God in his sovereignty still has 2/3 of the planet pre-literate or illiterate and most of human history has not included great literacy rates or most people owning Bibles or books and yet the movement of the Kingdom and the Gospel has progressed.

Let’s speak (preach) in ways that this amazing, powerful Gospel can be heard.

That list of statistics to me demonstrates a problem to be addressed as well as a call for pedagogical wisdom. In my mind we can be aware of cultural trends and speak to people in it but at the same time creatively work to encourage thoughtfulness, reading, etc. Would this not demand us to be a counter-cultural people in this regard. The church can still create culture within our current millieu – why not a culture of thoughtfulness and literacy?

In discipling people to a saving knowledge of Christ using the Story we are actually seeing that story “implicates” people. (versus 3 points, a few yucks and an application at the end) They begin (often Christians for the first time too) to see themselves “in” the story–a part of it. They begin to see how their identity flows from God and is now rooted in Christ. They become implicated with “If this is who I am, then how must I live? If this is how God is and has always moved toward restoration of all things, then I was created to be a part of that with God…!” This is VERY different than application springing from a review of the text. As leaders we live hoping/praying that people will be moved–implicated–by the Word and we would no longer have to be the ones to apply truth to their sin/life/choices/actions…over and over again. This is all really the work of the Holy Spirit, but it seems that the Spirit uses story to implicate hearts in this way.

One last thought on all of this and how it related to discipleship…we have come to see and believe that discipleship truly precedes conversion. Jesus said in John 8… “IF you hold to my teaching (be my disciple) you are really my disciple, THEN you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Notice the order of actions here: First we become Jesus’ disciple, we walk in his ways, obeying his teachings. THEN we know the truth and get set free. Jesus modeled this order of discipleship leads to truth that sets free with the 12. Clearly discipleship precedes conversion according to this command by Jesus. He also does the same thing in Matthew 28. We are learning that calling people into the Story, inviting them to walk in Jesus’ way (be a disciple) leads to a knowledge of Truth that sets people free. Then, when they have come to salvation in this way, the only life that they know as a “Christian” is as one who is a disciple, who serves and walks with Christ in his community etc.

This is VERY different than my upbringing and past methods of discipleship where we always reversed this order…”If you believe what I say the Bible says as truth, then I will lead you in a magic prayer that will set you free. Then I will disciple the truth into your life. Backwards from what Jesus said and did. And it has not produced the greatest results either… :0)

Just to avoid too many arrows coming my way, I am NOT saying that we do not disciple people after their conversion. We do. We should. We are to be life-long disciples of Christ. It has just become clearer that in scripture, discipleship seems normatively a process that leads to conversion. We are using the Story as a big part of the beginning and ongoing part of this discipleship process. We also start discipleship with “un-restored family” by inviting them to serve and bless our city with us…to walk in Jesus ways… The Story has implicated us and as we invite others into the Story they, hopefully, over time, become implicated by it too.

This is really helpful. I’m a huge believer in the narrative approach.

If you’re still answering questions I had a couple –

1. How do you move from story to application in the discipleship process? Are you relying on the experience of the story to transform?

2. Describe the difference between teaching (conveying information) and discipling (making an apprentice) in your context and how this narrative approach specifically applies to discipleship?

Thanks!

Jeremy

I agree with your thoughts here. We actually “slip” in and out of narrative/dialogical and monologue/exposition every time we teach at Soma. No matter which angle was the goal, both seem needed to ultimately communicate clearly given cultural diversity and Biblical experience in the room.

Time seems to be a big constraint as well. I really do believe we can help truth emerge from the Story/text and it will be more effective and retained if we have the time to use dialogue effectively. Often we feel that the 45-60 minutes we employ for a “message” at one of our gatherings requires us to exposit, unpack and “preach” more than we prefer if we were to have more time. From experience, when a person or group digs out the truth from the text in a dialogue instead of me telling them what to think, they leave implicated and changed in the moment, versus me giving them an “application” that will have to be reapplied over and over in their lives in order to retain its effectiveness.

Implication is always better than application.

One last thought…I always try and be careful not to reduce the Gospel to a set of moral issues. Often I slip into this, which is legalistic (law) and produces death in the recipient instead of the idol killing life giving Gospel of God’s grace.

Both Narrative and Propositions have their place and importance. I believe part of our issue is that we seem to try to keep them as two separate things when they are interrelated. *It seems as though we push people to choose between the two: either you teach narrative/dialogical or propositional/monologue* but I believe that’s an unnecessary and inaccurate oversimplification.

People naturally draw “morals” from the story which can be expressed in propositional forms. This is the root of systematic theology–statements and explanation of truth from the story. Problem: forgetting that it came from the story and must be taught in the context of that story.

On the other hand, people also naturally connect statements of truth together, prioritize them and fashion them in some way to understand how they relate. It could be said that they will take these statements and form a narrative (perhaps a “worldview”). Problem: the narrative can be Frankensteined together and not be coherent or cohesive because the Story informs the statements and it’s unable to work in reverse. If this doesn’t make sense, people will default to being formed by the story around them, Christian or otherwise.

So, the two need to work together OUT OF a common story. We cannot oversimplify the story and we cannot overestimate the statements.

man–I hope that all made some sense.

Luke 24:27,32 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he [Jesus] explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself… They asked each other, ‚ÄúWere not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?‚Äú

The “Scriptures” Jesus opened were stories, narratives. There is no indication in Luke that Jesus was pulling a cart full of scrolls with him down the road that day. There is no indication in Scripture that Jesus owned a copy of the Torah. Interesting.

Additionally, Jesus’ use of parables took on different forms and had different goals at times. His parables of the Kingdom of God used local, contextualized examples to paint a picture for his hearers…the Kingdom is like a banquet, a treasure, yeast, a pearl… Not meant to confuse here, but clarify.

Jesus disciples CLEARLY told stories and used the narrative from Scripture effectively and normatively…

Stephen’s speech / preaching to the Sanhedrin in Acts 7 is an amazing narrative summary.

Paul in Pisidian Antioch “preaching” to both Jews and Gentiles in Acts 13:

16Standing up, Paul motioned with his hand and said: “Men of Israel and you Gentiles who worship God, listen to me! 17The God of the people of Israel chose our fathers; he made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt, with mighty power he led them out of that country, 18he endured their conduct[a] for about forty years in the desert, 19he overthrew seven nations in Canaan and gave their land to his people as their inheritance. 20All this took about 450 years.

“After this, God gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet. 21Then the people asked for a king, and he gave them Saul son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years. 22After removing Saul, he made David their king. He testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’

23″From this man’s descendants God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised. 24Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. 25As John was completing his work, he said: ‘Who do you think I am? I am not that one. No, but he is coming after me, whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’

26″Brothers, children of Abraham, and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent‚Ķ

Paul continues to skillfully connect the narrative to Jesus and back and forth to the O.T. prophets.

Clearly we can see that Jesus and his disciple used narrative as a form of communicating and preaching (heralding) the Christ. There are many other examples.

“Also, although Jesus spoke in parables, it is evident His disciples did not. They expounded on the centrality of Jesus and His words. They told no stories.”

The first thing that came to mind was Stephen’s sermon shortly before he caught a rock in the temple (Acts 7). Isn’t that an example of a disciple telling a story (the True Story)? To be fair, this is the only one that immediately jumps to mind.