Life In the Word

Life In the Word: The Story Tour

Well known pastor and author Max Lucado had a vision along with co-pastor Randy Frazee to bring the Bible to life. Both men had written books along the lines of the same theme. Randy wrote, The Heart Of The Story and Max wrote, Gods Story, Your Story. As you might imagine, pulling off a task of this size may seem quite difficult. However, Max and Randy had some help. They invited several well-known Christian music artists like Steven Curtis Chapman, The Newsboys, and Natalie Grant and others. Now add Max Lucado, your favorite Christian music artists with songs penned by veteran singer/songwriter Nicole Nordeman, Natalie Grant’s husband Bernie Herms and the scriptures together and you have a wonderful collaboration known as The Story Tour. This tour began shortly after the 2 Disc CD set by the same name was released.

The Story takes the audience on a journey. What we’ve read about in the Bible for so long is now coming to life through the multimedia projection screen as these vocalists pour their hearts into the lyrics of each song. The Story begins exactly where scripture begins in the book of Genesis and shares an image of creation with us none like we’d ever seen. The Story continues through the garden where man sinned. It continues to take us on a visual journey with incredible music through the story of Abraham and Sarah as well as Joseph, Moses, Joshua, and Ruth and Naomi and others. Then it finishes the Old Testament with Job. Todd Smith of the group Selah does an outstanding job with this song. I was lost in the song while watching the action on the screen. BROKEN PRAISE is a song that everyone must hear!

The New Testament begins with a new Christmas song with a beautiful lyric performed by Francesca Battistelli, BE BORN IN ME. The lyrics that sticks out in my mind is, “I will hold you in the beginning but you will hold me in the end.” The story then takes us through the ministry with Jesus. We see Him healing the sick and making the blind see and then we see Him on the cross with the thieves when Steven Curtis Chapman begins singing THIS IS HOW LOVE WINS. The Story continues through the empty tomb and through Paul’s missionary journeys and then concludes with THE GREAT DAY which we know is the rapture.

The concert was incredible. It was “raw” and “vulnerable.” This was not a huge production, they were able to get props and set in one truck while a concert like the Tran Siberian Orchestra tour uses approximately 20 trucks. The vocalists felt the lyric, which made for an enjoyable experience. Max Lucado and Randy Frazee knew exactly how much time they needed to be on stage in order to make an impact and not make people feel like they were there for a sermon. I was encouraged by The Story and I believe that the best is yet to come from this idea, THE STORY.