The
Power of Narrative
By
Mike Lamson
I'm becoming more convinced of the power of
narrative in preaching and teaching. We recently decided to attempt something
that seemed ludicrous during our messages; we got rid of application. We got
rid of telling our hearers how the story of God applies to their lives.
Many times in our sermons and teachings we like
to talk about the story. That
is, we mention a passage of Scripture, and then we explain its application to
our daily lives. But what if we just told the story period? Instead of just becoming good preachers and teachers, what
if also became good storytellers?
Here's an example, in our latest series, we
told the story of Moses and the burning bush. It's a story we have heard
and read numerous times. But we wondered, “Why this story is so
compelling? What seems to be the point?”
Well, in the case of Exodus 1-3, one theme we
observed was that God always hears the cry of the oppressed. With that in mind,
we asked ourselves, "How do we capture that one idea and craft a good
story out of it? How can we let the story speak for itself with that one
point in mind?"
We decided to tell the story, but omit all of
the characters.
We talked about slaves, and how this life of
slavery was all that they knew, about how an evil slave master killed off all
of the boys. Consistently throughout the story, we had everyone yell,
HELP, in addition to having the slaves in our story ask some key questions:
"God, can you hear us? Do you even
care?"
These two questions permeated the entire story.
We mentioned a son, who was miraculously saved
from the evil master's daughter, who, as time progressed, eventually saw these
slaves, his own people, being beaten. They continued to cry help and ask
those two questions, "God can you hear us? Do you even
care?" The son thought it would be great to beat the slave
master himself, to feel like one of the slaves. The slaves didn't react
to well to this. The son ran away. He sees something
strange...something like a flame. It spoke. And it said...
"Moses, I have seen the misery of my
people in Egypt, I have heard their cry and felt their suffering, and I'm
coming to HELP."
This is first time in the entire story that the
characters’ names or context were introduced.
Now, there were some details I left out for the
sake of brevity, but do you get a glimpse of the power of narrative? All
throughout the story, the vibe was, "Does God really care about us?"
When we're in our lowest moments, does God hear us when we cry out?"
The end of the story says YES. But we didn't have to say, "So for
us, God always hears us when we cry out," or, “Here’s what this story
means for today.” We just let the story say it for us.
It is harder to just tell the story then to
tell about the story, but telling just
the story is much more memorable than telling about it. So instead of learning all the latest and greatest sermon
prep and teaching techniques, maybe we need to spend more time learning the art
of storytelling. People are always
compelled to listen to good stories, why not let the Biblical story speak for itself?
Yes, it is a more challenging task for us, but it will be more memorable for
our hearers.
"Okay, I just watched the clips of Rob at the Seeds of Compassion event. As a follower of Jesus and a member of Mars Hill I must say I am very proud of how Rob spoke beautiful truths in response to those questions. I am blessed to have the privilege to be engaged in those truths each and every time I hear him teach. I am blessed that he has spoken such truth into my life personally and directly. To say that he did not share Christ is absurd! As Christians, aren't we supposed to share Christ with our lives? If all truth is God's truth, then when we speak truth are we not sharing Christ?
As for not sharing the power of the cross, I am in complete disagreement. I have no idea whether he gave a "gospel presentation" off camera, but the words he spoke were indeed the power of the cross! Redemption and forgiveness and resurrection were the issues he spoke on - if that's not the power of the cross, I don't know what is! He did not need to use the specific phrases we are so used to hearing in our churches to share the power of the cross. There are those people who somehow seem to think that the depth of our faith can only be felt and heard with those certain words. How that shortchanges the ability of God to penetrate into the hearts and minds of all people! Rob may have gained more respect from his honest, thoughtful, and poignant responses than if he had done nothing but preach a mini-sermon. He may have lost respect. What if his answers encourage people who wouldn't normally take interest in what Christians had to say to listen to him and be curious about his writings and teachings? From my own personal experience, people who are dis-interested in or turned off by Christians are more than likely to take an interest in Christ from the Christ they see demonstrated in my life, not the the "Christian" words I speak to them."
Some think that because some of these words were not mentioned, the message of the gospel (which could be one of the issues, as that word in itself needs defined) has been "watered-down." If I speak on the power of forgiveness, of death, and resurrection, do you think it would have any possibility of speaking of Christ, and especially the cross?!
I think people come to listen to Rob, or Doug Pagitt, or whoever else you want to label as a heretic, evil, or bad (or you fill in the blank), already come with an agenda to nitpick anything they can find (and will take things out of context quickly) without considering that they can speak some truth. I am always trying to be aware when I take that posture with those whose views I don't totally adhere to (a certain seminary prof comes to mind), but at the same time, I am asking God for the humility to be open to truths that emerge.
If your mind is too shallow to not even consider the person speaking truth, then you are shutting off the Holy Spirit. What are you so afraid of?
I think people like Rob are showing those who don't profess in Jesus that there are Christians who do want to make the world a better place, who in my mind actually put love on display. What powerful words Rob spoke in those few minutes regarding violence in our world. It was a tough question, and he handled it beautifully and spoke with such hope.
So please, for the love of Christ and His Kingdom, please consider this plea to be humble; to acknowledge that God can teach us from anybody, anything, or any circumstance, no matter what our feelings toward them are. We will become more like Christ because of it.