Story :: Nancy Beach

Nancy Beach is executive vice-president of the Arts for the Willow Creek Association and a teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church. A champion for the arts and artists in the church, she is the author of An Hour on Sunday: Creating Moments of Transformation and Wonder and Gifted to Lead: The Art of Leading As a Woman in the Church.

• There’s wonder in the four magic words: Once upon a time…
• We treasure a good story.
• Can you make a difference for God as a storyteller or an artist?
• We steward the most powerful story ever told.
• Our stories are rooted in redemption and God’s amazing grace
• The Gospel is bad news before it is Good News.
• The news of Gospel is that extraordinary things happen…
• The stories we tell from the pulpit or through the arts need to be rooted in tragedy and comedy.
• We need to share stories of pain pain alongside transformation, renewal and God’s grace.
• Only 10% of the Bible is in a thought-organized format.
• The rest contains love stories, drama, history, and parables.
• Jesus spoke openly about the stark reality of the absence of God’s presence and the transforming power of His presence.
• Are we being truthful as we steward the Gospel?
• We have swung too far in one direction or the other.
• We either live in tragedy too deeply that we fail to offer the light of hope.
• Or, we jump too quickly to the light, impatient on the gap between God’s timing.
• When we fail to speak truthfully, our offerings of grace come across as naïve, out of touch, premature, or not as nearly as wonderful.
• All of us, have a childlike response ot the whimsical words “once upon a time.”
• There’s never been an age that hasn’t produced fairy tales.
• “The mark of a good fairly tale is that turn, catch of the breath… “
• There’s a child lurking inside all of us.
• We persist in our hope that fairy tales still can come true.
• These days, we figure out how to responsibly tell stories of God’s grace.
• We wrestle how to be truthful with the darkness while sharing God’s grace.
• Use our imagination for illustration.
• The best way to see God is in the faces and stories of others.
• Stories restore people’s faith in God.
• The best stories awaken our faith in God.
• They remind us that we are not alone.
• They remind us our stories intersect.
• They remind us of God’s amazing grace.
• Tell your tories as truthfully and beautifully as you possibly can for Christ.
• We are stewards of God’s Story.

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