We had a lovely morning on Saturday exploring storytelling. The Powerpoint for the keynote address, “What Story Are We Telling?” is at the bottom of this entry – it looks at what the Bible has in common with Cinderella, includes a quote from The Princess Bride, and also asks us how the stories we tell ourselves might be holding our churches back. A lot of it was inspired by the Revd. Ally Barrett and the Revd. Jeremy Fletcher, from their work at the “Formed By Story” conference for Children’s Work Advisors. They’re credited in the document.
Here are a few photos. Unfortunately, since I couldn’t be in every workshop, and I was leading one, the photos are fairly limited! If anyone who was there has some more, I’d love to see them.
Exploring Multi-Sensory Storytelling – we turned a tent into a whale, cutting and sticking on eyes and teeth.We did this while listening to the story. Children who find it hard to sit still and listen may take in more of the story if they have something to do while listening.Then we actually went INTO THE WHALE. The tent was set up over a full immersion font. If your church doesn’t have this, there are many ways of creating a similar dark space. Use an under stairs area with a curtain, or make a den out of chairs.Inside the whale, it was dark. We heard whale noises. We smelled and touched fish.This is from the second workshop, exploring Beulah Land – the feltboard storytelling resource. We have Beulah Land available to borrow from the Diocesan Resource Centre – it comes with the script and all the felt pieces.It’s not that scary to have a go … here, Jessica tells the Exodus story.
Children's Ministry in St Albans Diocese 