Mirror Stories

A couple weeks ago I was at a leadership conference listening to the final speaker talk about the church and its connection with creativity. Right around the middle of the sermon, he said something that gripped my heart as few words ever have before. He said…

“Whoever tells the best story shapes the culture.”

This simple sentence set my heart on fire and set the gears of my mind in motion. But a big question remained in my head. As a Christian, how do I tell quality stories that have the heart of God within them, while at the same time avoiding cheesy Sunday school bible time? Don’t get me wrong, the bible is great, but most people don’t want to feel preached to. When they go to the theatre, or sit down to read a novel they just want to hear a great story.

The more I thought about this, the more I found myself turning to the life and stories of Jesus. No where in the history of the world was there a better storyteller, and at the heart of every single on of his stories there was not only God’s truth, but another hidden mystery which we’ll get to later. Jesus didn’t bother with biblical fluff or preaching in his stories, instead, Jesus used parables.

First, a misconception that a lot of Christian artists have is that we need to have a clear gospel message in every single story we tell. What ends up happening with this is we tell a weak story with obvious ‘religious allusions’ and it even has ‘preaching lines’ within the piece itself. There is a time and a place for preaching the word of God. But the majority of people don’t come to the theatre, or your concert to be preached at, they come to be transported and told a great story. But don’t be afraid because by doing this we are in no way missing an opportunity to present the gospel to them.

Jesus was an expert at this. He had an unbelievable ability to tell amazing stories that were totally God centered as well as people centered. The difference with Jesus’ parables was that his messages were not always easy to find, in fact, most of the time the disciples would have to ask Jesus to explain what the meaning of the story was. Once they uncovered it, the story would convict them and all those around them of something deep within their own hearts, or the heart of their society. This leads us to the word parable. In the original Greek it literally means ‘to place beside’. Jesus was telling stories to place them beside the culture and hold a mirror up to what was really going on. And when the disciples heard this, they just had to know more. Something about the story was attracting them.

Now, they knew he had claimed to be the son of God, so they must have assumed there was a God message in the story somewhere. But these parables were so mysterious that they not only found God at the center of the story, but they found themselves as well. A parable is a mirror story. Where you hear it and all of a sudden you find yourself caught up in the story, because in some strange way, the story is about you. These are the kind of stories we need to be telling. In the same sermon the leader who was speaking said…

“It’s not hard to lead people to Jesus when you tell them a story they find themselves in.”

If you have ever tried to unpack one of Jesus parables on your own, you understand the mystery and treasure that are hidden within a mirror story. So much of our attraction to art, as well as to God comes from this sense of mystery. That you never know what to expect, and if the storyteller is good enough, sometimes you’re not even sure what they’re trying to say, but you want to hear more because you have a feeling that it’s important. In our attempt to preach the gospel in every work of art we do, we as Christian artists often times lose the mystery that is art, as well as the mystery that is the gospel.

It is time for a refocus in the stories we choose to tell. Let us become a people who tell the best stories. Stories that when our audience digs into them they not only find the presence of God, but they are confronted by a mirror, and in this mirror, at the heart of the story, they find themselves.

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Mirror Stories