Bringing Stories of Justice into the Pulpit.

The second workshop I attended at Baby Pastor School was entitled "Brining Stories of Justice into the Pulpit. This was one of those workshops that talked about two different topics that could have each been their own workshop: biblical storytelling and preaching on social justice issues.

I was really struck by the biblical storytelling ideas. When the Bible is just read straight word for word, often it can come off as boring and things are missed. I think most people have heard a reading done, whether a bible reading or a class lecture, when the text is read word for word with no emotion or emphasis and all pausing is evenly paced. When this is done it is hard to absorb what is important or the emotions that were present. We don't tell stories this way.

As a child, my family would go to Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri about once a year. Sliver Dollar City is a theme park where you step back in time 100 years (now I think it is permanently set in the 1890's). The park hires blacksmiths, leather workers, candle makers and other tradespeople who specialize in creating goods in a historic fashion, but one of my favorite trades people were the storytellers. I would sit and listen to their stories multiple times throughout our long weekend visits to the park. And each year I could hear the same story over and over again and then my siblings and I would try and retell the story to each other in that same fashion. The stories were spell binding - you could never leave during the middle of one. The stories were fascinating - you wanted to hear what happened, even if you already knew the ending. These professional story tellers were telling stories in a tradition that had been practiced for thousands of years, by captivating and truly engaging the audience.

Unfortunately this craft has been deteriorating first as more people were literate and therefore able to read the words themselves instead of having to hear stories retold, and more recently due to competition from movies, television, internet and video games.

But this spellbinding story telling is what biblical story telling tries to capture. No one wants to hear words read to them in a monotone fashion. The bible was originally stories that were told orally over and over again. And the storytellers used the tone of their voice, pausing, actions and possibly props to tell these stories.

I normally do try to add some emphasis and pausing while reading the gospel lesson for the week in order to convey more meaning. But now this is something that I want to experiment with, by rehearsing different ways of telling the story and not being so worry about having to stick to the NRSV translation word for word. Who knows, maybe I'll got to Festival Gathering for the Network of Biblical Storytellers for a future continuing education experience.