A congregation sits in pews, focused on a figure standing at the front of the sanctuary. She is spinning a tale about the land of the north. Sounds of shifting bodies and rustling programs fall away. The story begins to envelop the room. For a time, the veil between imagination and the solid world of walls and pews thins. The room is soon filled with villagers instead of congregants. Ancient trees materialize and loom overhead. Darkness moves among them, bringing leaves of yellow, orange, and red.
As the listeners wonder if the sun will ever return to the dark and frigid land, the storyteller gives the signal, and the children and adults take out the keys they have been silently holding. Small hands and large hands hold up jangling circles of metal and begin to shake them. The sounds of millions of needles of ice ring out. The sun, knowing the trees have been weeping in the cold, turns once again toward the land of the north.
When the story is brought to a satisfactory end, the walls of the sanctuary re-emerge for the congregation. The forest floor beneath their feet returns to carpet. Yet the story does not leave them entirely. It echoes in their psyches and whispers through the rest of the worship service. It follows them out to coffee hour and travels home with them and into their day. Some piece that rang true has stayed with them. Some questions they have long held have bubbled to the surface. A fullness in their hearts subtly shifts what they know about themselves and their world.
This is what my listeners tell me they experience when I tell a story in worship. It is what I experience myself when I hear a story well told. The amazing power of the human brain to imagine a story as it is being heard and bring it to life in the psyche can feel magical. Good storytelling in worship transports a whole gathered community to a new place of the imagination and heart.