students of jesus

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This blog is about spiritual formation, but in conjuction with the release of my mini eBook The Man With All The Answers, I wrote this piece for ChurchLeaders.com about the power of storytelling in preaching, so I share it with you here. -- OR -- if you're not interested in preaching, you could jump over to Amazon or Barnes & Noble and invest 99-cents in my new book.]

Steven Spielberg’s popular movie, Lincoln, runs exactly two and a half hours. After the brief opening sequence there are no explosions, no sword fights, and no one is killed on screen (spoiler alert: Lincoln is assassinated at Ford’s Theater).

When I saw the film, the theater was packed. Two and a half hours of talk, talk, talking heads on the screen yet no one in the theater moved, no one became restless, and no one complained about the length. And we have trouble holding people’s attention for a 28-minute sermon. What’s the difference?

The difference is story-telling. Spielberg knows how to tell a story, and we would do well to take a few pointers from him. In fact, forget Spielberg: our sacred text, the Holy Bible, is filled with stories. You might go so far as to say the Bible is one story: the Father’s relentless pursuit of his lost children. What lengths would you go through to rescue your children? (There: did you see it? When the subject changed to fathers, children and rescue, you began to engage with the material, didn’t you?)

Those of us who feed God’s flock must become God’s storytellers. Here’s the journey we must take:

• Once upon a time, there was a preacher who used bullet points in his sermon. The bullets killed his congregation’s attention and buried their passion. The End. (Chapter One: Just because you outlined your sermon doesn’t mean you have to reveal the outline.)

In Chapter Two we learn that God’s message to humanity is mostly story—even the parts that are not story. Take the Old Testament (please). From Genesis to Ezra-Nehemiah the book reveals one continuous narrative. The grand narrative is followed by books of poetry, filled with metaphor and images. Think of these books as God’s soundtrack to the story. Then come the prophets, who provide the director’s commentary on what has just transpired. Who could understand the prophets apart from the story of the Old Testament?

Chapter Three: When the Bible story moves to the New Testament we meet Jesus, the master storyteller. He didn’t write a book of systematic theology. He spoke in parables. His life was one long illustration of God's love. And when he taught, he used images from everyday life: flowers of the field and birds of the air. Jesus is better than even Spielberg!

Chapter Four: Professor Paul wrote letters filled with theology, but at least he had a relationship with the people who read the letters. Why not try using the book of Acts to reveal the story behind why Paul wrote his letters? Paul wrote to real people, struggling with real problems, and if you tell their story, your people will receive the story of Christians trying to apply their faith in practical ways.

Chapter Six leads us to the book of Revelation, and if that isn’t made for video, I don’t know what is! God's not afraid of imagery or imagination. Are you? (Oh, Chapter Five?) Some things are best left out of the story, especially if it makes your listener supply the missing pieces.

The End – Know when to quit. Which is better: four dry concepts from the scripture, or one life-changing story, also drawn from the Bible? In the jargon of Hollywood, make it memorable, and leave room for the sequel. After all, you have to preach 50 times a year!

If you have one buck and one hour, hop on over to Amazon or Barnes & Noble--today is the release of my mini eBook, The Man With All The Answers, and other spiritual stories for normal people. This ebook is the second in my series of short-short reading for incredibly busy people. It's also incredibly cheap -- 99 cents.

This collection of twelve very-short stories is fast food for the soul. You can read each story in five minutes or less, but the images and message could remain with you all day--or all week. From a Chicago city fireman to an Einstein-esque baby, the people in these stories will amuse and challenge you. Be careful--these characters could haunt you.

Some people will use these stories as entertainment. Others will find them useful as an imaginative devotional. Just because they are "fiction" doesn't mean they are not true. Pastors and small group leaders could use these tales to stimulate discussion and provoke people to reframe their view of spirituality. Parents will use these stories to draw out life-changing conversations with their children. That's the power of storytelling.

The short-short nature of each story means you can return to them again and again, or re-tell them over coffee with a friend. In the re-telling you can add your own twist or change the ending--it's up to you.

After assembling my first mini-collection of fiction, I understand the need to disclaim: these are works of fiction. Any resemblance between the characters portrayed and actual persons is purely coincidental (except for that one guy).

We were born to worship. That’s why Americans invented the Super Bowl. Our national religion is not Catholic or Protestant, it is sports. Last year just over 111 million Americans watched the Super Bowl—that’s roughly the same number of people who go to church each week in the United States. Advertisers pay almost four million dollars for a 30-second commercial during the game, because they know we are paying attention during those three hours.

What is it about sports—especially the Super Bowl—that appeal to our transcendent capacity? Why do so many of us rise to the liturgy of this game? Compare the worship we offer up Super Bowl Sunday to the worship we long to give every week—or every day:

Read the rest of this post at Ransom . . .

In my Clark Kent life I do some work as a consultant, sharing with small groups the meanings of leadership and teamwork. I discover more about leadership and teamwork each time I work with a group; I also discover more about myself, and more about the wisdom of Jesus. 

Jesus is God’s wisdom lived out in human life. He is the Master of Life—not just eternal life—but life here and now. Whether I am working with businesses, governments or non-profits, I discover again and again how the words of Jesus find application in very practical settings. I also repeatedly discover the powerful human tendency to twist his wisdom to our own purposes.

For example, I recently shared with a group of leaders a powerful tip from Colin Powell regarding how we see the world. Powell’s example is a reworking of the Lord’s wisdom. “Remove the beam from your own eye, then you can see to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7: 2-5) Powell used this metaphor: when things go wrong we can examine the results by using a piece of glass. One type of glass is a window. We look through the glass at others and examine their actions. Another type of glass is a mirror, which shows us ourselves. The wise leader reaches first for the mirror—“What have I done in this situation?” asks the leader. “How did I contribute to the problem?” The unwise leader reaches for the window-glass and looks at others. “What did they do? How could they have failed so badly?”

The mirror/window example is useful and true, and not particularly novel in leadership circles. Like the earlier saying of Jesus, it requires humility of heart and courage to face the truth. It benefits all who embrace its wisdom. But we are a frail lot, us sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve. We can take the wisdom of God and twist it to our own devices. Here’s what happened next with this group of leaders.

After sharing the Colin Powell version of this principle with a leadership team, I gave the team an exercise: use 15 minutes and take a recent problem at your workplace. Apply the mirror, and report back what you learned. This team was a group of old-school leaders, the kind who believe leadership is about command and control, about telling others what to do. When they returned from their exercise, the spokesman suggested this use of the mirror: “We think it would be effective to use the mirror by turning it toward our employees. We would hold the mirror up to them and say, ‘Look at what you’ve done! It’s not very professional, is it?’” These leaders, in effect, recommended using the mirror as a tool of discipline instead of self-reflection. They came to a conclusion 180-degrees from the purpose of the exercise. Their conclusion reinforced their way of doing things and asserted their right as leaders to be the judge of others! (And yes, at that moment I quickly grabbed my own mirror and asked myself, “How could I have screwed up this concept so completely?!?”)

The lesson for Students of Jesus is a warning: it is not enough to know his principles. We must have his heart as well. We—all of us—have a powerful tendency to think his words are meant for someone else, and we are the chosen vessels to deliver his words. We are bent toward self-preservation and defensiveness, even when we hear words of life. If Jesus teaches us to first remove the beam from our own eye, we rush off to deliver his message to others before we have tried the remedy ourselves.

The world-changing power of Christ starts small and works outward, like ripples on a pond. Most of us are surprised, however, to discover the center of the circle looks like us.

In our fractured society demographic studies are the sacred scriptures of politics, education, and marketing. The categories of Latino, African-American, Anglo, and Asian are too large: demographics break down ethnicities into subcategories of gender, age, sexual orientation, and coffee-habits. In the church, George Barna has made a career out of demographic distinctions. We live in sociological ghettoes, and those who sell goods, services, and philosophies can find all the figures they need to target their message.

Our Creator has a different demographic approach: oneness—the kind of oneness that spans the gaps and unifies people of every nation, tribe, and tongue. Consider, for example, how Jesus launched his church:

Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven . . . Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs . . .

In that moment when God chose to launch his ends-of-the-earth initiative, he chose to bring people together. Jesus indiscriminately poured out a one-size-fits-all solution on everyone: the true demographic of the church is the Holy Spirit.

The earliest Christians learned again and again the work of the Spirit. The Comforter broke boundaries and distinctions worldwide. The Spirit of Christ favored one people, “neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female . . . all one in Christ Jesus.”

The Lord’s method was part of his message. One faith, one baptism, one hope, one Lord. The book of Revelation, that crazy picture of the moment when time itself is rolled up like a cloak, paints a picture of the Forever Days: there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 

God is a sweet community within Himself: Father, Son, and Spirit. Even in the midst of the Trinity’s sharp distinctions and clear identity there radiates a oneness. Here is a lesson worth a week’s meditation: what keeps us from imitating his example?