Category Archives: Story theory

Several years ago, I wrote a review on Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life. Miller is also the author of Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. A Million Miles … Continue reading →

Let’s talking about congregational leadership. I will, once again, shamelessly rip off the writings of Mark Love, this time from a post “Three Smooth Stones: Action-Reflection-Articulation.” What he describes is absolutely typical of every church everywhere:

So I’ve been wandering all over the intellectual plain to say this: We need a better story. Our churches need better stories. And we individually and as families need better stories. We church leaders need to learn how to tell … Continue reading →

I give myself away, I’m sure, as a mathematician by training. That’s my undergraduate degree, and the emphasis was on theoretical mathematics — the best kind. And so I know that logic and reason necessarily trace back to certain starting … Continue reading →

Let’s consider another story. A very true story. It goes like this. God created the heavens and the earth. He created out of nothing, indeed, solely by and through his Word, his Logos. And he sustains the world and all … Continue reading →

Again, not all Enlightenment ideals are false. Some are only partly false. Some are quite true. Some are true but only if understood in a different context. The natural human tendency is to be overly binary — that is, to … Continue reading →

So here’s the thing. We’re beginning to — finally! — get comfortable with reading the Bible as narrative. And we’re beginning to see how the Bible further provides a metanarrative that establishes the worldview and values of the Christian. I … Continue reading →

Denouement (RP) IPA: /deˈnuːmɑ̃/ (US) IPA: /deɪnuˈmɑnt/, /deɪnuˈmɑ̃/ “Denouement” is a fancy word for the final conclusion, when the climax comes to final resolution. In a murder mystery, the climax is the moment the detective solves the mystery, or when … Continue reading →

The elements of a good story Let’s take Adam and Eve, Genesis 2 and 3, as an example of a good story. Characters Every writer knows that a good story has to have certain elements. It has to have characters … Continue reading →

We’ve talked about stories and story theory before. I hope this isn’t too repetitive. But I’m increasingly finding how very important story is to Christianity. And I’m hoping maybe to tie a few threads together from prior posts to make … Continue reading →