Category: Storying

This is why I storycraft in mmm-BELLY-may the way I do.  And why learning to tell God's story with all the pieces in context has helped me get it, finally.

OUR STORY: A Narrative in Three-Part Harmony

Without context, a narrative falls apart… When context cannot be found, a story becomes a collection of separate and disjointed events that seem to have nothing to do with each other. Understanding the context of any story is like reading a compass while on a journey: each event within the narrative points to something, or depending on the story, to someone.

I have never consistently enjoyed reading the Bible. Not like how I have consistently enjoyed sugar cereal or laughing with friends or singing along to a great song while driving in my car on a sunny summer day. Or best of all: laughing with friends while driving in my car as we sing great songs on a sunny summer day…after eating sugar cereal.

One of the problems I’ve had with reading the Bible is that I’ve viewed the Bible as a collection of fragmented stories. The stories in the Bible felt like the eighty-eight keys of a piano that just sat there in black and white. I realized these stories probably all had lessons to be learned, but I hadn’t a clue about how they co-related to each other.  Read the rest of Aaron Pluim's article.

                                                                            I have a nifty new title:  "Storying Facilitator." Talk to me for more than 3 minutes and you'll probably get me going on why I love storytelling.  Erwin McManus says it better than I do, though:

"The beautiful thing about film, and I think story telling, is that it’s not really trying to give you the answers, but it’s trying to help you reflect and ask the right questions.”  (Here's the rest of the interview.)

Being a guest in a culture that is not my own and having all the answers is not really my thing.  I'm much more comfortable helping people hear God's story in mmm-BELLY-may and listening as they reflect on the answers that God's Spirit brings to them. 

About a month ago, I tested the story of the first time people disobeyed God with an old man who said he had never set foot in a church.  This was the first part of God's story he's ever heard.  Already an amazing honor for me to be part of that!

The story ends with God telling the people all the hard things they'll have to experience because they disobeyed.  It's pretty harsh.  Not a happy happy feel good story at all.  After it was over, I asked the man some questions to see if the story was well crafted and clear. When I asked him why God made clothes for the man and the woman, he said, "Because God loved them so much that he just couldn't leave them the way they were."  Wow. 

Yep, that’s me, professional Bible stealer.  See, I just had some training in another country that took me WAY out of my comfort zone.  That day, I had to tell a story about a man, Phillip, who sensed from God to go out and stand near a certain road.  When he got there, he saw a government official from Ethiopia going past reading a holy book.  Phillip ran up to the Ethiopian and asked him if he understood what he was reading.  That opened the door for Phillip to tell this man God’s story, and the man chose to become a part of it that day.

Ok, telling a story, I can handle that.  But then the trainer sent us out to do what Phillip did-find someone doing something religious and ask them about it. I figured I would go and interpret for the newbie that was with me, since she doesn’t speak much French, and neither of us spoke the local language, Bambara.  No way was I going to start a conversation.  I don’t do that kind of thing.

So, off we go.  I see a man wearing a shirt with Bible verses on it and drawings of when Jesus was born.  We go up to him and ask him what his shirt means.  The only thing is, he doesn’t speak much French, and we speak zero Bambara.  So, I read one of the verses on his shirt to him.  Nope, he doesn’t understand, it’s in French.  So then I try to read the Bambara.  Hysterical.  Especially since I run into a seam while I’m reading.  So, the poor guy starts to explain to us who Jesus is.  I try to get him to understand that we know that already, but only manage to convince him that I do.  So, he goes inside, and comes back with a gospel of Luke.  To give me.  So that I can explain to the newbie about Jesus.  We try to refuse the gift, but he tells us that since the book isn’t in his language he can’t understand it.  There was absolutely no way to get around taking this man’s Bible from him.

So, the newbie carrying the book, we keep walking down the street.  I am bothered, to say the least.  Yep, that’s why I came here, to TAKE Bibles from people. 

We run into some people that I had met the day before, with some new ones around too.  One of the new ones, Charles, glances at the book the newbie is holding down at her side and says "Jesus of Nazareth!!"  Then he tells us that he is a Christian but has a lot of questions, especially about prayer.  I tell a story about a time Jesus prayed, we pray with him, and then we gave him the book of Luke.  He didn’t want to take it, but he did when I said to him, "God gave us this Bible to give to you."