The Storyteller Enters The Story

We practice telling the Gospel Story pretty regularly in our church plant and in our Missional Communities.  Here’s a great video from the Gospel Project that tells the biblical Story in a pretty cool way with some great classic art.  I can’t tell you anything about their bible study, other than it’s put out by a great publishing house.  Yet I thought this video was a good way of talking about the Gospel as Story.  Check it out:

Questions:

1. How did this telling of the Story resonate with your heart?
2. In this telling of the Story, how does the Gospel connect with you?
3. What’s missing from this story that you would have liked to hear?
4. Who in your life needs to hear this Story?  How do you think you can share it with them?

Great New Story-Formed Music From Aaron Spiro and Soma

Our Missional Communities regularly goes through the Story-Formed Way, an interactive storytelling and dialogue covering the major narratives of scripture.  We rehurse the Gospel Story regularly to one another and look for any oportunity to share, and remember among ourselves, what God has done and is doing for us to renew all things.  We do this because we want our people to see their lives as substories in the larger Story of God rather then live in some lesser narrative.  Yet we also want our people to know the Gospel Story well enough that they can share it with others.

Arron Spiro and the bands from Soma Communities have created some great Story-Formed Music that is meant to accompany and reinforce the narratives of the Biblical Story.  They tell the biblical story beautifully, yet do so in a modern sound that both the churched and unchurched can relate to.  Click on the Album covers below to preview or purchase the albums.

Tim Keller on Jesus in the Old Testament Story

This is a video from Tim Keller’s talk at the Gospel Coalition conference in 2007.  Keller shares in this video how the story of the Old Testament is really a story about Jesus.  Since we are big in story telling through the Bible, I figured I’d share this post on how a number of the figures and stories in the Old Testament really point forward to Jesus.  When you think about Jesus being central to all of the Biblical Story, it helps make sense of everything in the Old Testament and New Testament.  It gives a much greater take away than just lifting up an OT figure as a hero or example and keeps you from simple moralizing a story.

This could have been a much longer video, but Keller kept it to a few key points of where Jesus is seen in the Old Testament.  What other people or events, in the Old Testament story, point forward to Jesus?   How could knowing how Jesus connects to the Old Testament story help you in sharing the faith with others?

 

Resources

For more on Jesus in the Old Testament, I highly recomend getting a Jesus Storybook Bible, by Sally Lloyd-Jones.  Its even a great resource for adults to understand the biblical story.  The subtitle of the book is: Every Story Whispers His Name.  Every story points to Jesus in some way.

The Story: Creation->Fall->Redemption->Restoration

It seems like everybody is jumping on the idea of teaching the Bible as God’s Story.  In our Missional Communities, we do this through The Story-Formed Way and through rehursing God’s Story through Creation -> Fall -> Redemption -> Restoration (CFRR).  Below is a video by Jerome Gay sharing God’s Story through CFRR:

1. What do you think of Jerome’s Presentation? 
2. What would you add or omit?
3. What do you think of the language he uses?  What parts are helpful?  What part are not?
4. What’s the benifit of knowing the Story  through Creation -> Fall -> Redemption -> Restoration?
5. How is telling God’s work this way better than just telling people about the Cross?

Picture found here: http://images.acswebnetworks.com/1/2096/godsbigstorycolor.jpg