Have
a few? Good. Now think of a favorite sermon or Sunday School lesson.
Hmm…a
bit harder, isn’t it? You came up with one? You’re doing better than I am. But
now let me ask you another question: what was so memorable about it? I bet you just launched into or started describing a story.
Whether
factual or fictional, story is how we remember, isn’t it? We hear a sermon, and
we remember the funny story the pastor told. We go to Sunday School, and we remember
the teacher’s goofy hat—giving us a great story to tell. We read an article; we
remember the anecdote. We have a lesson hit home hard, and there’s a story
about the surrounding circumstances.
How even more memorable are the stories we read and watch! There’s just something so
powerful, so mysterious about the way a character we’ve never met grabs our
attention and drags us on a journey that few ever want to experience in
reality. And for a couple hours, we don’t only sympathize with these imaginary
people, we are them—seeing what they
see, experiencing what they experience, feeling what they feel—until their
story becomes part of our story and their memories, our memories. Then the best
ones imbed themselves—and their stories—into our hearts forever.
Don’t
believe me? Ask your friends after church what the sermon they just heard was
about. Then ask them what happened on their favorite television show last week.
Which one was longer?
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