Vol 2:19 Missional Stories: Being Aware of God

Another way in which we weave God awareness into our lives is through the telling of missional stories. Now I do not mean telling stories of missionary efforts or exploits in fields overseas – what I am talking about is telling stories of our encountering God in the midst of our everyday lives, moments when we become aware that we are participating in something that God is doing.

This coming Sunday, the congregation I serve is focusing upon the passage in 1 Peter 2 that talks about our being living stones – a metaphor that we are a living people of God because we are intimately connected with Jesus Christ the Living Stone. Peter talks about Christ being the cornerstone of the building God is building. This building, however, is not made with brick and mortar; it is a building made with “living stones” – a building that takes shape as the people of God come together, as communities of the Resurrection express their radical attachment to Christ and their stubborn loyalty to one another.

And as living stones, we have stories to tell. The stories we witness – of God working in our lives, of God working through our lives – become “living stones stories” – stories in which we not only give expression to what we notice, but at a much deeper level, stories which declare what we are noticing about God and God’s activity in the world. In essence, these living stone stories are not mere declarations, but become declarative stories, praise stories which express the wonders of God, the wonders of what God is doing in the world to make all things new.

Telling such stories which give praise to God are deeply missional stories. In the telling of these stories we grow to understand more comprehensively what God is up to in the world. In the telling of these stories we develop our theologies of missional praxis – of our participating with God in God’s redemptive mission.

We need to develop the practice of such story telling – we need to experiment with it in our gathering times, we need to help each other be aware of God, of interpreting for one another where we see God at work in us and through us, through one another. As we learn to tell such missional stories – we will become more intentional in our living as missional communities.

Lord, give us voices to express what we see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and experience with our lives.