Every tent tells a story

One of the central features of the National Gathering was the array of around 200 "story-telling" tents.
The tents had been purchased by congregations, or groups of congregations, and were set up as mini exhibition areas through which the different congregations could share their own stories of what was happening in their part of the world. And the variety of presentations, not to mention stories, was amazing. [There was even a congregation from Argentina that had taken a tent to share their story.]
Some had gone to great lengths and exercised some real imagination to produce eye-catching displays: others relied much more on their people to simply share the story with others. The overall effect, however, was to break down barriers between individuals and groups and get folk talking to each other and making new friends.
The sharing of stories is often what creates community and binds communities together. And, what's more, the act of sharing your story with someone else can often be as much a source of encouragement as hearing the stories of others.
The tradition of community story-tellers used to be very strong in Scotland. Often these story-tellers were travelling people who would go from one village to another sharing their tales and entertaining the people and no doubt on the way gathering more material for more stories.
It's an art-form that, thankfully, is being revived by the Scottish Story-Telling Centre.
As its director, Donald Smith, points out: "In the old Scottish Traveller proverb a story should be told ‘eye to eye, mind to mind, and heart to heart'. "
There was a lot of that going on at the National Gathering, as you can see from the picture above.
I wish more preachers would realise the importance of story-telling as a way of opening up the imagination of people and getting them to think for themselves, instead of trying to tell people what to think.
After all, we have in Jesus the example of one of the best story-tellers in all human history.