Story Journey: An Invitation to the Gospel as Storytelling

4/25/2008. "The purpose of this book is to recover the gospel as storytelling. The only way to start an exploration of the gospel as storytelling is to learn to tell stories." So this theme begins and ends Dr. Thomas E. Boomershine's invaluable "Story Journey: Faith and Imagination--An Invitation to the Gospel as Storytelling" (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1988, 221 pp., hidden until page 17, then 203, 205, et al) Storytelling is "a source of renewal and new life. . . when you are in stress, pain, or crisis." (21, 68, 195) Storytelling thus reversed the nearing-death of Broadway Methodist Church in Chicago, Illinois. (195f.) And storytelling, especially life-stories, expresses all of the emotions of teller and hearers. Bible Storytelling claims to fill the gaps of people's life-storytelling. Author Dr. Thomas E. Boomershine is a well-known Professor of New Testament at Methodist United Theological Seminary near Dayton, Ohio and the original founder of the worldwide Network of Biblical Storytellers [...]. His book arose from his own trauma and healing (15, 67-68). Every Biblical Scripture has a story behind it. (15f., 19) Boomershine's book attempts to organize the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth one chapter per selected event, from which to describe processes of Biblical Storytelling. Each chapter's structure and style follows a.) Learning the Story, b.) Listening to the Story, c.) Connections, and d.) Telling the Story, loosely constructed with various illustrative experiences. Each chapter includes instructions of how to progress building dramatic expressions and scripts from its Biblical event. Techniques explored include developing memory (13, et al), tradition (16), emotions (19 throughout 206, many references), selecting themes (24, 27, 74, 205), improvisation (30, 31, 38), body language (45, 47, 57, 85, 207), connecting with today's events personal and newsworthy (16, 51, 103-105, et al), historic-geographical context (20), and more. "Story Journey" mentions learning to tell a story ". . . without fear," unless, of course, fear is part of the story itself (23). In the book's Appendix, the five "W's"--Who, When, Where, What, Why--and "How" of journalistic reporting are absent or confused (206). With slow patience and repetition many can learn from its many instructions which otherwise would seem perhaps no more than a small group of professional dramatists could accumulate and master. Skills must not preempt authenticity. My own perceptual preference is to look at Biblical events and stories, particularly the New Testament, as from "eyewitnesses" and also "ear-witnesses." "For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." (Acts 4:20; 22:15; Luke 1:2; Hebrews 2:3; 1 John 1:1, 3. See "Story Journey" 47, 163.) And Biblical Storytelling, for myself at least, reaches its highest effectiveness when told from "as if" an "eyewitness." (See "Knowing Feeling" Donald Nathanson, editor. New York:

This is an amazingly important book for all who want to engage the bible as a living word and want to help others to share that encounter. Boomershine describes a practical method for learning to tell biblical texts by heart in a way that is painless and profoundly spiritual. The book guides us through several gospel texts modelling a method of biblical scholarship that could radically reform the academy, the church, and the world.