Narrative Theology is More Than Telling a Bible Story

It seems that a new sexy term in youth ministry is "Narrative Theology."  There is much talk about how young people like stories.  Yes, that is true.  I also hear, "we shouldn't just give kids Bible verses as a way to help them develop a list of things to do and things to not do." OK, but we are just scratching the surface with what Narrative Theology is about.  Using some popular Bible Stories is not Narrative Theology.  Narrative Theology involves Creation Theology, Atonement Theology, Soteriology, Eccelesiology, plus much more. 

One of the things I've been thinking about lately is how individual narratives are shaped and impacted by a listener.  Every young person we work with has a story.  What impact does the active listening of a youth worker have in creating an environment in which the adolescents story is shaped, reoriented, reimagined and integrated?  Can the communal act of listening to an adolescents story result in transformation and the merging of their story with God's story?

Through Jesus Christ's Incarnation, God and humanity begin sharing a new and robustly embodied story.   Wesleyan Theologian Aaron Perry writes about, "listening as a defining role and transformative act of the church, the community founded by the narrative shared with God in Jesus, in which the church enables other to join her narrative"  He also examines the concept of at-one-ment with God as a "narrative shared with God that forms a new community."

God's salvific work through our Lord Jesus Christ involved an act of interpersonal communication which "emphasizes the presence of the personal."  Human beings are dialogical beings and the act of communication - speaking and listening involves the formation of a relationship.  Perry believes that the presence of a listener, opens the story of an individual to the constructive abilities of both speaker and listener.  I like the highly communial aspect of these thoughts and want to do some more thinking about the role of youth worker as listener in the spiritual formation of young people.       

Aaron Perry, Listening, Narrative, and Atonement, Wesley Theological Journal.

Mike King

Comments

[Ted]

Hey mike,
thanks for that post, it really puts some things I´ve been thinking about lately into perspective. A few months ago I left my full time youth pastor job in KCMO to do volunteer mission work, and as the end of my volunteer time is nearing I find my self rethinking my involvement in youth ministry. I´m reading The Blue Parakeet right now as well, and feeling very convicted that to be a better youth minister I need to be a better listener. I also feel like that might be harder to do while employed by the church as "youth pastor," and so I´m looking at other career paths in order to be faithful to the ministry I am called to. I don´t know whether that feeling is because of my lack of listening skills or because there is something inherent about "church staff" that makes people less willing to share their stories without sensoring them.

thanks again for your insights. you´re always an encouragement!

[Jeff]

Mike:

Interesting post. Do you have any recommendations for primers on Narrative Therapy?

[Larry]

Narrative therapy? If you're interested in Narrative theology, particularly as it applies to hermeneutics, try The Last Word by N.T. Wright. Christopher Wright's The Mission of God is also supposed to be very good, but I haven't read it yet, its on my stack.

[Erik]

I still say one of the best primers on Narrative Theology is a short, but amazing, book by Lesslie Newbigin entitled, "A Walk Through the Bible." Brilliant in its simplicity.

[Darien]

I'm inclined to agree with you.
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