Simply The Story

A Bible story is studied and questions are prepared according to Simply The Story guidelines. Then a two-phase teaching takes place: first telling the story, then second, discovering the treasures.

Phase One: The story is presented three times allowing the listeners to become totally familiar with the story's contents. The skill of story presentation is needed: the ability to tell a story well, to encourage volunteers and to review its contents in an interesting manner.

1. The storyteller tells the story (The first telling helps the listener visualize the story and feel its impact.)

2. The storyteller asks one volunteer to retell the story or for listeners to retell it to each other. (Listeners pay close attention to the retelling by their peers to see if they get it ''right,'' which helps seal the story into the listeners' memories.)

3. The storyteller goes through the story a third time. (This is just one more retelling of the story, but this time the storyteller enlists everyone's help to step through it together.)

Phase Two: The storyteller leads the listeners to the spiritual treasures in the story. This is done in two sections. To do both well, two more skills need to be developed. The skills of finding the spiritual treasures and then the skill of forming those treasures into questions.

1. First the storyteller leads listeners to Spiritual Observations through questions. (This is when listeners are invited to take a look at the activities of the characters in the story. Then, in response to questions, the listeners share what they learn about how God works with the people in the story.)

2. Second, questions are then used to lead listeners to discover and share Spiritual Applications. (These are the spiritual truths based on the Observations as they apply to people today.)

Hint: Notice that five times (both in Phase One and Two) the storyteller starts with the beginning of the story. But remember, in Phase Two, just questions are asked. No more retelling is needed! All the storyteller needs to do is to anchor each question in part of the story to which the question connects.