Testimonies of Simply The Story Effectiveness and Impact

Five Years Old and Spot On!

After being introduced to STS Bible storytelling this past year, I thought I would try it out at home.  As part of family devotions each evening, I started doing something that I decided to call “Story Challenge.”  I pitched this to my son Joshua (5 years old) as a contest to see if he could tell back to me the story that I was about to tell him.   We told and retold the story many times over several days.  He was hesitant to tell it back to me initially, claiming that it was too hard and that he didn’t remember anything.  So, I skipped straight to the lead through, coaxing out of him the next line of the story, bit by bit.

Often times as we do that lead through, I throw in silly options and questions that provoke a “You’re wrong, Daddy!” type of response.  After I “bungle” the story, he tells me how the story was supposed to go.

On evenings when he is unwilling to do Story Challenge, I say, “That’s fine.  You don’t have to do it.  I’ll just do it with Mommy. Do you think Mommy can do it?”  Regardless of his answer, I proceed to tell the story to my wife and have her tell it back to me.  Sometimes my son covers his ears, indicating that he does not want to play. However, when Mommy leaves out a detail or misremembers the story, my son often perks up and corrects her.

Joshua got rather good at telling the story of Jesus Calming the Storm (Mark 4:35-41) and was able to answer my observation questions about the story because he knew the content of the story so well.

Here is a video of the story in old YouTube code:



Here is a video of the story in the new YouTube code:

My wife and I have a lot of fun with this time on questions too, especially when Joshua gives outlandish answers.  I asked him, “What else could Jesus have done to help the disciples besides calming the storm like He did?”  With a big smile on his face, my son replied, “Jesus makes a rocket appear, and Jesus and His disciples get in the rocket, and blast to the other side of the lake!”  We had a lot of fun but we also were able to draw out observations such as “Jesus cares for us,” and “Jesus has power over nature.”  These then turned into applications about trusting God.  

I’ve had Joshua share the storm story in a couple of venues with adults to show that kids too can learn Bible stories, learn them accurately and share them with others.  Hopefully this is an encouragement to adults to learn Bible stories themselves and teach them to their kids and grandkids.  As for our family, we are now working on the story of the demoniac from Luke 8, hoping to share it with people around Halloween time.  And my son is really eager for us to do the story of David and Goliath as a Story Challenge.

Karl, OMF serving in Thailand