Gospel Subplots : Story Sermons of God's Grace

If over the centuries Christians have become used to sermons being a string of assertions, explanations, or exhortations -- with a sprinkling of stories as illustrations -- the sermons have not been preached in a manner consistent with how the Bible communicates reality. Most of the Bible is stories. Story sermons do today what Jesus did in his stories -- they sneak up on people. Listeners can ward off moral exhortations, and they become resistant to three points, a poem, and a prayer. Intellectually they can parry with information doled out in a series of reasoned arguments. But stories win us over before we understand what is going on. Stories quietly tip the scale of our minds toward agreeing with God's graciousness. (from the Introduction) In these fine story-sermons believable things happen to believable people, and faith grows -- both theirs and ours. David L. BartlettLantz Professor of Christian CommunicationAssociate Dean of Academic AffairsYale University Divinity School David O. Bales has been a Presbyterian pastor for 24 years. Currently the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Klamath Falls, Oregon, he is also a freelance writer and editor for Stephen Ministries, St. Louis, Missouri. Bales has published sermons in Pulpit Digest, Preaching, and Lectionary Homiletics, and has taught college courses in World Religions and Ethics.