Bible storying Archives - Jump Into The Word

For our spiritual well-being, after Jesus, Bible stories are what we need most in life.

Sharing Bible stories is called “storying” or “storying Scripture.” Storying is a recently coined phrase to describe the process of carefully crafting stories from Scripture so that they stay true to the original text but are told verbally in a natural and appealing way that engages the listener.

Storying Scripture can be done in two ways – word for word from the text, or not word for word.

The word for word method:

Someone memorizes a story from the Bible
The story is recited to a group of listeners
The listeners tell the story back to the person who recited it
The person who recited the story recites it again
Everyone discusses the meaning and application of the story

The not word for word method:

Someone tells a story from the Bible in their own words
The listeners read the story using their Bibles
The listeners see if the teller missed anything in the text
One of the listeners tells the story in their own words
Everyone discusses the meaning and application of the story

In both methods, once the story is told, retold, and rebuilt, questions become the basis for the ensuing discussion. There are five key questions:

What did you notice?
What did you learn about God?
What did you learn about people/yourself?
How are you going to apply this story this week?
Who could you tell this story to?

There are many benefits to storying Scripture:

It’s ideal for oral preference learners
It’s highly relational
God’s Word is central
It builds intimacy with the story
It communicates from heart to heart
It involves everyone
Both tellers and listeners get to “own” the story
The threefold repetition of the story provides 3 different ways to “hear” it
An atmosphere is created through the use of body language and voice
It resonates across cultural or ethnic divides
It sounds more “alive”
It engages sanctified imagination
It’s an entry point for the truth to be seeded in hearts
It’s reproducible
All ages can do it (Mary Margaret tells the story of Jonah)

There’s great power in telling stories. Since the dawn of creation people have used stories to share their history, communicate ideas, establish values, shape behaviour, advance a cause, strengthen community, and form a worldview. So here’s to storying Scripture – to doing it well – to sharing the Story in ways that transform our understanding of the world and our view of God.

Recommended Resources:

Terry, J. O., Basic Bible Storying: Preparing and Presenting Bible Stories for Evangelism, Discipleship, Training and Ministry, Church Starting Network, 2009.

Tiegreen, Chris, Story Thru the Bible: An Interactive Way to Connect with God’s Word, NavPress, 2011.

Willis, Avery T. and Mark Snowden, Truth That Sticks: How to Communicate Velcro truth in a Teflon World, NavPress, 2010.

2 Corinthians 4:5

This post is compiled with Bible ministry colleagues in mind. It’s for people working in the fields of Bible preaching, Bible translation, Bible publishing, Bible storying, Bible study, Bible teaching, Bible resource development, and Bible engagement.

Here are ten primers to get us thinking about our thinking:

The entertainment industry thrives on the power to distract and hypnotize. What are the Bible engagement strategies, methodologies and technologies that are required to capture the attention of people caught in the grip of an alluring hotchpotch of images and fragments of visual stimulation?
Biblical scholarship requires a major paradigm shift. The perception and interpretation of the Scriptures must shift from engaging with silent print to engaging with the Bible in the context of electronic media. What are the implications of this premise?
Since the majority of people hear the message of the Bible rather than read it for themselves, greater attention needs to be given to the importance of communicating the message with dialogical language (vs. dialectic language). What adjustments in our Bible delivery systems/methodology need to be made to help people hear the Word in more relational and dynamic ways?
In recognizing that there are more people outside than inside the church, it is imperative that intralingual translations (e.g. English to English) of Bible versions/paraphrases are developed to better enable people to relate to the Word. How might a multi-media rich environment help or hinder intralingual translations?
There are multiple tools, forms and avenues available in the sciences and arts through which connections with the Bible may be made. How might the sciences and arts be more creatively accessed to help people see, imagine, contemplate, tell, hear, remember and share God’s Story?
It was mainly Christians who pioneered the transition from orality to literacy. Now that Western cultures are more abstract, wouldn’t it be great if Christians once again pioneered the transition to secondary orality? So what are we presently doing, and what should we be doing, to communicate and invite interaction with the Bible in the context of a more deliberate self-conscious orality?
Robotics and artificial intelligence are going to dramatically alter the landscape of society in the coming years. What impact might the changes in technology have on how we provide access, develop approaches/methods, and invite engagement with the Bible?
Social networking sites have changed the way we communicate. The linear reasoning that’s been nurtured by print culture is being augmented or replaced by non-sequential thinking stimulated by visual effects, wired to sound bites and punctuated by the exchange of one-liners. With this in mind, what are the implications for discipleship, given that Bible reading/reflection (drawing on linear reasoning skills) has been the primary means of nurturing mature believers?
What can we learn from the past that can help us in the future? The biblical texts were originally recorded to assist oral presentation and the development of a communal piety. The spoken and rhetorical features of the biblical text have been largely overlooked or ignored by commentators, pastors and teachers for hundreds of years. How can electronic media be harnessed to recapture the original oral underpinnings of the Bible?
What new thinking, arrangements, reorganization of translation processes, and development of production and delivery mechanisms are required to enable people to engage with the Bible in a way that they can encounter God and live lives that bring honour and glory to Him?

2 Corinthians 4:5

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