Using storying to teach a topic

Storying is also a way to cover topics such as parenting, marriage, prayer, worship and repentance. An American missionary in the Philippines has facilitated two-day workshops with large groups of disciples. Each workshop introduces a set of stories on a given subject. The first addresses worship, the second prayer, both important subjects for new believers. He lists all the stories that teach about these subjects. Then he chooses the twenty that portray the widest range of principles and practices on the subject. The group learns each story and then reflects on it. They distill the principles and practices that please God and those that do not. By the end of the two days, the stories have greatly reshaped participant’s understanding of the subject. At the end of the workshop on worship, they have a time of worship in which they do what they’ve learned. At several points during the one on prayer, they stop to pray based on the lessons learned so far.

One group had a shallow understanding of repentance. So they looked at fourteen passages*, most of which were stories. After each passage, the group wrote the answers to the following questions on a chart:

1. What sin is mentioned?
2. What command or teaching about repentance is mentioned?
3. What people are mentioned in the story?
4. What evidence is there that they repented or refused to repent?

Then the group discussed what they had observed from the story. After the final passage, each person was asked to apply the teaching by answering these four questions:

1. How would you now define or explain repentance?
2. List the things that demonstrate that someone has truly repented.
3. List the fruit of repentance that should be seen in a person’s life.
4. List five specific things you’ll do to apply what you’ve learned.

* The fourteen passages used for the repentance series were Genesis 35:1-7, Leviticus 6:1-7, Isaiah 30:8-18, Jeremiah 36:1-24, Hosea 14:1-4, Matthew 21:28-32 and 27:3-5, Luke 3:2-14 and 19:1-10, Acts 16:22-34 and 19:17-20, and Revelation 2:4-5, 3:15-20 and 9:19-20. The order is variable.

Adapted from Telling the Gospel Through Story and used with permission of AS.