03 Mar, 2016 To fuel your fire #3/11: The power of a story
Jesus had three key conversational techniques. (1) He asked questions, (2) he made provocative statements that drew people in (possibly the most difficult), and (3) he told stories from the natural world that aided understanding, memory and interaction. Let’s reflect on the third of these.
Stories are powerful. Every Christian has their main spiritual story of how they came to faith. However, we also have many other ‘natural life’ stories that can become powerful illustrations if we know how to do this. Telling these kinds of stories is what Jesus did! We are told (2 Peter 3:15) to always be ready to give the reason for the hope that we have. It is vital that every Christian knows – at the very least, how to tell their spiritual story, and in a way that is both interesting and brief. Beyond that they could have a lot of fun learning how to tell good stories – like Jesus did. Do your members know how to tell their story? More people might journey toward faith in Christ if they did!
To resource you:
- See a sermon outline (with matching small group study) here.
- See two concise video teachings on this here and here (#2 and 3 from the video-collection found here)
- Or use Bill Hybels teaching on this from the ‘Walk across the room’ series.
- Why not play some of the Hope Project’s testimony videos in your services to encourage? See them here.
- This is the topic of the second of the self-print ‘Church booklets’ found here.
