Experiential Storytelling: (Re) Discovering Narrative to Communicate God's Message (Emergent YS)

A good summary of what most people in ministry already immersed in a postmodern/postchristian culture understand. Well articulated though - a few highlights for me...

- The real beauty of experiential education is that it places trust in the learner to derive meaning from his or her experience. As a learning environment is created, the active focus shifts from the educator to the student.
- Truth divorced from experience will always dwell in the realms of doubt. (Henry Drause)
- We were created with a curiosity, a complexity, and a need for meaning
- Whether we are Christian's or not, our hearts were created to vibrate with the story of God.
- Every child is an artist. The child is how to remain an artist once he grows up (Pablo Picasso)
- Never let formal education get in the way of your learning (Mark Twain)
- Embracing this new mode of communication means worship becomes collaboration, faith now becomes a journey, and the gospel is now communicated in multiple forms of media

Too often "emerging worship" resouces focus on ways to entertain the crowds, instead of worshipping God. We get lost on the idea of bringing more people into the church instead of feeding people God's word. However, Experiential Storytelling is an example of utilizing today's culture as a tool to bring God's story to people. Miller shows us how he developed interesting and successful ways to present the gospel story to youth. Through innovative use of props and lighting, Miller has created presentations that do not overshadow the message, only highlight it. Overall, Experiential Storytelling is a good tool for churches that truly want to reach out to young people.

As a senior pastor, I must say that I really enjoyed this book. It really made me stop and think about the way I preach a sermon. In fact, now, because of this book, my entire style of preaching has changed. Shockingly enough, I am actually keeping the interest of the teens for the entire sermon...which is a huge feat, let me tell you! Because of this book, I have started using more stories in my sermons and look for more ways to draw the listeners into the sermon through things they can experience.

That said, this book is not for everybody. It would probably be best used in the hands of a Youth Pastor, but could also be of some benefit to a pastor looking to make his/her sermons more interesting to the younger crowd. It does have an "Emergent" tone to the book that traditional pastors might not relate to. It also has a whole chapter on the "Jesus Journey" that would only be useful to somebody wanting to actually stage the "Journey" in their church. Also, his writing style is a bit in-experienced which might turn off some readers.

However, there was only one thing I was disapointed about. The book says that you can go to the author's website and look at stories other readers have left that tell about their experiments with "Experiental Storytelling." I went to the site, but there weren't any stories there. Now, I guess it isn't the author's fault if his readers don't want to share stories of things they've tried in their churches. I keep going back to the site hoping that maybe somebody, some day might share one of their own stories there.

All in all, I felt that this book was worth the price and was worth reading. My prayer is that more pastors will read this book and reconsider the way they present their sermons.

I thought that it was a good book with good ideas, although the ideas could often be harder to implement than the book lets on. The biggest problem with the book is that the author could have developed his ideas a little better.

I appreciate the jist of what Mark Miller is trying to communicate in this book, but it seems that he doesn't really say anything of significance. The book is thin; the content is thinner. Miller's advice amounts to: know your audience, be creative (though he doesn't give practical advice on how to be creative), and get your audience involved in the story. Sadly, almost half the book is a re-cap of a single experience he had with his church, something called the "Jesus Journey."

This would have been a great 3-page article, but there's just not enough here to merit paying $15 for a whole book.