The Talk Place

What a great time was had over Easter by a group of twenty new storytellers. I joined them as we gathered at Northmead Uniting Church, attending for three day over Easter.

I wondered if this way of storytelling would be a helpful tool in the hands of our new recordist trainees.

We all hoped to learn to do five things:

1. Turn a Bible passage into a Bible story.

2. Revise it so that it became more interesting and memorable and put it into picture form to help us recall its telling.

3. Use body language and actions in the telling!

4. Teach our story to the rest of the class by telling it twice, by having the class repeat it sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph; and then tell it back to us.

5. Lead a bible study based on our story.

 

The programme moved along at the speed of light! First there was prayer, then a start to the crafting, drawing, telling, polishing, teaching and finally using it to lead a Bible study. Then we did it all over again until two of the three days seminar were used up! On the third day (Easter Sunday) each of us was to tell the specific story we had prepared. Then we practiced leading its related Bible study.

 

The grand finale came in the evening service on Easter Sunday night. The church was full, the videos of Indian testimonies were rolling, and the radio mikes were fitted. Ten Bible stories were told with dramatic and vocal effects.

 

The following questions were asked of the congregation after each of the stories were told:

 

What did you learn about God in this story?

What did you learn about people in this story?

What did you like in the story?

What may some people not like?

What did you learn from this story that you can apply to your own life?

After church there was a great time of fellowship between congregation and storytellers, with the congregation discussing the Bible study and highly engaged in finding out more.

As the seminar proceeded, I was reminded of our Word of Life recordings, many of which take this kind of approach to Bible storytelling.

It was a confirmation that GRN's endeavours to share bible stories with non literate folk in their own language were spot on!

It was a time of blessing, learning, excitement, nerve wracking and encouragment.