MAF-LT Completes 1st Oral Strategies Workshop at Nampa HQ (pictures)
Hard to believe, but it's over. Our 1st Oral Strategies Workshop conducted here at our Nampa, Idaho facility yielded testimonies like these:
"Opened a whole new world!"
"I feel that I can now talk to my family about my faith."
"It's given me more confidence in sharing the Gospel."
"This opened a whole new opportunity. I heard of storying ... and of its value - but had no idea it could be so quick and easy to learn a story. I am much encouraged."
"I learned how to learn a story better. It taught me how to come up with ideas I hadn't learned."
"Gave me new insight into Bible content and also more confidence in discussing it."
"Refreshes God's Word..."
From March 3rd through the 7th, 17 representatives from 9 different organizations wrestled with seeing life from an oral communicators perspective. We made 3 tracks available that could be taken independently or in various combinations.
- Instructor's Workshop: Tuesday and Wednesday we worked with potential STS Simply The Story instructors. The intensive workshop prepared them to help new students attending the Practioner's workshop.
- Practioner's Workshop: We devoted Thursday and Friday evenings and all day Saturday to those never using this tool before. They discovered they could learn a Bible story in 10 minutes. Then, they practiced telling the story and then leading a verbal, inductive Bible study centered on the story just shared.
- Oral Strategies Seminar: Thursday and Friday afternoons we offered traditional style lecture and discussion focused on developing preaching and teaching approaches that minister to preferred oral communicators.
The goal, of course, was to train the participants to minister more effectively to preferred oral communicators - whether technically literate or not. Some assumed that the workshops taught one more intellectual skill. They quickly learned, however, that working on the home turf of 80% of the world's population required unanticipated attitude adjustments.
Adding "story-ing" to their ministry toolbox was more challenging than they thought, but far more effective than they imagined.
