It's Still About Story

It was a college writing class and I eagerly took my seat. My enthusiasm quickly diminished when the topic was announced: Documentary Writing. Documentary? I like stories! Documentaries are non-fiction, right? Slow pans over photos of the War of 1812? Talking heads? My brain started to go to the place usually reserved for advanced math. But was quickly pulled back to the classroom with the Professor's opening statement: "The best documentaries are stories." What? The Professor went on to explain that even with non-fiction the most important thing was to create characters that the audience could identify with. He said that no one wanted to watch a show about facts and figures. That just like in storytelling, it's the characters that matter the most.

I think that as we look and communicate the "facts and figures" of the gospel, we must remember that it's characters in story that STILL matters.