Welcome to the first post of our REstory series here at Go Out In Joy. Instead of a written post, today I’m sharing a 20-minute video that wrestles with the contrasts between the different stories people tell about God.
What if we’ve been off course, and God is different (and way better) than we were taught? What if taking the time to unlearn some stories about God so we can relearn bigger stories about God is a trade up?
What if God is really like Jesus?
The joy of awakening to this course correction with Jesus is worth every minute of the struggle to unlearn mistaken doctrines. Remember the testimony of Second Isaiah from my first post — the people are invited to leave the narrow stories of oppressive empire and walk out into bigger narratives with God. And of course, also from my first post, we’re reminded by Goldilocks and The Three Dinosaurs that “If you find yourself in the wrong story, leave.”
Today’s video helps us ask the question “What is God Like?” I will contrast two ways that people tell stories about God, calling them Story A and Story B.1 The point is not to polarize between two options but to examine the assumptions hiding underneath what we’ve been taught. We have permission to investigate how the stories we were told about God shape who we are becoming and shape how we understand the world around us. And this is just the beginning of this conversation — I will unpack the background and the implications of this unfolding question over the next few weeks!
Here it is — you can watch the video here: What is God Really Like?
May we have the courage to walk into bigger stories with God! I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts on these questions!
This video presentation is adapted from others — you can find multiple variations of “The Gospel in Chairs” on YouTube by different folks. I first heard about it from Brad Jerzak who wrote the book A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel, and it was probably from a podcast where he was being interviewed about it.