Will storytelling help us in our tough context? Doubt it!

A team attended a training about Bible storytelling. They work in a Creative Access situation with security issues. Deep in their hearts they didn’t really feel that storytelling would help their situation but they were urged to try. So they prayed and prepared. Here is their first report.

We had our first story discussion time with Muslim friends and neighbours from our housing complex on Friday. We invited them to come and discuss a story, to see what wisdom it had for us in our role as parents. We have tried to share spiritual things with these friends many times before, from every angle we could think of, but every time they would give a non-committal response and try to change the topic of conversation. They gave every impression of being practical atheists, only referring to their culture when taking part in festivals or when trying to answer the questions of insistent foreigners.

It was, therefore, with a lot of trepidation that we invited them over to hear the story of Creation. They listened intently to the story, but we still couldn’t tell what direction the meeting would take. As the discussion started, however, something quite wonderful happened. Without us quite knowing how it was happening, our seemingly atheistic, stony-hearted friends were transformed before our eyes into spiritually sensitive God-seekers. One by one, they started testifying to their desire to be serious about God’s role in their lives, to try to trust him more and to follow his ways. We never expected they would be so interested in the story, let alone that they would start encouraging and discipling us!

Some comments our friends gave during the discussion time

• “This story helps us to understand thankfulness to God. Everything we have, and the whole world, is made by him. All that we do is made possible by him. We need to be grateful and thank him.”
• “The whole world is like our family. We need to take care of it because God had given us responsibility to manage it. Our own family is like the world in miniature, and the husband-wife relationship is the cornerstone of the family.”
• “God made everything. He is the powerful one. It often seems like he’s far away, but he’s actually right here with us, even if we can’t see him.”

Our friends were having such a good time discussing the wisdom God gives us as parents that they kept talking for almost an hour after the formal discussion had finished!

We made plans to meet again in two weeks, when another teammate will share the story of the Fall.

We know that there’s still a long way to go for these friends, but we’re still really blown away about what God did when we stepped forward in faith and obedience. We can’t wait to see what He has planned next!

What we did

We invited four families and their children to come straight after kindergarten (5:45pm). Five adults came. We told the kids a story, then had a play-dough activity for them while the parents talked. Our team-mate told the story of creation in a clear way, using ordinary language. Then we discussed these three questions (which we had printed on sheets of paper):

• Was there anything new or surprising to you in the story?
• What can we learn about God through this story?
• What can we learn about families from this story? How can this help us to be better parents?

Used with permission and details hidden