When Words Become Stories
One of the problems people of faith face is how to convey what faith is. While scientists have a whole method or mathematicians have lots of formulas, the grounding of faith is words. Or more specific, the Word or scripture. Over time pastors have spilled lots of ink into sermons and newsletter articles and now blogs to try to capture and cultivate faith. Here is the problem. Words are intellectual by their nature. You are reading these words on your computer screen and it engages the part of your brain that likes to think. You begin to think about whether what you are reading makes sense, where I am being unclear, or where my words fall short or even fail. For many, many years (beginning with the Enlightenment ) pastors thought if we could just come up with the right combination of words it would unlock the right synapse in people's brains and everyone would believe. In short, for far too long, pastors tried to prove faith. As my son likes to say...there is one small pro