advance Messiah’s mission should get out our “surfboards” and ride it for Kingdom purposes. This shift in learning and communication styles challenges us to communication strate- gies that meet people “where they are.” There is a new receptivity to the stories of God…if we can tell them effectively. So often the great sto- ries of Scripture are read from pulpits as if it was a lecture being read by someone other than the author. Stories told with emotion and appropri- ate inflections and gestures impact the memory. Most people remember the story that was told as an “illustration” in last week’s sermon better than they remember the three points of the eru- dite sermon.


There is a growing “Orality Movement” in


the evangelical world, seeking to address this situation.4


Effective Jewish Ministry Through Storying We have discussed how storytelling has


always been part of Jewish tradition. We have discussed the power of story, and how 70 per- cent of the Bible is in story form. We have dis- cussed “secondary orality” and the new recep- tivity to story in Western Culture. So what of its use in Jewish ministry today? Jewish people are generally highly literate, well educated. As a long-time missionary to Jewish people, when I heard of the storying approach, I sensed imme- diately that storying would be Jewish-friendly, if using the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures (the “Old Testament”).


Surely the People of the


Book will be People of the Story. The majority of Jewish people today are secularized and, though generally highly literate, they are not very biblically literate. Yet they instinctively know these are the stories of the Jewish people, the stories of Israel. They resonate with them. Storying is Jewish-friendly. The Jewish tra- dition of storytelling has continued on the pres- ent day, surviving the scorching last few centu- ries of modernity. Note this network of Jewish storytellers of the Jewish Storytelling Coalition: http://www.jewishstorytelling.org. They include a directory to professional Jewish storytellers all over the United States. This remains a familiar and acceptable Jewish cultural form. By storying, we mean the entire process of the oral and visual communication of a Bible story followed by group discussion, interpreta- tion, application, accountability, drama and/or song and the retelling of the story such that the story is internalized by the group and can be retold to others. Storying is seeker-friendly. People of any faith or none can participate and not feel


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preached to, or lectured at. Anyone can hear and discuss the story. Seekers feel on a more level playing field, because everyone in the group is discussing the story just told. All are looking for the treasures in the story together. Then the story does its work of speaking to hearts.


Another advantage of storying is that it


bypasses the pitfalls of apologetics and argu- mentation that goes nowhere. Jewish people, and especially those schooled in rabbinic thought, can argue and debate you to a stand- still over the Messiah’s identity and other theo- logical issues. Head-to-head Messianic vs. rab- binic apologetics is the naked-truth approach. Reflecting upon a story and keeping the group focused on drawing out its treasures shift the matter to a whole different dimension. We let the story do the work of speaking to hearts, rather than trying to convince the defensive rationalist mind.


The Holy Spirit is our internal Teacher, who promised to guide us into all truth (John 14:26; 16:13; I Corinthians 2:9-16). Storying acknowledges the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit through power of the Word of God and theology is embedded within every biblical sto- ry. The Holy Spirit applies the truths most rele- vant to the life needs of every hearer as the tell- ing and discussion transpire. Traditional schooling models have been teacher-dependent, with the students too pas- sive. The teacher breaks down the Bible text into digestible form, and the student mechanically records the bits on paper, like a mother bird would feed a baby bird. Reflecting upon a Bible story in a group setting and drawing out its trea- sures actively engages people so the learning reaches the heart and sticks. I have been using storying in a weekly Jew-


ish Seeker’s Study for about two years now in the Los Angeles area. Between 20 and 30 attend each week, and about one-third of them are Jewish. We have storied our way from Exodus through to 1 Samuel, the marvelous David sto- ries. A Jewish believer led the story of David and Goliath last week, bringing his young son to play David, with football shoulder pads as Saul’s armor. His dad used Aragorn’s sword,


Lord of the Rings commemorative edition, as he played the Philistine champion. While humor- ous and fun, we also seriously discussed honor and shame, victory, faith, and courage, and applications to facing our own “Goliaths.” Storying provides a context for discipleship


as well as leadership training. I have been coaching Jewish believers to lead the storytell- ing, and they are growing in leadership skills as they do so.


One Jewish man embraced Yeshua as his Messiah through our group several months ago. Several Jewish seekers have attended, and three or four have continued to come for months. They have not yet embraced the Messiah, but they are participating in the stories and bond- ing to the group. Let’s oralize the Word, and bring these sto- ries to life from the dead page in our day! Yesh- ua the Messiah said to those who revered the Book, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39-40). The purpose of the Book of the LORD is to know the LORD of the Book. The Written Word points beyond itself to the Living Word.


Let’s revive the truth that the People of the Book are also the People of the Story!


A wonderful resource for traditional Jewish stories is “A Trea- sury of Jewish Folklore: Stories, Traditions, Legends, Humor, Wisdom and Folk Songs of the Jewish People,” edited by


1


Nathan Ausubel, New York: Crown Publisher’s, Inc., 1948. 2


Sociologists concerned with the postmodern shift describe our times as being characterized by “incredulity to metanarra- tives.” (Lyotard, Jean-Francois, “The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge” 1979, English translation, University of Minnesota Press, 1984). A metanarrative is a master story. The grand metanarratives that have driven modernity— Prog- ress and the Perfectibility of Man through Science, Industrial- ism, Communism, Fascism, and other “isms”— have largely become “wasms” at the turn of the 21st century; they have lost their compelling power, no longer holding the same credibil- ity. Thus, the Western world is searching for a new metanarra- tive. There is a receptive climate in which for us to communi-


cate God’s Master Story. 3


From the web site of the Surrey County Council: http://www.saldr.org.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/ LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/


Truth+and+Story?opendocument# 4


See Missiopedia : http://www.strategicnetwork.org/wiki/


Orality , and the fine treatment by Avery T. Willis, Jr. and Mark Snowden, “Truth That Sticks: How to Communicate Velcro Truth in A Teflon World”, Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2010.


BILL BJORAKER Gifted as a pastor and teacher, Bill is a theologian of mission with scholarship specializations in Jewish Studies and in Contemporary Western Culture. He is an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God and holds a Ph.D. from the School of Intercultural Studies of Fuller Theological Seminary. Bill has taught theology of mission as adjunct professor at Biola University (2005). He is currently part-time faculty at William Carey International University in Pasadena, Calif., and leads Ezekiel Network, an outreach using storying in Jewish Seeker’s Bible Studies. Bill is married to Diana and has three


sons. You can learn more about Bill at: www.ezekielnetwork.org or email him at: bill.bjoraker@wciu.edu. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 Jewish Voice Today | 13


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