Surprised by Bible storytelling

“Adults won’t listen to Bible stories.”

“Stories are for children.”

When Bible storytelling was first introduced to me as a teenager, I thought it was only for illiterate tribal people and dismissed it. In 2004, I heard about it again, and again I dismissed it as irrelevant.

I was working as a missionary in Taiwan and taught the Bible in a wide range of situations, from one-to-one evangelism and discipling to Bible study groups, training seminars, and public teaching. I used many stories to illustrate my teaching. Constant feedback and self-evaluation helped improve my teaching, but I never thought to change my basic communication building blocks.

Trying Bible stories

I am so grateful to God that he nagged at me to try a Bible story. Even then my attitude was, “This is not my style. I’ll make a mess of it.” I wanted it to fail, because then I could return to my old ways of communication, but things didn’t quite turn out as I expected.

My first attempt was in a busy photo developing shop. My creation story was unpolished but that didn’t seem to matter. Each time a customer left, the owner looked expectantly towards me. Next time I visited she asked, “What’s the next story?” Hard-earned ways to start gospel conversations were no longer needed.

Many evangelistic methods—sermons, courses for those investigating Christianity, etc.—can only be done with people already interested in finding out more. Storying allows opportunities with those who are anti-Christian or haven’t yet considered that Jesus could be relevant to their lives. Storytelling slips in under people’s defences and calms those intent on disagreeing. In fact, it turns the conversation from an argument into a useful discussion of God’s Word.

Everyone loves stories

For the last 21 years, I’ve been telling stories to adults all over the world. I’ve told them to Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists. I’ve told them to young and old. I’ve told them in Western and non-Western contexts. With the illiterate and those with PhDs. There has been almost no difference in how they’re received. Repeatedly I’ve discovered that people love stories. This should be no surprise to us. Movies make billions out of the story business. Secular research also emphasises, “Say it with stories and people will listen.” Or “Postmodern people are resistant to being ‘lectured’ but will listen to stories.”

How did Jesus communicate? “He did not say anything to them without using a parable” (Mark 4:34 NIV). I do not believe that Bible stories are the only stories we should be telling, but I certainly believe it is worth making them a significant proportion of our communication. Since using Bible stories, I have never had so many deep, spiritual conversations.

Japanese context

I have only visited Japan three times, but what has struck me is that I have been told many things like “You can’t talk to strangers in Japan,” and “Japan is a particularly hard country to talk about Jesus.” I’ve also been told from the moment I set foot there that, “Japanese won’t believe.” This greatly concerns me for surely people desperately need a Saviour and Jesus is Lord of every people group. I do wonder, though, if different methods are needed.

During each of my trips, I was training people in the areas of evangelism and discipleship, and Bible storytelling was a large part of that. In each class there were those who believed the things mentioned above and so they’d never even tried to tell stories. But those who decided to try it are loving the difference stories make to their ministries. Here are some experiences from Japan:

Story 1: Nine Bible story videos in Japanese

I don’t speak Japanese but have shared Bible stories in Japanese through videos. My students filmed nine short videos, found on the YouTube channel “seisho no monogatari.”

On a trip to Japan, I shared the YouTube link as a thank-you to relative strangers who showed me kindness. One was a lady selling second-hand kimono. The others were two men on a bullet train whom I chatted with. Maybe this is a tiny “link in the chain” leading them towards knowing Jesus.

Story 2: A small beginning in Japan

My Japanese co-worker in storytelling runs a community group for 2011 disaster survivors. Once, he advertised a Bible storytelling event and prayed someone would turn up.

And someone did! An elderly non-Christian lady who has attended many Christian events. She now heard the story of the bleeding woman who was healed by touching Jesus’ clothes.

My co-worker was surprised by how much the lady thought about this story. Usually, attendees are shy about answering questions and some have Alzheimer’s. At first, she got details wrong and couldn’t remember how the story ended. But later she wondered, “Was it coincidence that Jesus passed by the bleeding woman?” A thoughtful question. My co-worker is now keen on trying more of this.

Story 3: From rabbit trails to realisations

A fellow storyteller told me of an older gentleman in church. The man often talks about tangential topics with no link to the sermon that they were asked to discuss. He especially wanted foreigners to understand that the Christian God is very different to the gods that “we Japanese” believe in.

Using six questions I recommended (see link below), my friend began discussing stories from Luke’s Gospel occasionally instead of the sermon. Initially, the elderly man didn’t listen to the passage and went on rabbit trails, derailing discussion. In later sessions, he sat with eyes closed and seemed asleep but later showed that he had listened.

He grew familiar with the six-question routine and seems to appreciate there being a place to raise questions. Recently, he got excited about the Parable of the Lost Sheep. He’d heard this strange story as a child and never understood why it was famous. But now he understood that Jesus is the shepherd and comes looking for us because he loves us so much. He hasn’t become a Christian but has grown in interest and understanding.

Stories make people thirsty

I once went on a holiday to a mountain gorge in Taiwan. Some elderly women at the hostel heard me say I was a storyteller. “Well, tell us one.” That first night they pushed me to tell them four stories from a set of passages. Then they demanded the rest of the set over the next two nights. They’d never heard the gospel. On the last morning the old ladies told three other guests how I’d been telling them stories and how much they’d enjoyed them and learned. So I was delayed for my bus while two more people insisted I tell them a story which soon led to six Old Testament stories. I pointed them to storyingthescriptures.com for the remainder (the whole set of nine stories is on that website in Japanese and many other languages). They asked so many questions and drank in the stories.

I don’t know any other method that so helps hearers keep wanting more. Not everyone will respond immediately to Jesus’ invitation, but they are likely to remember what they’ve heard. God’s Word communicated in digestible form won’t be wasted.

The wonderful thing about storying is that it’s far more than a quick telling of the good news. We Christians often want our evangelistic methods to be time-efficient and produce guaranteed results. But evangelism should not be hurried. People who have heard and discussed many stories come to Christ more prepared than those who are evangelized in other ways. You could say that storying is “discipling people to conversion.”

When my journey began, I thought that storytelling was just an evangelistic tool. I soon realised that it was simultaneously a path to discipleship. Now I use stories nearly every day for all aspects of ministry including pastoral care, preaching, evangelism, discipleship, and leadership training. It is a tool I would not want to do without. Can I encourage you to come and join me on this journey?

This article has been adapted from: “Bible storytelling” evangelicals now, https://www.e-n.org.uk/features/2014-10-bible-storytelling (Oct. 1, 2014) and two articles previously published by OMF International.