Bible Blossom - Storyteller's Handbook

Telling Tales: A Bible Blossom Primer on Storytelling

Introduction

At TUMI, we have dedicated ourselves in all our curriculum and training to raise up a generation of storytellers and story-indwellers who can preach, teach, sing, and embody the Story with power before their family members, neighbors, associates, and strangers. Our entire enterprise in Sacred Roots is to help urban dwellers learn and be transformed by the simple Story of God’s love, the tale of a caring, sovereign Lord who became one of us, who took on our nature and entered our human history to redeem creation and a people for himself. This striking, awesome, and true Story can bring revival to our weak and struggling churches. If we hold on to the Story as it is told in the Bible, summarized in the Creeds, and embodied in the Great Tradition we will multiply disciples. You see, the Story is true, powerful, and it is ours. No communion or tradition owns it; it belongs to the entire Church, and will transform all who are willing to give themselves over to its wonder and glory. In the Kingdom Story, as in all great stories, you simply can never know who it is you have encountered, or what is truly happening. Things are more than what they appear to be. Dead messiahs rise again, and meek disciples wind up inheriting the earth. Can you see it? In God’s Story, the weak shame the strong, and the poor are rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom. In God’s Story, the first will be last and the last first. In God’s Story, to be great in the Kingdom is to be the servant of all. Everything is topsy-turvy, upside-down, inside-out. To succeed in the Kingdom, you’ve got to be prepared to see things in a new way, to let the Story change the way in which you see and understand everything.

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