Quote of the Day: A million more mirrors

In a perceptive review of Donald Miller's latest, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Chris Brauns praises Miller's vivid writing and use of story. "He told a story to teach about story and it really worked." I've been trying to do this increasingly - teach a poem poetically, a song tunefully, an image with imagination and imagery, and the drama of doctrine dramatically. Certainly Miller seems like an engaging writer. But as his engaging style and likeable personality resonate with us, Brauns is concerned that we'll all the more readily be pulled into his content, which will also resonate with us - naturally. His concern is that the stories are all about ourselves and our little lives, without much on God's big story enacted in history to give us hope and a future. Brauns comments:

We spend too much time looking at ourselves.  We don't need a million more mirrors all pointed back at our small stories.  Rather, we need to see how our individual episodes relate in a Christ-centered way to the story of creation, fall, and redemption.

For a wonderfully clear and engaging use of story to communicate God's big story, do get hold of Andrew Wilson's God*Stories. I'm using it for church teen Bible class - but honestly anyone would benefit from it. Top writing, clarity, systematic & Biblical theology, in short chunks using Biblical stories. And that doesn't quite convey it. I picked up a colleagues copy when I was manning a stall at a summer youth festival last summer - and couldn't put it down, so that he lost it for the week, and I then bought several for myself and others.