Story-Shaped Preaching, Part I
I have stated “Story-Shaped Preaching” as one of the core values of this blog, but sometimes I feel like a “lone voice in the wilderness” when I call for more narrative in our sermons.
I believe that preaching in today’s world will require, as a rule, a story shape. I have some good reasons for this, which I will share, but I recognize that I am swimming upstream in our Evangelical sub-culture.
I once heard a well-known leader in my denomination state adamantly that “the problem in the church today is that there is too much narrative preaching in the pulpit!” Even in the past week, I have seen Twitter conversations suggesting that “narrative preaching” is essentially “weak preaching” because it is more about experience than about truth.
Some critique of narrative preaching may be well-founded. Perhaps some who have embraced narrative have not had a high regard for Scripture. Perhaps others, fascinated with an approach to communication that had disappeared from our tradition, became more enamoured with “story telling” than “telling The Story.” I would suggest, however, that the weaknesses of some attempts at narrative preaching are not good reasons to discard a sermon form that is so prominent in the preaching examples we find in the Scriptures, both OT and NT. We need not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Perhaps the best starting point for this series of posts on Story-Shaped Preaching is to define what it is, and what it isn’t. I’ll do this by answering three myths that I sometimes hear about narrative preaching.
Myth #1: “Narrative Preaching” is the opposite of “Expository Preaching.”
This myth actually misunderstands both narrative preaching and expository preaching. Some proponents and teachers of the expository approach to preaching seem to link biblical exposition to a deductive sermon structure. We are left with the impression that, unless you have a list of alliterated points, each of which has three alliterated sub-points, you are not doing expository preaching. The truth is, expository preaching is not about the form of the sermon, but about the relationship of the sermon to the text.
It is true that story-shaped preaching will not necessarily explain the text by standing analytically outside the text and giving a list of grammatical, historical, cultural and literary exegetical details. Instead, it will integrate all of the same exegetical fruit in the telling of the story within the text, the story of the text, the story behind the text, and the story around the text. This is, I believe, biblical exposition at its most faithful and most effective.
Myth #2: “Narrative Preaching” is merely interested in creating an experience, with no real propositional content.
This myth misunderstands the relationship between story and proposition. In our preaching tradition, we are used to thinking of “propositional truth” as the foundation upon which story rests. In fact, if story is used in our preaching, it often serves more as an interlude between propositions, or perhaps to illustrate the proposition. This is actually the opposite of what we find in the Scriptures. Although the Bible contains many propositions, they are not the foundation of the Bible’s message. They are conclusions based on the Bible’s story. For example, when the prophets make propositional statements about Israel’s relationship to her God, their statements are based on the story of God’s choosing them, redeeming them, leading them, and living in covenant with them. Paul bases his propositional statements about salvation in Christ on the story of Jesus that we find in the Gospels.
Story-shaped preaching is not pointless preaching. But it does follow the Bible’s own example by allowing the point to emerge from the biblical story, in stead of imposing points on the story, or using the story merely to illustrate the point.
Myth #3: “Narrative Preaching” is just story-telling fluff with open-ended application.
I won’t deny that this myth might accurately describe what has sometimes passed as “narrative preaching.” The story-shaped preaching that I am proposing, however, is not void of application, and I am certainly not interested in “fluff.” We want to lead our hearers to discover the truth through the story, and based on that discovery to apply the truth to their lives as they take their place in the story that God is writing in history.
In short, our preaching should not only be driven by the gospel, but also formed by the gospel. In the next two posts, I’ll tell you why I believe story-shaped preaching is important, and some first steps toward how to pull it off.
