Simply The Story

Wycliffe Translator investigates STS
"As a translator I always felt a bit hesitant
regarding the freedom we have in
storying and still be accurate."

(quoted from her newsletter, location and name edited)

From Marianne

Let me tell you about an exciting Story Telling workshop I have just attended this last week. I am sending a copy to all of you who are already interested in sharing the Word of God. I hope and pray that the Lord will spark a lot of interest in your hearts. You want to know my opinion? Besides Bible translation this is one of the most powerful ways to give the Word to people in a way it will stick for ever even if the typhoon or hurricanes batter our lives and homes and destroy our Bibles.

In fact every Christian should learn this method and apply it in their own lives.
if you want to know more about it go to
www.Gods-story.org (more info, video, testimony, recording devices etc)

Howdy Y’all

I just finished the 5 day workshop with Dorothy Miller Simply the Story (SimplyTheStory.com, look up the web).

Have you ever wondered why God was totally displeased when David insisted on counting the people of Israel?

Have you ever observed how Martha addressed Jesus when He was invited to eat at her house, she said “Lord” with the next sentence she accused him “don’t you care”

Let me tell you a little bit more about the exciting discoveries we made…

· The 5 days Simply the Story Workshop was an intensive 8 hour practice for 2 days to train the future presenters. Then the next 3 days the 2 day people taught the new group being assisted by an experienced trainer.
The presentation of the strategy was done totally oral, (only listening) no notebooks, no computers, not even a ball pen in the beginning.
Dorothy and her team would present the story, and the method how to learn it and then we would divide into small groups and apply the method.

Part One: learning the story

1. Hear the story either by being told by the presenter, or reading it on our own 4 times and telling it out loud to our selves until we had it internalized

2. Practicing : One volunteer would try to repeat the story

3. Then the presenter would lead us step by step through the story again

Part Two: Discovering the treasures

1. Observations: the presenter lead the group with specific questions along the path of the story to encourage us to discover any spiritual truths etc.

2. Application: This part was the climax, very powerful. Everybody shared how they felt it applied in general and to them personally. I don’t know about the others but the Lord just kept speaking to me through the stories all the time in almost dramatic ways.

My personal evaluation of the Workshop is:

· It is very concentrated with a lot of practice, which in the beginning was kind of challenging to my memory, but after 2 days I finally came to the victorious realization “I can do it”, even though I can not memorize my own phone number. So- if I can do it most everybody in this world can. Be it our tribal people in the Philippines or the 75% Americans who prefer to learn through sound and sight, especially the youth culture.

· Practical: after the 5 days we kind of got the idea how to do it and now I can apply the method with confidence especially with more practice (I am just looking for some willing guinea pigs to practice on). I tried the story of the prodigal son on a Korean UTA student who is here to study English. I told him “listen to this story and then tell it back to me in your own words” He did a great job.

· Accuracy: as a translator I always felt a bit hesitant regarding the freedom we have in storying and still be accurate. This workshop gave me tremendous confidence, because our trainer Dorothy repeatedly emphasized “don’t add anything, don’t take anything away.

· They also demonstrated how to shorten a story and use it in every day witnessing situations which I felt was very powerful.

· This workshop I felt was very complete and prepared the people to go and do it.

· What I especially appreciated were the inspirational examples / testimonies from around the world. When they used this story approach church growth increased by almost 10 times in 6 months versus the traditional approach in 2 ½ years. You can learn more about these statistics and testimonies on their web page.

· I wish every Christian would learn this method. Even if they never become a missionary they will experience a tremendous spiritual growth and development and they will be inspired and encouraged to share their faith in a natural way by using the Word hidden in their heart’s pocket as our trainer Dorothy would say. It is so easy why did it take us so long to discover it. In fact I have decided to reduce some of my channel 11 “Bad News” watching and I am going to internalize/memorize more Good News with this method. Just imagine the change that would take place in the churches if everyone would do this.

· Also one thing I really felt impressed with is the attitude of giving, simplicity and sacrifice of the STS “Simply The Story” training team. The workshop price was so low compared to other workshops we have attended.

My plans for the next 2 months while we are still here in Dallas (we are going back to... early December)

I would love to share this method with some of you whom I know are very interested in sharing the Word with your friends, neighbors, coworker, your children and grand children, Sunday school class and last but not least you yourself will have the greatest benefit.

Let’s get together after church, or some evening or weekend for 1-2 hours. It is very simple, if you want to eat while we do it, ok. I”ve got some short 3 minute video which you can also look up on the internet.

But most of all I would like to show you how you too can memorize / internalize a Bible Story in 10 minutes, lead a discussion group without notes, power point, outlines and the usual pressure associated with it.

All you need is a mouth, a heart, a head and the Holy Spirit. I suppose most of you qualify.

Contact me by email or phone and we can make a schedule. 2-4 people will make already a good team

Hope to hear from you soon.

Blessings

Marianne