Learning stories with your family or small group

To learn a story well usually takes at least two weeks of constant practice and using it.  It is good to take the time to learn each story well, rather than have too high expectations when trying to learn a set of stories with your family (as a family devotional time) or a small group.

Here is a suggested way of learning it in a family that has a family Bible time five times a week.

Day 1

Learn the story by reading through the story out loud three times (see the training videos for more detail). At the end everyone tells someone else their story.

Day 2

Read through the story again – everyone practices the story out loud by themself.

Then you think about whether the story needs an introduction.  Does it have vocabulary that needs to be explained (like ‘Sabbath’ or ‘Pharisees’), context needed to set up the story, any geographical or cultural information, or just a link to previous story.

Work together on what would be helpful in the introduction.

Practice the introduction individually and then do the whole introduction plus the story at least once.

Make a goal of how many people you’re going to pray that you can share with in your own context. Pray for those people (start with one or two people).

Day 3

Find out if anyone has had a storytelling opportunity. Rejoice together!

Pray for each other that everyone would tell their story to someone else.

Do the six question method of discussion. Perhaps you’ll only have time for three questions today and do the rest the next time. Actually the whole time should only take 15 minutes or so.

Day 4

Hear testimonies of using the story and give thanks.

Practice the story and then continue discussion questions.

Day 5

Practice the story and share a big lesson you’re learning from the story or about sharing it.  Pray for your contacts and those you’ve already shared stories with.

Week 2

Do something else but keep sharing stories of who you’ve shared with and praying for contacts.

Week 3

Start learning your second story.

With a small group that meets once a week (or less often), work out how much you can do each time. I suggest one week really working at the story and in other weeks do something else but include rejoicing in opportunities you’ve had, practice story again (which helps those who are struggling to gain in confidence) and praying for opportunities to tell Bible stories.