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Thirty years ago, a young theologian concerned about preaching wrote one of the
first books that focused attention on story and storytelling for the pulpit. Richard
Jensen's remarkably clear and insightful work, Telling the Story, broke a lot of new
ground. It is still well worth reading. The future of the pulpit, he argued, was
somehow going to be tied up with "story preaching." And he explained what it was.
Toward the end of the book, he gave this advice about storytelling in the pulpit:

"Let me say a word about the arts of creating and telling stories. These skills are
not included in many seminary curricula. Most of us are novices in these areas. If
you choose to make story preaching a part of your preaching agenda, it may be well
for you to pay a visit to your nearest public library and check out some basic works
on writing and telling stories. You can work out the essential components of these
tasks rather quickly though the refining of such skills comes only through practice
and hard work."

In retrospect, few if any preachers followed Prof. Jensen's urging. Most preachers
know about storytelling, but they are not storytellers because they do not want to
be. Rather, most are not because they have never learned, or been taught, how to be
good storytellers. The basic skills of storytelling, let alone the skills of incorporating
stories into larger settings like sermons, are still not taught in seminaries.

While storytelling itself seems to be innate within the human experience-people of
all races, cultures, and languages, both young and old, tell stories-the arts of public
storytelling have to be learned, or, perhaps more accurately, refined. This becomes
particularly evident when one works with students-ministry or not-on creating and
telling stories in public.

I insist in such storytelling classes that my students devise and tell their own
stories. And what I have discovered over a number of years is that there are some
very common mistakes that recur in learning to create and tell stories. Knowing
these common mistakes, and getting them out of the way early, goes a long way
toward speeding the process of becoming an effective public storyteller.

Briefly, I want to outline half a dozen of these most common problems with
learning to tell one's own creative, invariably fascinating, stories-the kinds of stories
that can readily be used as parables and behavioral models in the sermon.

1. First, what sets out to be one story easily turns into two or three-and the initial
story's focus is lost. Stories, in short, become run together. The rule is very simple:
one story at a time.

While the rule is simple, sometimes carrying it out is not. This is because while our
lives, on any given day, are an unceasing set of "stories," they all "run together," as
it were. We go from thing to thing as the day unfolds-the drive to work with its
annoying other cars, the early morning encounter with some distressed colleagues,
the telephoned news from family far away that a relative is very ill. And so on. It is
all continuous, and we seldom stop to notice the seams.

Telling a story of any "one thing" from that day requires, though, that it be "lifted
out" from the rest, that it have a clear stopping point. Stories should not, as often
happens, be run together. Knowing how and when to "stop" a story is one of the
first things to be learned as a storyteller.

2. Second, it is not uncommon for new storytellers to leave out key chunks of a
good story-chunks that are set up by the story but then passed over, prompting the
hearers to wonder "what happened there."

For example, one tells a story about the mending of a long feud between the teller
and a grandparent. Then, at a-or "the"-crucial point in the story the teller says that
after such-and-such happened "he accepted me again." The story sounds fine, and
interesting; but at that "accepted me" line, the hearer is left hanging. HOW did he
accept you? What happened to let you know you were accepted? We know he
accepted you, but-tell us, specifically, what took place? A chunk of the story is
missing-and the hearer feels cheated. One wants to press the storyteller to "finish"
the story and, as the child often says, don't leave out any good parts. It is a common
problem in learning to tell a story of one's own.

3. Third, the set-up of stories is often weak; sometimes overlooked entirely. Good
stories are not just told; they are built. And the building of the story requires a
foundation, a setting of the stage, a few careful lines of "once upon a time
when"-and the "when," expanded a bit, provides the set-up, the opening.

"It was mid-morning and very hot outside. It had rained earlier in the day and I was
still very wet. I didn't want to stop at the bank that morning, but I had no choice.
Not only that, but the parking lot was full and I had to park what seemed like a
quarter mile away. I was irritable, and not at all prepared for what I was going to
find when I walked into the B of A that morning." That is set-up. The story will
emerge from what I saw unfold in the bank. The set-up is both simple and crucial.
Every story needs one.

4. Fourth, details-carefully chosen, vivid, even dialogue spoken-are what bring
stories to life. We all know this, but the new storyteller often forgets. See and tell the
details.

In preaching, this must be carefully done, since one has no more than five minutes
or so to actually tell a story. What is told, though, must be visual-always visual. The
hearer must be able, mentally and emotionally, to see and hear what is going on in
the story. "The boy looked to me to be about 12 or 13, wearing overalls and dirty,
oversized tennis shoes. He sat on the curb at the street with his head buried in the
hands. You could tell he was trying to cover up his crying." Simple, selected details.
Can you see what is going on? Are you able, to some degree, to experience what is
going on? Those are crucial questions in good storytelling.

5. Fifth, stories are often too sanitized by novice storytellers. We not only can
handle but we want stories that are real, stories that cut though the surfaces and
show us real things.

I once had a retired high ranking police officer in a storytelling class, a man who
had served in a gang unit in Los Angeles; he was going into the ministry. He had a
knack for storytelling, and we all knew that he had a thousand stories from the
unusual life that he had lived. But he would start a story and then say something
like, "but that would be too much to tell you." Invariably, his peers would press
him: Tell us; we can handle it, and we would like to know. Finally, he would. And it
would be a richly textured story of real life-unsanitized, told in a gritty and moving
way, as only he could tell it.

6. The sixth problem is a little more complex, but very important, nonetheless. It is
that storytellers often provide their own reactions to their stories as they tell
them--instead of just telling the story and letting hearers react on their own.

For example, the storyteller describes a particular behavior and then adds, "I was
just appalled when he did that." No. Storytellers just tell the story. No more--no
less. No personal commentary or asides, at least not during the story. The hearer is
the one who may or may not be appalled at a particular turn that the story takes.
But it is not the role of the storyteller to coach the hearer on how to react-even in a
sermon. In fact, one of the key beauties of storytelling-even storytelling from the
pulpit-is that it allows those who share the story to react in many different ways.
And there is nothing wrong with that. It does raise a dimension of storytelling,
though, that must be taken up in another place.

Good storytelling is not easy. It takes work and practice. But, as Prof. Jensen said,
it is well worth it-probably more so in today's preaching than it was when he first
wrote about story two decades ago.

--Joseph M. Webb