About story telling as a valuable tool in raising children in the faith

“Boys and girls, put your work away. Johan, gather the notebooks. Everyone clear your table. It is almost time.”

Friday afternoon — they all looked forward to it, not only because it was almost weekend. The last quarter hour of school on Friday is just plainly the most enjoyable, agreeable quarter hour of the whole week: the teacher is going to tell the next episode of his story. Every Friday there is a new episode. Sharing exciting adventures together makes Friday afternoon at school very special. At no other time are things put away so quickly and accurately. The quicker you are, the more time there is for the story. Actually, story time is always too short. Time flies by.

From the first word, the whole class hangs on the lips of the storyteller. Would he himself know how the story will continue in the following week?

Probably, everyone has some sort of similar memory from his or her elementary school time. The teacher who was a good story teller is the one who remains most memorable. The teacher’s stories are often the fondest memories that you retain of him or her.

What makes story telling so special?

Why is it that those stories and the people who told them remain so clearly in your memory? This article is about the importance of storytelling for raising children in the faith. We will look at what storytelling is, what happens, why storytelling is so important for the conveyance of faith (and for yourself) and finally how you yourself can begin to use this tool. Perhaps these are not all topics unknown to you, but it is good to refresh the memory about certain things once in a while.

What Is Story Telling?⤒🔗

In essence, storytelling is a way to transfer knowledge and to transfer the knowledge of happenings. What is special about storytelling is that you involve yourself. You can hardly tell a story and stay on the outside of it. It is often good to pay attention to the effect the story has on yourself. In other words: when you tell stories, you also convey emotions. You release something of your own identity when you are telling stories. Story telling is setting a relationship in motion.

You can share a news blurb, but if you tell it as a story, you can be assured of better listening. You dramatize the announcement to a greater or lesser degree. You might say that you replay what has happened.

What is Happening?←⤒🔗

When you tell a story, you, in the first place, enter into relationships. You live along with a person or experience a happening. You do not consciously choose a position, but out of it, you let the listener see the happening with you. You choose, just as the photographer of a journal, a place to view it, your own angle of incidence. For example, you may choose to be the uninvolved audience or viewer, or you may share in the role of one of the persons in the story. When you choose the latter, it means that you set up a relationship with that person. You endeavor to bring him or her to life in your story as well as you possibly can. You try to imagine how he or she experienced the happenings, how that person felt or thought. For a short time, you become the other person. You do not tell it in a “cold fish” manner. Storytelling does something with your emotions. You are sad or happy, you are in pain, you are angry. You reflect the emotions of the other person to those whom you are telling the story to.

The second relationship which you put into place is with your audience. They are watching you. They expect something from you, but you also observe them very closely. How are they reacting? Are they being drawn into the story? If that is not the case, you will usually, as storyteller, lose concentration momentarily. Warmth flushes over you; you try to approach it from a different angle. If you notice that your audience is drawn into the story, you experience growth in presentation. You dare to do more. You assess your audience prior to storytelling; are they younger or older children? What kind of mood are they in? How can I create the atmosphere I want? What is the best way for me to connect to their life experiences? For the second time, you must live in that world yourself.

The second thing which plays a huge role in story telling is that it has an intimacy about it. This has to do with the fact that you place something of yourself in the story. Through this, the teller and the listener are brought closer to each other, just as the class in the example described in the beginning of this article. The students long for the moment when the story telling begins, for then they will together experience something exciting or emotionally moving. That promotes their sense of unity. When you tell small children a story, they usually move right up against you. They want that sense of touch. This offers them a glorious “snug” safety. It sometimes seems as if children are passive during a story, but the opposite is usually true. A film of your story is playing in their heads. Their imagination is busy; you take them along to another world. All this takes a considerable amount of their energy; travelling is very tiring. At the same time, it can also cause them to relax. It is not without reason that children fall into a deep sleep during your story or very shortly afterwards. For the listener, it is therefore valid that you cannot remain passive. You are automatically drawn into the story. As the one who listens, you thus also enter relationships; first with the teller—you give yourself over to him. You follow him, you observe him, and you more or less crawl into his skin. He takes you along “on his journey”. Also, you form a relationship with the persons who play a role in the story. By “crawling into the teller’s skin”, you get real contact with each other. The main character in the story has pretty well become as real as the teller who is standing in front of you.

All these elements together, the relationships, the intimacy and the unity between those present, cause the listeners to enter into the story. In essence, they themselves are going to experience the happenings.

The storyteller has already preceded you in this. A story can only be told well if the teller himself has first “walked through it”. First the storyteller’s ability to present and illustrate must be seriously awakened.

This makes the telling of stories doubly rich. The teller is himself first enriched. He gains an experience, totally delves into it and practically becomes one with it. Following this, he shares this experience with his hearers. Those in turn will walk through the experience during the storytelling.

You could say that a storytelling becomes a happening, a new reality.

Why Tell Stories?←⤒🔗

It is probably quite obvious how important and how influential a story is. You probably already knew out of your own experience that listening to stories was usually exciting, challenging and pleasant. Added to that is another dimension; relating it allows one to pretty much experience it anew. This brings the happening really close to the listener. During the story telling, not only facts are passed on, but also the emotions accompanying them. This allows stories to penetrate the hearer more intensely and deeply. While the story is related to you, you begin to form images in your thoughts. You form these pictures with the help of your memory and your imagination. Everything which you create yourself is retained better in your memory.

This gives storytelling an added value as compared to, for example, the viewing of TV films. With those there is very little left for you to do. Someone else, (usually the stage manager or director) has already thought out these pictures for you. From a private survey of grade 8 students, it appeared that an hour after a TV program, almost 80 % had been lost from memory. The details were probably not noticed at all. For this reason story telling is preferred by far, for with storytelling you have become, in a certain sense, your own director.

Bible Stories←⤒🔗

In the sense of this article, we will now direct our attention to the desirability of transmitting Bible stories through storytelling.

If you take the above into account, it is apparent that the telling of Bible stories is the most important tool for transmitting knowledge of the Bible. You cannot bring it closer to your listeners. During the telling, your listeners experience the happenings anew; they step into them; they become a part of them. As it were, they themselves stand by and see it. By means of experiencing it themselves, the happening penetrates deeply into the hearer. A relationship is built and that relationship acquires an intimate dimension.

Naturally, the Lord God also knows that it works in this way for his creatures. It is not without reason that he adjures his people; tell it to the next generation. A few examples where he calls us to this are:

• Deuteronomy 4:9, “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children.”
• Joshua 4:21-24, He says to the Israelites: “When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty, that you may fear the LORD your God forever.”
• Psalm 78:4, “We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD and his might and the wonders that he has done.”

The mandate given to the Israelites to recount the great deeds of the Lord to the next generation, is not only focussed on the passing on of facts. It also addresses the manner in which this is to be done: tell it! He knows us, for he made us. He knows how it works within us. Not only the facts must be known, but also the warmth, the intimate relationship must be passed on.

Storytelling is Number 1←⤒🔗

What about reading out loud to them? However beautifully some can do this, reading to someone does not measure up to the story that you tell yourself. An example: On the way home you become involved in a chain collision. When you come home much later because of that accident, the children are already in bed. You grab a pen and paper and sit down at the table. You write down all your experiences: the fog, the bang of the collision, how many automobiles were involved, how you experienced it, the towing away of your vehicle and how you got home. The next morning, at the table, you read to your children what you wrote down the night before. That really does not work, even if you have a photo with it. You just have to tell the story yourself. Then you connect. The same applies to the reading aloud of Bible stories. When you do this, you remain at a distance. By immersing yourself in it in a story and then telling it yourself, you can bring it much closer to your children. Difficult? It requires effort. You must invest time into it, but the actual story telling is not so hard. Every day, everyone shares a story about what he or she experienced that day. We do not even think twice about this. It happens by itself. So, basically, we have the skill of storytelling in us.

Troublesome? Yes, in many cases that is so. When you delve a little deeper into this, it becomes apparent that the most troublesome thing of all is that you must give something of yourself in the telling. However this applies to any in-depth conversation when you speak with your children about the real things of life. The basis of transmitting your faith lies in your simple story telling of the Biblical stories about God’s mighty deeds.

Therefore it is worth all your attention to become proficient in this story telling in the interest of raising your child in faith..

Fathers, Tell It←⤒🔗

You can leave the storytelling to the teacher at school, or to the mother in the family. But then you put something substantial aside. The mandate to tell of God’s mighty deeds is given, in the first place, to the fathers (Josh. 4:21)! Raising children in the faith begins in the family. There the foundation is laid. A study has shown that parents have the greatest influence in the transmission of faith. And of the two parents, the father has the most impact. Therefore the call: fathers and mothers, let your children see your faith. Tell them about it. The mouth cannot keep silent about that with which the heart is full, can it?

Besides, it can be a win-win situation. As story teller you yourself first become richer by entering into the story. After that, it cannot be otherwise than that the riches will stream out to the hearers, both large and small. With emphasis, I want to bring this to your attention: let us go forward with the old time-tested technique, making the command of God personal to us again. This, for the salvation of the next generation.

Everyone Can!←⤒🔗

Although everyone has the gift of telling in them, most people have squelched it. We just do not dare anymore. This is a pity. Worse, it is a missed chance because everyone can tell a story.

Ten tips to move in that direction: (to achieve this)

1. Story telling demands preparation. Read the story in the Bible thoroughly and try to discover the intent of the passage. What do I have to tell? Why?
2. Make use of a children’s Bible for the method of telling, not for the content, since that is not always accurate.
3. Step into the story and choose a position from which you will tell it. For example, if you choose the position of a witness, watch that the witness presents the whole story.
4. Who is the main character? Try to get to know as much as you can about him or her in order to be able to present the person rightly.
5. Tell your story in the present time.
6. Use short sentences.
7. Bring in people who are speaking. Give them a distinct voice.
8. Appear happy when you have happy things to say. Appear and speak in an angry tone when there is wickedness. Try it out in front of a mirror.
9. Look at your listeners. They also want to see you.
10. Conclude your story clearly. Fairy tales usually end with the sentence “and they lived happily ever after”. That is not really appropriate for a Bible story, but do choose a concluding sentence. Then your listeners can exhale and react, for surely they will want to.
     

Perhaps it is a good challenge to try this during the Christmas season with the gospel of Christ’s birth.

In various places in our country, people are busy setting up the possibility of offering a course in storytelling. After the summer a similar course will be marketed to parents.

Ark Books has released a beautiful help in book form: Everyone can tell a story by the experienced storyteller Bob Hartman.