New Message Series: What’s Your Story?

What’s Your Story?
I remem­ber grow­ing up and going to my grand­par­ents’ house. My grand­fa­ther was an excel­lent story teller. And though I had heard a few of them hun­dreds, maybe even thou­sands of times, I never tired of hear­ing his story and know­ing that I was a part of his story.

The truth is that every­one has a story – our life story. From the moment we are born till the moment we die, we are lis­ten­ing, telling and inter­act­ing in one another’s life stories.

Some­times, I think we often fail to real­ize that our sto­ries are actu­ally part of a much grander epic adven­ture that begins and has life and mean­ing in God’s story.

In fact, God is the great Author and Sto­ry­teller. Much of God’s story has been cap­tured in the pages of the Bible – 39 books in what we call the ‘Old Tes­ta­ment’ and 27 books in the ‘New Tes­ta­ment.’ Together these writ­ings reveal God’s Mis­sion (Mis­sio Dei) to cre­ate an authen­tic com­mu­nity that would bind humans to humans and all humans to God.

God’s dream is for a com­mu­nity with­out racial, gen­der, or eco­nomic bar­ri­ers. A com­mu­nity where all – from the pow­er­ful to the pow­er­less and from the indi­gent to the influ­en­tial – would be loved, respected, rep­re­sented, and pro­tected – by God and by each other.

Over the next thir­teen weeks we will be jour­ney­ing through the Story of God. Like piec­ing a puz­zle together, we will be tak­ing a ‘box-top’ approach to see­ing how our sto­ries fit into God’s story.

My prayer and my hope is that each of us would learn some­thing about God, about the Bible, and about who we were cre­ated to be. May we fall in love with God’s story, and may we par­tic­i­pate in God’s mis­sion of cre­at­ing real, lov­ing, authen­tic com­mu­nity where peo­ple from all nations near and far may belong and be loved.

Tags: Missio Dei