I Don't Want to Be a Bad Storyteller! Part 2: The Story

When I was a freshman in college, I decided that I would read the Bible from cover to cover slowly and methodically. Lots of times I would take any questions that popped up in those readings to Chris Benjamin and we would discuss the intricacies of the text. The more I read, the more the entirety of the Bible looked like a story of divine and mortal characters interacting. There's lots of stories within this large collection of books, but it's all centered on the love story of God with His creation.

It starts with a garden. A garden where everything is ok, where life abounds. God hangs out with the humans in this garden. Life is good. In reality, it doesn't get much better than this, who doesn't want to hang out with God all day? I also think we neglect this first part of this story in our churches today, we don't talk a lot about how things were in the garden rather we talk more about what comes next.
The Fall, that fateful tale of a serpent tempting and mankind making the wrong choice of going against what God said, and that ill attempt to try to be like God. If this is a movie, this is the sad part where things seem like they're going to go south. A lot of our theology and conversations take place Genesis 3 and onward which is the next part of this narrative. We're more concerned with the Fall of man rather than how things were originally created.

Then we see different kings and prophets come on to the scene of the story and the different things they do, some good and some bad, and we see God's workings with them and through them. Yet it's still not right, it's not redemptive enough. Then the divine invades the earth it created, and Jesus comes onto the scene. This is the part in the movie, where hope arrives, this is when a hero shows up with resolve. Jesus lived and worked and showed what the life God wants us to looks like. He served, He healed, and He loved the people He created. Then He dies, and as the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world. But this part of the story does not end here...

He rose up. Jesus has redeemed death into life. He charges the church with His work as He leaves the Earth and ascends to Heaven and we are a partners in restoring the world back to the way it should be.

I outline this story of creation, despair, redemptive hope, and restoration to ask a question. As a person who has partnered with Jesus is restoring this world back to the way it should be, what's your story in all this? We all have our little mini-stories that we're writing with our lives, how does that story emit the power of Christ that shines in us? These are thoughts about the big story that we're a part of. In part 3, I'll try to answer these questions for myself.

I Don't Want to be a Bad Storyteller! Part 1: A Prequel to The Story

     As I mentioned in my last post I've done some traveling as of late, starting with Tegucigalpa, Honduras. There I got to work alongside my beautiful and fantastic girlfriend as she seeks to alleviate and change the poverty situation in so many lives in Honduras. Her efforts include tutoring and mentoring students as director of the Shine program that seeks to bring kids out of poverty through education. She also works with a group of soulful people in the Breaking Chains Homeless Ministry. This ministry provides a shelter for over 40 people that includes families and teenagers. While there, I got to be a part of taking this whole group of people three hours out of town to a beautiful beach (Many of whom had never been to the beach or out of Tegucigalpa), and celebrate Christmas with presents and wonderful food.

     I journeyed back to the States, and immediately turned around and went to Daytona Beach, Florida (Which has an inordinate amount of tattooing among its people, especially neck tattoos) to attend the National Conference on Youth Ministries. I heard many speakers, but the one that stuck out the most was Donald Miller. Many of you probably recognize his name from his bestseller "Blue Like Jazz." In his talk, he spoke a lot about the movie that was made over that book and his role in it, along with the art of storytelling.

    Storytelling is something that I have been working on getting better at for a few years now. It is an artform that I find riveting. Miller pointed out the elements of a story; which are setting, conflict, climax, and resolution.   Every story has a setting, a long part at the beginning which identifies the characters, what they want in the story, the atmosphere of the story, and the beginning details of the plot. Eventually, every story encounters a conflict, there's no escaping it. The real issue when the conflict arises is what the characters in the story do with the conflict.

    Some characters shy away when conflict comes, but the truly amazing characters push through the conflict to reach what they want. Can you imagine William Wallace in "Braveheart" just going home after the English kill his wife? Of course not! That would be the worst movie ever. What happens with the conflict decides whether the story is climatic or anti-climatic. And what part the characters of the story play in that climax. After the climax, the highest point of the story, comes the resolution. Now the resolution is the part of the story where everything comes together. This is where the couple rides off into the sunset, where the boxer wins the match, the good guys win, and everyone goes home happy.

   So, here we sit as people who are writing their story, everyday, one day at a time. The questions I've been asking are, What's my story? What's the story of Impact? What story can my sweet girlfriend write in Honduras? And how does the story of the Gospel fit into all of this? I don't know the answers to all of these, so I guess I'll keep exploring.

Christmas Break Is Over

As many of you probably have noticed, I've been off on some adventures in Honduras and Florida. I'll be posting some reflections on my travels in the coming week. My time in Honduras was amazing and you can see some of my adventures at Breaking Chains Homeless Ministry's facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/BCHonduras.

In Florida, I was blessed to listen to many great speakers and teachers at the National Conference on Youth Ministries. I got to hear the likes of Chris Seidman, David Fraze, and Donald Miller. They enlightened me to new ways of thinking about things in youth ministry and church as a whole. Donald Miller especially blew my mind and I will go into his thoughts more in depth soon. So for now I leave you the trailer to his particularly compelling book, "Blue Like Jazz," I'm not sure when the movie actually comes out. I got to be a beta-tester with all the other ministers, I enjoyed it and found it inspiring.

Grace & Peace to you all!