Personal Stories in Sermons Present Challenges.

In a sermon, personal stories serve to express one's humanity.The issue is; one of the difficulties inherent in preaching is the "othrworldliness" of the message. It is a challenge to have the message perceived as real or "thisworldly". As I see it the personal story serves as a contemporary example and as a tangible evidence of the human-divine interactions this side of heaven.
However, the preacher who tells a personal story in a sermon runs the risk of either looking too good or of looking too bad.In the first case, the preacher can appear arrogant and self serving. Thus loosing the trust of the listeners. In the second case the preacher risks the negation of either his point or his authority thereby loosing the confidence of the listeners. In both cases, the preacher draws attention to himself at the expense of the gospel text and message.Such is the risk of personal stories in sermons. As such personal stories should be used with skill and care. True "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God"(Rom 3: 23, and true the message is always borne on feet of clay; but certainly the wise preacher must limit the exposure of personal foibles in his life stories so as not to tax the listeners' sense of forgiveness.
To put it in short personal stories can bring into the pictures some of the negatives of the human preacher. There are three of these negatives that I need show here. First stories can compete with the message for attention and greatness. Human egos are good at it. Secondly the story of the preacher can lead to misinterpretation of the text.Thirdly the personal story can tarnish the message by the reality of the way the preacher is living.
We need to ensure that the story is not the point but clarifies the point-the message. As such it must be short, clear and precise. Its basic function is to help the listener realize the message, reckon with the message and endorse the message as realistic.
I will conclude by giving a few things we can do to ensure that our personal story do not become part of the three sins above. First a story is great. It provides context and relevance to the listener but you do not have to be the people's hero always. If you are the hero of every story you tell that will get old real fast. Secondly preachers with integrity must be honest and admit the limits of their wisdom.Preachers do not come from some exalted place of knowledge. They come from the pews. Their stories must be close to the stories of others. In fact stories must be real but not so real the people may want to take your job away from you.Thirdly involve other people in story telling. In this way you are not always under pressure to come up with or to concoct a story. Lastly spice up the personal story with a little bit of humour.The old adage- humour is the best way to make the unbearable bearable- may be true.