Once upon a time there was a wide stormy sea with a group of islands clustered together within sight of each other. The stormy sea raged and tossed between each one. On each island lived one person.
Bible stories are better than once upon a time: the have all the magic of fairy stories and all the inescapable challenge of reality.
So how do we tell these stories well? What are we trying to do when we tell a Bible story? Our job is to open the stories up, stimulate the imagination so that the story creates memorable pictures, provokes awe and wonder at the otherness of what happens, and brings to life the emotions that make the difference between a set of dry rules and a gateway to adventure.
Easy really.
Our job is to tell the story in such a way that remains true to the original but encourages listeners to connect the distant past with their own present and future.
A piece of cake.
A good story should be healing, guiding, shaping, nagging, unforgettable, awe-inspiring.…
Aaargh!
Keep reading! Keep storytelling! It sounds impossible, unattainable, but we know we can do it. After all, we are story people – as human beings we’ve been telling stories since the first child asked, ‘Where does the earth come from?’ And we’ll be telling stories long after the academics have deconstructed us, post-modernised us and hung us out to dry. Stories connect us across the generations of humanity from that first child to our great great great grandchildren and beyond. (And what stories those will be!) Because this is what a story does. More than anything a story should make connections. And perhaps we can sum up the purpose of a story in this phrase:
to make connections.
The people on the islands would come out onto their beaches and wave across the salty stormy gulf to their nearest neighbours, but anything they shouted was lost in the wash of the waves and the wail of the wind. So after years of trying, they gave up and fell silent, content with waving occasionally, and forgetting there was such a thing as words.
What connections should a story make?
A good storyteller finds out the connections between the original writer and their listeners. She makes connections between the story and her own story. She helps listeners connect the story with their own world, and of course to connect with God himself. In the process, the listeners should be helped to connect with the storyteller of course, with each other, and to make connections for themselves between this story and other stories. Now there’s a web of connections to put the Internet to shame.
Let’s unpack these connections a bit.
Connecting with the writer
To tell a story well, it helps to do a bit of homework and
connect with the original writer or storyteller. Why was he writing these words in this order? Why does she highlight these details and ignore others? By including this character, what connections is he hoping his contemporary listeners will make? Thomas E. Boomershine has fascinating examples of the way this approach gives power to a story. In his book
Story Journey – for example, he claims that the original listeners to the story of the Greek woman in Mark 7 would have made strong connections between her story and that of the anti-Greek stories in Maccabees, such as that of the Jewish mother whose seven sons were martyred at the hand of the Greek Antiochus. The resonances bring to life the utter enmity between the two nations, showing how shocking it was for a Gentile to ask for help from a Jew. This sounds terribly convoluted to us, at one historic remove from it all, but should make us try to capture that vivid sense of enmity in our retelling.
Connecting with my own life experiences
To tell a story well, it really helps to find the
connections with my own story: when Jacob ran away from home and slept rough in the desert, did he feel like I felt when I had to go on my own from rural Lincolnshire to London one night, without being sure where I was going to sleep? When Joshua was faced with the wimpy disbelief of the Israelites who hadn’t seen the Promised Land, did it feel anything like the frustration I feel when I’m trying to get my children to try – just try – you’ll love it! Trust me! - a new and delicious food? These connections give my storytelling depth and credibility because I’m pouring some of the genuine reality of my own story into my telling of the ancient story. When I’m rehearsing a play, the director will often ask me to think of a time I’ve felt the same way as my character does at a particular moment and to bring that undercurrent into my performance. (Interesting when you’re playing the suicidal Hedda Gabler or the deeply smitten Portia!) It’s the same thing with a story. Our own story gives the storytelling resonance and believability.
One day a stranger rowed up to one of the islands in a frail wooden rowing boat, packed to the brim with wood and nails and rope. Hattie, whose island it was, had no words to welcome him. He smiled at her silence and asked her gently, ‘I’ve come a long way and the sea was very rough. Could I have a cup of tea?’ Hattie managed to nod. And as they walked up the path to her lonely house, he talked to her so gently and so easily that she found herself starting to reply to him in single words, then phrases, then whole sentences.
Connecting to the world of the listener
In telling Bible stories to children, we are trying to help them
connect with their own world. By connect with, I mean make sense of, develop words and pictures to use to describe their world. A story should help them see the pattern of life, and how they fit that pattern. A story should give children a language for their emotions and spirituality. It might allow them to talk about fear and danger in terms of feeling like a lost sheep, for example. Patterns of life could be understood as a journey, like that of Abram and Sarai, or as the growth of the mustard seed. The great mythic stories show us patterns and truths – perhaps going straight into the Promised Land isn’t possible – maybe the only way in is the long way round. Perhaps in every metaphorical Flood that devastates our lives, God wants us to know that he will provide some sort of ark to carry us safely through. Stories give life meaning and shape.
Connecting to the larger world
A story should also help a child
connect to the world around them, their local and global community. It should shine a light on the questions of relationships. Surely this alone is crucial in our fragmented society? Peter Privett includes in his story the words, ‘I wonder if you’ve ever looked up at the beauty of the stars and how you feel when you think there are hundreds of thousands of stars and planets and solar systems and galaxies? And I wonder how you feel when you think that you are part of it… and that it is part of you?’ When the point-scoring Pharisee asked, ‘But who is my neighbour?’ how did Jesus reply? With a story, of course. A story should illuminate a person’s place in the world. If our inquisitive child asked her long-suffering mother ‘Who am I? Why am I here?’ the mother might reply with a story: ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…’
‘I have an idea,’ said the stranger, as he finished his tea and set Hattie’s one mug back on the table with a clunk. ‘Why don’t we build a bridge from your island to the next island? I have everything we need. ’
‘It can’t be done,’ said Hattie, shivering at the thought. ‘The gap is too wide and the sea is very deep and rough.’
‘Surely it would be worth it, to be able to cross from one island to another?’ smiled the stranger. He led her back down to the shoreline.
‘I don’t know how to build a bridge,’ said Hattie. ‘I don’t know what this… and this … and these are called.’ She touched the wood, rope and nails in the stranger’s boat.
‘I’ve been building bridges all my life,’ laughed the stranger. ‘Come and help me.’
Connecting with God
And a story, especially a telling of a Bible story, should help a child
connect with God. It should be a window on his character, helping the child to know him better and encouraging her to trust him for the next step. Psalm 78 is very clear on this. Why should we pass on the story of God’s works from one generation to another? ‘So they would all trust God and would not forget what he has done but would obey his commands. They would not be like their ancestors who were stubborn and disobedient.’ In other words, we pass on history, or his story so that we fall in love with God ourselves and don’t make the same mistakes as the people who went before us. Terry Clutterham in
The Adventure Begins writes of his wish that he’d been told the Ten Commandments in a story context, with the full power and might of God evoked so that he could feel the awesome majesty of this holy God. How then the commandments would be more than just ten peculiar worthy rules but would go to his imagination and will rather than just his head. So we use all the storytelling techniques we can muster to bring these stories to life – the people, the feelings, the sounds, sights and smells. We tell children how God rescued his people in the past, saving them from slavery in Egypt, giving sight to those who couldn’t see. Tell them how he provided for them with manna in the desert or loaves and fishes on the hillside. Tell them how much Jesus loved children. Tell them how he had a plan for ordinary disciples to change the world. Tell them, this is who God is. We know God through stories as well as experience. Stories are a bridge between children and God.
The stranger taught Hattie the names of the tools, showed her with his leathery scarred hands how to start with the piles driven into the shore’s firm foundation stone, and how to lash the planks of wood together to make an even path.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked him.
‘You were right,’ he said, ‘the gap is wide and the sea is deep and very rough, but someone needs to row this rope across to the other side.’
‘That’s a terrible risk,’ whispered Hattie.
Connecting with other stories
And a good storyteller helps listeners
make connections with other stories. What story does this remind you of? What other characters can you think of who did this? Can you think of another time this person felt like this? What other stories are about birds, seeds, sheep, bread, being lost, being a stranger…? When Jesus says in John 15 just before his death, ‘I am the true vine’, we have a whole range of vine and vineyard stories both from Jesus himself and from the Old Testament that add poignancy and significance to his image. When we romped through the story of Samson in Junior Church, I was gobsmacked to hear one of my ten year olds say thoughtfully, ‘Samson’s a bit like Jesus. There wasn’t any other way for him – he had to die too.’ The stories gain resonance, depth and illumination from each other.
Hattie watched as the stranger lashed the rope to his waist and rowed out into the stormy waters of the gulf. A huge wave crashed into the boat and smashed it against the rocks, but he heaved on the oars and carried on. Another giant wave hurled itself down on top of the boat and it disappeared from sight. But after a minute, Hattie saw it regain the surface once more and plough on through the white water towards the far shore. One more wave, even more enormous than the last, surged over the boat, whirling it round madly in its strong currents towards the rocky cliffs of the far island. The boat and the stranger vanished, sucked down by hidden whirlpools.
Connecting through relationship
In telling a story,
the storyteller is connecting with the listeners and the listeners are connecting with the storyteller – the electricity is two way. Just go into a Barnabas Live assembly and see one of our storytellers taking wings on the enthusiasm of the children and see the children gleefully transported by the storyteller. The listeners are also
connecting with each other through their participation in the story and their common experience. Again, after a school assembly, teachers will tell us that the children couldn’t stop talking about it. The complicity might be as simple as a shared grin at the characters’ silly voices, or it might be as moving as sharing thoughts on how the story has released something in their own life. I remember one lady nearly in tears after exploring the story of the Prodigal Son, telling us that she understood for the first time how his parents might have felt. Now, that makes me think of other parent stories - Abraham on the mountain or Mary at the crucifixion - and suddenly the shivers down the spine start.
Storytelling is a God-given gift and responsibility. Do we want to be the generation that breaks the link in the chain that has lasted since ‘In the beginning…’? Let’s help each other to build connections in a fragmented world.
But the boat reappeared at last, spewed up into calmer water by a vicious eddy of foam and again, the stranger leant to the oars and heaved to regain control. Hattie laughed out loud to see the tiny battered boat land at last on the safety of the beach. Hattie’s mind filled with a picture of the islands, each joined to the next by strong bridges, with the islanders running backwards and forwards to speak to each other every day.
But would the person who lived on that island let them make a bridge across? Would they find enough wood and rope to build strong bridges from island to island? And most of all, would Hattie herself have to risk journeys in the boat just as the stranger had done, before other bridges could be built?
The stranger pulled the rope tight and Hattie’s bridge of planks, that even path of wood above the stormy waters, clattered as it stretched out into place. He waved to her. It was ready. But could she do it? Would the bridge be strong enough? Breathless, Hattie climbed up and took her first step across the bridge.
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