Biblical Storytelling

On the weekend I was at Ignition Artists Gathering in Windsor, an inner suburb of Melbourne.
Friday afternoon I went to a workshop about Biblical storytelling, which was run by Simon Camilleri from Backyard Bard.

Simon started off by explaining that Biblical storytelling isn't about dramatising the Bible or 'bringing it to life', because it's already dramatic and it's the living word of God. He said that it's letting the Bible change us - internalisinging it - so that we can share the stories ourselves. He broke this down into three different stages.

Head (Philosophy)
We've got to change the way we think about the stories and engage with them in the way they were originally, realising that they record things that really did happen. We need to experienece them, and be moved. Also, it's more important to communicate what the words say than it is to use the exact words.
Although a modern church gathering probably expects one minute of scripture and twenty minutes of exegesis, originally there would've been more likely to be twenty minutes of scripture and one minute of exegesis. In those days the scripture was memorised and spoken aloud.

Heart (Process)
We need to break down the story and connect with it emotionally and experientially. We need to spend a lot of time reflecting on it. Simon said that he needs to spend at least a week internalising a story. He suggested doing it like this:

1. Rewriting it so that it's easy to read.
2. Breaking it up into a number of scenes.
3. Finding out as much as we can about what the different characters and locations would have been like.
4. Working out which words and phrases are most important to the narrative. An audience will only retain about 5% of what they hear, so we want to make sure they get the most important bits.
5. Mapping the emotional journey. We need to go through the story and work out what kinds of emotions and moods are evoked.
6. Getting it into your head. In her book, Just Enough to Make a Story, Nancy Schimmel, says,

   The only rule I know for learning a story is: learn the plot first, then learn the words if you want to. If you learnt the words only, and forget one, you might get stuck; if you know the sequence of events, and forget a word, you can fake it till you pick up the thread of the words again.

Hands (Presentation)
Once we have internalised the story, we need to share it.
Before we can share the story, we have to be able to see it. If we can't see it, the audience won't be able to either.
To make the scene as clear as possible, we need to decide where everything and everyone is. If Jesus is in the story, have another spot for him. If there's a temple or a house or a well, have other spots for them too.

More info: Network of Biblical Storytellers (NOBS)