God, Storied

February 23, 2012 in By Chris, Missional Living

God is the Storyteller who tells the ever weaving, unfolding and enduring Story of God’s amazing holy love. The Story of God reveals God’s missionary heart and the nature of our existence as Christians and our purpose of presence in and to this world.

Consider this quote from my good friend Mark Miller found in his book, Experiential Storytelling:

“We were created with a curiosity, a complexity and a need for meaning.  The longing to understand the bigger questions is a deep need that cannot be filled with mere facts.  God did not choose to reveal a list of facts to us.  The Old Testament was given to humanity in the form of narratives and poetry.  Even the writing of the law took place in the midst of the deeply compelling story of God redeeming his chosen people.”

Would you rather be told a story or read a list of facts?

It is widely know that the device for telling stories is what some refer to as the storytelling triangle.  Every story told has a storyteller, a narrative and an audience.  The Christian story’s triangle is this:

  1. God fills our curiosity, complexity and our meaning and God fills it with image, mission and work.  God is the storyteller.
  2.  The story God tells through the scriptures (and the stories God continues to tell in us each day) is where we find our identity as Christians.  We are part of the story.
  3. People are the audience of God’s great story. The compelling redemptive narrative is where humanity lives.  We are the hearers and doers of this great narrative.

The narrative and mission of God provides us with a large, dramatic, explicit and intense story in which we find God, ourselves, our relationships with others and our experience with the natural world.  We are introduced to Jesus and caught up in his life and ministry most effectively through the interaction with the entire story of God.

In what ways have you recently been caught up in the life and ministry of Jesus?

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