Bible Storying
"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...]
The next wave of missions advance: Illiterates, functionally illiterates, semi-literates, storying cultures and many others who simply prefer a nonliterate approach can receive God’s Word.
This 7 module audio CD series on Chronological Storying will prepare you to reach those who prefer a non-literate approach.
Module 1: Making Disciples of Primary Oral Learners
Module 2: Choosing to Follow Jesus
Module 3: Living in the Family of Jesus
Module 4: Becoming Like Jesus
Module 5: Serving Like Jesus
Module 6: Multiplying Spiritual Disciples and Leaders [more...]
...where the men focused upon the action in the story and in the broad strokes of doctrinal truth, the women focused upon relationships, feelings and emotions of the story characters as related to themselves, and family structure. There was a heightened interest among the women whenever a Bible story focused upon the person of a woman or some aspect of life typical in the woman’s world.
God and Woman is a selection of 95 biblical stories chosen for introducing women in Central and South Asia to the God of the Bible. The introduction describes the typical worldview of women in these parts of the world. God and Woman retells each of the stories and offers extensive helps, including how to set up each story, key truths to emphasize, and discussion questions.
Also available in French. [more...]
In seeking to free ourselves from the biases of a print-oriented culture, we need to consider, not only the kinds of media and discourse genre (e.g. narrative) that are most appropriate for oral cultures, but also the most effective ways to use those genres and media. What do non-readers like to see and hear? What do they enjoy listening to? Their choices will not necessarily be the same as those of print communicators. If the styles of presentation are ones which oral communicators prefer, then they will be more likely to listen, to understand, and to remember what they hear.
In this paper, Rick Brown argues that oral cultures have their own preferences for ways to communicate truth, and that these are often different from what print-oriented people prefer. In order to share the message most effectively, we need to find out what media and methods work best for them. In most cases this will include a multi-media approach with an emphasis on memorizing the Scriptures with the aid of high-quality recordings from skilled actors or voicers. [more...]
Five years ago Lion Hudson (a UK based publisher) was approached by the United Bible Societies with the need for an illustrated re-telling of the Bible narrative that was suitable for a wide age range including adults, culturally appropriate for non Western readers and which could be printed at a price that made it affordable for a mass market in the two thirds world with minimum or no subsidy. The organisations settled on a long-standing and successful title - The Lion Children's Bible - as the book that best met this requirement. [more...]
Discover why orality is a growing phenomenon throughout the world in reaching others for Christ.
Around 70% of the world's population communicates mainly by stories, proverbs, drama, songs, poetry, and chants which all happens in a face-to-face context. Stories play an important role in forming every person's world view. Many times, Christian stories are presented in a culturally relevant way tackling basic worldview assumptions. In many cases, this may be the only way to replace or revise the audience's worldview that was learned by their stories. [more...]
 | Link: http://nobs.org An international organization whose purpose is to communicate the sacred stories of the biblical tradition. Their mission is to encourage everyone to learn and tell biblical stories. Website contains news of training courses and a bookstore of useful resources. |
OneStory works with mother-tongue speakers to develop and record worldview-sensitive, chronological Bible “story sets” for each specific group — typically 40 to 60 stories in a two-year period. Mother-tongue speakers spread the stories to others. These story sets form the beginnings of an “oral Bible” to be told and retold for generations.
The OneStory partnership includes Campus Crusade for Christ, Trans World Radio, Wycliffe International and YWAM, and involves other Great Commission agencies, churches and individuals. [more...]
"Wednesday is my favourite day, because it's the Open the Book assembly!"
OPEN THE BOOK offers primary school children in the UK an opportunity to hear the major stories of the Bible, presented chronologically, during one school year. It is a free service given to each school by a team of Christians from local churches, who present a series of stories during Collective Worship. Each presentation takes a maximum of 10 minutes and can be incorporated into a wider school assembly, or can stand alone.
All the Year One stories are taken from The Lion Storyteller Bible written by Bob Hartman, and give an overview of the Bible from Creation to the Ascension. There are a further 2 years of themed material for those schools (and teams) who wish to continue. [more...]
“The illustrations captured the imagination of the children.”
Mary Beavon describes a Scripture Use activity their team used in an area of Cameroon where churches are small, travel is difficult, and people have little money. They developed Scripture Big Books (from Shell Books), which served to both teach the Bible and promote literacy. They were used in churches and open air. Though it is not a sustainable activity, it provides useful manuscripts and exposes people to written forms of the Bible. [more...]