The School of Storying
God’s Word changes lives. But, “how will they hear unless someone tells them”? In order to reach oral learners through God’s Word, local believers need two things. First, they need oral Bible stories to be developed in their heart language. Second, they need training to use the oral Bible stories for evangelism, discipleship and church planting. StoryRunners® meets both of these needs in the School of Storying.
The School of Storying is a residence workshop hosted on location with a partnering ministry. In just four weeks, we help local people develop The Promise, a series of oral Bible stories from Creation to the Return of Jesus, in their own language. We equip the participants to use these spoken narratives within their ministry contexts for effective evangelism, discipleship and church planting among oral learners.
how we do it
StoryRunners cares deeply about the quality of the stories that participants develop. We have four main principles that we ensure are true for every story we develop. Each story developed within the School of Storying is:
Biblically faithful
Each story starts as an oral recording of a Scripture passage. A StoryRunners trainer compares each completed story back to its biblical text to ensure faithfulness.
Orally reproducible
Each story is easy to learn and retell, using conversational language. Usually, the stories are between two and three minutes in length.
Naturally told
The storytelling format conforms to the style of traditional stories in the people group’s culture and uses everyday words that everyone will understand.
Appropriate to culture
A focus group of people who do not follow Jesus tests each story to ensure the stories are understandable within the local culture.
By the end of four weeks, not only does the people group have an oral Bible story set in their heart language, but a small fleet of local people have been sent out as equipped missionaries among their unreached people group!
storyrunners® distinctives
- Reaching oral people groups
- Training local ministry leaders to use stories for evangelism and discipleship.
- Equipping local ministry leaders in church planting principles using stories from the book of Acts.
- Partnering with local ministry leaders to help them reach oral people groups in their countries.
- Developing The Promise, a series of Bible stories from Creation to the Return of Jesus, with local people in their own language in just four weeks.
For more information about partnering with StoryRunners to host a four-week School of Storying workshop, please contact us.