Tell Me a Story - Book Review

I wish I was a great story teller. I admire those who can tell a great story -- to get the sequence of details just right, build suspense and deliver the punch line with great gusto. I'm just not very good at it. But, I want to get better! So when I was asked to review Scott McClellan's new book, Tell Me a Story: Finding God (and Ourselves) Through Narrative, I said "Sure!"

This book seems to bring it all together, in terms of what goes into living out and telling a great story. Scott even references a few other books about stories, which helps connect the dots in my own brain about how to live a better story. It offers a great reminder that it's not all unicorns and rainbows in life. I especially like this quote from page 27:

...we enjoy the comfort and convenience of a Christianity that squares nicely with PowerPoint templates. And yet the Bible, in its raw and undomesticated state, doesn't look anything like a slide deck full of bullet points and bar graphs, does it? Ironically, we who espouse a "high view of Scripture" often seem dead set on making the Bible what we want it to be.

I've been wrestling with this notion for awhile. My mind tends to try to categorize everything I encounter and organize everything into small boxes. But, God cannot be contained within a box, nor the life he calls us to live. This is such a hard concept to grasp. As I read it, I think "Yes! Exactly! Stop putting God in a box!" but then do that very thing still. Something to be worked on for sure.

Anyway, this is just a taste of the book, but if you are interested in reading more about the story God wants to tell in your life, pick up a copy and read it.