Over the next few months, you are going to hear me and others in our faith family start talking about stories a lot. That’s because we all have a story to tell, but all to often we don’t feel like anyone would be interested in our story, or we just simply don’t know how to tell our story. But story is vital in how we communicate and interact with those around us. We live in a state of story. Think about it. What do we do when we have free time and don’t have to work? We either read a book (which is a form of story) or we watch television (which you guessed it, is another form of story). There may be times that we do neither of these when we have free time, but then again, if we aren’t doing those, we might be listening to music (another form of story), or hanging out with friends. I don’t know what it’s like when you are with your friends, but I know that my friends and I share information with each other in story form most of the time.
That’s because we are geared to see things as story. How our life unfolds is like an untold story. And we get to live it out. Stories are fun, exciting, funny, suspenseful, full of knowledge, and a lot of other things. What we don’t recognize a lot of times is that our story can be used to help others come into a relationship with Jesus. If you are a Christian, you have a testimony, just a fancy word for a story of how Christ has impacted your life. We are meant to share our story with others in an attempt to introduce them to our Lord and Savior. Learning to tell our story is vital in our attempts to reach family and friends that don’t know Jesus. So, again, over the next few months, you will be hearing a lot about story. In fact, we started this year off by hearing the story of how our leadership has been impacted by Jesus. Those videos are still available on our Facebook page, and I would encourage you to watch those again if you need a refresher.
Even more exciting than that, however, is that toward the end of August, which will be here before we know it, we are going be starting a sermon series titled, The Story, which will takes us through 80% of scripture in 33 weeks, beginning in Genesis and going chronologically through to Revelation. I’m super excited about this process that we will go through together, but it’s also important that we begin to talk about and think about story as we lead up to this. When we begin The Story, one of the things that will be really important to understand is that we will actually be looking at two stories in one. We will have the “upper story”. That’s the big picture. In other words, that God’s story. We don’t always get to see the upper story, but God sees it all. Then we have the “lower story”. That’s our life. That’s the story that we get to see, but again, we don’t see it all. The most amazing parts of this is when the “lower story” intersects with the “upper story”, and for a brief moment, we realize how much God loves us and how much He sees the “big picture”. We are starting to gear up for The Story and it’s going to be just a brief overview of “the greatest story ever told”! I hope you’re excited, because it doesn’t get any better than being able to see how our story is just a small portion of God’s “upper” story.
Thoughts from a Crosseyed Jesus Freak 