Following Your Passion

When I came home from work last night, there was a package in the mail waiting for me. My thoughtful sister-in-law, Tami, had sent me a book. She is a voracious reader is often gives away books after reading them. Tami knew I'd like this one in particular.

It's the autobiography of Phil Vischer. He's had an enormous impact on our culture for good. You and your children and grandchildren have likely been influenced by him. Years ago he and a college buddy formed Big Ideas production and went on to produce the most popular Christian children videos in history -- Veggie Tales!

More than 50 million of his videos have been sold. One in three households with children in America has a Veggie Tales video.

Whenever I know about such a successful media person such as Phil Vischer, I love to read about how he got started. Last night I flew through 62 pages of his book and became fascinated with his journey and how God prepared him for making these wildly entertaining and faith-filled animated stories for kids.

What I found particularly fascinating about Phil's early years is how he sought God's will for how to use the creativity, filmmaking talent and wacky sense of humor to produce animation that would glorify Him. As a young teenager, he began making movies with high school friends, even putting together a makeshift optical printer to create special effects. When home computers came to the market, Phil began experimenting with computers and film. He attended seminars and met John Lasseter, who was experimenting with computer-generated short films that would eventually evolve into Pixar productions (ever heard of "Toy Story?")

When Phil was a young boy he sat in church hearing preachers calling young men and women to go into the mission field. Phil didn't think that was his call. When he was in Bible college, he was asked to do street witnessing. However, being the introverted, shy young man that he had been, the idea of verbally sharing his faith with strangers terrified him. But when someone invited him to be a part of a puppet ministry, he jumped at the idea. He loved the craziness and spontaneity of these puppet shows. And he could write scripts, one he called "Forgive-O-Matic," that would one day become the basis of a Veggie Tales video.

After Phil got kicked out of Bible college for missing too much chapel, he was given the opportunity to work for a video production company in Chicago -- at the ripe old age of 19. Door after door opened, as he learned more about editing and animation. And by the time he was 24, he felt ready to launch out and start his own animation company.

As I fell asleep after reading the early stages of Phil Vischer's video career, I thought a lot about calling. Doing what you love and doing so for the glory of God. I pondered how we can be tempted to choose a career that we think our parents or peers expect of us. Or we enter a field of work because we think we need to. We become driven more by duty than passion.

Several months ago I asked one of our elders, Vince Swinney, to have lunch with our son, Aaron. Vince has had about three careers, one being a pilot for United Airlines. After we discussed different possibilities for careers that would fit Aaron -- such as flying or being an air traffic controller -- Vince looked right into Aaron's
eyes and asked him a very important question:

"Aaron, what is your passion? What do you love to do?" I've known too many men who have worked a job for years and yet they hated it.

Without hesitation, Aaron said, "Refereeing basketball." Vince responded, "Well, maybe you should pursue that dream."

And that's what Aaron is doing. He really has a gift in this area and lately has been refereeing Abilene High and Cooper Varsity games. Last summer he attended three camps for referees, including one in Las Vegas where NBA refs trained him and 24 others. As the camp ended, one of these NBA guys told Aaron, "You're a good ref." Those worlds meant the world to Aaron and kept his dream alive.

Susan and I, along with several others who have watched our son on the court, have told Aaron to pursue his dream and follow this passion. Why not try?

What if Phil Vischer decided to not go into video animation because he felt that he should do something else? This world is so blessed by this man who went with his passion to the glory of God. Let me ask you a question:

What is YOUR passion? What are some of your dreams?

Why not lay them at the altar and ask the Lord to take this passion inside of you to a new level? Go for it. Mr. Veggie Tales man did. Our son is doing it. I feel the urge to write another book and this week plan to start editing some of these blog posts.

Tell us your dreams and passions. Share it on the comments, so we can all pray for one another and use these stirrings in our heart to impact this world for Jesus in all sorts of creative and diverse ways.

Who knows? There may be some BIG IDEAS about to emerge from this family of bloggers.

Jim