I\u2019ve always loved stories. Loved them as a child sitting on my grandfather\u2019s front porch and listing to him tell of his earlier days. Loved hearing my 6th grade teacher read the stories of William Green Hill. Only natural that I would develop a teaching\/preaching\/writing style heavy with story telling. Seemed to always work well. Good response from learners\/listeners\/readers. Then I began to hear criticism of those, like me, who included \u201ctoo much story telling\u201d in their sermons. \u201cUse more exegesis of scripture\u201d the critics said. Don\u2019t misunderstand. I believe strongly in the adequate and accurate exegesis of scripture. I also believe as strongly in the exegesis of the audience. People not only love and listen well to stories, but they remember the truth of scripture when illustrated with applicable illustrations. Many years ago Rudyard Kipling wrote, \u201cIf history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.\u201d What Kipling wrote of \u201chistory\u201d might also be said of scripture. In fact, it seems that Jesus had a great deal of success telling stories in the form of parables \u2013 \u201cHe spoke many things to them in parables\u201d (Matthew 13:3). So, I\u2019ll just keep telling my stories, and providing another target for the critics. Anyone remember a story I told in your presence that illustrated a biblical truth?<\/p>\n
Join me this week in praying for the following global concerns:
\n\u2022 Pray for Suzanne as she ministers among 13,200 international students at the University of British Columbia and Craig as he ministers through Origin Church at UBC among a total student body of 52,290, most of whom are non-Christian.
\n\u2022 Join in forty days of prayer with those who serve among the European people, where only about 1 percent of the population has a personal relationship with Christ.
\n\u2022 Refugees are flooding into Germany – 800,000 already arrived this year. Pray for those who minister to them.
\n\u2022 Pray for the New Day Orphanage in Zambia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve always loved stories. Loved them as a child sitting on my grandfather\u2019s front porch and listing to him tell of his earlier days. Loved hearing my 6th grade teacher read the stories of William Green Hill. Only natural that I would develop a teaching\/preaching\/writing style heavy with story telling. Seemed to always work well….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}