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Storytelling is a remarkable, and in many ways, unexpected mark of what has come
to be called our postmodern era. So much so that Leonard Sweet, that theologian of
popular culture, could announce at the end of his cleverly titled book SoulTsunami
that "In the postmodern world, the future belongs to the 'storytellers.'" It is a keen,
and correct, insight. The storytellers--and storytelling comes in a hundred
forms--yes, the storytellers are the ones who seem to connect best with this and the
emerging generation. It is an insight that preachers have no choice but to learn.

It is hard to doubt this in the "chicken soup" era. Everyone by now knows about
this enormous, and still growing, industry. It started with a couple of
books-collections of stories drawn from here and there-and now it knows no
bounds: chicken soup radio and television program, chicken soup newspaper
columns, now calendars, stationary, and who knows what else. And the books keep
proliferating. Chicken soup for teenagers, for the elderly, for the disadvantaged, for
children-for veterans, which is the latest one I have seen. On and on. It is difficult
to keep up with. People are buying stories. Just collections of stories. Stories with
little morals, or happy endings. Or whatever. It is a postmodern, chicken soup
world.

Some preachers got on the chicken soup bandwagon early, since it was whole new
place to find sermon material. The only problem was that the stories those
preachers were reading and bringing into their sermons were also being read at the
same time by their parishioners-who were also buying the same chicken soup
books. It was cute for a time-"we have read the same stories"-but it is not
something that wears well from the pulpit. If people have already read the stories
that the preacher tells on Sunday morning, then where's the interest and the
freshness?

There is a message in those chicken soup books, though. It is that people are
hungry for stories-common, down-to-earth stories. Not big, world-shattering stories,
but the day-to-day stories or life and living. That is what is in those books.
Moreover, with the success of the "industry," most people who ever bought one of
those books have probably gotten a card at some point asking for them to "submit"
a story for a future chicken soup book. That is how the chicken soup books are
being written from this point on.

Honesty requires one to say, however, that for every good, moving, chicken soup
story in one of those books, or on TV, there are ten of those stories that are flat,
cliched, or silly; stories that lack both the ring and the poignancy of reality. We will
usually work through those ten in order to get to that one that does work. But, still,
it is canned soup. Of course we eat canned soup. It's a fast-food,
heat-it-up-and-eat-it world. It may keep us going, but it has little taste, and it is not
nearly as good for us as we would like it to be.

The same is true with chicken soup from a book. The stories are pre-packaged,
cooked in advance, and they sound and taste like it.

Don't we all know the difference between soup from a can and homemade chicken
soup? The fact is that there is no comparison. Homemade soup is the real thing. It
creates an aroma that can transform a house. It has nutrients that not only keep us
going, but-as all of our grandmothers said-can cure whatever ails us.

For the preacher, storytelling must be seen in the same way. So what is homemade
chicken soup? It is a diet of the preacher's own stories. Not stories drawn from a
book, whether a chicken soup book or some other "illustration" collection. We
want to hear each other's stories. Done correctly, these are not egotistical recitations
of "what happened to me this week." These are a preacher's careful watching and
listening to life as he or she lives it.

For a couple of years in the late 1980s, I lived in eastern Tennessee, a few miles
down the road from the little town of Jonesboro-the "home," as they say, of the
National Storytelling Festival. It is week of nothing but tent upon tent of storytellers
and storytelling every Fall. It is storytelling heaven.

I have no idea how many large crowds I was a part of those few Fall seasons as we
listened to the storyteller. Great entertainers, all. But I came away with one very
clear impression. Looking back, apart from how good a storyteller actually was, the
stories that ALWAYS evoked the most intense responses from the audiences were
the stories that arose from the storyteller's own life and experience. For some
reason, those stories had a spark and a sparkle that even the best storyteller could
not achieve with a "story-that-I-read-in-an-excellent-book."

For preachers, the message could not be more pointed. Learn to find and tell your
own stories in your sermons. Listen to Fred Craddock's stories, or read them in his
new book. Ask where he got them. And then think about why they work-and
whether they are too egotistical because they are actually HIS own stories. You will
see what I mean.

In future weeks on this web site, we shall explore in considerable detail how and
where to find-and tell-your own stories in your sermon. Chicken soup is nice; but
nothing compares with homemade chicken soup!

--Joseph M. Webb