Just wanted to provide an update on our Sunday night sermon series, the Story of God. The series was inspired by the concept of chronological Bible storying.
I wanted to introduce our folks to this ministry strategy that is used so prevalently by missionaries and nationals around the world. I also thought that we had quite a few in our church that would benefit from this narrative overview of God's Word.
So this past September we launched the Story of God series with the plan to go from "one end of the Bible to the other" in the current school year.
This evening we covered the Judges. This sentence addresses one of the major difficulties of the series. We are covering huge chunks at a time! Following the service I received a compliment that made me cringe. "I love how you can preach through the entire Bible without even opening your Bible."
It is true, our overview of Judges covered so much ground this evening, we never landed actually landed in a particular text. I felt guilt the entire evening (which the previous comment only intensified).
If I have a defense, it is that CBS is designed for nonliterate or low literate cultures. The nature of the approach is by definition storytelling. It is not designed for verse by verse exposition.
And I do feel that there are at least a handful of people who are feeling the pieces come together as we move through the Story of God.
Yet, did I really preach if I never opened my Bible?
I wanted to introduce our folks to this ministry strategy that is used so prevalently by missionaries and nationals around the world. I also thought that we had quite a few in our church that would benefit from this narrative overview of God's Word.
So this past September we launched the Story of God series with the plan to go from "one end of the Bible to the other" in the current school year.
This evening we covered the Judges. This sentence addresses one of the major difficulties of the series. We are covering huge chunks at a time! Following the service I received a compliment that made me cringe. "I love how you can preach through the entire Bible without even opening your Bible."
It is true, our overview of Judges covered so much ground this evening, we never landed actually landed in a particular text. I felt guilt the entire evening (which the previous comment only intensified).
If I have a defense, it is that CBS is designed for nonliterate or low literate cultures. The nature of the approach is by definition storytelling. It is not designed for verse by verse exposition.
And I do feel that there are at least a handful of people who are feeling the pieces come together as we move through the Story of God.
Yet, did I really preach if I never opened my Bible?
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1 comment:
Preaching can be biblical without opening the Bible. For my example, I point to no one less than ... Jesus. In the Gospels, how many times did he start with a passage and then exegete? Very few. More often he would tell a story. "A man was going up to Jerusalem from Jericho ..." "The Kingdom of God is like ..."
Blessings,
Brian
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