Life Stories

In this ""post-literate,"" TV generation, many have come to realize that the art and act of storytelling is the most lucid, and therefore, most effective way to communicate a message. Creating images in others' minds has become crucial. Most of us think in the form of images, not ideas.

Jesus, and other rabbis before and after him, gave moral instruction by telling parables and retelling old stories to address the issues of their day. We still live by many of these old stories. We call them scripture. They help us decide what is right and what is wrong. We would be lost without the parables Jesus told and the stories in the Old Testament. When faced with important ethical and moral decisions, we invariably revert to the characters in these stories and remember how they acted and reacted in difficult situations. Their stories make it possible for us to learn from them what we can't necessarily learn from our own personal experience.

The new stories the Sumwalts have created in this book reinterpret some of those old stories in ways that address the new ethical and moral problems of today. It is a tried and true way of decision making.

In each of the six chapters is a story based on a Biblical text (three from the Old Testament and three from the New Testament). Following each story are (photo-copiable) questions based on the particular story. Following those questions is a section called ""Digging Into The Text, "" which gives the biblical text upon which the preceding story is based with commentary by the Sumwalt's accompanying it. Questions then follow the ""Digging Into The Text"" section.

John Sumwalt is senior pastor of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Madison and Dubuque Theological Seminary. He is the author of the CSS best-selling series Lectionary Stories, Cycles A, B, and C.

Jo Perry-Sumwalt is Christian Education Director at Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist Church. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Parkside. She also works as a freelance editor and writer.