Preaching means telling stories.

My father passed away on Christmas Day. We buried him the next week. This could, of course create an awkward set of circumstances given that Christmas comes around every year which might mean a perennial revisiting of the pain his passing caused. For him and our family, this will not be the case. His passing on Christmas Day was actually the final chapter in a beautiful love story. None of his five children were surprised. He married Mom on Christmas Day 1960 and was reunited with her on Christmas Day 2020. For them and us it was a fitting conclusion to a story we have told and will continue to tell for many years to come. 

We humans are story telling animals. As children we begin to know, love and understand the Bible as we are told or have read to us the great stories of the Bible. When we go to Sunday School we begin to learn those stories in an order and after a fashion intended to make them memorable. To aid in character formation. To change our lives. 

There is a point in this process where for some reason we stop telling them as stories and "grow-up" so that we see the Bible as a series of propositions to be understood and behaviors to emulate. Which in many ways is tragic. Jesus Himself, when confronted with important questions or significant times in His ministry did not respond with propositions, principles or positions. He responded with stories. A sower went out to sow. A man fell in among thieves. People lose sheep, coins and sons. The world is full of kneeling camels and perplexed rich people. These stories were not illustrations of what Jesus was "really" teaching-they were the lessons!

And therein lies a lesson for those of us called to preach the Bible. How are you doing as a story-teller? Do you even try? 

Two of the most significant choices I have made as I become a...more mature...which is to say OLD preacher are these. 1)Do not preach first-drafts. I did that way too often when younger. I try and keep a steady working inventory of plans, plot-lines, and provisional outlines in hand to use when called upon to extemporaneously speak. Always be working on something. 2) Be better at telling the "Old, Old Story". Little kids never crawl up into a parent or grandparents lap and ask to hear an exegetical study of the Feline in the Fedora, or Resources Required for Refusing Improperly stored Pork and Poultry: An Inventory. Instead we hear "read me The Cat in the Hat! How about Green Eggs and Ham?"

Preachers compete with talking heads, social media platforms, entertainment apps and tabloid television. I am not saying that you should marginalize study or simplify the message. In fact engagingly proclaiming the gospel, drawing your audience into the story takes more work not less. More drafting, more thought, broader reading, deeper creative labor; blood, sweat and tears. Jesus models this behavior and in the end it is not only Biblical it is actually easier. 

It is liberating to ease into the sacred-desk each Sunday with the text prepared and an outline in hand-look people in the eye and say, "Man, do I have a story for you!"