Some preachers are natural born storytellers. The rest of us have to learn to be interesting.
But if we preach, we need to become competent with storytelling both for expounding Bible narratives and adding vivid illustrations. We can increase our skills by practicing what the naturals know instinctively: it’s the color that makes a sermon lively and engaging.
Turn up the tension
In the movie, The Truman Show, Jim Carrey portrays a guy living in an apparently idyllic world, unaware he is the subject of a TV show. Will Truman find out? And can he escape the artificial world of the giant studio? Any good story needs conflict.
Consider the conflicts in Moses’ story: What will happen to the baby? Will Moses be punished for the murder? Will he accept God’s call? Will the people of Israel listen to him? No wonder his story makes a terrific movie.
Storyteller Clifford Wame writes: “Conflict is the essence, the essential ingredient of any story. If you don’t have conflict, you don’t have a story. If you don’t have conflict, you won’t have an audience either.”
So be alert to the conflict. When preaching on a biblical narrative or parable, ask, Where is the conflict in this story?
Next, a good story needs suspense. Jack Gibson is a slow-talking Australian sportscaster with a dry wit. After his favorite rugby team was thrashed in one game, Jack remarked, “They were in it right up until the national anthem.” It was a dull game because it had no suspense.
Stories, even more than football games, depend on suspense. Good storytellers know how to create it.
Take Jesus’ classic tale of the Good Samaritan. As soon as Jesus said the traveler was journeying down the Jericho road, his listeners felt some suspense because they knew it was a dangerous road. The heart of the story was the conflict over who, if anyone, would help the man; but Jesus built up suspense there by sounding two alarms, the treacherous road and the conflict between Jews and Samaritans.
Sometimes preachers crash the suspense of their story just as the thing is leaving the runway. You hear in the introduction, for example, “This account of how Jesus calmed the storm is one of the most dramatic examples of the authority of Jesus.” Ho hum, the suspense is dead. Good storytellers don’t tell the ending at the beginning, even if the ending is familiar.
Plot your twists and turns
Embedded in many fine stories is a surprising twist. In the thriller The Net, Sandra Bullock stumbles onto a violent conspiracy operating on the Internet. Fearing for her life, she flees to a Mexican resort where she is lucky enough to find a soul mate in a good looking man. They become friends. Then she begins to notice little signs that he is not quite what he seems. Immediately the story is intensified.
With biblical narratives the nature of the twist is somewhat different, but there is usually some surprising element. We can easily miss it because we know the stories so well, but it is worth looking for.
Somehow a preacher needs to find a way to give a biblical story what Eugene Lowry calls a “fresh hearing.” Some preachers do that by reading a story aloud from several different translations. Others try to imagine themselves in the story and, as they run the mental tape, they ask themselves, What is surprising here? What would the first-century listeners not have expected to hear?
One of the best resources I know for gaining a fresh hearing is Kenneth Bailey’s Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes. Bailey has spent most of his life in the Middle East. He knows the languages, the people, the culture, and so he hears the parables through Middle Eastern ears.
He tells us, for example, that over 15 years he asked people about the implications of a son asking his father for his inheritance as the Prodigal Son did:
“Has anyone ever made such a request in your village?”
“Never!”
“Could anyone make such a request?”
“Impossible!”
“Why?”
“The request means he wants his father to die!”
So the very request was a surprise we Westerners can easily miss.
William Willimon applied a story twist powerfully in his sermon on the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1-15). We know how the story goes: the workers get hired at different times and then, when pay time comes, even the ones who sat in the shade during the heat of the day get the same pay as those who worked all day. I always thought the equal pay for all was the main twist to that story. But Willimon found another.
“It isn’t the denarius that’s so generous,” according to Willimon. “It’s the owner’s repeated, unrelenting call to come into his vineyard … He wouldn’t quit going back and forth into town. He just wouldn’t stop calling, wouldn’t stop hiring, inviting, seeking, offering … [Here is the master] constantly, persistently, relentlessly pursuing us and everyone else—unhappy until everyone is there.”
Color in the detail
Have you ever given up on a novel before you reached the end? If you have, chances are there was a problem with the characters. To really get into a story, we have to like at least one character and care about what happens to him or her.
The characters are vital, so master storytellers spend time fleshing them out and understanding them. They know their characters need to be real. This is where preachers’ stories often stumble.
Take the names used, for instance. If there is a small boy, don’t call him Johnny. Don’t call adults Bill or Mary or John. They are stereotype sermon figures, not real life people. Why not use Scott, Nicole, or Eric?
Or take the way biblical characters are portrayed: too often the preacher doesn’t do the hard work of empathizing. For example, we hear the story of Elijah’s emptiness after Mount Carmel and are told, “He was feeling sorry for himself” or “He failed to trust God.” Well, maybe. But with empathy, some preachers identify with Elijah’s exhaustion and depression. And as a result, the Elijah they depict is someone their listeners can relate to.
Dialogue is another detail that enlivens stories. Check out a John Grisham novel. Note how much dialogue he uses.
Oral storytellers use dialogue too. It’s easy to see why. After all, which is stronger: “She told him to go” or, “She yelled, ‘Get out!'”?
With biblical stories, it’s often a good idea to contemporize the dialogue so that you build a bridge to today’s world. Willimon does this in a sermon titled “Ordinary People.” He tells of Naomi’s conversation with her eldest son, Mahlon:
“It’s not that what’s-her-name is a bad girl … “
“Her name is Ruth, Mother.”
“All right, Ruth. It’s not that Ruth is a bad girl, it’s just that she has not had all the advantages that you have had. Her people have different values from our family. She’s just a little … “
“What you’re trying to say is she’s a Moabite, right, Mother?”
Great dialogue. It could be happening in your house.
Excellent stories also thrive on sensory description. Natural story-tellers play out their tales on the imagination of the listeners.
I love John’s account of Jesus’ post-resurrection meeting with the disciples on the shore of Lake Galilee. In John 21, the apostle gives all sorts of descriptive details. (He also has plenty of dialogue.) It was “early in the morning,” he writes, and we imagine the yellow sky and chilly air. They caught so many fish “they were unable to haul the net in” and we feel the weight. “When they landed they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread,” and we can almost taste the bread and smell the fish.
Great preachers have counseled us to mull over a biblical story until we can see the scene, hear the background sounds and the voices, even smell the smells.
James Stewart showed this kind of imagination in his thrilling sermon “The Wind of the Spirit.” Nicodemus had asked, “How can a man be born when he is old?”
“It was night, with the moon riding high above Jerusalem, and driven clouds scudding across the face of the moon. The wind blowing up from the valley was stirring the branches and rustling the leaves of the olive trees … “
“Listen to the wind, Nicodemus! Listen to the wind! You can hear its sound—the night is full of it, you can hear it in the tops of the trees—but where it has come from and where it is going no man knows.”
If we want to be effective story-tellers we need to switch on our imaginations, lose our inhibitions, and talk to the senses.
Put the brush down
These elements are the color palette for the story artist: conflict, suspense, twists, turns, characterization, dialogue, and description. If we apply them, they will bring life to our preaching. But once the picture has been painted, once the conflict is resolved and the suspense relieved, don’t keep dabbling in it. It’s time to stop, put the brushes down, and let the story speak for itself.
Peter Farthing is editor of The Officer, the Salvation Army’s international magazine for its clergy. An Australian, he is presently based in London, England. He can be reached at Peter_Farthing@salvationarmy.org.
Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
