From Rick Wood’s editorial in this year’s last issue of Missions Frontiers:
Everyone loves a great story. And we have the greatest story ever told. But I am afraid that few inside the church understand the whole story of God well enough, or are trained well enough, to tell this story to someone who needs Jesus…
There is an untapped hunger for the story of God. In fact, just this year The Bible mini-series featuring various stories from the Bible, garnered record setting ratings for the History Channel over several weeks with 100 million people tuning in. This series, however, only presented various Bible stories but not the story of the Bible. Do you understand the difference?…
Most people, even believers, see the Bible as a disjointed collection of books, verses and teachings but they do not understand the overall story of God that is presented from Genesis to Revelation and how they fit into it. When reaching out to the lost, we cannot assume that anyone in our world today knows any Bible stories or understands how they fit together. We must be prepared to do that for them.
There is a central theme that runs through Scripture that ties all of history together. Every believer should be trained to tell that story of God from Creation to Christ so that every person can find their place in the unfolding story of God in history to bring access to the gospel to every person, tribe and tongue. Most believers think the gospel is just about God saving them when in reality it is also about what God wants to do in the world through them. As a result most Jesus followers never get plugged into the mission of God on earth…
Because storytelling is so powerful, many have used it to lead people astray and to manipulate them for their own purposes—religious, political, economic and otherwise. Satan has been very successful in using the power of storytelling to deceive people in our culture. If the church is wise we will take back the tool of storytelling from the devil and use it to build God’s kingdom in every people.
The Story of God - Philippines 