Week after week, I write a story for the part of our worship service that currently comes under the heading, "Telling Our Ancient Story." It's the part of the service that has previously been called "Theme Conversation," or "Children's Time."
But in my current setting, we have no children in church and recently it hasn't been much of a conversation. I generally used the time to retell our faith story in a way that is fun, engaging, memorable, active, and family friendly (should a young family happen to show up). It is my hope that I'm giving people the ability to tell the stories of our faith in ways that will engage their own grandchildren and great grandchildren. I use techniques I learned around the campfire: repetition, rhythm, sung/spoken responses, actions, onomatopoeia and sometimes even silliness. I follow the lectionary and will often integrate readings (particularly the psalm), perhaps having Jesus teach theme of a psalm through repetition (or having someone repeat a psalm to him).
My primary goal is story appropriation. I believe the first step in making the Bible more accessible for a new generation, is telling the stories in a way that lets us really own them and make them ours. There will be time for study, criticism and scholarship, once we feel like the stories are ours.
So I'm going to start posting. Please use, adapt, play, have fun as appropriate. Maybe use my retellings as a spring board for your own retelling. Most of all, share these stories and share your retellings with me!
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