Using storying at high school skiing camp

An experienced preacher was asked to preach at a high school skiing camp. There were some challenging aspects compared to other kinds of camps. First, he was only allowed a 15 minute preaching slot right after lunch. The campers had been skiing all morning.

 

The discussion of the same passage didn’t happen until the evening after students had skied all morning and then in the afternoon as well. They were fairly tired out by the time they came in for the evening meal and ready to relax, not discuss the Bible.

 

The speaker had been experimenting with storytelling in many contexts for about 18 months. He had been saying to others that he believed storytelling would work in this kind of context and now wanted to test this out for himself.

 

The 15 minute speaking slot he spoke on sets of stories –

1) Jesus’ miracles in Luke 8:22ff

2) Jesus’ words – Luke 18

… + Crucifixion & Resurrection, since these kind of camps usually have good numbers of campers who don’t yet know Jesus.

First, he would tell the stories through once and he told the campers just to listen. Then he told them to ‘listen again to remember’ and finally he asked them to tell the stories.

 

In the evenings they would read through the stories again (so this made the 4th time they’d reviewed them) and then they discussed using these questions:-

a) What do you like in this story? Why?

b) What do you learn about people?

c) What do you learn about Jesus?

d) What questions might someone have about this story?

e) What will you do because of hearing these stories?

 

(See “Leading discussion” post in the revolving panel on the home page of this site for more detail about discussion).

 

The speaker also discovered that he could do 4 sessions of storying but then the campers appreciated something different. So in the final session he did a more conventional preaching session on the resurrection and asking for a response.

 

He came away feeling that the campers had been very engaged and that this style could be recommended.

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