When looking for a guest speaker or even brewing up a message of my own to deliver, I always ask myself… is this a good story? I’m not talking about the scripture or the personal application part. I’m merely talking about capturing your audience with a story.

As I observe students and their attentiveness to the person speaking they are either dialed in listening or dialing someone on their phone, or texting or just zoned out. As one of my professors said in college, “It is a sin to bore someone with the Word of God.”

So, why is it the speakers fault if the audience isn’t engaging? You haven’t captured their attention. You aren’t talking “studentnese”, you aren’t sharing a story that is relevant to their current world, you simply aren’t making them smile or laugh.

Jesus was the master storyteller. Many times before referring to any scripture at all, Jesus would share a story with his audience. His stories varied from family affairs, to robberies, painting pictures of grand parties, etc. He knew what his audience was used to seeing and hearing. He leveraged that to capture an audience so that they may hear truth.

Here’s my biggest piece of advice though, never make your story more important than the biblical truth. Never minimize what you are really trying to get across because your story is so cool. You should be just as excited if not more excited to share what is in the Bible and what it means to the listener than your hook.

The best book I’ve read on this subject and I would highly recommend is “Communicating for a Change” by Andy Stanley.