dumb luck, tragedies, coincidences and you

Commentator Ira Glass, in a recent podcast about stories of people who believe a book changed their life, cited sources of real change in peoples' lives: dumb luck, tragedies, and coincidences.

True?

Could someone's life be changed by an idea?

Or by a community of changers?

Maybe we should just wait for the next tragedy and leverage the change that comes from that.

Has your ministry, disciple class, event, 3 year term on your ministry team, kindness, voice, apology, encouragement, appreciation, note, sleepless night, idea, failure, invitation, poster, bulletin announcement, graphic, talk, powerpoint presentation, webpage, insert, volunteer opportunity, mission trip, blog post, pulpit support, willingness to listen, or e-mail ever changed someone's life?

Or: are they all just our contributions to some jumble of sacred coincidences?

Where do you most often see life change? (And I know: A lot of what we do--we never see the outcome.)

Do you suppose we need to spend more time, energy, and conversation in those places? We do, after all, see some of them.

Or do we just keep hoping for dumb luck?

Or, maybe: Ira Glass never met you or sat in on a ministry event you helped plan.