Tell Me a Story - The Art of Preaching Narrative

There's nothing like a good story - especially when there's a point to it. There's an art to narrative preaching - both Old Testament and New Testament - that lets good preachers bring ancient stories to life, and does justice to the original purpose of the narrative. We'll be exploring it it class this week, and here are the notes!

If you were at the lecture (which was lots of fun), you'll notice I've added a few points to the list below...

GENERAL TIPS FOR NARRATIVE PREACHING

1. Don’t turn narrative into dry assertions of principle or fact. Keep the story alive.
2. Work on your storytelling skills. Retelling in the present tense can help!
3. Look for repetition of words or ideas. They usually help find the main point!
4. Look for hints of a future state or a desired state that take the narrative forward. Highlight them in your storytelling, but don’t defuse too much of the tension.
5. Look for answers to unresolved questions in the rest of the narrative. Be aware of the answers in advance, but don’t necessarily answer them immediately for your listeners. Again, respect the tension and resolution rhythms created by the narrative.
6. Look for things that don’t fit, or are jarring or surprising. They’re often important.
7. Be careful not to over embellish. It’s good to recreate a scene, but try to stick with the props and scenery provided by the text where possible. Otherwise you might be creating a distraction. Usually, if you need to know something you’ll be told. 

As a bonus, here's an article from Doug Green, Westminster Seminary Philadelphia, who makes some of the same points - but much more fluently!

Apply or Die

This week we talked about applying the Bible with equal amounts of boldness and grace. It's a difficult balance! Take a look at the class notes here.

TODAY WE ALSO SCHEDULED the final preaching exercises over weeks 10, 11 and 12. If you need a reminder of when you'll be presenting in class, Michelle has summarised the schedule here.

Nice work...

Here's Rob Davey's submission for the video assignment. Nice work! By the way, they're due this week.

Preaching Asssessment Sheet

For those who have been waiting for the Preaching Assessment Sheet (which you'll give to selected listeners when you're delivering a talk at your church... here it is at last. Sorry about the delay.