In Storycraft, renowned author Walter Wangerin Jr. explores the power of narrative and storytelling to impact message, messenger, and hearer. Through preaching and teaching, the gospel comes alive--is incarnated--in the words, actions, and stories we tell. Well-crafted stories shape the relationship between tellers and listeners, between preachers and people. And in the telling, trust is established, faith is formed, and lives change. "A well-told story gives people eyes that see, ears that hear, tongues that taste, fingers that touch, and hearts that can be moved. But even before we start to create a story, and then to tell it, we should trust we have the abilities to craft it well enough to lead our listeners to the truth" (chapter 3). Wangerin draws on personal experience and a host of voices to make a case for the importance of embracing story as an essential tool for communicating the gospel in preaching and teaching settings. He turns to personal anecdotes, wisdom from ancient classics, and a provocative anthology of narrative types. Together, Wangerin's reflections create a theology of story that shows how the Word of God takes on flesh in practiced speech. The sections of the book focus on the effect of spoken stories and the process of building a story step by step. It then provides several examples of stories for telling and expands on the importance of theatrics in preaching and teaching. In a very real sense, preachers and teachers of the gospel are actors. Motion and meaning flow not simply from words but from the embodied presentation of the preacher, who approaches the task as script writer, director, and actor.
Walter Wangerin Jr. is senior research professor at Valparaiso University and the author of more than forty books encompassing a wide variety of genres: fiction, essay, spirituality, children's stories, and biblical exposition. Wangerin has won the National Book Award, the New York Times Best Children's Book of the Year Award, and several Gold Medallion Awards, including best fiction awards for both The Book of God and Paul: A Novel.
Prologue: The Experience of Story and Communicating Meaning PART ONE: The Effect of a Told Story 1. How Children and Adults Enter a Story 2. The Story of Lily 3. What Does Faith Have to Do with It? 4. Right Ways and Wrong Ways to Tell a Children's Story 6. Naming I 7. Naming II PART TWO: To Build a Story 8. Composing a Story Step by Step 9. Making Our Stories Feel Real PART THREE: All Sorts of Stories 9. Spiritual Preparation 10. Stories of Illustration 11. Stories about the Presence and the Work of a Transforming God 12. Personal Histories 13. Factual Historical Stories 14. The Jewish Haggadah 15. Stories that Comprise an Entire Sermon PART FOUR: Theatrics 16. Theatrical Preachers in the Past 17. Motion and Meaning I 18. Motion and Meaning II 19. Theatrics I: The Entrance 20. Theatrics II: Preacheras Actor, Sermon as Play Script Epilogue
