The deeper our roots go, the deeper our faith can grow. One great way to deepen both is through the gift of story.
Storytelling is part of the human experience. Before we had written text, traditions and faith were passed down orally through the generations in the form of story.. In a book called Family: The Forming Center, Marjorie Thompson says that we can connect our faith through story with the use of three forms of story.
- Personal stories are about us, things that happened to us in our lifetime. My kids absolutely love it when my husband and I share stories about “when we were kids.” These stories are even more powerful when we connect them to how God has been real in our lives.
- Ancestral stories about generations before us. The Bible says we are “surrounded by a great cloud of witness,” heroes of the faith that have gone before us and left us a legacy in the form of lives lived and lives given for Christ. I’ll never forget the first time my mom gave me a book by Corrie Ten Boom and I read about the powerful life lived by this Holocaust survivor who loved others and God so much she literally impacted millions of lives. In fact, her impact on my life continues to this day.
- Biblical stories about the characters in God’s Word. In the superhero-saturated environment kids are growing up in, why not help your kids explore the men and women of God in the pages of the Bible? These faithful witnesses were far from perfect and yet God used them to change the world and even change our lives.
Why the emphasis on story?
Well, if we want to step back and look at the Bible broadly, to examine what Dr. Scottie May of Wheaton calls the “metanarrative” of Scripture, we are going to see a grand and beautiful rescue story . For kids, I use just 4 symbols to tell the story. The first symbol is a red heart, second is a black lightening bold, third is a brown cross, and finally another red heart. From that emerges this simple but beautiful story:
We had a perfect love relationship with God, sin separated us from the love and God used the cross and the sacrifice of His son to bring about a perfect love relationship with him again if we so desire.
I know that we debate the details of this story and we create denominations based on interpretations and translations and alliterations BUT this metanarrative is THE STORY that encompasses the Bible and this is the story we need to connect our kids to in meaningful everyday ways.
It’s not enough that kids know God is love; they must know that love is active and drawing them to Him in everyday, normal life because that is where faith and action live together.
And it is up for us to tell them the most beautiful love story of all time.
If you would like a good resource to use with kids in your home to tell that central story over and over again using the supporting stories found in Scripture, I recommend The Jesus Storybook, which shows the kids Jesus in every story of the Bible and relates the rescue plan through each one. It’s available at Amazon in both paper and ebook forms.
This blog is Part 2 in a series called “Growing Deep Roots: Communication for Faith Formation at Home.” For more ideas on practical discipleship at home or transitioning your ministry to a more family-focused approached, check out ReFocus Ministry or “like” our Facebook page.
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