1000 word reflection

G'day,
No this isn't the reflection because the reflection is already posted. Just scroll down until you find the post entitled How This Course has Impacted me. If anyone wants to make a comment I would love to read it.
Don

resources for storytelling

The Echo the story site has some great resources that are downloadable if you sign in. There are also some great videos on youtube, check this out,


Go to EchotheStory

Enjoy,
Don

Storytelling site

For all of you who were interested in storytelling I recommend looking at this site, echo the story
In the meantime this is one of his posts that I enjoyed.
Don

The Bible is a wikistory – a mashup of stories

by Michael Novelli | August 18 2008 11:15 PM

It’d be nice if the Bible read like a novel from cover to cover. But it’s not a novel. It’s a series of books that have been grouped together—and many of them are out of chronological order.


In technological terminology, a mashup is a Web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool. The Bible is like this—a mashup of different writings from different authors inspired to tell the unified Story of God and his love for people.


In a recent talk, author Scot McKnight suggested we look at the Bible as a “Wikistory,” in which there is “ongoing reworking of the biblical story by new authors who each tell the story in their own way.” McKnight continued, “None [of the books of the Bible] is exhaustive, comprehensive or absolute...they are different stories of THE Story. We don’t have to harmonize them or try to reconcile them. They’re just doing their own versions of the Story, and each has a place in the larger picture.”


Let’s face it—the Bible is often difficult to read and to teach. We’ve got our work cut out for us if we wish to give our students a sense of its overarching story. That’s why storying is the best way I’ve found to give people, young and old alike, a Bible overview with context to all future Bible learning.


(Excerpted from my forthcoming book, Shaped by the Story)

How this course has impacted me

I approached this course with mixed motives, mixed feelings and mixed expectations. It would be good to do an intensive which helps get the work out of the way quickly and also enforces a time restriction. I also wanted to learn more about a post-modern context. Apart from the personal there was also the motive of another area of knowledge that would benefit Worldview (the training college where I am on staff).

I had mixed feelings because as much as I enjoy learning I don’t like the discipline of assignments etc. and I am still feeling a little burned out from trying to handle a full time studying load with a full time teaching load. My family are also feeling that I am spending too little time with them. We have only had one week for a holiday together in 2 years because of the shift to Tassie and studying as well. (Not looking for sympathy, I have enjoyed most of it)

I did expect to learn something but was not sure what. I wanted to learn about the post-modern context, but mostly I wanted to learn how to communicate within that context. I suppose the kind of things I wanted show that I am not post-modern. I wanted some clear definitions, some clear instructions and good old propositional truths.

What I got was so much more. The box of definitions was broken, the use of imagination was celebrated and all my longings to do a new thing were validated. For years I have hated the formula approach so often espoused in ministry and in Christian life. You too can be a better Christian if you follow this pattern (whatever pattern it may be), you too can make your church grow if you do A B C. And so it goes on. What a contradiction in my desires, wanting clear instructions but wanting to break free from formulas.

The course validated a lot of the methods I have been using for years but went beyond that and showed me a way to enhance and strengthen them. As a missionary I have looked at cross-cultural communication and cultural anthropology. I have studied ways to communicate with an illiterate people group, how too use images and stories. I have collected and used proverbs and local myths and legends. I have used film, drama, flip charts, object lessons, story telling and plain old three point sermons. I am open to whatever gets the message across.

The course with Steve though showed me a flaw in all of this as valuable and effective as it has been. This flaw was maintaining control. I used all these methods to communicate what I had already decided was important. The methods might have been novel but it was still the expert passing on his knowledge. The major impact on me was the need to work with others to find the meaning for the community. The need to be humble enough to put the word their before the community in a powerful way but allow others to interact with the word and see what it had to say to the community.

Through Godly-play, the use of environments, story telling and other methods I can work with the congregation or study group to draw out their feelings, their thoughts and what it means for them today. This not only validates them but validates the work of the Spirit in them. This then gives incentive to live it out because it is no longer what the pastor or lecturer in my case, tells them to do but it is God himself.

I was able to put a small part of this into practice both on Sunday when preaching in a bretheren church and on Wednesday when leading our staff’s prayers. When asked to write 1000 words of exegetical notes on Luke 1:39-45 I really wondered if I could find enough in it. When we worked on it together I was amazed at the amount we wrote on the whiteboard but still wasn’t convinced about its impact on lives. As we worked on it in our group it worked its way deeper into my soul and the flesh and blood reality of it began to affect me. I now treasure that small passage.

At the bretheren church I asked people to identify how they would feel as the various characters. A number of the older women spoke up (usually a no no) and as we looked at Mary the younger ones spoke up, and also the men identified with Zacharias. As a congregation we could then share about where joy originates, what it is to be blessed and a number of issues. The time flew by and people spoke to me positively afterwards.

At the prayer meeting I again asked about emotions and then explored what this meant in light of praying for people. It was good to draw out how we felt we should pray for people. We then prayed for various ones to be blessed, not in the usual sense of good health, material things etc. but we prayed for people to be blessed by knowing the favour of God upon them, by moving in obedience and by being used to further his kingdom whatever the circumstances.

I have always wanted others to think for themselves and make discoveries for themselves. In my lecturing I seek to put information before the students but get them to engage with the material and make it their own. In teaching history I don’t major on dates or names but principles that can be drawn from what happened. This course was encouragement to do that even more. It was also an encouragement to use the same principles in my church ministry context.

My desire is to see both my students and the members of my church community not just reading the word but dwelling in it. That whether it be by looking at artworks, listening to music or playing in sand pits they will see the hand of God, hear the voice of God and feel the touch of God. I desire that all the senses are used in allowing the bible to inform us, communicate God’s heart to us, form us and enable us to be the people of God in our setting.

Wow what a week. It was great. Thanks Steve for some great teaching, thanks fellow learners it was a privilege to be with you.

Some of my background. As you may have noticed I am no spring chicken. I am a boomer, born in 1956 in Wales. As a sickly kid doctors recommended my parents find a warmer climate and so at the age of 8 I arrived in Whyalla South Australia. Definitely warmer.

At 17 I was confronted by the verse in 1 John 4:19 and now knew that this God that I had always suspected of existing but absent was not only present but loved me. I became a believer but it took a couple more years before I twigged that it should cause a change in my behaviour. When it twigged I had a desire to live my life for him.

A deep involvement with Christian things began, I was involved in youth work, preaching, evangelism and whatever I could get into. Church on the beach with visiting God Squad riders, street preaching, discipling other youth leaders, Boy’s Brigades and the list goes on.

At the ripe old age of 22 I married and with my wife continued church involvements. I had trained as a cook and set up a business called rent a chef so that I could cook for church camps and functions without needing to ask for time off.

At 28 I convinced my wife that the time was right for us to go to missionary training college in Melbourne with a view to being involved in any ministry that God would lead us to (except pastor). We went to Tasmania willing to go anywhere but on leaving I was a bit more specific and stipulated to God somewhere warm. Remember that childhood experience. So even Whyalla was not warm enough and we ended up spending 14 years in West Africa, beautiful warm humid tropical Africa.

Arriving back in Australia in 2004 I had a quadruple bypass and prepared to settle down in suburbia. I began work at the El Shaddai camp in Wellington and loved it. Denise was not as settled and felt there was something else. In 2006 we were asked to join the staff at WEC International’s training centre in Tasmania. So here we are and loving it. It does mean more of that stuff called studying but it is worth it. However mindful of the early years of my life I say bring on global warming, a few more degrees here would be welcome. If not I am working on plans to pull the anchor on Tasmania and to it round to Cairns. What the heck, they have rain forests there as well.

The cool welcome back in Tassie confirms the need for global warming.

Don

Why a blogging neophyte?
Because when the word sprung to mind I looked up the definition and found it fits rather well. It can mean a new convert and I am a new convert to blogging after being on the sidelines for a while. It can also mean novice of a religious order and I can twist that to fit with my new role as a lecturer at a residential training centre. It also can be applied to a beginner and I identify myself as such when it comes to understanding the post-modern, emerging and emergent movements. I trust this course is just the start of an exciting journey.

Don