The experience of The Story Church Campaign can help people see God’s bigger story and their part in it.  Haven Parrott, Minister of Spiritual Formation, from First Baptist Church in Kanapolis, NC relates, “A fairly significant number [of people in my congregation] commented that they never saw how it [the Bible and God's story] all fit together.”

To help the congregation realize how it all “fit together,” Haven’s team put together a special segment for each Sunday. “We incorporated it into our worship experience,” she told us, “Every service had a segment called ‘Your Story’. We either dramatized something from The Story, or a person came up front and told their story and how their story related to God’s story. It added a very personal element every week.”

In his book, God’s Story, Your Story, Pastor Max Lucado wrote, “We need to know where we came from. Knowing connects us, links us, bonds us to something greater than we are. Knowing reminds us that we aren’t floating on isolated ponds but on a grand river. That’s why God wants you to know His story.”

The Story—God’s story—and your story. They intertwine and bring you to a place of connection and help you see the bigger vision and purpose that’s ahead.

Visit our website for details on how you can, like First Baptist and other churches, bring The Story to your congregation.

As David passes the leadership baton to Solomon, Israel is in great shape. Financially, they are strong and prosperous; no trillion-dollar debt hanging over them. And they are at peace — no wars with neighbors in the Middle East to drag down Solomon’s popularity rating. If ever there was a good time to be king of Israel, this was it.

God approaches Solomon early in his reign and tells him he can have everything he wants.

Solomon asks for wisdom.

What is astonishing is that his request is not so much for himself but for insight to fulfill his duties as the leader of God’s people. He essentially tells God, “You are giving me this awesome privilege of serving you, but I’m a mere child and this nation is huge, so please give me the wisdom to be a just and righteous king.”

God honors Solomon’s request, and it doesn’t take long for the new king to put his gift from God to work. Solomon seemed to be the perfect king, a rock star for God and his nation.

But you know what’s coming, right? In the course of any good story, it seems that life can’t go smoothly for too long before conflict rears its ugly head. This was the case for Solomon as well. By the time his reign drew to an end, he had faced rebellion from within and attacks from outsiders who once thought he hung the moon. The changes didn’t happen overnight, but in a succession of events that came together like dominoes toppling. The wise, humble, unfathomably rich king tumbled off his throne and found himself running for his life.

You’ve probably heard about the phenomenon of putting a frog in a pan of boiling water. If you put a frog in a pan of lukewarm water, he will sit there as happy and content as tourists in a Jacuzzi. Then as you gradually turn up the heat on the stove, our buddy Kermit only relaxes all the more. As the water gets warmer and warmer, he doesn’t realize that his warm bath has become a boiling cooker until it’s too late.

The same thing happened to Solomon. He got cooked. In addition to having palaces filled with the most exquisite and expensive stuff, Solomon also had a lot of wives — I’m not talking about two or three here. I mean seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (fancy word for “more wives”). According to the cultural customs of that time, this wasn’t necessarily unusual or wrong in God’s sight. But Solomon took wives from other nations, disobeying one of God’s rules for living well.

We don’t know if his fall started after twenty years of ruling Israel or thirty years into his reign. But eventually the water got too hot. All the Bible tells us is that “as Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods.”11

Solomon probably thought those women from neighboring countries were so exotic and beautiful that he deserved to enjoy them as wives while having the willpower to reject their gods. But God’s Upper Story never changes, nor is it influenced by what we want. He may allow us to have what we want, even if it violates his standards for enjoying life with him. But ultimately he is building a perfect community in which people treat each other with respect and honor him as the one true God.

We must keep in mind that what feels warm and soothing to us today may well become the cauldron that cooks our goose (not just our frogs!) tomorrow. How we live our lives matters.

The best advice Solomon offers us is to be extremely careful about jumping into “harmless” pots of water. But if we have — and we’re already feeling cooked — then we must remember that with God it is never too late to come back to him even though we may be a bit overdone and wrinkled. True wisdom leads us to depend on God and humbly trust that he knows what is best for us.

Most kids look at the Bible like they look at a book of fairy tales. Fairy tales are all about whimsy, kings and princesses, but the stories don’t have much, if anything to do with each other. Likewise, to most kids biblical events are all about God, but they don’t think the stories have much to do with each other. Kids know about Moses, and they know that Joshua fought the battle at Jericho, but do they know that Joshua was part of the exodus from Egypt (and a major player in the events between those two events)? Most kids probably don’t.

The Story Church campaign can help kids make the connection between the Bible stories, as well as make reading the Bible more interesting. Why? Here’s a few reasons:

• The Story campaign calls for reading the bible for 31-weeks across the whole church, kids included.
• Zondervan (The Story publisher) has provided some great resources, not just for adults, but for kids as well.
• Many churches have been involved in the campaign and all of them have seen tremendous results, including the kid’s ministry!

Pastor Dave Grout of Christ United Methodist told us, “The kids jumped in with both feet, it’s been a good thing.”

Pastor Dustin Ledford of Carthage Nazarene Church said, “[The Story] is great for families to read aloud at home.”

Pastor Peake from Clinton, SC summarized it when he said, “People can study and understand [the Bible's] simple story line. It all comes together for them.”

Families and kids are reading and learning the Bible because The Story Campaign helps bring it all together. Kids (and their parents) are seeing the bigger story of the Bible and they are understanding the Bible’s redemptive message, perhaps for the first time.

See how you can energize your kids (and your adults as well) by taking a look at The Story Church Campaign. You can find all the details at our website.

Sometimes, along either way, struggles or challenges are encountered. These struggles lead to questions and the questions lead to a journey of discovery. In a group there’s an opportunity to experience it all together. There’s a community who journey with God and the Bible to find His answers or His promises or simply His voice and direction. In a group there’s shared understanding, comfort and a feeling of, “All of us pulling together for one goal of spiritual growth and understanding.”

Pastor Dustin Leonard has seen this experience with his congregation. Carthage Nazarene Church has just finished The Story Church Campaign. He told us, “We’ve been able to turn people into Bible readers and they are experiencing the journey together. This was a great experience.”

As they journeyed together, they didn’t simply read the book. The people in Pastor Leonard’s church congregation experienced God’s redemptive story together. Each week they were literally on the same page and while each personal journey was unique, the campaign gave the church family one focus, one story and one shared journey.

The Story is a unique way to experience God’s story, presence and His Word within a group of people. It will spark questions, discussion, inspiration and hope for all the people involved.

For more information on The Story Church Campaign, and how you can experience God’s journey together with your church family, visit our website.

I love conversion stories, which may be the Christian equivalent to the stories of these superheroes discovering their powers. Stories of how people have gone from not knowing Jesus to inviting him to enter their lives.

Few people in history have had as dramatic a conversion or as powerful an impact on the Christian faith as a young Jewish man who experienced a radical 180-degree turn in his life. Saul was a zealous Jew who took it upon himself to try to stop the spread of this new movement begun by Jesus. When one of Jesus’ followers, Stephen, was stoned to death for teaching about Jesus, it was Saul who gave the crowd his approval to kill him. Like a bounty hunter, he roamed the land, “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.”

On one of his “missions” to track down the followers of Jesus, he experienced a major roadblock, literally, in the form of a high-voltage smack-down. A bolt of lightning knocked him to the ground, blinding him as a voice cried out, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”3 It was Jesus, who gave him a new name — Paul — and a new mission, which he would carry out with the same zeal as he had his previous mission. In fact, he was so effective in teaching about Jesus that he became the target of unbelievers who wanted to kill him.

Paul responded to God’s call to continue the job of taking the message of salvation to “the ends of the earth,” where mostly Gentiles lived. On his very first trip he established a pattern of going to the Jewish synagogue in each town he visited and making his pitch.

Essentially, he was connecting the dots for the Jewish people so that they could see that their own scriptures — the Old Testament — pointed to Jesus Christ. Everything that happened to Jesus was foretold in those ancient texts, including everything that would be done to him on the cross. Then Paul simply invited his hearers to believe their own prophecies and accept the gift of salvation that Jesus offered.

Taking the good news to his Jewish countrymen was one thing; trying to sell this message to Gentiles — non-Jewish people — would be much more difficult. The Gentiles didn’t have the same religious background. They didn’t worship Yahweh and weren’t looking for a Messiah.

We often face the same challenge, whether we realize it or not. Over the years I’ve noticed that Christians sometimes assume that everyone knows about their religious traditions. So we try to share the good news by using language no one really understands but us and talking about unfamiliar concepts that must make us look like we just arrived from another planet. Nothing can end a conversation quicker than the words animal sacrifice and substitutionary atonement.

When Paul arrived in Athens, he might as well have been Superman arriving on earth from his native planet Krypton. The citizens of this great city know nothing of the Law, the Prophets, or the Psalms. They are known for their great intellect and ability to reason. Paul brilliantly and eloquently builds a rational case for believing, beginning all the way back at the story of creation and leading to the resurrection of Jesus. Some reject his message, but many others are intrigued and want to learn more. By adjusting his message to meet the needs and interests of his audience, Paul is at least given a fair hearing, and even convinces many to believe.

He planted numerous churches in highly Gentile-populated cities. He wrote many letters (thirteen are contained in our Bibles) to help strengthen the churches throughout the world. And he provided us with an example of how to share the good news with people who may not be immediately inclined to accept it.

I guess that’s why I like superhero movies and conversion stories. Conversion, after all, is change, and it is the change in a person’s life that I find so exciting. Paul underwent an amazing change, and as a result thousands of others also were changed.

Have you allowed God to reveal who you really are?

Gladys Hunt, in her excellent resource book, Honey for a Woman’s Heart: Growing Your World Through Reading Great Books lists several benefits of Bible reading. A few include:

• The Bible comforts us in hard times by connecting us to God.

• The Bible’s truths relate to everything around us.

• The Bible changes our perspective, and indeed, our very lives.

• The Bible points to a Savior.

• The Bible is literature worth reading.

She goes on to say, “The Bible always surprises me, and I have been reading it for years. It says what I need to hear. I think I know what it says, and then find it speaking with a fresh voice when I read it again.”[i]

Churches who have participated with The Story have discovered much of the same thing. People are excited to engage in reading the Bible. They are seeing and learning things they’ve never known before about the Bible and the Bible’s singular and redemptive story from Genesis to Revelation. Veteran Bible readers are also discovering new insights, truth and meaning as they read each week of the campaign. Plus, The Story proves to be an excellent and enjoyable read.

To paraphrase many pastors whose churches have participated in The Story Campaign, “Our people are discovering the Bible and all it has for them. New readers and people who’ve been reading it for years are finding fresh insight and enjoyment.”

The Bible—it’s full of surprises, perspective and truly literature worth reading for everyone of any age.

For more information on The Story and The Story Church Campaign, visit our website.

Al Paschall, a member at Rockland Community Church shares, “My fourteen-year old is asking me questions about the Bible stories he has been reading.  This is very encouraging to both my wife and I.”

We hear from churches around the country that The Story is bringing families together to read and engage in the Bible. The weekly focus allows families to dig in, understand and talk about Scripture. Mr. Paschall adds, “I’ve seen my son engaged in reading and discussing the Bible.”

The Story has a unique ability to pull families into discussion and study of the Bible. They are, in Mr Paschall’s words, “engaged.” Perhaps it’s is the way The Story is presented—31 chapters taken from the Bible that read like a novel, but at the same time communicate the full truth and the full story of the Bible. It may be the NIV text and the unique way it communicates the Bible to the reader. It may be focus. With the whole church, from the pulpit to the small children, actively pursuing reading and studying through the entire Bible in thirty-one weeks.

Whatever the cause, The Story is acting as a catalyst to bring families together reading and discussing God’s Word.

For more information on how you or your church can experience The Story, visit our website.

Let’s face it. Our world has changed dramatically. A decent segment of the population has great trouble reading literature. They’ve cut their teeth on skimming tweets, digesting texts, and scanning blogs.

Reading literature is fast becoming an endangered skill.

For this reason, many have trouble reading the Bible.

Enter a new kind of Bible for a text-skimming, tweet-digesting, blog-scanning generation.

The Story.

If you or someone you know has trouble reading the Bible, this is a great resource to start them out with.

 

You can read Frank’s full review here!

Death seems like such a dead end. Until we read Jesus’ resurrection story.

“He is not here. He has risen from the dead as he said he would” (Matthew 28:6 NCV).

On Saturday the Enemy had won, courage was gone, and hope caught the last train to the coast. When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” Mark 16:1 – 3

It may have been Sunday morning, but their world was stuck on Saturday. It was left to the angel to lead them into Sunday. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.” Matthew 28:2 – 6

The angel sat on the dislodged tombstone. He did not stand in defiance or crouch in alertness. He sat. Legs crossed and whistling? In my imagination at least. The angel sat upon the stone. Again, the irony. The very rock intended to mark the resting place of a dead Christ became the resting place of his living angel. And then the announcement.

“He has risen.” Three words in English. Just one in Greek. EgMerthe¯. So much rests on the validity of this one word. If it is false, then the whole of Christianity collapses like a poorly told joke. Yet, if it is true, then God’s story has turned your final chapter into a preface. If the angel was correct, then you can believe this: Jesus descended into the coldest cell of death’s prison and allowed the warden to lock the door and smelt the keys in a furnace. And just when the demons began to dance and prance, Jesus pressed pierced hands against the inner walls of the cavern. From deep within he shook the cemetery.

The ground rumbled, and the tombstones tumbled. And out he marched, the cadaver turned king, with the mask of death in one hand and the keys of heaven in the other. EgMerthe¯! He has risen!

The bodily resurrection means everything. If Jesus lives on only in spirit and deeds, he is but one of a thousand dead heroes. But if he lives on in flesh and bone, he is the King who pressed his heel against the head of death. What he did with his own grave he promises to do with yours: empty it.

The Story uniquely captures the emotion of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem:

When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna [Save!], blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

Thousands of people gathered and welcomed Him.

Later, after the Passover feast and Jesus’ washing of his Disciple’s feet, we find Him praying in Gethsemane. He knew what was ahead of Him. He knew what He had to do and he knew the outcome. Quoting The Story, “An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”

He is in pain and torment, but he courageously presses on to do the Father’s will. Jesus is cruelly put to death by crucifixion. But, fortunately the story doesn’t end there:

As Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome approach the tomb where Jesus is buried, they see an angel sitting on the stone which was rolled away from the entrance. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said . . . So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid, yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.”

Jesus suffered, died and rose again. This is the essence of the story. He took the penalty of our sin and gave himself as a sacrifice so we could have eternal life, in Heaven, with God.

This season is always a good time to reflect on Jesus’ story. It’s a time to consider all that He’s done for us and all He gave for us. It’s a time to recommit and reconnect to Him. It’s a time to say, like his disciple Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”

May God richly bless you this Easter weekend. He is risen!