“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” —Frederick Buechner

I’m a PA announcer for high school sports. What started as an event—MC’ing a breast cancer awareness night for my daughter’s volleyball team—has turned into an eight-years-and-counting side gig, all volunteer, announcing four sports and a couple parades a year.

This year I was asked to add softball to my repertoire. The team had never had an announcer and the only audio they had was a single 12” karaoke speaker. I knew if we were going to take the program up a level like they wanted to, we were going to need something more, so I visited the boys baseball team, watched their announcer, saw what he did for music, and scoped out the sound system. Then I decided to see if I could get people to help me with the cost of buying a similar system.

As I planned a GoFundMe campaign, I set my sights on raising $1,000. But I needed a tag line, something to catch the ear, to quickly tell people the what and why behind the ask. I thought about what I do and why and landed on “A Voice For Good.” A little online sleuthing showed only one organization using that name—a nonprofit music group out of Utah with a similar motivation but different methods—and no apparent copyright issues, so I adopted it as my tag line. But the phrase has become so much more.

As I’ve reflected on the various jobs I’ve held and meaningful work I’ve done throughout my life, I’ve realized that “a voice for good” is an accurate summation of who I am and what I’ve done: teacher, trainer, radio operator, pastor, chaplain … all rely on using my voice, and all are aimed in one way or another at bringing good, whether that means truth, wisdom, and encouragement or peace, safety, and healing.

There are deeper lessons, too:

• I’ve been given a gift (my voice); some gifts come with responsibility to use them for good and for others.
• There’s a lot of bad in the world; people—especially kids—need to hear good.
• I have fun doing what I do!

If what Frederick Buechner said is true (see the quote at the top of this post), I must be in the place God has for me. And that’s good.