Getting Personal
Nothing illustrates a point like a personal story. A personal story make an indelible impact on the listener, lingering long after whatever point was being made has faded. The more personal the story, the deeper it worms its way into the listener's psyche, until just the hearing of the story is a powerful personal experience that cannot be forgotten. It could be argued, in fact, that stories so overwhelm arguments that they do them a disservice, that to tell a story is to guarantee that whatever it is illustrating will be lost. To illustrate this point, I have (no irony intended) several personal stories about hearing personal stories--and also about telling them myself. All of them were heard during sermons, and in almost none of these cases can I remember what the sermon was actually about. First story: sometime between 1982 and 1986, my father preached a sermon at the Monroe United Methodist Church during which he told a story about a young college student having a c...