Story Style
Preaching according to your personal story style means you have learned to immerse your message in word pictures.
There is a reason for this, people are first concrete thinkers (left brain). We all see in pictures and “a Picture is worth a thousands words”.
They are easy to understand, they are transferred from short memory to long term memory seemingly effortlessly.
Pictures are the keys to illustrating emotions and a efficient tool of persuasion. Preaching story style is highly desirable among listeners and very effective among those who are biblical storytellers.
Everything begins with understanding the characteristics of oral communication which plays an important role in successful Bible Storying. Some of the characteristics of your story style may include:
- Use many words that paint a verbal picture…
- Make use of fixed expressions… repeated in the course of speaking… “I'm telling you the truth”… “Truly I say unto you”
- Use stylized forms, pause the main story on chasing a rabbit, and then returned to the story… “As I was saying”…
- Do not analyze things
- Holistic in their thinking, not objectively analyzing by dissecting an event
- Stories often do not need to follow any logical relationship.
- Stories are stories which to a large extent stand on their own.
- Stories usually will look for something that is “like there world” to relate to
- The place of telling/hearing, the time, and the character of the person speaking may be as important to the listeners than the story itself.
- Repetition is important to produce familiarity with information
- Dialogue is important in stories
- For the most part the bottom line is the whole story. In other words, they would be hard-pressed to say the bottom line without telling the whole story.
- Relationships are very important and often the key component of stories. People and their characteristics would be next.
If you would have people understand basic biblical truth quickly it is important as a biblical storyteller to have a list of biblical stories containing essential biblical truth in stories.
They need not be long but a short biblical truth in stories. This is most effective and helps the hearer to grasp the point quickly. For more detail information on effectively making your point click here.
To develop your story style, of course the best stories can be found in the Bible.
First, develop core Bible stories... Like salvation, discipleship, evangelism and missions. These basic stories will help you to overcome spiritual barriers among many people.
This has been especially true with women in adding stories about women in the Bible and God's love and provision for their lives.
There are many references pointing to Jesus that run throughout the Old Testament. Choose stories of Jesus that characterize him as the One fulfilling the prophecies and being the One sent from God to suffer for our sins and pay the death penalty. At the conclusion of the story always invite listeners to respond.
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