Telling Stories. Throwing Parties. Making Friends. Giving Gifts.

These are the ways that Andrew Jones (Boaz Project) describes his ministry and I love it! Here are some of my thoughts/responses to that.

Telling Stories
I just love this language and it flows out it so many ways in everyday life and ministry. From evangelism to teaching/preaching to friendship this language and mentality just flows in life.

Those of us who grew up in church have long been told that in order to “evangelize” others we need to memorize this formula, or these steps and these few verses, or these spiritual laws. But many of us have balked at this because we don’t ever just present an argument or rationality to our friends. That’s what commercials are for. And if there is something that we believe that much in, we take our friends with us to see it and tell them the stories about it. The idea of just telling our stories is something we all do anyway among our friends and so the permission to tell the stories about how God is working in our lives, in our strengths and weaknesses, is so refreshing. There is nothing to memorize here. There are no select verses to memorize, except those that have touched us so deeply that we know them, there are no spiritual laws to argue or prove, there are only our experiences to share. This is how God has touched me. This is how I saw God change me through this. This is how I met someone and did this with them and God was somehow in it. We can’t be wrong in telling our stories, because they are ours. We can’t be wrong in explaining to someone how God changed us, because we are the only ones who really know. This flows better too in the course of all our conversations, in the flow of our normal relationships, in the contexts that we live.

Those of us who have been in ministry that is “professional” in some way have been used to teaching or preaching in certain ways. We take classes on it. We go to conferences and workshops on it. Most of these teach us to find within a text 3-5 main “points” or concepts that we can draw out and show people. These are answers to the many problems of life and are centered mainly on myself and how my life can be better. Often everything else in the service and in the sermon itself are secondary to these points or concepts. If you think about most normal North American worship services they are gear up for and point to the sermon and the points. The stories and jokes and even the Scriptures themselves are secondary to the points. But if we were to change our paradigm from teaching/preaching points to telling stories, we would approach everything differently. Instead of pulling out three points that I can apply to my life, I would try to find myself within the story of Scripture itself. What is God trying to do in this story? What is God trying to do in me through this story? The focus moves from me to God. And the pressure is much less too. Can you imagine trying to hit a home run each week with 3-5 effective points that will change someone’s life and answer all their questions? Isn’t easier to be honest about the story, to tell the story, to struggle with each other about the story and where we find ourselves in the story… and it’s a story that has already been written and proven living and active!

Next time... throwing parties