The Life Transforming Power of Story

“Ivan Illich was once asked, ‘What is the most revolutionary way to change society: is it violent revolution or gradual reform.’ He gave a careful answer: ‘Neither. If you want to change society then
you must tell an alternative story,’ he concluded.”
(Tim Costello quoted in Organic Church, 123)

Story is central to our lives. We live in a “story” that we call life - it has a beginning, a middle and an end. We tell stories along the way as our lives unfold in order to make sense of things. In the modern era, story as a means of passing on our faith and values was replaced largely by “information transfer.” This has proved disastrous. Information alone can never captivate or transform the human heart and mind. Story, however, has the power to transform. In our times, many are returning to the use of story as means to “contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3). This post will explore some key ideas and key resources related to understanding and using story as a means to think about and talk about our faith.

A note on the word “story”:
We are not using the term story to refer to something that is made up or untrue. A story is simply a narrative. Healthy, good stories seek to illuminate what is true, good and glorious.

Where have we come from?

“God created people because He loves stories.”
Jewish Proverb

We are all born into a story. Our life comes to us in the form of a story: it begins somewhere, it moves, it ends somewhere. In order to make sense of life we need to know what “larger story” we are living in. This larger story is often called a metanarrative by the scholars. This story is critically important to us because it is the way we come to know the meaning and purpose of our lives. We are all living our lives according to a Larger Story, a story that has been “given” to us that tells where we have come from and orients us to where we are heading.

Since the Enlightenment, the prevailing larger story that has dominated the Western imagination is one that says we have “evolved” from lower formers of life that just happened to appear by chance and now we are depending on science and technology to take us somewhere, at least until something else better comes along to eat us. Neil Postman has observed that this story cannot ultimately satisfy our core longings as human beings; we need more. This story cannot ultimately answer our question why? - Why are we here? Do our lives really have meaning? (See Postman’s excellent article “Science and the Story We Need”)

Why are we here?

“. . . continue in what you have learned and are confident about, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the Sacred Writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”
| 2 Timothy 3:14-15 |

Living in a world dominated by the “Story of Science,” THE True Story of Life revealed in the Bible is the “alternative story.” This story tells us that we are created by and for Jesus Christ that we are moving toward all things being summed up and put in their proper place in Him and that we can know that our lives have meaning because He is part of a Larger Story that is even larger than the one we are participating in here on Earth.

THE Story revealed in the Bible, focused in the Gospel, is the “alternative story” (and the only story) that has the power to transform the human heart to be what our creator - the Lord Jesus - intended. In reality, the Gospel is not really an “alternative story” it is THE Story - the true story of life.

Two books which serve as good introductions to seeing the Bible and the Gospel in terms of story are John Eldredge’s Epic and The Sacred Romance. Eldredge is probably best know for his book Wild at Heart which seeks to give men permission to pursue their “masculine heart.” Epic, however, is short book that retells the major “chapters” of the Sacred Story of the Bible drawing on contemporary images and ideas to help the reader enter the timeless nature of THE Larger Story. The Sacred Romance uses a similar technique but focuses on the Gospel. Eldredge sometimes overstates his case, but overall these books are engaging and raise “soul issues” that have stirred the hearts of many.

Where Are We Heading?

“Our greatest desire, greater even than the desire for happiness, is that our lives mean something. This desire for meaning is the originating impulse of story. We tell stories because we hope to find or create significant connections between things. Stories link past, present and future in a way that tells us where we have been (even before we were born), where we are, and where we could be going.
(Tell Me a Story, 1)

Over the past several years I have been introduced to the writings and thoughts of Daniel Taylor. I have long been fascinated with the power that telling and hearing good and true stories has to shape who we are. Taylor has spend quite a bit of time thinking about this issue and his work is very helpful in showing how our faith is built upon the stories that are given to us.

At the Desiring God conference this year, Taylor gave a lecture entitled “The Life-Shaping Power of Story: God’s and Ours.” In it, he gives 12 reasons why “The single best way of conceiving of faith and the life of faith is by seeing it as a story in which you are a character.” You can get Taylor’s outline and listen to his message here.

Taylor has also written two books on the power of story in our everyday lives. The first, Letters to My Children: A Father Passes on His Values, is simply a collection of stories that Taylor recounts from his life as a way to pass on his wisdom to his children. The second book, Tell Me a Story: The Life-Shaping Power of Our Stories explains why stories are so powerful and important. These books are two of my favorite from the last couple of years as well as two of the most life-impacting.

Discovering the Way

One of the things that has long fascinated me about the life and ministry of our Master Jesus is how much he used stories and poetic language to teach. You will not find Him giving a “three point sermon” anywhere in the Gospels. You will not find him giving a lecture on systematic theology. You will find him telling stories about Samaritans, birds, seed and kings. Even when he does give us principles, they all have a story in the background. For Jesus, stories are not something that He tacks on to his intellectual exposition for entertainment or variety; the stories are the main point. Perhaps we need to think not just about what Jesus taught us, but also the way in which He taught us. This would hold true of the whole Bible as well.

Almost half of the Bible is given to us as narrative, the next largest chunk coming to us as poetry. The stories in the Bible and the Story of the Bible are both too large and complicated to be reduced to “three point” expositional sermons. These stories call us to be actively engaged in what is going on in THE Story. They call us to become participants in the Larger Story of life where God the author has written us all in to a narrative that is larger than we can get our minds around now.

I hope that these resources will be a helpful starting point for you if you have not considered how important the hearing and telling of stories is for our lives. May the Lord bless you in your desire to know Him deeply and to follow Him faithfully.