Oral approaches
Bible Storying is the intentional and uninterrupted sharing of God's Word primarily as stories. These stories are usually supplemented with culturally appropriate learning exercises that are listener sensitive. The stories may be told as part of a strategy of telling many stories leading to an invitation to believe, or may be only a few stories during an evangelistic encounter or a ministry opportunity.
This book is a manual for those wanting to get into Bible storying, including chapters on topics like: rationale for Bible storying, considering worldview, choosing Bible stories, crafting Bible stories for telling, pre-story dialog time, post-story dialog time.
The author describes the many options for presenting a Bible story and describes a model storying session. [more...]
Adaptability on the part of the Bible storyer is absolutely essential if such efforts are to result in church starting. This adaptability must address the presentation of the stories, the number of stories that are utilized, the story sets that are employed, the place in which people meet, and the methodology that is employed.
This book is full of practical advice for those wanting to use Bible Storying as part of a church planting strategy. It focusses on topics such as: equipping the storyer, understanding the setting, developing the strategies, and selecting the stories for effective church planting.
It is written by authors with extensive experience in church planting and training in Bible Storying. [more...]
Bible Storying is the generic term for the primary use of Bible stories to evangelize, disciple, plant churches and train emerging oral church leaders.
If you aren’t telling and teaching the stories, then it isn’t Bible Storying!
This website has articles, books and the 'Bible Storying Newsletter' from Storying specialists J.O. Terry (Bible Storying Consultant & Trainer, International Mission Board) and Dr. Daniel Sanchez (Professor of Missions at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary). [more...]
Chronological Bible Storying (CBS) is the process of encountering God by telling the stories of the Bible. In CBS we tell Bible stories without interruption or comment and we tell them in the order that they happened in time. Afterward we discuss each story and its significance for our lives. Each story builds on those that came before; as a result, the overarching message of the Bible becomes clear and we discover our own place in God’s story.
This site is designed to provide the CBS resources you need in order to introduce people to the Christian message or to help existing Christians grow in their spiritual lives. The same basic process can be used to start new small groups or to plant churches. [more...]
Chronological Storying... needs to be underpinned by a solid, reliable translation in the target language.
To reach an isolated community, Chronological Storying can be an effective tool. However, storytellers need to be aware of the translation principles and key terms that are required to translate the stories into the local language, and know how to tell the story appropriately in that context. This case study describes how a team developed a Story-tellers' Bible — a source for storytellers — covering key Old and New Testament stories for different storying tracks. It outlines why storytellers still need to craft their own stories from this source text and describes the main characteristics of the Story-tellers' Bible. [more...]
It is only natural for us to bring to our work the bias of our own ways of thinking, learning, and communicating. But unless we can adapt our communications to our audience, we will limit our audience to those who think as we do. The people we want to reach, however, include many for whom reading is not an important feature of everyday life. In fact, they prefer oral modes of communication.
Many people are non-readers who are more at home with oral communication methods. Research and experiments over the last two decades have shown that oral communicators learn best when these methods are used. In this paper Rick Brown looks at some of the principles that need to be understood and their implications for communicating God’s Word. [more...]
It is possible that the literacy based approach as applied in non-reading communities reaches best those who most want to escape from the traditional culture into the modern world of wealth and technology, but it may not be successful in reaching the majority of the people, or the poor in many regions.
After over 150 years of literacy based mission strategy, we will still miss half the world if we continue believing that people must read in order to receive the Word.
In this article, Herbert Klem surveys mission strategy, especially that which has been literacy-based. He outlines the problems with relying on such literacy-dependent methods in reaching much of the world's population. [more...]
The cassette dramas were very effective and listened to repeatedly.
The Ese Ejjas are a nomadic river people group of Bolivia. Joyce Prettol describes how no one was able to read Scripture with expression, as reading is a personal skill and not for entertaining others. So they decided to record dramatized Scripture. The cast spent time talking together about the story and then developed their dialogue. Prettol explains and gives examples of how they dramatized parables, miracles, and New Testament incidents. She also covers technical factors. [more...]
"The purpose of Storying is to create an environment for us to connect with God through the whole Bible Story."
Resources, training and ideas for encouraging Bible Storying with youth and adults in the media-literate, story-oriented North American context. [more...]
Faith Comes By Hearing is committed to reaching the nations with the Word of God in audio. Their strategy includes setting up listening groups which meet weekly to listen to the Scriptures in the local language. In 40 weeks such groups can hear the whole New Testament from start to finish. This is done with the help of the solar-powered Proclaimer audio player. [more...]
