STORYTELLING:
Sharing the gospel with passion and power
By Martin Goldsmith
IVP. 186 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 1 783 591 558
A solid piece of advice, given to him early in his life as a missionary, has enormously helped Martin Goldsmith communicate the gospel all around the world. What was it? ‘If we want to communicate effectively with Malay Muslims, we shall have to learn to tell stories.’ In this book he argues that if we want to do that with any people group we shall have to master that skill. It is good advice to any preacher.
He proceeds to unpack why this is so by looking at how stories influence our minds, how stories feature significantly in other faiths, and how they run throughout the Bible’s presentation of the great saving work of God. He shows how stories work in different cultures and he devotes a whole chapter to teaching by parables. There are lots of very useful insights and ‘hints and tips’ which will better prepare any communicator.
Important skill
Though many are very engaging, most of his story illustrations are taken from non-British cultural settings and cannot easily be adopted into our talks. My reservation is that there could have been more specifically to help British preachers communicate to the biblically unaware, confused, and sceptical audiences they meet in their evangelism. Short stories can really help the preacher connect to an audience. The trouble is most preachers either don not think they are significant, or ‘they don’t know how to tell ‘em’. So this book will help, somewhat, in encouraging this important skill.
‘Foam’
Maybe a stronger steer on why our sermon outlines need to be, and how they can be, ‘covered with foam’ (facts, observations, anecdotes, and metaphors) would have made the book more useful. But it is useful nevertheless!
