You Are Here

One of the reservations people have about teaching Sunday School, a bible study, serving as a mentor, or even serving on an administrative committee in the church is that they don't have a good grasp of the big picture of the faith and of the bible.  This reservation is understandable since the bible is a collection of sixty-six books written over the course of several centuries by many different authors.  The bible can be confusing.

If I may use an analogy, this reservation is like walking into a huge shopping mall and not knowing where you are in relation to the store you want to visit.  This happened to me a couple of weeks ago.  I went into a mall and I needed to find the place where I needed to go.  Thankfully, this mall had a big sign in the middle of the entrance way that had a listing of the stores along with a map of the mall.

And most importantly, on this map, there was a big arrow that was highlighted so I wouldn't miss it with the words, "YOU ARE HERE."   

This is the kind of sign that we need in our faith as well.  We need to know where we are and how to get to the places that can help us live out our faith.

If you find yourself in need of such a map, I highly recommend the book, "The Story of God, The Story of Us," by Sean Gladding.  It's a book that serves as the shopping mall map.  It's a book that places you with other Israelites around a campfire for a time of storytelling.  The storyteller takes time each night to tell the main stories of the Old Testament which end up connecting with your present story.  For the people around that campfire, their present story was their exile in Babylonia.

For the New Testament, something similar happens as you hear the story of Jesus and the letters of the New Testament. 

The author uses the letter "C" to categorize the major sections of the bible which provide a framework in seeing how the stories of the bible all connect.  Each storytelling time covers one of these "C's." These include:  Creation, Catastrophe, Covenant, Community/Exodus, Community/Sinai, Conquest, Crown, Conceit, Christ, Cross, Church, & Consummation.

Back to the shopping mall directory analogy, think of these "C's" as the anchors of the shopping mall like JC Penney, Macy's, Sears, etc.  Yes, there are many other biblical stories that come underneath these "C's" similar to Payless, Hallmark, Gap, etc., but the point of this book is to grasp the overall headings and the big picture of the biblical story.  One of the joys of reading this book is that it helps you to see how the bible builds upon itself which reinforces why we need to  have at least a basic understanding of what the anchors of the bible are.

If you read this book (which doesn't take that long to read) and are able to remember these "C's," you'll be amazed at how much more you will understand the bible and how it all connects.  In the process, you'll also be able to see where you are in your faith journey in relation to the story of the Bible.