Biblical Storying with Post-Christian Generations

I had the opportunity to write an article for the journal EMQ about how I've come to use biblical storying to reach my post-Christian friends.  You can read the article for a limited time by following this link.  In about a year, I'll be able to post the whole article on the blog.

Encounters with Jesus VII - Cleopas

 Well, after several months we finally were able to get together to do the last Encounters with Jesus story on Sunday night.  It was a great time of fellowship and catching up, and as far as the story is concerned, I felt like it caps off the series really wonderfully.  It is really meant to be an invitation to the life and kingdom work of Jesus, and I think that it does that.

It's been so amazing to see how people have grown and been changed by their encounters with Jesus through this series.  We are not in the same place as we were when we started.  My deepest prayer for this community now is that we will all be able to find out how God wants to use us in his work of reconciliation in the world.

As a community update, we're still trying to determine where to go from here.  What I'd love to do is start with the beginning of the Bible, maybe going back to Michael Novelli's Echo the Story curriculum.  I really want this community to know where Jesus fits into the overall story of God's interaction with humanity throughout history.  So we're still talking about it and will figure it out.

As an Encounters with Jesus update, I've got a couple of things in the works.  I've updated my website so that Encounters has its own page.  I've also been working on developing an app so that people can use these resources in conversations with friends about Jesus.  I'm not exactly sure what that would look like or how that would work, I only know that the days of little paper booklets (which is the other way I'm publishing the stories) are pretty much over.  It's basically a test case to see whether it's something people could use if they wanted to have some kind of guided discussions about who Jesus is and what that means to our lives today.  So stay tuned for announcements.  I'm working right now on getting the app approved for both Apple and Android devices.

Encounters with Jesus VI - Zaccheus

We had another Encounters with Jesus evening.  Started with a barbeque and just enjoyed some relational time together.  And then we did the Zaccheus story.  You can find the story here.

First off I have to say again that this community has become a real community.   It's amazing to me to see how they have pulled together to be there for me.  We have become the church.

Second, we talked a lot tonight about transformation--what is it, where does it come from, how does it happen, etc.  The application question was focused on how Jesus has changed us and how we would like to ask Jesus to transform us.  That part was probably the most encouraging to me tonight.  A couple of people shared things tonight about ways they've been transformed, and I think they actually have.  Like I can confirm as an actual witness of how they actually have changed in these areas.  It is a gift to be able to see these tangible changes in people's lives because it's often so hard to see them in my own life.

The questions in my community seem to be changing some.  People seem hungry to know more about how to apply the stories to their own life.  I think that we're going to have to start producing some practical devotionals that people can use to get deeper into the stories and deeper into the ways that God wants to use them to change us.  I think we've moved now from a seeking community to a growing community and we need to provide some more materials to help people on that journey.

I'm struggling too to determine whether we need to keep doing storying or move on to something else.  I am still challenged by the stories I read--they still motivate me to action and transformation.  But it feels like maybe we need to move toward more typical teaching--having a certain point we're trying to make.  Like maybe using the pastoral books or something.  But I wonder if that's because it's more comfortable or because that's what I know rather than what will actually be more effective.

So I don't know.  I don't know what we'll do or where we'll go from here.  But I'll keep sharing how it's going and what we're doing.

When storying becomes community

If I’d questioned what kind of community we’ve been building on Sunday nights, I don’t any longer.  If I’d questioned that we had built community at all, I don’t now.

The last few times I set up to have a Sunday night storying group, no one showed up.  People got busy, maybe they didn’t feel like coming, the weather turned nice, whatever.  So I wasn’t sure where we stood or how hard to push to maintain something that maybe no one else cared about.  I felt like maybe we’d accomplished everything we needed to in at least exposing everyone to who Jesus is and how he lived while he was on earth and how he impacted the people around him.  I was kind of ok with letting it go if we needed to.

But my father passed away this week, and I felt so much support from this little band of friends.  They showed up.  They showed up the minute I got home from the hospital where my dad died.  They showed up to keep me company between visitations.  They loved on me and ministered to me and prayed for me and walked beside me.  Even the people who I haven’t heard from for weeks or even months showed up to be there with me.

This is what the church is supposed to be like.  I think we are becoming the church.  I think that they actually view what we have as their spiritual community.  It may not look exactly like what church usually looks like.  We don’t meet as regularly, for example.  But it seems like we’re doing something the right way if this is the way people respond during tragedy.

One of the most powerful things that I think we’ve done on Sunday nights is the time after the story where we pray for each other.  I don’t think that I’ve talked much about that when I’ve been debriefing the stories.  But from the very first week we started, after we shared with one another how the story impacted us, we prayed for each person specifically.  We prayed for the spiritual needs they’d identified during the discussion and we prayed for anything else that came up.

In order to reach this level of community, though, you have to be vulnerable.  One of the refreshing thing about people outside the church is that they don’t seem to have the same barriers to sharing who they are as people who grew up in the church.  They’re generally willing to share, so long as it’s a safe environment, the things that they’re struggling with.  They aren’t trying to hide their weaknesses or pretend to be perfect so that no one will know how much they’re struggling or how awful they are.  They accept humanity and they accept their own humanity and they’re willing to share from that.  Within this context, we successfully created a community culture that is built on interdependence.  And when I had needs, they all came–every single one of them. 

That kind of community is a gift.  I don’t exactly know how to go forward or what shape it should take, but I feel now that I must go forward.  We must go forward together.  We’ve got to find a way to continue to build spiritually into the lives of the people that we’ve been given so that we all can continue to be transformed into the image of Christ.

Encounters with Jesus V - The Rich Young Ruler

Wow!  I totally procrastinated on reporting how the Sunday night group went this week.  I got a new computer which required much work, so it's Thursday already and I'm finally getting around to this.  Anyway, you can find the narrative and discussion questions here.

We had a really great discussion this week.  Some of our attenders were really disturbed by this story because Jesus seems to be expecting more from the rich young man than simple belief in who he is.  So we had the chance to talk for a while about what it means to actually believe--that there's an element of mental assent to certain ideas, but there's also a requirement of actually following.  I got to whip out the old chair illustration from my childhood - you know - the one about how you don't really know if you believe a chair will hold you until you sit in it.  I'm not sure how helpful that was though.

We're still struggling through what life with the Eternal One looks like.  The stories we've talked through up to this point have been all about the actual encounter with Jesus and who Jesus claimed to be.  Jesus often mentions eternal life, but doesn't often describe what it is.  I think this coming week we're going to talk about Zaccheus and how his encounter with Jesus transformed his life.  I'm looking forward to some plain old relational time with the group in a couple of weeks where I also hope to tell part of my own story and how my encounters with Jesus have shaped my own life.

The one thing that I would say about this narrative is that I almost think it should come between the blind man and Lazarus.  Apparently this is where scholars feel that the story fits anyway, and I think that it actually probably makes more sense there.  If I was just going to offer 5 narratives for a 5 week series, that's probably how I'd rearrange them.  But it turns out that we've actually formed somewhat of a community in those 5 weeks, and our people want to continue meeting.  So we're off on new adventures.  The focus now will be on the development of materials and stories that will create the possibility of true discipleship.  It'll be exciting to see how that turns out!

Encounters with Jesus IV - Martha (Mary & Lazarus)

We had another Encounters with Jesus night last night.  We did the story of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus from Martha's point of view.  You can find it here. Everyone was there, and it was a sweet time of fellowship.  It has been so amazing to watch God working through these stories and working to develop community.

We set out with the goal of introducing people to Jesus - to who he said he was.  I think we picked some really powerful stories.  Last night we really hit on spiritual life and death and how that compares to physical life and death.  There were some great questions from people about why Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  We also had an interesting time imagining what it might have been like to be Lazarus.  We wondered if he had any memory of his time being dead.  But probably the most interesting conversation happened around Jesus weeping.  We talked about the possibility that he was weeping because he was sad for the loss of his friend.  We talked about how much he knew of the future--did he know he was going to raise Lazarus at that time or not?  And we talked about how the commentaries explained that he may have been weeping at the brokenness of the world and the fact that it's so far outside of what God designed life to be like.

From a practical point of view, we're struggling a little bit now with the mixture of some people of long-time faith and some of newer (ie, since the group has started meeting) faith.  We actually have at least one attender who is not post-modern/post-Christian and who sees the world in a very structured way.  This attender's certainty about how God interacts in life has caused at least one other attender to wonder whether he's able to hear God in his life at all.  Because he's not certain, he questions the reality of God's interaction in his life.  But I can tell you (and him) that I have seen an amazing shift since the time we've been meeting in his life and his orientation toward God.  There is a totally different spirit of question now.  At some point in this process, he moved from questioning whether God was real to questioning how to invite God into his life and how to hear from God.  So it's going to be really important for me, I think, to meet one-on-one with him to share a different, less structured approach to faith.

This, I think, is one of the most major struggles that a church that's reaching post-Christian people is going to face.  The language of the long-time Christians to describe their spiritual existence has worked for them.  It makes sense to them.  But that language actually has a tendency to either alienate the post-Christian person or to make them question whether they are able to have a relationship with God at all.

So that's where we're at right now.  We have just one more week of Encounters with Jesus.  But I think the group is kind of taking off, and I think that we'll keep meeting after that.  So watch for the final installment in a couple of weeks.

Reflections on a culture of noncommitment

One of the biggest challenges for me that I think is driven by our culture is the lack of commitment to anything - institutions or people - that people have.

I canceled another Encounters with Jesus storying group last night because at least half the group couldn't come.  In some ways, that's ok.  I like that we're a small enough group meeting together that it matters who is there.  I like that without you, the group is not the same and we're better off postponing until later.

The reality of our culture is that it's really rare for there to be a group or an institution that people identify enough with to make sacrifices to be a part of it.  I don't think we do it in marriage, because we're basically ready to get divorced when things don't work for us anymore, regardless of the fact that there is something beautiful and important about the family.  I don't think we do it in our jobs - our companies don't have loyalty to us, and we don't have loyalty to them.  We don't have this for our schools - we are only concerned about what they give to us as individuals.

I come from a collectivist culture - that's what it was for me to live in Singapore.  It was diametrically opposed to how we do life here.  In Singapore, the family is much more important than the person.  The nation is way more important than individuals within it.  You make sacrifices so that the group can be what it needs to be.

There are inherent positives and negatives about both cultures, and ultimately neither is probably better.  But one of the struggles I have right now in my context is to build momentum.  I want to the church to be inherently beautiful and engaging and something that's bigger than the individual.  I believe that Jesus calls us to participate in mission and ministry and life that is bigger than our individual needs or desires.  I think that together, if we can be the right kind of community, we can do much more than we do as individuals.

Maybe there's a way to change the approach - maybe we should only get together when everyone can come and maybe we need to change the time from week to week.  I don't know.  What I do know is that setting it up so that group is more important than the individuals in it isn't going to work right now.  Maybe someday, when people are willing to sacrifice for group.  But I don't think that we're there yet, in my particular group.

So, we're still trying to navigate what that looks like for us.  We've got to figure out how to build people into the kind of community that becomes important enough to the individuals that we're willing to sacrifice for it.

Encounters with Jesus III - The Man Born Blind

Last night was the third installment of Encounters with Jesus.  The leaders/participant's guide can be found here.

I thought the story of the blind man is remarkable.  As I was studying to write the narrative, I was struck by what a strong personality the man was.  He had no fear to tell things how he saw them, even to the people in power.  In this story, we also have a remarkable claim by Jesus that he is the Messiah.  And then the blind man worships Jesus and Jesus doesn't tell him not to.

It's amazing what having Jesus present and speaking for himself does in a person's life.  There was no surprise within the group that Jesus allowed the man to worship him - they basically felt that this was a natural extension of what's been happening in the stories up to this point.  In other words, Jesus's deity has become self-evident in the exploration of these stories.

We spent a lot of time discussing the tension of faith and doubt and fear that the man must have felt before he washed in the pool.  We questioned how he had the strength to hope that his sight had been restored and whether we would have been willing to risk that or not.  That led to some very interesting conversations about being able to hear what Jesus asks of us and how we have the strength to follow where he leads.  It is such a beautiful thing to see people seeking Jesus, particularly those who have never tried to do it before this time.  In all, this story lends itself to great conversation and discussion, and a great opportunity to invite Jesus to restore/redeem our own spiritual blindness.  We also had the opportunity to talk about what true worship is.

Now for some practical notes:  My group members requested the participant guides so that they had something to refer to during the re-telling of the story and the discussion times.  But last week I handed them out during the story time, and it seemed to take away from the imaginative listening.  So I think the default will be to hand them out during re-telling so that people can listen once and then refer to the guides later.

Second, we have been making sure to take time to respond and give some quiet time for reflection after the discussion.  For us, this has come in the form of drawing or writing in response to questions on a sheet of blank white paper.  I've been including those in the resources too.  After that time, we have everyone share their responses, and then we pray for each other.  I think that this has become the sweetest and most enjoyable part of the group time.  The response questions give people the opportunity to reflect, and they are sharing some really deep things about the way they perceive themselves and God.  Then we are able to pray for one another, inviting both those who are familiar with prayer and those who are not to pray for one another.  This allows us to keep forming deeper relational bonds, and it also allows people to see God moving and working in their own lives.  I don't want to get into a rut with the response times, but it seems to be working for us right now.

Encounters with Jesus II - Woman at the Well

After being snowed out last week, we had our second Encounters with Jesus storying group tonight.  We had another good turnout, with most of the same people coming back a second time.  The narrative and participant guide, including the response page, are available here.

One of the challenges tonight with the story was that this one had a little more fictionalized content than the last one.  I have mixed feelings about the fiction.  The most important thing is to clearly communicate which parts come from my own imagination and which parts come from the Bible and which parts are historically verifiable.  We were able to make that clear during our session tonight, but I think for the resources I'm going to have to go back through and do different fonts for each of those.  If we don't do the fictionalization, then we'd have to do some introductory background information, which sort of takes away from the storying atmosphere.  At the same time, I don't want to take away from Scripture and the power of the stories by interspersing too much of my own vision and imagination.  But perhaps this is what pastors always struggle with.  Because how can we teach people without bringing in some of our own culture and interpretation and life experience?  For the time being, I'm trying to keep the fiction as the kind of details that just give background of what life was like, but I may have gone a little too far with this story.

On the positive side of things, we had some really meaningful discussion about what life with the Eternal One looks like.  We talked about how to find it, how to grow in it, and how it should actually look.  There were some really insightful comments from everyone involved, including those with no real background in the church.

The application time was amazing.  Some people are really getting into the drawing part of it, and some just write down answers to the questions.  But everyone is actually really willing to be real and then to share what they drew or wrote.  We're being really intentional about praying for each one as they share.  Today's question was what you are looking for in life and inviting people to ask Jesus for those things.

So in all, it seems like there are more positives than negatives here.  What's even more amazing is being able to see God work in the people's lives throughout the week.  I've had some awesome opportunities to have conversations with people, building on what we've been talking about during the week.  I can't emphasize enough how the relationships that I have with the people who come are just as important as the content we're covering.  I think the content and approach are important, and they're working for where we're at right now.  But without relationships, I don't think that we'd be seeing the kind of fruit that we are.

Encounters with Jesus, Part I

Last night was the first night of our "Encounters with Jesus" storying group.  It's a group that's going to meet for the next couple of weeks around stories from the Bible of people who encountered Jesus and were changed by him.  I'm working on developing the narratives, discussion questions, and response activities.  Our target audience is people who have not read the Bible and do not attend church, but who have a level of spiritual interest that motivates them to attend.  In my case, the spiritual interest has developed with this group of people over a long period of time and a significant relational investment on my part.

You can get a copy of the narrative and planning materials here.  Once we have all the weeks completed, I'll edit them and get them into one booklet kind of thing and post that on the blog and my website.

So let me debrief the evening.  The narrative in this case is quite long.  It's the story of Nicodemus's encounter with Jesus and how it changed him.  The source material for the narrative is the Biblical passage of John 3 and The Expositor's Bible Commentary and the Interpreter's Bible.  I spent several hours researching and reading.  The Nicodemus passage is so complicated and theologically deep that I knew there would be a lot of background that people would need to understand it.  I built some of that background in, but it still felt like maybe there wasn't enough.  We had to spend time during the discussion explaining what the Jewish ruling council was, how and why the Jews were longing for a political rescuer, and quite a bit about the story Jesus referenced from the Old Testament about the Serpent in the Wilderness.  A person leading the discussion would probably want to take some time to make sure they understand those things and be able to explain them.

As far as the response time, there were a couple of interesting things.  First, those who attended who are from the church were surprised at how open everyone was related to the question of brokenness.  People had no problems sharing how they are longing to see God intersect their lives and the things they are struggling with.  For church people, who are accustomed to presenting the best possible facade of their lives to other church folks, the inherent realness about brokenness that exists in the world can be quite shocking.  For me, it's one of the things I love most about walking with people outside the church.

Second, we noticed that the idea of "life with the eternal One", which is what the commentaries say "eternal life" means in this passage, was something that people struggled with.  For those who were trying to imagine what life with the eternal One looks like, they drew pictures of paradise.  Even while acknowledging that Jesus was probably talking about how life with the eternal One could start now, their visions of what that means was idyllic.  So one of the goals for the next few stories is to continue developing this idea and giving people a picture for what walking with God in the present means about life in the present.  I don't know about you, but my life is far from ideal.  Even so, walking with God gives me an eternal (and mostly hopeful) perspective that allows me to thrive in the midst of difficult situations.  While I long for people to know the peace of eternal life in paradise, I also really want them to know the peace of life with the eternal One now.  And that is what Jesus invites people into.

Overall, everyone enjoyed the conversation and we had some fantastic questions and observations from the group.  If you're not familiar with the storying concept in general, you should definitely check out Michael Novelli's Echothestory.com.  I am following and adapting his process for use with the adults in my world.