These girls have been coming to our place each week and just recently their interest has picked up. I've been trying something new. Instead of a study I've started storytelling. Last night I told the whole story from the book of Esther. Besides being an exercise for my language skills it was fun for all of us, with the girls really getting into the story. Sometimes in our literate religious culture we really dont have a lot of use for the book of Esther. There's really nothing supernatural or directly spiritual in the book, and we tend to find other books more useful. But let me tell you, here in this context with these young girls it served a very different purpose. They loved the story. They have an oral culture which has not forgotten the value of a good story. And the story of Esther is a really good story. It has intrigue, romance, suspense, irony, and justice. After I finished telling the story, while the others were having tea, one girl sat down and read the whole book. (10 chapters) Then she wanted to know what the other books in the two testaments were about. This story peaked her iterest in the whole collection of writings. For her its no longer just a foreign book of religion.
Thanks for listening. I look forward to hearing your comments.
Melody.
7 comments:
Love the Storytelling story. Sometimes I do this with our kids. I put the bible down and just tell the story. They get more out of it than when I just read it to them.
I think the story sticks in your brain and God can use it later for one thing He wants to teach us and then again another day for a different lesson. My Aunty Ivy was an incredible storyteller. I know/ remember the storys she told with much better clarity than the ones I read on my own. Hamans voice and the moves and feelings of David as she expressed them are forever the way she said them. Id be tempted to correct David himself if he differed from Aunty Ivy!
Same with the storys Miss Millar told.
I also think we need to remember our own storys. Talk about the times you know God intervened for your family until it is the family lore.
I wish you kids remembered the time the van just stopped rather than going over the embankment because we told it as many times as some of Dads other stories.
I think that this story of yours is perhaps the most exciting one yet to appear in your blog diary.
The verse Isa.55:11 came to my mind, and indeed the whole of Isa.55 provides some thought provoking material.
There is a basic desire in each of us to hear stories, whether for entertainment, or for information. Even when we want to learn something, when we wish to be "educated", a story is often the most effective method for conveying the information.
Ralph made interesting comments, including the use of parables, and I agree with him.
Glad to see this has provoked some thought. There are far more powerful ways of communicating the truth than just wheeling out the four spiritual laws.
The very powerful thing is to think of story telling in our own cultures. How can we communicate the gospel in our own cultures using story telling?
I think in Australia, the ANZAC story has great potential. At the spiritual birth of Australia, God planted a seed for Australians: "Greater love has no man than he lay down his life for his friends." So often we try to tell the gospel using logical didactic methods. I don't think the Australian people have responed to this very well. Kel Richards started something with his "Aussie Bible." I think that if the gospel was truly told in Australian langauge, i.e the language of Banko Patterson or Henry Lawson or Kel Richards, then it would really impact and people would respond. I also think the ANZAC story needs to be incorporated some how as a "redemptive analogy."
That was a typo. It is Banjo Patterson. Banjo Patterson was a famous 19th century Aussie poet. He is most famously known for his "Waltzing Matilda" poem, which is the spiritual national anthem of Australia.
I agree our stories /testimonies should be told because it is giving an account of what we know and give to the listener a picture of the almighty. That is how one passes on what we have to others and future generations.
That's wonderful that you feel confident enough with your Russian now to tell stories.
I was thinking about what you wrote and what Paul wrote in his other blog. I think as highly educated or literate people, as Paul puts it, we can forget the art of story telling. It is, however, far from dead. I know my children always have, and probably always will, preferred it when I have put down the book and just told the story.
Without pictures we need to rely far more heavily on intonation, gesture and facial expressions to convey the story, and this brings it so much more to life. They particularly love it when I tell stories of my childhood, or my parents' childhoods, and while this may not be formulaic like the traditional oral narrations of many cultures, it is serving the same purpose.
I am sure you are already well aware that Russians, not just the indigenous peoples, are great story tellers and that the story is a great part of their culture. Many stories are only in books because they were once old tales that have been passed from generation to generation orally. Each have their own many variations and incarnations and through these stories we can often find links between cultures as we realise there is a common source.
So I wish you and Paul well in your quest to tell the stories of the old and new testament.
Let's not forget that the One we look to most was the best story teller of all. He set the example. He knew it was the way to the hearts of the people. Even if they didn't understand the story at first it would play on their minds, as only a great story can do.
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