Stories to come

The New Organizing Institute, a leftwing advocacy group, argues this: "Crafting a narrative that motivates people to action is one of the most important aspects of any campaign or advocacy work. It's also one of the most challenging. Year after year, we see great ventures fall short because the narrative they told never connected with their audience."

New Organizing is now organizing workshops: "We want to help you develop the skills to build a compelling narrative for your work through a training in the art and science of storytelling." What's the most compelling narrative with which conservatives challenge the left's storytelling? Seems to be Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, which makes man the center and offers an immediate buzz but no future hope.

Good Friday and Easter are the world's second turning point. Start with the wonder of creation, with an awesome, personal Creator making all things from nothing. Continue with the tragic turning point of Eden, with all of us after that-sons and daughters of Adam and Eve-broken by sin. But Good Friday is the antidote and Easter is a time for starting afresh.

Ever since that second turning point, believers have been able to live in the knowledge of our limitations as humans, broken by sin but alive in Christ, able to pursue holiness and to try in our little parts of the world to bring life with the hope of eternity. Because of Easter we gain confidence in what Proverbs 23:17-18 teaches:

"Let not your heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of the LORD all the day. Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off."

The Christian story is a generous, hopeful, sacrificial, big story where individuals count, families count, and communities count. We have power and privilege to be co-laborers with God. Our story opposes the materialism story, the man-in-control story, the impersonal creation story, the meaningless story, the do-whatever-feels-right story.

But that's general. The test is crafting a specific story with sweat and tears. We already have the blood, and the resurrection.