William H. Willimon is one of my favorite writers. I’m rereading his book, Calling and Character Virtues of the Ordained Life. Willimon calls us to look at scripture as a guide for ethics but then tells us that the scripture speaks very little of ethics.

“The Acts of the Apostles is, by my reckoning an Early Christian treatise on ministry, but Acts hardly ever turns away from its drama to give ethical admonition. Rather all ethics is by implication, through imaginative, dynamic analogy, by creative inference from the models for ministry of people like Paul, Barnabas, Peter and Tabitha. As Stanley Hauerwas has said, “The lives of the saints are the hermeneutical key to scripture.”

If its true that the stories of the saints and the early church are where theology, doctrine and our fundamental understandings of God are informed I would think we need to be more focused on story then we are.

We live in a culture in America that is formed and informed by story. My kids have seen more movies in 20 years then I will see in my life. While all these stories are not great works they do help people, my kids included process, understand and come to grips with the world they live in.

As Christians we are formed by the greatest story ever told. Maybe we need to be better storytellers rather then information sources.