sudden, they're animated, because this is the confidence about it. Right? And so that's what knowledge does for you. I'm sure many of you experienced that as is you've taken some classes, perhaps, at Christian Leaders Institute as you're taking this class, and all of a sudden, if a 

topic related to that comes up, you are eager to say something. you're eager.  Yeah, it's like, you know, someone would have to hold you back from  contributing to the conversation. If you're feeling not confident, and you, you  know, you're not sure about what you know, then you sit back and you don't  dare enter the fray. 

Henry - There was interesting, this course is on being interesting. And I know  that you and I have read 30, 40 books about this actual subject or related books  related to the subject, because we liked this subject. We've read books on the  subject. Some of the books have come in some of the classes at Christian  Leaders Institute. We've been on trips, hey, I'm reading this book right now this  talking about how to be more curious how to learn how to grow, how to smile,  how to be likeable, you know, all of those things, for what purpose ultimately, we  understand it is to glorify God, to live the life He's called us live with purpose and meaning and impact, happiness for ourselves and our family, all of those things.  But we're confident in this class, and we look forward to doing this class.  Because we know that we've journeyed in the acquiring of knowledge on these  subjects.  

Steve - In some ways, if you want to be interesting, you have to be interested.  Yes, you have to be interested in things in order to be interesting. It doesn't just  happen, right? So acquiring knowledge, learning, growing, studying, reading,  experiencing, all these things are going to help you become more interesting.  

Henry - So okay, so you go to someone's house, and you have no idea what  they do. So, last Saturday, I went to someone's house and this person is into  woody plants. Okay, now, I know you've seen one woody plant, you've seen  

them all. Okay, that's one of the I don't even know what a woody plant is. right  Okay, so a woody plant is like a rose? Woody. Why is it called Woody? Because  the stems have like, like wood to them. Okay, so they're, they're perennials, but  they're more substantial. And they come back every year. Which is what  perennial is. right? Well perennial means come back, but the Woody is a stem.  Okay, so there's all kinds of interesting woody plants out there. I have no idea  about. So at first, we were at this group, we have a little dinner thing. So the  head of the home who has this woody plant garden. Said hey, would you like to  take a tour? So at first, we're all like, We're all hungry. We're gonna take a tour  now. Rain might be coming, but it was very interesting. Everybody at that tour,  exhibited the interest in acquiring knowledge, including myself, and I lost my  feeling of hunger. I learned interesting stuff about how like, woody plant garden  is like, a community. He talked about like, some woody plants have free will, free Will? So he points up there, he points out there's this tree and they have these  climbing plants. And he said so when you plant them there half of them won't 

climb no matter what you do. So what you do is you nail them to the tree, you let go and they fall down. So he says what we have to do is prune those off  because they will never learn to climb a tree. You got to be kidding me. These  are climbing plants. But they will never learn how to climb trees. I have a new  metaphor, right?  

Steve – Some of you have children that just will not climb that tree no matter  Henry - what I have learned in the garden of woody plants with all kinds of  

Steve - pastoring the church and you're trying to make certain people be more  evangelistic. They're just not the ones that will climb the tree so just find some  others that actually are bent that way.  

Henry - Why do I raise my hand to do? So why have these plants and climb and  those plans are exactly the same, they're next to each other and, h said, you're  the theologian. You figure that out. I think there's so much interesting material, if  you have an inquiring mind, right.  

Steve - So an inquiring mind learning the knowledge, but then a real creative,  interesting mind. That applies it, right, that sees, I mean, what makes things  interesting a lot of times is the connection between two things. Right? So you  have your story of this woody plant thing, but then as you start thinking about  how that applies to relationships. Oh, now it's getting really interesting. Right?  

Henry - So this one lady says I want to go smell a rose and that rose had no  smell, absolutely no scent but beautiful and then I went over there and there's a  rose that didn't look so good that just filled scent. How come?And Dale said  well, because what the beautiful rose they don't need to do much and the bees  and the flies come over there. But the one that's that's not so beautiful has to  smell to draw them in. So we got like, we got like lazy climbing plants. We like  the it's like the high school all in a woody plant garden and it's because we  started asking questions that we started to find out and then we started getting  metaphors.  

Steve - Alright, so knowledge was one way and we're gonna look at some of  those. Okay, very good.