NBC Teaching the Church

I like watching the Olympics. Okay, I really, really, really like watching the Olympics.   NBC has done an incredible job this year with building the athletes stories into the broadcast. They run a 2-5 minute spot telling the story of the athlete and the obstacles they have overcome to get to Beijing. The next thing you know I am hooked on synchronized diving, and I didn’t even know it existed 4 days ago.

At NorthWood we have found our congregation is encouraged to hear stories as well. Lately we have regularly been putting T-Stories (Transformational Stories) into the flow of our services. We keep our feelers out and when we hear a story of someone whom God is transforming we get it in front of our people.

Use Stories in Two Ways:

1. As Teaching Points – If someone has lived the point you are trying to make.  Let them tell it.  The congregation will listen to them with fresh ears.
2. To Spur Vision – If there is a behavior that needs to be emulated, tell a story of someone doing it.  If there is a volunteer need, tell the story of someone doing it and being transformed in the process.

We have been doing these in the middle of worship and seen them accelerate people into worship.

Jordan has a great post (with examples) on how to tell stories well… He is a master at it.

Check back next week and I will post the story we are going to tell this weekend.  It is an incredible video story on brokeness.