We live in an era of information overload and overstimulation. 


This societal info-dump—among other reasons—often results in a culture where people are checked out and apathetic. For those of us who want to share the Gospel, this wall of noise can make it incredibly hard to communicate in a way that actually inspires someone to first care, and then hopefully accept, what we are sharing. It’s hard to be receptive to any message when you’re getting hit with so much at a time. 


As disciples of Christ, we are called to proclaim the Gospel. But how do we speak to others in a way that inspires a desire for the Gospel? 


It’s true that the Gospel itself contains all that is needed to bring others to God. Even if we aren’t the most skilled or gifted of speakers, the Lord still works through us and can bring about beautiful things.


However, God has given us the gift of communication.


And storytelling is one of the facets of communication that has a special way of inspiring attentiveness and receptivity in the human person. As we share the Gospel with those around us, learning the art of communication through story is key to proclaiming the Gospel with the best of our ability. 


Building A Storybrand


Donald Miller is a communications and marketing professional who argues that storytelling is the key that unlocks all effective communication (communication that inspires the desired action). In his book, Building A Storybrand, Miller makes a case for why storytelling gets people to engage and take action, when nothing else works. 


While the target audience of Miller’s book is business owners, rather than missionary disciples, the thesis of Building a Story Brand offers precious insight into how story inspires attentiveness and receptivity in any listening audience, whether that is someone we are sharing the Gospel with or otherwise. 


Building A Storybrand makes the case that human beings always process information through a narrative lens. Miller writes that nearly every story can be broken down into a 7-point outline: “A character who wants something encounters a problem before they can get it. At the peak of their despair, a guide steps into their lives, gives them a plan, and calls them to action. That action helps them avoid failure and ends in a success.” (Miller, 20)


Miller argues that our brains are designed to break down information through this simple story template and when we encounter information that can’t be processed in this storytelling manner, the information becomes much more complex or unclear, and we therefore become much less likely to understand and act upon any invitation that the information is attempting to offer us. 


We can apply Miller’s story template to our experience of sharing the Gospel. 


Someone who has not heard the Gospel is the metaphorical hero who is seeking something. Perhaps they are at a point in their lives—as we all have been or will be—where they are looking for freedom, or joy, or peace or a sense of meaning in their life. And they haven’t found it yet. This thing which they seek is the mountaintop that they have not yet reached. When we share the Gospel with someone in this position, we become the guide that leads the person to Christ. They are seeking the “mountaintop” of peace or purpose or healing and we know that Christ himself is the mountaintop. He is the source and summit of all that we seek in the story of life. 


It’s tempting to see ourselves as the hero, especially if we share the Gospel and someone accepts it. We just did something. We’re the hero. It’s understandable to experience joy and excitement when we share Christ and He is received. 


However, as Miller points out in his storytelling framework, the messenger is the guide, not the hero. This makes sense in a business context. If a customer senses that the salesperson sees themselves as the hero who is going to save the customer’s day, the customer may be turned off. After all, isn’t that why we are all often skeptical of a salesperson? Every company is claiming to be the hero you need, so we are rightfully skeptical when we hear yet another sales pitch.


Dispeling skepticism is possible. Miller points out that if a company shifts away from thinking of themselves as the hero, and seeing the customer as the hero, then customers become more receptive. After all, which would you rather: someone who declares themselves the hero of your life, or someone who comes alongside you and offers to guide you toward becoming a hero yourself?


This idea of the messenger as the guide, rather than the hero, also makes sense as we share the Gospel. We aren’t saving people. Jesus is. When we share the Gospel, we are guiding someone towards Jesus, rather than saving them ourselves. Of course, when someone gives their life to Jesus, they know that they are also not the hero of the story. It is the Lord alone who saves us. 


However, in another sense, when we guide someone to Christ, we know that the wonderful reality of redemption that Jesus offers really does allow a person to become a hero. When we offer someone the Gospel, we offer them the chance to become a hero of virtue. A saint of heroic nobility. 


It is true that Christ calls us to humility and we know that we do not save ourselves. But Christianity is not a story of Jesus the overlord who brings a bunch of checked-out, hunched-over underlings into the Kingdom of Heaven. No. Christianity—the Gospel—is the story of Christ our radiant redeemer and loving Father who is calling us to participate in his glorious nature as truly heroic persons. We have been chosen, chosen as “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession.” (1 Peter 2:9)


So, as we share the Gospel, it is key to be mindful of the story that we are offering to those who listen. Let’s articulate the Gospel as the magnificent story that it is. 


What does this approach of storytelling look like, in practical terms? 


Start with the problem and see the person before you.


Recall Miller’s first couple lines about the kind of storytelling that inspires action. “A character who wants something encounters a problem before they can get it. At the peak of their despair, a guide steps into their lives. . .” (Miller, 20).


Is it possible that when we are sharing the Gospel, that we sometimes bypass the “problem” and “despair” and jump too quickly to the good part?


Think of it this way: Sometimes, when we speak of the Gospel, we begin by sharing the goodness of Christ: salvation, eternal life, avoidance of Hell, peace and security, freedom, etc.


But what if we made a subtle change? What if we first began by acknowledging the problem that is hounding the person we are speaking to and then sharing—in all honesty—how Christ speaks into whatever is troubling this person. 


Start by acknowledging the wound, before offering the healing.


In an age where so many people are keenly aware of how deficient they are, how depleted they are, how much pain they are in and how far away they are from what they want, it makes sense to begin proclamation of the Gospel with an emphasis on how Jesus is what someone desires and yet does not have. As St. Paul writes, our God will “fulfill all desires, according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). This is what we seek to proclaim. 


It’s important that we see the person before us. Think of Jesus with the woman at the well (John 4). As Jesus encountered her, he didn’t forget or bypass her suffering, the suffering and shame of many broken relationships and the scorn of her community. His honest and tender acknowledgement of what was hurting her opened her heart to being receptive to his invitation to repent and believe the Gospel. 


Speaking first to someone’s suffering is a gesture of love. Love itself is healing. By slowing down and offering our full presence to someone, the heart before us may soften enough to receive the healing that Jesus desires to offer them. So many people are craving meaning, and the healing that comes with having meaning. Bring the presence of Christ to them with your attentiveness and care. Christ is the meaning and healing they crave.


True, Christ is not some mystical Tylenol that makes all the problems and pain disappear. We don’t want to misrepresent the Gospel as a crude formula to be used as a quick fix. But the underlying principle remains true: begin by seeing the person before you.


As you seek to share the Gospel in your own life, ask yourself: 


  • When I first encountered Christ, how did I experience healing? How did I experience being seen?

  • When I am sharing the Gospel, how can I be more attentive to the suffering of those I am speaking with? 

  • In my eagerness to proclaim the Gospel, am I missing the people before me, in an impatient rush to get to “the good part?” 

  • How can I slow down and see the pain or problems of those who I am sharing with? 

  • How does Christ offer healing or transformation to those who I am encountering and can I share that with them?


Pope Saint John Paul II the Great was a master of proclaiming the Gospel by first acknowledging the problems that his listeners were facing and then articulating Christ as the answer. At the beginning of the new millennium in August 2000, he declared to millions of young people at World Youth Day,  


“It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. 


It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”


I don’t know about you, but when I first heard these words from the Pope, my heart skipped a beat. His words immediately placed me into the epic narrative of a life given to Christ. 


The Pope articulates the problems that his audience is facing and paints a vision of how Christ answers their greatest queries and soothes their most horrible sorrows. Listening to Pope John Paul II gives you the sense that you are seen, the Gospel is the truth, and the heroism that you crave is within your grasp. And it's all true. 


We may not have the gift of articulation that God bestowed upon Pope John Paul II. However, we are able to see the unmet needs and nagging desires of those before us. We are able articulate how Christ is the “happiness that you seek.” 


Pope John Paul II was and is a guide to so many of us. He didn’t position himself as the hero; he was a guide who led so many to Christ. This we can also do, by remembering to begin our proclamation of the Gospel by seeing the problem that someone faces and then inviting them to the great resolution of Christ himself. 


Offer the story you know best: your own.


When we share our testimony—our own story of how we came to Christ—we invite those who listen to relate to us and us to them. As a guide, we are pointing to the fact that we have already lived—and are still living—in the adventure we are inviting someone to join. Aren’t we all more inclined to trust a guide who has walked the path before us? 


What sorrows have you faced? Who has guided you to Christ? How have you seen that desire for adventure and heroism come alive in your own life through your relationship with Jesus? Has the Gospel resolved issues in your life? And if your problems haven’t gone away, how has Christ changed your response to whatever it is that you are facing? 


Whether you are a writer, speaker, a podcaster or someone who simply wants to be equipped to share the Gospel at any given moment, returning to the simplicity of storytelling is key. The Gospel as story will inspire action in an age of apathy and noise, because it offers the simplicity and relatability that cuts through all of the complex and impersonal clatter that floods our society. 


Likewise, not only are human beings most receptive to stories as a form of communication, but we also hope - secretly or not so secretly - that our lives will become a joyous, adventuresome happy-ending. We hope that we won’t end up as sleepy, disenchanted beings, but rather the heroic protagonists of some great epic. This is exactly what the Gospel offers.