I have been concerned about the lack of sermons recently….the latest “fad” is the “Tell the Story” form of worship. In our church our pastor is certified in “Tell the Story”. What he does is get up in front on Sunday morning and instead of bringing a sermon he tells a Biblical “story” – usually from the New Testament. It could be a parable, or a story of healing, or whatever. And then he has everyone tell the same story to each other. Then he retells the story with mistakes and we have to “catch” the mistakes. Then he asks questions about what we think of the story – or what we learn from the story. There is no right or wrong answer. Everyone that wants to can share but it has to be only about the story he told – we can’t use knowledge from other scripture that would explain or clarify the story. We are supposed to be looking at the story from a nonChristian’s point of view – having no other information except what we find in the story. We have been doing this for months. A lot of the people go along with it and think it is wonderful…but I am not getting it. if no one answers a question then we sit and wait awhile until someone speaks up. I am not getting any “meat” from the scriptures by a pastor who has studied and prayed and prepared throughout the week. it is just what everyone feels like the scriptures means to them. Our pastor is very capable of giving very good insightful messages, but chooses to go this route. Our church is not growing but most everyone thinks this is a great way to do church. We have gradually fazed out SS – and now the worship time is actually more like SS. Has anyone else experienced this??
Former Nazarene 
I have been concerned about the lack of sermons recently….the latest “fad” is the “Tell the Story” form of worship. In our church our pastor is certified in “Tell the Story”. What he does is get up in front on Sunday morning and instead of bringing a sermon he tells a Biblical “story” – usually from the New Testament. It could be a parable, or a story of healing, or whatever. And then he has everyone tell the same story to each other. Then he retells the story with mistakes and we have to “catch” the mistakes. Then he asks questions about what we think of the story – or what we learn from the story. There is no right or wrong answer. Everyone that wants to can share but it has to be only about the story he told – we can’t use knowledge from other scripture that would explain or clarify the story. We are supposed to be looking at the story from a nonChristian’s point of view – having no other information except what we find in the story. We have been doing this for months. A lot of the people go along with it and think it is wonderful…but I am not getting it. if no one answers a question then we sit and wait awhile until someone speaks up. I am not getting any “meat” from the scriptures by a pastor who has studied and prayed and prepared throughout the week. it is just what everyone feels like the scriptures means to them. Our pastor is very capable of giving very good insightful messages, but chooses to go this route. Our church is not growing but most everyone thinks this is a great way to do church. We have gradually fazed out SS – and now the worship time is actually more like SS. Has anyone else experienced this??