Scott McClellan - Conflict... When the Story Gets Interesting: A Portion from Tell Me a Story

2013 by
SCOTT MCCLELLAN

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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Scripture quotations marked MSG are from The Message, copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Edited by Pam Pugh
Interior Design: Design Corps Cover Design: Faceout Studio
Cover Image: Shutterstock / 93315331

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McClellan, Scott.
Tell me a story : finding God (and ourselves) through narrative / Scott McClellan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-8024-0856-3
1. StorytellingReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.
BT83.78.M375 2013
248.46dc23

2012038363

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This portion adapted from: Tell Me a Story by Scott McClellan

FOREWORD

PREFACE
things fall apart

CHAPTER ONE
story: a new way to see

CHAPTER TWO
character: ourselves, close-up

CHAPTER THREE
narrator: God

CHAPTER FOUR
objective: make something

CHAPTER FIVE
conflict: all is lost

CHAPTER SIX
purpose: beyond the macguffin

CHAPTER SEVEN
the storyteller, culture, and people

CHAPTER EIGHT
the storyteller, church, and community

EPILOGUE
metamorphosis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The best stories require all, not just a fraction, of a characters might. Wouldnt it be a shame to spend all weve got in the service of an unworthy objective?

IN MY FRONT YARD YOULL find ants and worms. Once during a great summer drought the worms grew desperatetheir skin, their soil, their very existence was shriveling and dying. In their distress, the worms began praying fervently to God for rain. The worms prayed and they waited, wondering if He cared or if He could hear them.

Meanwhile, the ants were thankful to God for His provision. They subsisted on water from the sprinkler system and seized upon creatures who fell victim to the summer sun. God is good, they told themselves, from friend to friend and parent to child. Unlike the weary worms, the ant community was thriving. The general tenor of their prayers was gratitudeGod was clearly on their side and the ants wanted to keep it that way.

One day, the clouds gathered, the skies darkened, and it began to rain. The ants were wary. A little rain was good, but a lot of rain meant trouble for the supply lines and structures theyd built. When the rain strengthened into a full-blown Texas thunderstorm, the ants fled below ground to reinforce their hills and tunnels. The communitys urgency gave way to terror as the colony began to take on water. God, the ants wondered, where are You? What did we do to deserve this?

The worms, meanwhile, were overjoyed. Brothers and sisters, our prayers have been answered! they proclaimed as they made their way to the surface. The abundant moisture reinvigorated the worms, and they reveled in their good fortune. They could trust God once again because He had delivered them from death, and so they decided to step out on faith and cross the great driveway in pursuit of more fertile pastures. Rather than crossing the Red Sea on dry land as the Israelites had done, the worms were spurred on by water covering what was normally a barren passage.

Below ground, the ants were in crisis. Their walls were crumbling, their food stores were spoiling, and their theologyformed in a season of abundancewas washed away. They worked to keep their heads above water, unable to shake their questions about what kind of deity would attempt to drown them in their homes with His aquatic fury. Deliver us! the ants cried.

The worms were almost halfway across the driveway when the rain stopped and the clouds gave way to an angry sun. Some of the worms turned back in hopes of reaching their old soil before the sun finished its work. The others pressed on, believing the rain would begin again or that God would otherwise guide them safely to new soil. Neither worm group reached its destination.