A Good Story

We all love hearing a story told well; it is a means of packaging information and sharing it in a captivating and compelling way.  The need for story-telling becomes even more important when we start talking about oral communities, which the YOU people traditionally have been. Yes, they have an alphabet and books and literature, but information is still best communicated and received via the spoken word. Because this is true, I recently took advantage of attending a three day long Bible story-telling course, which helped us identify important stories and craft them in such a way as to capture the essence of what the Word is communicating in short memorable ways. 

It was interesting to see the effect this means of teaching the Word had on even my YOU roommate. She personally loves God and reads the Bible most mornings but one evening we tried reading a passage together with her and some other friends. They enjoyed the Word but really didn’t have many comments or interaction with the text when we were done.  Next, I told them a Bible story. The result was totally different; they began to open up and share their thoughts on what they learned about God and man and the world around them.

Since then, I have been working on my story-telling skills and trying hard to share stories from the Word with people I meet on long distant buses and trains.  Finding good stories from the Bible that answer the questions I get asked most often. As I re-read the gospels it catches my attention how often this is the exact method Jesus used to communicate to listening crowds.