I am always intrigued (and amused) by the imaginative re-telling of ancient stories in new ways. I think ways of storytelling like the video above help us to re-imagine this ancient story in a way that our 21st century culture would experience it. In a unique way, it actually helps place us in the shoes of those original participants to this amazing intersection of this world and the supernatural world (Christmas)!
source YouTube
I was sent this great instructional video on what to do in the event of an oil fire in the kitchen. Typically, my wife will pull out the fire extinguisher when she is cooking with oil, just to be ready, just in case. But this video provides an alternative that might work better in an intense situation where you might not have time to grab the extinguisher.
The Israelites were wrong in asking for a king. After all, God was their king, so choosing a human king pretty much told God where they wanted him to go.
God is gracious and compassionate, and he lets the Israelites have a king: Saul. Through Samuel, he told the people (and Saul) that as long as they obeyed the Law then God would work through Saul and his special people, Israel, to be his representatives in the world.
Saul couldn’t do it. These stories account his failure to obey the Lord.
My Dad sent me this video yesterday. It’s the simple story of Jonah as we’ve all been told it. However, it’s the unique story-teller and expressive delivery that makes it such a fun video to watch!
source Vimeo
What a creative use of technology! The worship band @ North Point Community Church in Atlanta, GA used iPads to play Christmas music in their service.
source YouTube
Even before I was the children’s pastor @ Hayward Wesleyan, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed approaching the Bible as a story, a narrative. After all, the primary form God chose to communicate His Word was through stories (remarkably not a “systematic theology” textbook!). Now, after over 7 years worth of Bible story-telling, I’m more convinced of this historically-proven and time-tested methodology of “storying.”
It’s funny to me… telling Bible stories as stories shouldn’t be rocket science. It’s fairly simple to accomplish. The trick is to believe in it. What I mean by that is: most churches children’s ministries and its curriculum are primarily focused on principles to be taught (and remembered), life lessons to be learned, and topics to be addressed (as developmentally appropriate). Curriculum companies (thus churches by default, it seems) approach educating children from topics and principles first, then picking Bible stories to support that particular lesson. While not an all-together bad approach, it seems, in my opinion, to be the wrong order of things. Perhaps approaching the Bible stories first and letting the stories speak for themselves (across time and particular ages) is more of the appropriate order.
It’s tricky because you have to do more work to apply things, and you have to trust that what God wants to teach the students as they participate in your children’s ministry (or youth ministry) will be His particularly special scope and sequence, and not necessarily ours.
Below are some links I’ve come across of people who participate in “storying”:
Any others?
Samuel turns the nation of Israel around and sets them back on the right path to looking like the actual representatives of God in this world. With the Lord’s help, they conquered the Philistines for a while.
But then Samuel wants to turn leadership over to his sons, but they were evil, so the leaders of Israel wanted a king “like all the other nations have.” So God gives them what they want – a king.
I recently came across some interesting statistics. Sometimes you need to be careful with statistics because they can always be skewed to show what you want versus what a different side wants, but these are rather interesting… feel free to interpret them as you wish.
I’m pulling these statistics from “Shaping the Story: Helping Students Encounter God in a New Way” by Michael Novelli.
Literacy:
- 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school
- 42% of college graduates never read another book
- 57% of new books aren’t read to completion
- Most readers don’t get past page 18 in a book they’ve purchased
- A poll of 5th grader’s reading habits outside of school revealed that 50% read 4 min a day or less outside of school, 30% read 2 min a day or less, 10% read nothing
- 80% of graduating high school seniors say they’ll never again voluntarily read a book
- 65% of college freshmen read for pleasure for less than one hour a week or not at all
- 70% of Americans haven’t visited a bookstore in five years
- More than 20% of adults read at or below a 5th grade level – far below the level needed to earn a living wage
- Half of US households didn’t purchase a book in 2001
- Customers 55 and older account for more than 1/3 of all books bought in 2001
Media:
- In 2006, the average American home had more TV sets (2.73) than people (2.55). More than 50% of homes have at least 3 working TV sets
- On average, TVs are turned on for 8 hours and 14 min a day
- The average adult watches 4 hours and 35 min of TV each day. Kids average about 4 hours
- Children who have TVs in their bedrooms: 32% of 2-7 year olds and 65% of 8-18 year olds
- 35% of children and teenagers have video game systems in their rooms
- 72% of kids ages 8-17 years old report multi-tasking while watching TV
- Children average 6.5 hours a day – more than 44 hours per week – in front of a screen (TV, computer, video game, and so on)
- 35% of tweens (kids ages 8-12) own a mobile phone; 20% use text messaging; and 64% download and play music on their phones
- More than 70% of Americans ages 15-34 use social networks online
- Nearly 2/3 of teenagers – 63% – have a cell phone
- Teenagers average 16.7 hours and adults average 11.6 hours of weekly internet usage
- Americans aged 13-18 spend more than 72 hours a week using electronic media – defined as the Internet, cell phones, TV, music, and video games. Because teenagers are known for multi-tasking, their usage of devices can overlap
This past weekend (Dec 3-4), we took some middle and high school students to the PlanetWisdom conference in the Twin Cities.
The theme this year was “A God You Can Know” which was a teenage version of a class on the theology of God: a look at the character of God. Mark Matlock, Zach Hunter, The Skit Guys, and Dutton all did a phenomenal job of communicating this theme and keeping things concrete and engaging for the students.
I’m always on the lookout for new (and old) media to communicate and articulate “The Story” (of the Bible). While I am not particularly poetic (read: NOT AT ALL!), Sharon Irving is! She blends a unique style of rhythm and pacing when it comes to communicating things about stories in the Bible. Enjoy.
source YouTube
This year in our Middle School Youth group we have been journeying through the Bible.
One of the creative elements to this overview of Scripture is the motions we attribute to each segment of stories as we move progressively and chronologically through the Bible. Here’s what we have so far:
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Students must feed a friend ice cream. First one done, wins!
source YouTube