Quick Bible Storying Workshop

I was invited to do a quick regional training workshop for a Foursquare Gospel Church the week before last.

Since, I didn't have a lot of time, just a couple of hours, I started off with a sample storying session. I told the story of the the paralytic and the crowded house (the first twelve verses of Mark 2).  This served as a model of the the 5 parts of a Simply the Story style presentation.

After we had finished the storying session and discussion, nearly everyone was impressed that they could use storying in their respective ministries. I then walked them through the 5 steps and how to do each one, reminding them from the example how we did it.

Here are the 5 steps. 

1. Tell the Story. - Tell the scripture in an accurate, unbroken way. 
2. Retell the Story. - Invite someone to tell the story back.  
3. Step through the Story. - Take everyone through the story again as a group, telling with pauses for the participants to supply details. (there are some other techniques there too.)  
4. Look for Spiritual Treasures - Using questions help participants make observations of the events in the story that have some spiritual or theological significance.  
5. Make Personal Applications. - Using questions, help the participants to connect some of their spiritual observations to their own lives and situations, and decide on ways to put the scripture into practice.

After we went over the steps, I helped them use a very simple technique to learn a passage of scripture by heart. I asked a volunteer to read the Scripture story of the man with the withered hand (Luke 6:6-11). She read it and all listened. Then, I had them tell the story to one another in pairs, as best as they could remember it.

Afterwards, I had the volunteer read it again, but asked them to pay attention to see if there was anything they left out, added, or changed in the story. Once the passage was re-read, I asked them to share what they noticed. Several pointed out key words or portions of the story and others nodded in agreements. I asked them to tell the story again to their partners.

Once they had told the story the second time, most were feeling much more confident about their passage. We did the reading one more time, made a few more "I forgot this" observations, and then I asked everyone to find a new partner and tell the story again. This time every was confident they could tell the story well.

Finally, even though we were out of time, I shared with the group how using simple instructions and a handful of volunteers, a story could be dramatized. I asked for 5 to come to the front. I simply said, "You will be Jesus, You will be the man with the withered hand, and you will be the religious leaders. Without speaking act out the story as you hear it told." I then called for someone to tell the story.

The narrator told it well, and the volunteers all did their parts with enthusiasm. It was simple and engaging. We had to stop there, as we were out of time.

Surprisingly Full Participation

In our second oral style inductive Bible study with this new family, we wanted to be sure to do our best to set the pattern well and encourage full participation. The family is a family of four, with two sons. The older one is a teenager and has some significant social and emotional challenges. The younger one is four years old. Perfect for playing with my son Nilson, who is five.

Our passage this time was a short one from Matthew 7. The Two Builders. I told the story in my own words, faithful to the Scripture.

We then called the two young boys from playing in the bedroom to come and do a sketch for us. I told them that they would be houses with their arms over their heads making a roof., one would stand strong and the other would fall. As I retold the story, the father made raining and flooding movements with his hands over his son. When he blew on him, representing the wind, the small boy flexed his muscles and stayed firm. As I was telling the story, the father repeated the motions over my son. When he blew on him, he fell with all the drama a five-year-old can muster. Everyone clapped and the boys took a bow. They then returned to playing.

I asked everyone to tell the story in pairs. I did not participate in this part, I just observed. (I am still deaf, did you know that? It’s been two months, but I am making improvements in my hearing.) The story is short, so everyone was able to tell the story well. The older son, who would not speak or even make eye contact last week, told the story with great precision.

I then asked if someone would read the passage word for word out of the Bible. Who do you think did it? Yes, the older son. This was touching for everyone.

After this, we asked some basic questions to find observations and applications in the passage. You would be surprised at the depth here. We ended with each person making an “I will” statement. That is, each person declared what he would do to obey the passage.

The whole study was shorter than usual, but for a group just starting out, it was just fine. It lasted about an hour.

NOTE

I haven’t done a great deal of story set development. What I have found through experience here is that starting with The Four Soils, and following up with The Two Builders has been extremely effective in reaching nominal Catholics who have opened up their homes for Bible studies. Since they are already familiar enough with Jesus, these passages help set the habit of hearing God’s message by reading the Bible and obeying immediately what is understood. This has led to quickly transformed lives and baptisms.

The process of the inductive Bible study itself creates accountability and community. We model the process first, then transfer the facilitation of the process as quickly as possible to the leader of the family.

Rough

Some days, Bible storying and Bible studies just don’t work out the way you had hoped. This is one reason consistency is key. When we are regularly discipling and being discipled, we are not looking for a knockout every time we meet. We are looking to build each other up in love.

At Mr S’s house, we spent  most of the first hour just enjoying his daughter’s new found ability to hear. Her cochlear implant activation was wonderful and she could hear voices from day one. Now she is learning words, after 8 years in silence.

There are several steps in an oral inductive bible study. The three we start with are as follows.

1. Someone reads the Biblical passage.
2. Someone tells the Biblical passage.
3. The group retells the Biblical passage together, correcting all details as they go.

One of the keys to having a meaningful Bible study is getting a good handle on the text. Even if we make no observations and draw no applications, if everyone learns the Biblical text by heart, we’ve been successful. For this to happen, the passage needs to be “unbroken.” That means no interruptions during the reading and the telling (especially interruptions to comment on the passage.) Scripture comes first and holds priority.

We were interrupted multiple times in every one of those three steps. Children playing too loud and needing to be corrected. Telephone ringing. Children pouting and needing to be corrected. (smiley face goes here) Questions. Medicine time, someone needs to take a pill. Water break. Bathroom break. More children interruptions. It was rough.

This was likely the worst meeting we ever had, if we were only judging by our checklist of things to do, or by how many insights we pulled out of the passage. In the end, we were very successful. We persevered through difficulty. We prayed for one another. We learned a few strategies to make the next meeting smoother. We all learned God’s Word by heart.

Oh, and our text was Zechariah chapter 3.

More Lessons Learned: How to be a Missionary

As I mentioned in a previous post, these are lessons I have learned along the way as a missionary.

• Walk, don’t drive. My experience has been that in general taking a car cost much more than it helps. One example: When we needed to go and visit a family about half an hour up the mountain walking, we were tempted to do it in 5 minutes driving. We walked. As we walked with one of the family members, we told Bible stories and listened to her stories. By the time we got to the top, we were in the company of nearly a dozen. All of them hearing these stories. We were then introduced to another dozen people who wanted to hear more. When we got to her house, we stayed for a 15 minute visit. By car, that would be 15 somewhat superficial minutes with a family. On foot, that was over an hour, and highly intimate. We met a dozen more people through an existing relationship.
  
  
• Do copiable things. Today I found out that another friend of mine started reading the Bible with friends at work when he started a new job. I never told these men that they needed to go and make disciples in their workplace by reading the Bible or telling Bible stories, but that is what they did. They saw us doing it, and when they left our company to work in another place (and even country) they did what seemed natural to them.  They had seen it done, easily.  So some of our disciples have gone and made disciples and we never knew about it until much later.
  
  
• Spend the Night. This idea is related to the first. We would go into a small community and have a Bible study with one family, visit another and then take the bus home. We always had to alternate which family would get the Bible study because of time. One night, the family told my wife and I. “Look, you can stay here. Go ahead and miss the bus, take the one at sunrise, you will be back in your city by 7:00.” They gave us their own clothes to wear to bed. The result was that we spend a long time sitting around the kitchen table talking with them and drinking coffee. You know how those kinds of conversations go. In one night, we became family. There was a bond that formed that was stronger than 3 years of weekly 1-hour visits.
  

Widely Accepted Missions Strategy

I read this on a site. I’ve seen this dozens of times with other organizations as well. I want to point it out.

The objective of the work of the Generic Missions Agency can be outlined in three stages:
1. Learn the Language.
2. Begin creating a phonetic alphabet and training in literacy.
3. Through the translation of the Bible, transmit the word of God.

I would propose a new strategy if I were permitted to give my opinion. It would look like this:

1. Learn the language.
2. Tell God’s stories orally.
3. Disciple using an oral Bible.
4. Begin creating a phonetic alphabet and training in literacy.
5. Translate the Bible as a supplement and codification of the oral bible, making recordings as you go.

Why should reading or literacy EVER be a prerequisite to evangelism and discipleship?

Interactive Bible Storying with Children

Yesterday, I was invited to tell some interactive Bible stories to a group of children. I expected about 40, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw busloads of kids arriving. There were over 300!

The neat thing about stories, is that once you’ve told them a few times, you don’t forget them easily. (In the case of Bible storying, I would say you should tell every Bible story you know at least once every six months to keep them fresh in your mind.) Once you have learned a number of stories, you can string them together into a bigger narrative. This is a wonderful experience for both the storyteller and the hearer.

Since the children were all sitting on the floor, and rather disorganized, I knew I would have some trouble keeping their attention, so I used a hand sign to represent each story before and after I told it. Every time I got to a new story, I would do all of the hand signs with them from the beginning and say something that would remind them of the story. Most of them were “two-minute stories.” They were only a few verses long. So, I was able to tell these stories straight from the Bible.

Here are the stories I told and the hand signs I used.

Lessons Learned: How to be a missionary

Since I began Bible storying, my strategy in missions and ministry has transformed a great deal. Here are some of the lessons I have learned from both success and failure. (I am going to do this over several posts)

• Don’t spend your time trying to create groups. In 2004 and 2005, I spent a lot of time trying to coax five families into meeting together for a Bible study. I got three of them to finally do it. As soon as we started to make progress, as I defined it, Satan broke up the group. He caused confusion and mistrust to separate the families in a brutal way. I spent 3 years trying to corral families together for Bible studies and was unsuccessful engaging many willing families, because I could not form the groups I wanted.
  
  
• Disciple groups that already exist. The families on the hill is one of the biggest success stories of this blog. A major reason for the success was that they are a family with already existing ties and relationships. There is a bond there that is not easily broken (though Satan did try again). Existing groups will generally either accept or reject the gospel as a group, rather than splinter and disband. When they do decide to follow Jesus, discipleship is natural and often faster than expected.
  
  
• Give preference to oral communication. I had tried several times to start a Bible study with the families on the hill. At one point, I was going weekly for a long period of time, but making no headway in evangelism or discipleship. The day I suggested we put away our pens and notebooks, and began telling the scripture was the day they started “hearing” the message. This happened in a lot of places, even among the highly literate.
  

New blog announcement

I have started a new blog called Beyond Outreach. Please go check it out.

http://beyondoutreach.blogspot.com

This current blog, Chronological Bible Storying will continue. I’ve been slow lately with the updates, but that is just a reflection of what’s going on in our lives right now. Lot’s of medical issues with family and it’s just eating up a lot of our time. The updates will come. God bless.