Living the Story

By Cheri Cowell

Is there someone God has laid on your heart that you’ve been unable to reach with traditional methods? When sharing the gospel with your children, grandchildren, coworkers, and neighbors, does it feel like you are walking in a foreign land? If you said, yes, you have found your guide.

In this book, Cheri Cowell reveals the cultural and relational differences making traditional faithsharing ineffective with this current generation, and then provides a solution as ancient as the Scriptures, yet as fresh (and refreshing) as today’s news. What is this new/old way? Through a fictional story thread running through each chapter, you will be introduced to an ancient/future way of sharing The Story.

Here, you will meet eight people just like those you long to reach with the lifegiving message of Christ, and six people who speak this new language of faith. Alongside these stories, you will also hear The Story, retold as it relates directly to the needs of these eight, and likewise, to those in your own life.

1.The God of Creation: Tyler’s Story
2.The God of Promise: Carla’s Story
3.The God of Covenant: Jessica’s Story
4.The God of Exile: Jimmy’s Story
5.The God of Incarnation: Ashley’s Story
6.The God of Salvation: Teresa’s Story
7.The God of The Story: Our Story in His

As you learn this new/old language of story, you will find new freedom in sharing your faith, and perhaps, in the process, become one with the Author of your own story, the Author of The Story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cheri Cowell
• Release date: May 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9780989022545

Cheri Cowell

Cheri Cowell, an author, speaker, and sidewalk theologian, is the author of several books including the Bible study Parables and Word Pictures. A graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary, she shares her passion to help others apply biblical principles to the sidewalk issues of life. Through her nonprofit organization, Living Parables, she is able to put this faith into practice by offering micro-loans to faith organizations filling unmet charitable needs in their communities. Learn more about Cheri at www.CheriCowell.com.

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Living the Story:

Reaching Outside the Church Walls

By Cheri Cowell

Copyright © 2013 by Cheri Cowell

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including photo copying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher or the author.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from The King James Version. The KJV is public domain in the United States.

Scripture quotations marked (NASB) are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked (RSV) are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, 1971 by the division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ISBN 978-0-9890225-4-5

The Living Story

By Cheri Cowell

Copyright 2013, Cheri Cowell

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 978-0-9890225-4-5

Dedication

To all those who lived The Story so I could see and touch God.

Living the Story:

Reaching Outside the Church Walls

Table of Contents

Introduction- Ponderables

How To Read This Book

Chapter 1 - The God of Creation- Tyler’s Story

Chapter 2 - The God of Promise- Carla’s Story

Chapter 3 - The God of Covenant- Jessica’s Story

Chapter 4 - The God of Exile- Jimmy’s Story

Chapter 5 - The God of Incarnation- Ashley’s Story

Chapter 6 - The God of Salvation- Teresa’s Story

Chapter 7 - The God of The Story- Our Story in His Story

Group Study Questions

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

Notes

Introduction

Ponderables

When I get to heaven…I’ll ask God, was my response to childhood ponderables. Questions like, If a cow laughed, would milk come out her nose? or When it rains, why don't sheep shrink? prompted my usual retort, signaling confidence in a God who had all the answers. As I grew older, my questions became more complex, Did you really make Eve from one of Adam's ribs, and why do men and women have the same number of ribs if you stole one from Adam to make Eve? Still, I held fast to my belief that God, indeed, had all the answers. Then I went through a period of life—somewhere between those turbulent teenage years and the question-all-things college years—in which I wasn’t certain God had all the answers—or, if He did, it appeared God’s answers were often contradictory and certainly not sustainable when held up to scrutiny and scientific reason. I was in a full-blown crisis of faith. For years, I wrestled with the deep questions of life and faith—and I wrestled with God.

Weighted down with the burden of doubt and self-reliance, I finally arrived at the place of decision. Either I was going to begin from a position of distrust and move towards trust by testing everything against reason, logic, and evidence; or I would begin from a place of trust, although still holding doubts, and move towards shoring up that trust with knowledge. Frankly, I’d tried the first option and was simply worn-out laboring to make it work.

What I didn’t know was that the world around me was going through a similar transition. Ever since the Enlightenment we’ve been on a bullet train named progress racing at an ever-increasing speed to the promised land of the modern world. We believed the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent advancements in science, psychology, philosophy, and sociology would usher in our dreamed-of utopia with America standing as the crowning jewel. But as the train pulled into the station, the landscape was not quite what we expected. Disillusionment with this narrative, or story, marked the transition to a new age, what some are calling post-modern, that questioned all of the underpinnings of the previous period. Where once we staked our hope—science, reason, logic, and our own ability to make the world a better place—we now anchored skepticism and distrust.

As a hope-filled Christian in this transition, I had bought into the overarching story the modern world sold—the idea that answers to everything could not only be found, but also logically and systematically examined, explored, and explained. This meta-narrative, combined with my hope of witnessing the ushering in of the promised Kingdom of God, fit nicely into my worldview. However, when those promised solutions to the world’s problems were unable to produce satisfying results, my Christian modern worldview crumbled.

This slippery slope began for me when, as a teenager, I read Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell. I was so excited to finally have proof of what I knew in my heart to be true. I, along with most of the Christian community, fully expected the people of the world to come to the Lord for now there was irrefutable evidence in black and white. I remember engaging in heated debates with my non-Christian friends as I struggled to use this new tool to show them why it was now proven that Christianity was real. Quickly, however, I became disillusioned with my newfound proof. It didn’t have the effect on others that it had on me. Eventually, I came to see that the real audience for McDowell’s book were Christians who just had a few doubts and questions—young teenagers like me. This wasn’t the answer that was to change the world as I had dreamed. My postmodern evolution had begun.

Years passed and my struggle between believing there were concrete answers to my questions of faith, and my fear that no one, not even God, had the answers, left me exhausted and lost. No longer was I comfortable with the postmodern solution of deconstruction, that of peeling away all layers of pre-conceived notions to reveal the multiple interpretive options; but neither could I return to modernity’s mirage of objectivity, for I had come to understand that personal experiences, culture, and context all play a role in coloring one’s objectivity. I needed a new narrative, a new lens through which I could envision a future and define my past. I found that answer in what some call Pre-modernism.

Many people today are looking for answers to their questions. Like me, they may know their faith is real, but without the narrative provided by modernity or post-modernity, faith becomes impotent to address the real concerns of this world. If the modern and postmodern worldviews are not able to process our questions, perhaps a return to an earlier date, a pre-modern time-period is the answer? This trend of returning to an earlier time in history for a lens through which to read the past, present, and future, stems from two concepts. For the Christian, this return to the past means understanding the culture and context of our written history—the Bible. For the study of the Old Testament, this means understanding the ancient Middle East and the people that populated the world at that time. For the New Testament, this means not only learning about the Jewish nation and the first-century world, but also viewing the New Testament through the lens of the Old, rather than only seeing the Old through the New, since this is the context in which the writers were communicating

For those who are struggling to communicate with postmoderns—those generally born after 1975—in their own family, neighborhood, or workplace, I posit this ancient narrative provides the perfect lens through which we can view our own stories, and thus find answers to our common questions. In the pages that follow you will hear stories from people like you and me, people who are asking or have asked the same questions we are asking. You’ll also hear from those who are using this new language to communicate old truths. Because it is a new language, for some it may sound like nonsense. Still others may find in this dialogue hope that there is a way forward, a way to bridge the gulf between these two worlds.

Although these stories are fictional, they are based upon composites of real experiences, real stories, and real people, asking real questions—deep questions of faith. These are the same deep questions faith people through the ages have asked, even though they may have a new ring or a new twist. And, these are the same questions God has been answering since the beginning of creation. It is of special note that God chose to communicate those answers through the medium of story. So, in addition to stories from today, you will hear a story that is as old as creation, a grand narrative that seeks to answer the questions you and I are asking. In it, may you find the answers you are seeking.

Cheri Cowell

How to Read this Book:

The fun part of reading a non-fiction book with a fictional component is it gives you several options for reading. You may choose to simply read the fictional story that begins each chapter and then go back and do the same with God’s Story. Or you may simply choose to read from cover to cover as the book is written.

Either way, I hope you will discover new freedom in this new/old way of communicating biblical truths to a world leery of pat answers and rehearsed salvation pitches. Finally, for those like me who love the church and want to see it become the beacon of hope in this world that it is called to be, may these spiritual encounters provide a launching pad for dialogue within your small group, Bible study, and in your congregation.

The God of Creation

Chapter One

Tyler’s Story

His hoodie provided little protection from the wind tunneling between the Health Sciences and Education buildings. Wow, that’s cold, Tyler whispered as he tucked his chin further into his sweatshirt. The cold weather offered only a momentary distraction from the thoughts swirling in his head as he walked from his dorm to the student union where he planned to meet Barry for coffee.

Nearly a week had passed since the fireworks with his science professor ignited his own firestorm of faith. The lecture-style class was Tyler’s favorite this semester. He wasn’t certain why. Perhaps it challenged him to think through issues of faith, life, and ethics in light of scientific reasoning. But the fact the class was taught by an eccentric Haight-Ashbury throwback was probably more of the attraction. Professor Harmon usually entered class in what some rumored to be a drug-induced fog and wearing jeans, a hound’s-tooth sport coat with elbow patches, and his signature Birkenstocks—even in the dead of winter. This day was no different, at least in that respect. The lecture on macroevolution was ho-hum, but right in the middle of it, Professor Harmon digressed into one of his tirades, this one against Intelligent Design and the Creation Science bill being debated in the state senate.

As a member of the student newspaper, Tyler had written a piece on this subject and its impact on academic freedom. "Excuse me, Professor Harmon, but in my research I’ve found this bill to add to academic freedom by allowing teachers the opportunity to offer critical analysis of the scientific theory of evolution."

Setting his jaw, Professor Harmon responded to this perceived challenge, Science is not about moral relativism. It does not hold that we can believe whatever we want to believe… It’s not about dogma. His face, framed by his long black and silver-grey mop that always looked as though it rarely saw a comb, grew blood red.

With the tension in the room rising, students fidgeted in their seats, but Tyler remained unnerved. The House version just says students must be given a thorough presentation and critical analysis of evolution and the theory of Intelligent Design. I don’t see this as teaching dogma, do you? Tyler’s voice was calm and confident.

The professor’s was anything