Using stained glass windows to tell stories

Many old churches have stained glass windows. Each window was meant to remind the viewers, many of whom were illiterate of a Bible story.

In early August, I went to Melbourne to do five days of training. We went into the Cathedral to look for storytelling opportunities. Every day hundreds of tourists visit the Cathedral. It is so easy to ask, “Why is there stained glass in churches?” and then to ask, “Could I tell you the story linked with that window or another story I’ve learned?” Very few people refused to listen.

We had some other ideas for this ministry – maybe you could do something similar in your church or city. Wouldn’t it be amazing if every church with stained glass in the world had storytellers telling ‘the story behind the windows’ regularly or at least on special ‘open days?’ Have you got a place nearby you could train people for?

Here are some ideas we had for Melbourne Cathedral.

• Have different youth groups from around the city trained in storytelling and to take responsibility for one Saturday morning/afternoon every X months.
• Have a ‘uniform’ like a red scarf for the storytellers. When people have heard one story you could say, “All the people wearing the same red scarf as I am can tell you another story.”
• Prepare a booklet of the Bible passages to match each window and hand those out. Also have Bibles in many languages to hand out. Added effectiveness would be to have links in the back of booklets to the Jesus film in the language of the booklet. This allows people to have adequate follow-up via media so that they can hear the ‘whole story’ and come to Christ.
• Each window could also have a small sign with a QR code that allows people to go up to the internet and read the passage or hear a Bible story without needing a live storyteller there all the time.

What other ideas do you have? Where could this be used in your area? To share ideas, join our forum on Facebook at ‘Storying the Scriptures’.