STS-What & Why:
What is STS?
Results of STS
Need for STS
Design of STS
Impact of STS
Origin of STS
Spread of STS
STS-What & Why:
What is STS?
Results of STS
Need for STS
Design of STS
Impact of STS
Origin of STS
Spread of STS
STS-What & Why:
What is STS?
Results of STS
Need for STS
Design of STS
Impact of STS
Origin of STS
Spread of STS
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STS is “Listening and Responding.”
Tell a Bible Story & Ask Insightful Questions
The definition of Simply The Story (STS)  is “Listening and Responding.”
When people learn how to carefully listen to God’s Word and they discover how to respond to what God says—lives are changed.
When storyteller/teachers learn to listen well to those they teach, and storytellers are alert and prepared to respond to people’s questions and answers, the discussions become lively and listeners are encouraged to think and discover.
Eric serves as a leader in an international Christian pro-life organization.
On Eric’s second day of a Simply The Story workshop, he rather seriously approached an instructor. “Can I ask you just one question?”
“Sure,” replied the instructor. Eric’s question actually revealed the heart of STS.
Eric asked, “How can what you teach in STS not change your devotional life forever?"
The instructor’s response? “It has!”
 We teach storytellers, “If the story you want to tell has not yet impacted your life, you are not yet ready to tell it.”
How rewarding it is for us as STS instructors to experience the thrill of discovery in Bible stories as we are teaching and coaching others in the methods of STS!
Our major focus in STS is to teach people how to prepare and share Bible stories and passages so that they, the storytellers, are touched first. Only then can they truly minister to others. Most importantly, they can and do to train others to minister and to train yet others.
The origin of STS is found on the links to the left. Those links also show the definition of oral learners, the need for oral strategies and the reasons behind the design of STS. The results and spread of STS show just how powerful God’s Word is—when understood.
On this page we show the format of presenting stories the STS way.
Before presentation, a Bible story is studied and questions are prepared according to Simply The Story guidelines. (“Preparation” is taught in depth in workshops and the concepts can be found in the Simply The Story Handbook available on this site for download on Resources.) Then a two-phase presentation takes place: first, telling the story, and second, discovering the spiritual treasures.
Phase One: The story is presented three times allowing the listeners to become totally familiar with the story's contents. The skills needed for good story presentation include the ability to tell a story well, to encourage volunteers and to review the story’s contents in an interesting manner.
- The storyteller tells the story.
(The first telling introduces listeners to the story and allows them to see the story in their minds and feel its impact.)
- The storyteller asks one volunteer
 to retell the story, or for listeners to retell it to each other.
(Listeners pay close attention to the retelling by their peers to see if they get it ''right,'' which helps seal the story into the listeners' memories.)
- The storyteller leads listeners through the story.
(This is just one more retelling of the story, but this time the storyteller enlists everyone's help to remember it together.) The lead-through is the third telling of the story. This vital time gently encourages those who are not accustomed to responding to questions. STS teaches the skill of enlisting “help” from the listeners, and surprisingly, listeners speak.
As well, the brave volunteer need not be corrected for any errors made, since the third telling by the storyteller will naturally reestablish the story correctly.
Phase Two: The storyteller helps listeners discover the spiritual treasures in the story. This is done in two sections.
- First, the storyteller leads listeners to Spiritual Observations through questions. (This is when listeners are invited to take a look deeply in the story at the activities of the characters. One section of the story at a time, in response to questions, the listeners share what they learn spiritually about each character in the story and about God.)
- Second, questions are used to lead listeners to discover and share Spiritual Applications. (Each observation found is mentioned. Then, based on each observation, possible applications to people today are discussed.)
STS training equips people to:
- Dig deeply and accurately into Scripture.
- Form questions that invite participation.
- Guide successful discussions,
- Give room for the Holy Spirit to show treasures to everyone.
We thank you for investigating STS. We encourage you to look into some of the other methods of learning and delivering Bible stories to find out what best suits your needs and call.
On the link, Story Training Organizations you will see a listing of various story methods and organizations that feature use of story for oral learners. Each group using story has specific goals and distinctives as you will see in the matrix link on that page.
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STS-What & Why