How To Teach Doctrine - The Story of Everything

This past weekend we wrapped up one of the most powerful series ever at COMMUNITY, The Story of Everything.  I knew that this was a very important series since we were teaching the basics of what we believe, but I had no idea how well it would be received.  It was amazing!  Here are a couple comments that I just received via e-mail:  "This series has answered questions that I have been asking for the past 25 years..."  Here is another:  "We just joined a small group and The Story of Everything  has given us so much to share with each other.  You guys have done a wonderful job in giving us explanation, meaning and insight to the Story and its Truth.  Thank you."

After finishing this series, here are some thoughts on how to teach doctrine:

1. Doctrine should be taught as relational. One of the big mistakes we make is presenting doctrine as only a proposition or a statement.  Doctrine comes from theology and at the core of good theology is a God who is in love with us -that's relational.
2. Doctrine should be taught as a narrative.  We often present doctrine as an abstract statement that exists outside of time and history.  Doctrine comes from good theology which is the re-telling of the love story between God and man.
3. Doctrine should be interesting.  When you present sound doctrine based on a theology that is relational and narrative people will engage.  I remember a guy telling me when I did an internship, "it is a sin to make the Bible boring."  We had record attendance at COMMUNITY during this series.
4. Doctrine makes for great discussion.  During this series we also created a DVD curriculum for our small groups.  We had record numbers of people in small groups during this series and I know in my small group we had some great discussions.

If you want to check out some of the online teaching here are the topics we covered straight from our statement of faith:   

• The Story of God
• The Story of Sin
• The Story of Jesus
• The Story of the Holy Spirit
• The Story of the Church
• The Never Ending Story

Comments

[Jesse "fuser" Santoyo]

Very cool.

[Malcolm Tyree]

Dave,
Thanks for the way you and the team packaged the stories! I found it to be a great way to present the subject matter.

Keep up the good work.

[Ryan Joy]

Great post. This is stuff we need to be thinking though for sure.

[Travis Long]

Good stuff man...I really appreciate your blog.

[Travis Long]

good stuff man...i really appreciate your blog.

How does this apply to youth ministry? Do the same rules apply for teaching doctrine to youth?

[Deb]

I loved the series. And the WOW! moment of it all for me was the ending when, for the first time, I heard and realized that we have complete freedom to choose ,,, we can choose hell or we can choose Heaven ,,, but it is our own choice. WOW! I know my personal choice, but this also made me feel empowered and compelled to share that 'wow' with others.

[Anne]

The more series like that the better.. it really laid how why we believe what we believe and how we really can chosse this or not.. Many of us at CCC have little or no church backround or came from churches that under taught the Bible or over taught it.. so the more series to clarify His love for us the better