The Power of Story

The staff at church will soon be hashing out ideas for sermon series for the next six months or so. Most of the sermon series at our church are theme- or topic-based. In other words, we don't dedicate a month to studying Galatians or the book of James, but we'd spend a month on a series called "Losing My Religion" or "The Office."

The opportunity to create new sermon series ideas has got me thinking about how the conventional format for sermons fails miserably for me and for many. Often these sermons are made up of "points"--three steps to a better prayer life, better marriage, avoiding sexual sin. The problem with sermons in general is that if you're talking to a diverse audience, made up of seekers, growing Christians and what some term "mature" believers (is there such a thing??), a sermon that consists entirely of pointers and guidelines is bound to be insulting to some. That's because some in the congregation will already have internalized those "points"--they may already be living that stuff out. So what's the point of sitting through a sermon if you're being given an instruction manual on something you already know how to do? Often, when I am a listener to sermon formats like this, I leave grating. I may feel insulted, annoyed, or like I wasted my time.

Another thing our staff has talked about is how we want our language from the "pulpit" (in our case, it's a music stand), to be inclusive, to avoid an us-pastors-who-have-the-answers v. Joe-Church-Goer-who-needs-them mentality. But in order to change our language, we've had to struggle through paradigm shifts. Out with the old mentality that the leaders or pastors are the ones to "bring it", the ones with the day's saving answers, the solutions to all of life's problems that Joe-Church-Goer has been stewing over all week and is hungrily asking for on Sunday morning. In are the speakers and pastors who will embrace the problems right along with Joe or Josephine Church-Goer, the pastors who will admit to the mysteries in the Christian walk, and share out of their best understanding.

I've been asking myself how the best teachers do this, and for me, it all goes back to Jesus' teaching style. Not that I"m suggesting we speak in parables, but I am thinking about the power of story in sermons to illustrate truths we've learned in our own lives. The cool thing about story-as-teaching-tool is that it leaves room for people at all stages of their spiritual walk to connect to a particular sermon. The mature believer can think, "yeah, I've been through that and it's nice to hear someone else has, too," or maybe even, "Bless his heart, that pastor's got a bit to learn about life still!" The seeker's interest can be piqued; the growing Christian can be inspired.

So, as we think through sermon topics and ideas, I've been rooting around inside my God-history, asking myself and God, "What are the most powerful stories of my life? What stories have illustrated for me God's character and the ways of his kingdom?"

As a funny side-note and testament to the power of story, our senior pastor last night said he got feedback on his teaching last Sunday. In his teaching, he'd referenced the story of the Velveteen Rabbit as a metaphor for us Christians learning how to be "real." A visitor, possibly on the fringes of a relationship with Christ, came up to him at the end, with tears in his eyes, and said somethign tantamount to, "Hey, man, you know, I don't dig the Bible all that much, but that Velveteen Rabbit story really got to me."