The Power of a Bigger Story

I was challenged by Reggie Joiner this week. In his book “Think Orange” he talked about the power of a bigger story.

A father went to his pastor to express his concerns about his daughter going “goth.” The pastor asked what he was doing to handle the change and he said, “yell and make her go to church.” The pastor replied, “I think your daughter is choosing a better story.”

He went on. “We’re all designed to live inside a story. Your daughter was designed to play a role in a story. In this story she has chosen, there is risk, adventure, and pleasure. She is wanted and she is desired. In your story, she’s yelled at, she feels guilty, and she feels unwanted. She’s just choosing a story that is better than the one you’re providing. Plus, in the midst of placing her in an awful story, you make her go to church. So you’re associating a bad, boring story with God, who has a great story. Don’t do that anymore. You have to tell a better story.”

Do you know what that father did? That week he decided to build an orphanage in Mexico that would cost $20,000. He unveiled a plan to his family and asked them to come up with ways they could raise $20,000 within two years. He gave his family a better story. The good news is that his daughter left that lifestyle and her boyfriend within three weeks because now she was living a better story, a story where she was wanted and needed and had risk and adventure.

The bottom line is that everybody needs to experience something bigger than themselves and we need to provide the opportunity for that to happen.

As a leader and a teacher you have a great opportunity to make this happen. If church is just a boring, hour-long lack of drama every Sunday it’s no wonder people drift off to other areas of adventure and risk. But what if you could give them a bigger story? What if the story of your group contained more than just teaching and sitting in a circle, what if it contained adventure? What if your group decided to change a local school by serving there? What if the youth group decided to go on a mission trip? What if you decided to take your kids and their parents on a whitewater rafting trip? What if you challenged your students and your group to live out a bigger story – one with adventure and risk and the need of God to come through or nothing happens?

It’s not enough to dream of that story we also need to strategize how we can accomplish it and move together as one people with one mind to the mission we have envisioned.

So let me ask: what is the big story that your group is all about? What adventure can your group be on? Can we give our people a better story to live out than the one the world is telling?