Leadership Journal

Some preachers are natural born storytellers. The rest of us have to learn to be interesting.

But if we preach, we need to become competent with storytelling both for expounding Bible narratives and adding vivid illustrations. We can increase our skills by practicing what the naturals know instinctively: it's the color that makes a sermon lively and engaging.

In the movie, The Truman Show, Jim Carrey portrays a guy living in an apparently idyllic world, unaware he is the subject of a TV show. Will Truman find out? And can he escape the artificial world of the giant studio? Any good story needs conflict.

Consider the conflicts in Moses' story: What will happen to the baby? Will Moses be punished for the murder? Will he accept God's call? Will the people of Israel listen to him? No wonder his story makes a terrific movie.

Storyteller Clifford Wame writes: "Conflict is the essence, the essential ingredient of any story. If you don't have conflict, you don't have a story. If you don't have conflict, you won't have an audience either."

So be alert to the conflict. When preaching on a biblical narrative or parable, ask, Where is the conflict in this story?

Next, a good story needs suspense. Jack Gibson is a slow-talking Australian sportscaster with a dry wit. After his favorite rugby team was thrashed in one game, Jack remarked, "They were in it right up until the national anthem." It was a dull game because it had no suspense.

Stories, even more than football games, depend on suspense. Good storytellers know how to create it.

Take Jesus' classic tale of the Good Samaritan. As soon as Jesus said the traveler was journeying down the Jericho road, his listeners felt some suspense because they knew it was a dangerous road. The heart of the story was the conflict over who, if anyone, would help the man; but Jesus built up suspense there by sounding two alarms, the treacherous road and the conflict between Jews and Samaritans.

Sometimes preachers crash the suspense of their story just as the thing is leaving the runway. You hear in the introduction, for example, "This account of how Jesus calmed the storm is one of the most dramatic examples of the authority of Jesus." Ho hum, the suspense is dead. Good storytellers don't tell the ending at the beginning, even if the ending is familiar.

Embedded in many fine stories is a surprising twist. In the thriller The Net, Sandra Bullock stumbles onto a violent conspiracy operating on the Internet. Fearing for her life, she flees to a Mexican resort where she is lucky enough to find a soul mate in a good looking man. They become friends. Then she begins to notice little signs that he is not quite what he seems. Immediately the story is intensified.

With biblical narratives the nature of the twist is somewhat different, but there is usually some surprising element. We can easily miss it because we know the stories so well, but it is worth looking for.

Somehow a preacher needs to find a ...