Storytelling and Preaching

I like to hear stories in sermons, and include them in my own sermons when I can. But, putting together the right stories with the right points is not always easy. Still, story-telling is one of the greatest ways to get a point across, and get it to stick.  Last week the whole sermon was based on the Old Testament story of Hosea and Gomer.

It’s sounds like a modern-day marital break-up you could see on any given Jerry Springer.  Hosea had such high expectations for a perfect marriage, but his bride wasn’t getting the attention she wanted.  She left him to for other men, and eventually found herself reduced to selling herself.

That’s where the story stops being so familiar, because that’s when Hosea actually buys back his unfaithful bride.  We just don’t see this kind of love today in people, certainly not on Springer.  That’s because it is God’s love that says, “You’ll never lose my love, and I’ll always take you back.”

David B. Smith wrote an article that gives great advice for adding storytelling to your sermons.  He writes…

• Read voraciously. Read as much and as widely as possible.  And then simply have a mind for sermons and a passion for communicating the gospel of Christ. Don’t just read Newsweek for the news; always be looking for that hook, that connecting opportunity, that divine aha!

• Find stories that are good for people.  An old manual, Preparing to Preach, comes from my great-grandfather C. R. Kite’s pastoral library. Author David R. Breed reminds us of the oft-repeated plea. “‘Please tell me a story,’ says the child. And the child is the father of the man.” Breed goes on to observe that no one listens to the “children’s story” at church more than the parents!