Stories

A Bouquet : Stories of Disciples

“Current estimates suggest that almost two-thirds of the world’s population is illiterate or has an oral preference (can't, won't or don't read and write). The proportion is significantly higher among the nearly 5,000 people groups not yet reached with the gospel, and among these include many of the 2,700 remaining Bibleless peoples. For these oral communicators, life lessons are processed by observation, participation and verbal communication—i.e. stories”

Epic Partners website, a partnership of CCC

Proposal/Fireseed Anthology/Building Relationships

In the fall of 2005...I began to think about how cool it would be if I could sit around with my friends and we could tell the stories of Jesus. I love the gospels....and I love the parables. I can tell you the Parable of the Good Steward...or give you a snapshot of the Prodigal Son....but what I can not tell you is this: Who was Jesus talking to when he told that parable? Was Peter there? Was it in the beginning of His ministry...or near the end? Has he performed the miracles yet?

Why does this matter?

I want to know the teachings of Christ within the context of the relationships He had. I want to know Christ and tell stories of Christ as I would the stories you tell of old friends when you try to explain who they are to someone...and you remember warm memories of them.

As I lay in bed, I tried to think of one story...just one. I could not do it. I could remember only the pieces of everything...He rode into town on a donkey...He died on the cross...thy spat on Him...Peter betrayed Him.

I began to imagine what it would be like to create a culture that(no matter who they were, followers of Christ or not) that knew from their hearts the stories of Christ and His teachings contained within the context of that.

How amazing would it be if students within our own, post modern culture could learn the stories of the Kingdom of God, the Stories of Christ, the stories of God in their own heart language...and then take the gospel to much of the unreached world and teach them to understand these stories in their own heart language?

To reach the postmodern west (America and Europe) we will need not only to use story in merely oral forms but also through the media and the web. This is very much part of the heart language of the student culture.