Why Story?
Let me tell you the story of my journey with story….
A Quest For Story-Shaped Preaching
It began with a practical need. I was teaching preaching in Portugal, and asking myself, “How can I equip my students to preach effectively to their generation?” The traditional method I knew best was fine as long as they were preaching to congregations filled with believers. But I became convinced that, when it came to skeptical, post-modern, anti-authoritarian Europeans, a deductive frontal assault was usually ineffective. So I began to look around for a different method, a more post-Christian-friendly rhetoric.
My instinct told me the answer would be narrative, but I had two problems. First, how do you teach the art of story to students who don’t necessarily have a strong intuition for narrative? And second, how do you craft narrative sermons that also communicate a clear message and accomplish an intentional purpose?
A Rhetoric for Story-Shaped Preaching
I found my answer in the most post-modern of art forms: the cinema. Screenwriters have a method, a craft that they pass down to new generations of storytellers. They have analyzed and dissected the various acts, movements, and components of a successful story to the point that they can tell exactly what makes one story “work” and another fail. And though they are a part of an entertainment industry, they also know how to communicate a message clearly and persuasively through story. In short, they have developed a narrative rhetoric.
I spent several years experimenting with the lessons I was learning from screenwriters, applying them to the task of preaching. My goal was a narrative homiletic — a method for narrative preaching that anyone could learn. Over time, with much trial and error, and with the help of my students, I developed easy-to-grasp handles for clear, focused, story-shaped preaching.
A Theological Rationale for Story-Shaped Preaching
As the years went by, I had two closely-related shifts in my thinking. First, I became restless with the purely pragmatic basis of my project. Christian preaching has always been a practical blend of rhetoric and biblical exposition. But I had an itch to think theologically about the sermon’s form as well as its content.
Second, I began to realize that the Bible is a great story. In fact, it is the quintessential story. Ultimately, the gospel is the story for which every human heart longs.
What does it mean for our preaching that, when God chose to reveal himself — to disclose his salvation to humanity — he did not give us an instruction manual, a systematic theology, a brochure, or a series of bullet points? Instead of any of these more straightforward and less messy forms, God chose to give us a story. Why?
I came to the conclusion that God communicates with us in story because Story is the most relational, most personal, and most transformative way to communicate truth. Our lives, our identity, and our culture are shaped by story. If the gospel is to shape us, it must come to us in story.
If this is true, then not only is story-shaped preaching the most effective way to connect with our generation, it is also the most appropriate way to communicate the Gospel in any generation!
Seven Reasons for Story-Shaped Preaching
Why story-shaped preaching? Here are seven reasons. I list them in an order that reflects my journey:
Everybody loves a story.
Story disarms resistance to the message.
Story engages and communicates truth powerfully to the whole person.
We live and experience life as story.
Human lives, identities, and cultures are shaped by story.
Jesus’ preaching, especially to the masses, was story-shaped.
God gave us the gospel as story; we should preach it as story.
In the next post I’ll give you an overview of how to preach story-driven sermons.
