Tell me the stories of Jesus: A plea for care in a culture of story telling

The audience sat in rapt delight as it absorbed every cadence and intonation from the master storyteller, an eminent media personality, who weaved story into story, consuming his allotted time for a keynote address in what seemed mere minutes. I joined with the rest in an appreciative ovation at the conclusion of the address, being reminded of the power of story to communicate. Yet, as I left the auditorium, I couldn’t dismiss from my mind one niggling but troubling question: How exactly had this parade of stories that I had just heard related in any sense to the theme of the conference?

I wonder, too, how many thoughtful people leave the average evangelical church service having been strangely warmed by the stories, jokes and anecdotes in the pastor’s sermon, but would be hard pressed to connect any of them to a single propositional truth that would permeate their souls and help shape their Christian worldview.

At the outset, I must hasten to agree with those who will rush to defend the value of storytelling as the preferred mode of communication in our postmodern culture and even in our Christian subculture. After all, Jesus was the ultimate storyteller! But why then do we not spend more time on Sunday mornings rehearsing His stories if they were so effective? Why must we hear yet another weary rendition of how Steve Jobs of Apple Computers lured John Sculley away from Pepsi by asking him what he really wanted to do with his life, sell brown sugar water or change the world? We don’t need to retell even one of the myriad of hackneyed stories in the arsenal of any second-rate motivational speaker. We can do better than that! We have our own stories to tell, the stories of Jesus, the stories of the Bible that do more than merely inspire. These are the stories that teach, stories that actually change our thinking and reorient the habits of our hearts.

There is a wealth of material for the storyteller in the Bible. There are the gospel parables and the epic dramas of Joseph, David and the Judges. There are no greater stories in the whole of Western literature than these, much less in the mind-numbing pap that oozes off the big screen into the consciousness of even our most devout church members. These are the stories that we should tell and retell. When in a sermon I rehearse Jesus’ dialogues with the “rich young ruler” (Matthew 19:16–22), I don’t need an illustration to elaborate on this sublime exchange. Can anyone improve on the image of a fetid, loutish camel squirming its way through the hole at the end of a sewing needle (Matthew 19:24)? Or what can match the dramatic effect of a timid Mary self-consciously using her hair to absorb what’s left of a liquid fortune from the feet of Jesus, all under the gaze of a jaundiced Judas’s eye (John 12:1–8)? Or how about Paul’s monstrous eye or hideous ear posing as a whole body (2 Corinthians 12:14–20)? That caricature in words needs no elaboration.

What we stand to lose as a church if we use “chicken-soup-for-the-soul” storytelling exclusively in our communication is the opportunity to show our listeners how to thoughtfully relate to the written text of the Word of God. I fear that a steady diet of such stories from the pulpit will encourage a kind of spiritual sloth in the listener, offering no motivation to consult the biblical text and search for its meaning and relevant application, even as the speaker is doing the same.

Some modest proposals, then, to pastors and Christian communicators:

Know your flow of thought.

There is an old standard among preachers that says, “If there’s mist in the pulpit, there’s fog in the pew.” If you can’t put into print in one sentence what you want to say, you don’t know what you want to say. As Christian communicators, we have a holy duty to spare our listeners the agony of trying to figure out where exactly we are going with a particular point or story and how it relates to their lives.

Use stories and illustrations only as they relate to your proposition.

When I first started pastoring, I noticed that the libraries of most of my more experienced colleagues invariably contained at least one massive tome entitled something like One Thousand Sermon Illustrations. I could never figure out how someone could find an apt illustration in such a volume that would relate adequately to what the sermon was about that particular week. My suspicion is that the illustrations were made to fit, with little regard to logical continuity. Just as statistics can be manipulated to make a certain point, so can illustrations and stories. By all means use them, but be careful to demonstrate their exact relation to the point at hand.

Use media wisely.

I think the greatest boon to communication today is the development of electronic projection, especially for visual learners who may have trouble following flow of thought no matter how carefully presented. But Sunday morning is no time for electronic spectacle. Use movie clips with extra care. They can be effective, but I’m reluctant to sacrifice five of my precious 25 minutes to a clip that almost everybody in the congregation has already seen. If you use clips, keep them short, very short.

Don’t claim or even infer originality if it is not justified.

With the blizzard of story exchanges over the Internet, and the proliferation of online sermon services, there exists a serious temptation for speakers to “borrow” stories without citing their source. More sinister is the practice of telling another’s story as if it were your own. There is a word for this – plagiarism. Of course, we should retell good stories, but we need to credit the source of our hearing of the story. Something as simple as “Os Guinness tells the story about . . .” will suffice. Your listener may not have heard of Os Guinness, but you will retain your integrity in the millisecond it takes to give the credit. Anyway, the best stories you can tell are your own. I’m forever hearing “on the plane” stories as if pastors are jetting around the world like celebrities. I don’t have airplane stories, and everybody in my world knows it. I’m lucky if I board a plane once in a calendar year. Why would I tell stories that don’t reflect my reality or the reality of most of my listeners? Authentically engaging stories are birthed within the pale of your own experience. Use them.

Tell, tell and retell the stories of Jesus.

Or did I already say that?

Stephen Mortley is a speaker and writer who lives in Niagara Falls, Ont. with his wife Pam and their four children.