Helpful thoughts from David Hampton as he explains the background to the current arc of Services at Christ Community Church, Franklin, Tennessee, USA.
I was having a conversation with a friend today who pointed out that Jesus never led with the punch line. He always carefully and thoughtfully drew his listeners in with the art of story. It was once they heard the context, the life scenarios, that they could grasp and own the big picture truth and take it with them.
We all experience and approach life from within our own context of experience, pain, and perspective. That’s what makes us, us.
Stories take the seemingly “conceptual” aspects of the gospel and put them in a context that speaks in real life vernacular. Sometimes our theology can feel theoretical until we hear it applied through someone’s story; someone else’s context; what makes them, them.
We can find encouragement, strength, and hope in the stories of one another. Recovery groups place a high premium on the value of sharing stories as both encouragement to the newcomer and a reminder to the one sharing, “This is what I was like before, and this is what happened to me…” Churches have done it forever and call it a testimony or a witness.
I often find myself saying that God shows up in our stories. I think it would be more accurate to say that God has always been working behind the scenes, but it is when we share our stories that we begin to recognize his handiwork. It is in listening to the narrative of someone else that we let go of the terminal uniqueness that we have bought into as an excuse to stay where we are.
Stories are what bridge the gaps between our “us and them” thinking with one another.
If you read the rest of the post you’ll see how thoughtfully the worship at CCC is introduced to those who participate in it.
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