Stories can grow empathy and compassion in us for others.
After my cinema experience as a teenager, I was inspired to
be able to tell stories that made people think and feel and
maybe even change the way they acted. So, every chance
I got I told stories. I acted, I tried to write novels and plays,
I made short films with my friends, I went to University and
studied communication.
At Uni I watched even more movies. Some of which have
stayed with me. I remember watching films about the
Holocaust and seeing injustice and suffering on the screen
taught me more about sin than anything else had. In class
we also learned the mechanics of storytelling. We broke
down plots, learning how stories move somewhere. We
saw how plots move like an arc from a situation of relative
stability to tension or destabilisation which resolves into a
new situation of relative stability. We created characters
and, in the process, started to pay attention to the people
around us. A good storyteller is an observer. We tried writing
dialogue and capturing how people talked. We examined the
role of the narrator and debated their reliability… why were
they telling this story? We wrote essays on themes and how
they are conveyed in a story. And then we had a go. Reading
our stories in class and filming our scripts we saw how
others responded to our stories, and through this, learned to
consider our audience.
I didn’t think too much about where God might be in all this.
It took me many years to realise that God loves stories
too. Theologians have rediscovered this over the
last few decades speaking about the narrative of
the Bible. Our scriptures tell us a complex and
massive story about God told by multiple voices
across different cultures and over a long period.
It is a story that doesn’t just move people but
can transform them. It is a story which God
entered into when He became one of us. Jesus
loved to tell stories. After Jesus’ death and
resurrection, the Spirit comes. We were called
to continue in God’s story until God wraps it up.
I am called to be one of God’s storytellers.
Aren’t we all? One of the primary ways I get to
tell God’s story is through preaching. But you don’t
have to be a preacher. We need more novelists, artists,
filmmakers, poets and bloggers sharing good stories
that bring life and point people to Jesus. We need more
people just being willing to share their stories with their
neighbours and friends of how God has been at work in
their lives. We could go even one step further and not
just speak, but embody God’s story. Like the play I saw,
we could invite people over for a meal and by doing so
we would be immersing them in the story of God’s love,
creating a space for them to experience the joy and
power of reconciliation not just with one another but
also with God.
BOOK LIST
Want to
dig deeper?
The Art of Biblical Narrative
- Robert Alter
Telling the Old, Old Story:
The Art of Narrative Preaching
– David L Larsen
Telling God’s Story: Narrative
Preaching for Christian Formation
– John W Wright
resonate · issue 35 · page 4