Archive
The engaging story of the Malila Scriptures
It can be easy to think that once people have the word of God in their own language, the work of Bible translation is done. That could be the case for the Malila community in Tanzania, who celebrated the arrival of their printed and audio New Testament in 2...
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From veterinary to preaching the Word
Consider how unlikely it was in the first place that Matt Viljoen was even in a position to see that bumper sticker as a 34-year-old in the coastal village of Broadstairs, England.
Youth voices in Lebanon
Lebanon, Our Story seeks to tap into the power of storytelling in order to write a new, shared story for Lebanon, one based on openness, transparency, and accountability. The project was formed in response to poor civic engagement and social erosion driven ...
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The Power of Curiosity
One of the things we notice about most young children is that they have a healthy curiosity and ask a lot of questions. They learn fast because of their inquisitiveness and hunger for knowledge.
Bringing the Bible to Life in One Thousand Languages
Faith Comes By Hearing exists to share God’s Word in audio. Every month we add more of the world’s languages to our inventory of Bible recordings destined to become freely accessible on a variety of platforms. One of the most effective formats...
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BIJAN’S PRAYER: AN IRANIAN BOY’S STORY OF FAITH
Thirteen-year-old Bijan from Iran recently got in touch with Persian children’s show Hashtag, asking to give his life to Jesus. Here, he shares his story of faith – ending with a beautiful prayer that blessed the whole team. I am thirteen years old, and I s...
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Connecting, Caring and Changing Lives
I met a man in Nashville while passing through a revolving door at an entrance to a downtown hotel. I smiled and greeted the man as he was exiting, and I was entering the hotel. Immediately the man turned around and followed me into the lobby to ask me a q...
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Proclaimers: packing a powerful message
Proclaimers – not the well-known Scottish band, but solar-powered digital audio players – are bringing the word of God to oral-based communities, and lives are being transformed as people hear the good news of Jesus in the language that speaks to them best....
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Journalist hears the gospel in prison
James, a pastor in a war-torn country, went to prison for two years. His crime: sharing his faith. But even imprisonment couldn’t stop him from telling the story that had changed his life.
Literacy training in prisons using Bible storytelling
For those desiring to use literacy or English teaching to reach others for Christ, here is some inexpensive, effective and easy-to use material based on 30 Bible stories. It was designed for prison use, and is being used in four or five states to get indivi...
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Digital Orality: New Signs of Spiritual Opportunities
Orality-based methods and strategies are the most effective ways people have learned and communicated from the beginning of time. Digital Orality is about combining modern technological resources with the most ancient forms of communicating and learning. ...
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Gospel Spreads Among Truck Drivers in West Africa
In West Africa, truck driving is a dangerous and stressful job. Drivers face job insecurity, the threat of being robbed, extortion from corrupt policemen, and cultural and linguistic barriers as they cross through borders taking imports from the coast to la...
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How to Prepare Your First Bible Story
Bible storytelling is a skill that most of us are not born with. It’s hard the first time but will get easier the more stories you learn. Here is the basic process.
The Importance of Asking the Right Questions
“Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning." “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” Unfortunately, many people lose that curiosity and thirst for knowledge as they grow older.
Fairness and Equality, from God’s Kingdom Perspective
There is a lot of talk these days about inequality and the need for more fairness and equality. People often get the idea that their worth or value is based on their salary, possessions, title or position in an organization or society. Perhaps the greatest ...
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The Power of Storytelling
There are many places throughout the world where a written language doesn’t exist. There are others where literacy rates are extremely low. In both cases, without the ability to read the actual text from the Bible, storytelling is an effective method for sh...
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What’s the best story you’ve ever heard?
Our lives are full of stories, big and small: thrillers, romances, adventure, tragedy and the stories of everyday, seemingly mundane, life. We’ve had stories read to us as children, we’ve shared stories with others, we’ve watched stories unfold in front of ...
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What is Bible storying?
Probably every people group in history has used stories to record important events, pass on their beliefs, teach correct behaviour or reflect their world view. Much of the Bible itself was transmitted orally for centuries before it was first written down.
One Great Tool to Explain the Gospel in Real Life
Missionaries working in countries where there is no printed gospel available in the heart language of the people use a method called storying to present the gospel message. Story sets help create bridges and address barriers to the gospel.
Fula Stories Spread Rapidly
It was a special night for the Fula OneStory team. They had worked together for a year producing a set of Bible stories for the Fula in their language. Fulas in Guinea Bissau, West Africa are almost exclusively Muslim.
Remembering Pioneer Jim Slack
“Hello World!” was Jim Slack’s enthusiastic greeting to coworkers and his exclamation whenever he learned something new. An unassuming man always in good humor, Slack became one of Southern Baptists’ most influential missiologists during a 50-year career wi...
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Potential Harvest
Even though StoryRunners has never worked in Niger, a 99.5% non-Christian West African country of 22 million people, StoryRunners is still having an impact in Niger! With few believers and a literacy rate of only 19%, Niger is a perfect place for sharing t...
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Overcoming Fears to Reach Our Neighbors
One of the things our SIU team looks forward to the most is hearing new testimonies of impact from people who attend one of our Bridges training events held around the world. We know these testimonies will be coming, and to be honest, I kind of get giddy wi...
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It was a dark and stormy night…
How many of our Halloween stories begin this way? Even though many people tell such stories for fun at Halloween, for others fear characterizes their daily lives. Voodoo practitioners are not myths or stories in West Africa–they are all too real. Jesus rec...
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2018 NAR Conference – Storying Gateway Breakout
Catch up or refresh yourself with the audio recordings of the Gateway breakout session "Storying" from ION’s 2018 North America Regional Conference, which took place in Orlando, FL in September 2018, with the theme 'Many Applications - One Mandate'.
Sign up to access content2018 NAR Conference – Preparing to Teach a Bible Story Workshop
Catch up or refresh yourself with the audio recordings of the workshop session "Preparing to Teach a Bible Story" from ION’s 2018 North America Regional Conference, which took place in Orlando, FL in September 2018, with the theme 'Many Applications - One M...
Sign up to access content2018 NAR Conference – Storying through the Epistles Workshop
Catch up or refresh yourself with the audio recordings of the workshop session "Storying through the Epistles" from ION’s 2018 North America Regional Conference, which took place in Orlando, FL in September 2018, with the theme 'Many Applications - One Mand...
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Community Transformation in Tanzania
During my time in Tanzania in June, I went back to Vunde, a small village in the Tanga region, where I had worked earlier this year. I facilitated a 4-day class called WASH that teaches about water, sanitation and hygiene, using Bible stories as examples fo...
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More Than Words
The specific challenges that will come up in translating the Bible for a specific people group are hard to anticipate, and often don’t become apparent until a translation is tested in the community. A recent example of this comes from Asia.
History Cloth – 42 Chronological Bible Stories
History Cloth is a resource featuring 42 chronological Bible stories revealing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Science of Storytelling
A good story can make or break a presentation, article, or conversation. But why is that? When Buffer co-founder Leo Widrich started to market his product through stories instead of benefits and bullet points, sign-ups went through the roof. Here he shares ...
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For the Kingdom of God Belongs to those…
Our Lord, Jesus, loves the heart attitude and faith of a child. In fact, He addresses it directly in one of the stories found in the Gospel of Mark. For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children or have childlike faith. I so would hav...
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Good news travels fast
If you heard a great story, how long would it be before you shared it with someone else? Probably not long. You’d be even quicker to share it if you were from one of the world’s oral cultures.
Quick Impact
Jorge is a pastor on the West African island of São Tomé. He used to preach in Portuguese rather than his first language, Angolar, because he was educated in Portuguese — and because it was the only Bible translation on the island for 500 years.
An Appointed Time and Place
Andrew lay on his back in the massive, thatched-roof hut, trying to sleep. The veteran missionary had lived and worked here for 11 years, so it didn’t bother him that total strangers were snoozing close by. That was a typical sleeping arrangement, even for ...
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3 Reasons Bible Storying is Essential for Making Disciples Globally
I’m a firm believer in the power of Bible storying. During thirty-six years serving overseas in Africa, South Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, I’ve seen stories from Scripture change lives all over the world.
Love, Marriage, Car Chase
Newlyweds Vincent and Sofia held on in the back of a police Jeep as it charged through side streets and alleys at top speed. In hot pursuit rode a pack of angry men on motorcycles. Frightened, Sofia gripped Vincent’s arm tightly. Where were they going? What...
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Orality: Storytelling and Millennial Engagement
I grew up in the South where sweet tea and gossip on the front porch were anchors. The one thing you can bank on in the south is stories grow with each passing year. Hunting stories, Christmas stories, birthday stories, and the list goes on.
Now I Understand
Your single-prop airplane buzzes low over the palm tree jungle. The pilot turns the yoke and banks into a slow arc. As the plane circles a tree-carpeted hill, you spot it — a grass airstrip running up the middle of a small village. Except for the nearby ri...
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Orality: Intergenerational and Cross Cultural
After 30 long hours of travel they arrived in the remote village deep in India. Cloaked in a headscarf a young woman shared the story of the Woman at the Well. Jesus’ prophetic words to the Samaritan woman left the crowd speechless. That storyteller was me.
A Good Story in the Making
Everyone loves a good story. Jesus knew it. He didn’t engage in debates to convince people to believe in God. Instead, He told stories about people whose lives were changed-so they could listen and identify, without feeling confronted and condemned. He k...
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Captivating Learners through the Art of Digital Storytelling
Take a moment to reflect on the last lecture or sermon that captivated your imagination, resonated with you in a meaningful way, and ultimately transformed your thinking. What elements of this particular talk especially impacted you?
Tell Me More Stories!
They live tucked away in a rugged mountain region where roads are merely mule tracks and footpaths that wind endlessly around the outer slopes of the Himalayas. Snowbound in their villages for up to four months a year, they must live entirely on what they’v...
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Orality Bible Project
No Place Left are designing a Bible storybook for making disciples of people who cannot read. Each master icon illustrates the Bible story’s main idea and fuels the imagination.
Bible stories come to life
When Banko Myle met a paralyzed woman in her Banna village, he told her a story he’d just learned. It was the Gospel story of Jesus healing the Bleeding Woman (Matthew 9, Mark 5, Luke 8). “Can that same Jesus heal me?” she asked.
4 Steps to unleash your first Bible story
Last blog post, we uncovered a way of sharing the Gospel that connects with 70% of the world, and instead of hitting straight-up against worldview barriers often leaves people asking for more: Bible storytelling. So, how do you start telling Bible stories? ...
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StoryFire – Bible storytelling & discussion resource
StoryFire is a six-part audio series that trains you how to share God's Word through Bible storytelling and discussion. Based on the same principles MAF uses to train isolated church leaders around the world, StoryFire is now available for free download.
3 Ways Bible Storying can open hearts to God
For most people in our world, reading about Jesus will never connect to their heart, only hearing about him. And yet so many of our evangelism and disciple-making strategies rely on words printed on a page.
Connecting for Change — Experiencing Chance Encounters
What we might think of as chance encounters, may be better described as God’s redemptive connections. Years ago I came across a small booklet titled “There are no accidents with God.” Another author who has had a significant influence in my life is DeVern F...
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Application 5: Sharing Faith through Contextualized Visual Arts
Whether henna “storying” in South Asia or “contemporary indigenous art” in Australia, the visual arts provide a means of sharing the love of God.
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Application 6: Church Planting with Bible Storying and the Creative Arts
By combining storytelling with various artistic expressions, effective strategies are developing for communicating the gospel in culturally relevant ways.
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Application 7: Strengthening Ministry and Storytelling with Local Proverbs
Local proverbs can provide a natural connection point between biblical stories and local communities.
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Application 11: Arts Enliven Scripture-based Storytelling
An organization has experienced the favor of God as a result of its commitment to oral communication strategies
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My Journey in Bible Storytelling
Bible storyteller continues his blog in this journal
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Storytelling Works at the Salon
A seasoned practitioner shares with us how to use biblical storytelling in everyday situations.
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Questions from New Storytellers
J.O. Terry provides sage responses to frequently asked questions by new storytellers.
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Improving Memory for Bible Story Content by Using a Scene-Visualization Process
Memory at work helping us to learn the story and to retell it over and over.
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Ten Mistakes of a New Bible Storyteller
Wisdom from a storytelling practitioner.
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Mind the Gap: If This Is Your Land, then Where Are Your Stories?
What and where are our stories that help us claim the land?
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Important Points to Remember when Storytelling
Excellent practical tips on what to keep in mind.
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Let’s Do the Twist: Learning the Dance of Telling Interesting Bible Stories
The author explains how we experience stories through our own lenses shaped by our experiences and the cultural norms and values of our communities.
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The Worldwide Spread of Bible Storying: A Look at Where We’ve Been
An overview of the recent history and expansion of the Bible Storytelling movement.
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Storying
Pathways include: crafting; practice of; training…
Who should be in your storying group?
Donald McGavran, a missiologist, defined the Homogeneous Unit Principle as “a section of society in which all members have some characteristic in common.” The global work in missions for people groups was built around the HUP. IMB defines a people group as ...
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It’s All About the Story
The university where I teach, Houston Baptist University, is hosting a consultation this week for the International Orality Network. I will be attending the consultation and learning all I can regarding this new and important missions emphasis that recogniz...
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Ministering with Bible Stories
When you seek to meet the needs of others, how can you use Bible stories? Listening to people is the key. Trust that the Holy Spirit will bring Bible stories to mind, so listen to the Lord while listening to the person in need.
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