Bible Story-ing

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Storying through the Bible is a method/strategy to engage a group of people in learning Scripture. There is great flexibility in teaching this way and you could walk through the Bible from the Old Testament to the Cross, work through the Gospels, highlighting different aspects of Jesus’ life, or work through a specific book like Acts. In order to maximize effectiveness, a group should follow this general outline:

1.     Every week the small-group leader learns one of the stories to tell or they assign someone in their group to learn the story.

2.     The assigned storyteller learns the story so that he or she can tell it without reading it – not word for word but so the story remains true to the meaning.

3.     While the storyteller is telling the story, the small group reads along to see if the storyteller has missed anything.

4.     When the story is finished, the storyteller or the leader of the group will rebuild the story pointing out anything that was missed.

5.     The leader often asks someone to tell the story back to everyone without reading it.

6.     No one knows who will be asked, so everyone pays attention just in case he or she is chosen.

7.     Once the story has been told, rebuilt, and told again, the small group leader asks questions that draw out the important truths in the story:

·      What new thing did you discover in the story that you did not know before?

·      What did you learn about God?

·      What did you learn about people?

·      Which person is most like you in the story?

·      What will you take away from this discussion?

·      What will you do with what you have learned?

• If the leader is asked a question they do not know the answer to, they need to say, “I don’t know, but I will know by next week.”

This post was basically taken from Jim Putman’s Real-LifeDiscipleship (p. 158)