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We are fascinated by stories. Every culture has them, passed on from generation to generation. Stories tell us who we are, where we belong, and how we relate to those around us. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the story at the heart of the universe, and yet the church in the UK now finds itself in a culture largely unaware of this joyful reality. How do we reveal the revolutionary love of God to our neighbours in such a strange post-Christian world?
Living His Story aims to help us through showing how the parables of Jesus open up an enticingly different way of seeing things. Illuminating the reality of the new kingdom he is ushering in, Jesus seeks to challenge and subvert the normal understanding of how things are or should be. And because the parables so often speak of the kingdom of God, they are pertinent as we try to get our heads around the somewhat peculiar word evangelism. If evangelism is first and foremost an invitation to enter into God’s story, then the parables can help us picture what it means to embrace this new kingdom, to adopt a life-giving alternative way of being in the world, which subverts all our other narratives.
The Revd Dr Hannah Steele is Director of St Mellitus College, London. As well as Living His Story, she is author of New World, New Church? Alongside her academic work, Hannah has spent time engaged in mission and evangelism among students in central London as a staff worker with UCCF. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s 2021 Lent Book is her first devotional study.
