“If the story will be told, it will have to be told by the church. All of the other

cultural tellers are gone or will be gone soon. We must tell the story.”

Dan Aleshire, Exec Dir, Association of

Theological Schools

I love to tell the story of unseen things above, of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus and his love. I love to tell the story, because I know 'tis true; it satisfies my longings as nothing else can do.

Refrain

I love to tell the story, 'twill be my theme in glory, to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

I love to tell the story; 'tis pleasant to repeat what seems, each time I tell it, more wonderfully sweet. I love to tell the story, for some have never heard the message of salvation from God's own holy Word

Refrain

I love to tell the story, 'twill be my theme in glory, to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

I love to tell the story, for those who know it best seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest. And when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song, 'twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long.

Refrain

I love to tell the story, 'twill be my theme in glory, to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

What is the Narrative Lectionary?

• An open source, multi-partner experimental lectionary

• The goal is to foster biblical fluency and nurture Christian faith

• Supported at workingpreacher.org &• https://groups.google.com/group/

narrativelectionary

Sep 11 Creation Gen 1:1-2:4a; or 1:1-5, 26-2:4a

Sep 18 Abraham and Sarah Gen 18:1-15; 21:1-7

Sep 25 Joseph in Egypt Gen 39:1-23

Oct 2 Exodus Exod 1:1-22; 16:1-8

Oct 9 Law Deut 5:1-22; 6:4-9

Oct 16 Ruth 1:1-22

Oct 23 Solomon builds the Temple 1 Kgs 5:1-5, 12-13; 8:1-6, 27-30

Oct 30 Elijah at Horeb 1 Kgs 19:1-18

Nov 6 Hosea Hos 6:1-6; 11:1-9

Nov 13 Isaiah Isa 1:12-20; 2:1-6a

Nov 20 Josiah 2 Kgs 22:1-18a, 20; 23:1-3

Nov 27 Jeremiah Jer 18:1-11

Nov 4 Habakkuk Hab 1:1-7; 2:1-4; 3:16-29

Dec 11 Daniel Dan 3:1-30

Dec 18 Malachi Mal 3:1-7; 4:1-2, 5

NarrativeLectionary 2011-2012

Five Factors of Thriving CongregationsKen Inskeep and Kelly Fryer

(1) In thriving congregations God is has moved from an idea to a reality;

(2) Bible frames everything they do, think, say, decide, and dream;

(3) God’s people are ministers, they don’t receive services;(4) God’s people, especially the leaders, are pragmatic and

willing to do whatever it takes to connect with new people; and

(5) Believing that God changes lives, God’s people expect God to be active in their own lives. They talk about and expect God.

Why is the Biblical Story Crucial to Christian Faith?

We Live in Stories

And therefore knowing the biblicalStory is Core to Christian faith

Stories Form. . .

1. The basis of human knowledge.2. The fabric of inter-personal communication

and understanding.3. The core of individual identity.4. The core communal identity.5. The interpretive key to new experiences.

1. Basis of Human Knowing

– “…the formal quality of experience through time is inherently narrative.” (Crites, p. 291).

– “Knowledge, then, is experiences and stories, and intelligence is the apt use of experience and the creation and telling of stories.” (Schank, p. 16)

2. Fabric of Interpersonal Communication

– “Theory of Mind” describes “our ability to explain other people’s behavior in terms of their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and desires.” (Zunshine)

– “In other words, everyday understanding is a creative process that requires you to construct explanations for behaviors and events that have occurred.” (Schank)

3. Basis of Individual Identity

– ‘each of us constructs and lives a “narrative” . . . this narrative is us, our identities’ (Oliver Sacks)

– ‘self is a perpetually rewritten story . . . we become the autobiographical narratives by which we “tell about” our lives’ (Jerry Bruner)

– ‘basic condition of making sense of ourselves is that we grasp our lives in a narrative’ and have an understanding of our lives ‘as an unfolding story’ (Charles Taylor)

4. Basis of Communal Identity

• “What creates a culture, surely, must be a ‘local’ capacity for accruing stories of happenings of the past into some sort of diachronic structure that permits a continuity into the present. . . . The perpetual construction and reconstruction of the past provide precisely the forms of canonicity that permit us to recognize when a breach has occurred and how it might be interpreted.” (Bruner)

5. Provide the Templates by which we Interpret new Experiences

– “Human memory is a cluster of experiences, each labeled in complex ways. These labels allow for the retrieval of relevant experiences at the right time. . . .The old situation then becomes a guide to follow or even a guide to what not to do.” (Schank)

– “We imbibe a sense of the meaning of our own baffling dramas from these stories, and this sense of its meaning in turn affects the form of [our] experience and the style of his action. Such [stories] . . . help to link [our] inner lives as well as orienting them to a common public world.” (Crites)

How Do You Teach With Stories?

• “The more work your story requires the audience to do, the more effective it will be.” –Roger Schrank

• “We have been operating in a content delivery model, but our people are struggling in a meaning making model.”—Me

From Expertise to Equipping

What is Wrong with Our Current Patterns of Preaching?

“You are the light of the world”

All of the basic congregational practices that we teach or were taught at seminary, were strategically designed for a world that no longer exists…including the RCL.

Three-Zone Modelof Leadership from The Missional Leader, Roxburgh and Romanuk

Organizational Life CycleAlan Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader, Jossey Bass, 2006

Organizational BeginningEmergent Leadership – New Actions

Green Zone

Pioneering Organization

Green Zone Characteristics

1. Loose coalitions drawn by pursuit of elusive dream that seems out of reach.

2. Tight, focused shared vision.

3. High levels of social interaction.

4. Org life informal, ad hoc.

5. People are usually all generalists.

6. New environments.

7. An absence of hierarchies.

8. Excel in ambiguous environments with multiple challenges.

9. Learn to be continually adaptive.

10.Strategy not linear but emerges.

Organizational InstitutionalizationPerformative Organization and Leadership

Blue Zone

PerformativeOrganization

Blue Zone Characteristics:

1. Structured Corporate Organization

2. Large-scale displaces ‘just-in-time”.

3. Specialization of roles and programs

4. Focus is on ability to perform

5. Org hierarchies displace loose teams.

6. Run by the experts

7. Loss of overall, shared vision

8. Lowering levels of social interaction

9. Rationalized planning replaces emergent planning

Organizational Decline Reactive Leadership and Regulative Agency

Red Zone

Regulatory Agency

Red Zone Characteristics

1. Highly anxiety, anger at leaders.

2. Silos.

3. Battles on secondary issues.

4. Constitutions/operations manuals to assert control.

5. Emotionally/physically opt.

6. Leaders resign.

7.Work harder at the dominant habits and actions

8. Crisis

1400 BC 1200 BC 1000 BC 800 BC 600 BC 400 BC 200 BC 0 AD

1

Gen 50

Joseph

Biblical Timeline

Readings 9/11/11

1

Gen 50

Joseph

Psalm

Psalm 103

2

Rom 14

Gospel

Matt 18

1400 BC 1200 BC 1000 BC 800 BC 600 BC 400 BC 200 BC 0 AD

1

Gen 50

Joseph

Biblical Timeline

Readings 9/18/11

1

Jonah

Psalm

Psalm 145

2

Phil 1

Paul

Gospel

Matt 20

1400 BC 1200 BC 1000 BC 800 BC 600 BC 400 BC 200 BC 0 AD

1

Gen 50

Joseph

Biblical Timeline

Readings 9/18/11

1

Exodus

Psalm

Psalm 25

2

Phil 2

Paul

Gospel

Matt 21

Picasso, Dora Maar (upper right)Picasso, Woman in a Red Armchair (right)Jason Loya, Composition with Woman and Chair (above)

Joy Moore

• Narrating a Canonical Witness: A Homiletic for the 21st Century.

• "Has the focused quest for relevance undermined the sermon’s efficacy to convey to listeners the storied reality of God as narrated in Christian Scripture?"

• “preachers [do not] convey to listeners the overarching story depicted in Christian Scripture as narrated from Genesis through Revelation."

Suggestions

1. Church Must Be The StoryA. Missional Identity = Being the StoryB. Worship Forms

2. Engage Scripture DifferentlyA. In a way that fosters biblical literacyB. In a way that brings the biblical story along side

of our storiesC. In a way that equips rather than “dumps”

WE LIVE IN THE AGE OF NARRATIVE SATURATION

Dan AleshirePresident of Association of Theological

Schools

“If the story will be told, it will have to be told by the church. All of the other cultural tellers are gone or will be gone soon. We must tell the story. . . .” (April 6, 2011)

Robert Jenson

“Throughout modernity, the church has presumed that its mission was directed to persons who already understood themselves as inhabitants of a narratable world. . . . But this is precisely what the postmodern church cannot presume. What then? The obvious answer is that if the church does not find her hearers antecedently inhabiting a narratable world, then the church must herself be that world.” (Jenson)

The Confessions

That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ's sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ's sake.

The Confessions

That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ's sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ's sake.

Five Treads in the Biblical Story

1. Belonging2. Creation and Re-creation3. God Working through Broken People and

Institutions4. God Keeps Promises5. The God of the Old Testament is the same

God who became flesh in Jesus Christ.

1. Belonging

God created a creation that would belong to God and in which everything within the creation would belong in harmony to everything else. Sin is the reality that our relationships with God, each other, and the creation are broken. God’s gracious activity includes reknitting the relationships of belonging.

2. Creation and Re-Creation

God’s act of creation was both once and also ongoing. God created the world in such a way that creation renews itself. But God has graciously intervenes to bring about re-creation and the Bible ends with the promises that one day all creation will be brought to consummation.

3. God Works Through Flawed People

God’s has chosen to work through broken people (Abraham and Sarah, Joseph, David, etc.) and broken institutions (nations, monarchy, Temple) to bring mercy and love to creation.

4. God Keeps Promises

In Genesis 12, for example, God promises Abram many descendants, a land in which those descendants will live, and that those descendants will be blessed to be a blessing. These promises are often in danger throughout Genesis and the rest of the Old Testament, yet God finds ways to keep those promises.

5. OT God became flesh in Jesus

The God of the Old Testament is the same God who became incarnate in Jesus. In 2011, we conducted surveys and interviews with 11 congregations and 1500 people. One clear issue that arose was a lack of understanding of how the Old Testament is Christian scripture and of what role the Old Testament plays in mature Christian faith.

Open Source Resources

1. Workingpreacher.org commentaries2. Workingpreacher.org podcasts3. Bulletin inserts4. Weekday text readings5. Bible studies6. Prayers and liturgical support7. Hymn suggestions

Our patterns of congregational ministry were once strategically designed to facilitate ministry

to a world that no longer exists.

“Is” Image

“Vision” Image

Home Workplace

Community Congregation

The church will grow through God’s activity in the lives of people.

God at Work, David Miller

Worship as the “performance”?

Prominent Liturgical Scholar:“Formation of worshipers before worship. . .

provide a stable ordo that all this can plug into. Changes only to reflect traditional customs related to the seasons of the church year. . . . It's not the ordo, it's the performance that makes the difference.”

Worship as the rehearsal

[Jacob] came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. . . . Jacob woke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place-- and I did not know it!"

The Confessions

That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ's sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ's sake.

The Confessions

That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ's sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ's sake.