Let’s saturate the world with God’s story!
I was in Japan for a training course with missionaries. My biggest frustration is to be in a country with many who have not heard stories from the Bible but I can’t speak the language. Only one of the people I met while out and about had good enough English to understand a story.
But for the previous six months those I trained in Japan worked together to train a local friend to tell a Bible story and then film that story. Now there is a complete set of Bible overview stories!
It is great to have the stories available online but they are not much use unless we have means to spread them. There is a designated YouTube channel for the stories and the last one includes a link to watch the Jesus Film. That allows someone who has listened to the nine stories to then have a second follow-up method with the film based on Luke’s gospel. We hope that people might become followers of Jesus just from that set of stories and the film.
From having a resource to going viral
It is no use to simply have a resource sitting on the internet. We need to learn to use it so that local people not only hear the stories but pass them on too. To do this needs strategic thinking. Some ideas are:
- a QR code/link that all storytellers can have on their mobile phones ready to share with anyone they meet
- the same QR code/link or any tracts or advertising materials handed out by churches or other organisations
- a series of Bible portions to be given out with the link inside them
- a ‘name card’ that includes the link but also several intriguing questions on it that are questions that the culture might ask. The card I use in Taiwan asks ‘Where do you find peace that can never be shaken?’ and ‘What is the world’s greatest blessing?’
- Christians to put up one story link each month on their Facebook with a sentence or two of testimony first about why they like the linked story.
What other ideas do you have?
I might not be able to speak Japanese but I can connect with people.
Some early attempts to link to the resources
Remember, I don’t speak the local language. It is much easier if you do and have learned at least one story to pass on. Here are three opportunities I had within a twenty-four hour period.
I made friends with a lady selling second hand kimonos. She insisted on dressing me up in a kimono. So once the videos were ready, I went back to the shop taking a Japanese-speaking friend with me. Through translation I thanked the lady and told her that I’d been training storytellers in Japan and that some of my students has filmed some stories in Japanese. We were able to send the link from one mobile phone to the other.
On the bullet train I had two broken English conversations with two men. With simple English and some written Chinese characters, we managed to communicate a little. Both of them were happy to receive a link to the stories (I asked them for their email addresses to do this), as my way of thanking them for their kindness.
Maybe this is a tiny ‘link in the chain’ of their lives, leading them towards knowing Jesus.
All of us speak a limited number of languages but in the modern world we will meet people from many countries. We are working to have a basic set of nine stories in as many languages as possible.
Could you help out in written translations for any language or in telling stories for audio or video? Even if you don’t speak another language well, you might be able to be a catalyst if you know others who do.
Please contact us via the comments section under this post or go to Facebook and request permission to join Storying the Scriptures.
Let’s saturate the world with God’s story!
