Click on a workshop title to learn more.

Previous Workshops: Watch video recordings of several completed workshops here.

Workshops for Groups: We can also schedule Workshops for groups of students. A ministry team in Africa or Asia, for example, might prefer a time of day more convenient for their time zone. Or they may prefer a single payment for an entire group of students. If your group is interested, please contact us!

CATEGORY: BIBLETELLING SKILLS (BT)

Description

Being able to tell many Bible stories requires learning them without memorizing words. You tell the story like you describe a delicious meal to someone. You mentally see the meal in your mind, and simply describe what you see. That is how you tell Bible stories. The key is to move away from written words. There are many ways to do that. This series trains you to use several of them.

Trailer

 

Workshops in this series

  • BT101 Draw & Tell
  • BT102 Walk & Tell
  • BT103 Round Table

CATEGORY: BIBLETELLING SKILLS

Category: BibleTelling Skills

Series: BT100 BibleTelling Basics

Level: Basic

Prerequisites: None

WATCH: the recording of this complete workshop from June 13,  2020.

Workshop Description: This is one of several basic methods to learn a Bible story without a large amount of memorizing. Within the 90-minutes of this workshop, you will learn the story and have fun doing it. This method involves using large muscles combined with visual imagination.

Workshop Developer: John Walsh

Trailer:

Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: 15-50

Workshop Documents: (provided after workshop registration)


  • Instructions
  • 50 Bible Stories

Category: BibleTelling Skills

Series: BT100 BibleTelling Basics

Level: Basic

Prerequisites: None

Calendar of workshops (To be scheduled)

Workshop Description: This is one of several basic methods to learn a Bible story without a large amount of memorizing. Within the 90-minutes of this workshop, you will learn the story and have fun doing it. This method involves using large muscles combined with visual imagination.

Workshop Developer: John Walsh

Trailer:

 

Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: 15-50

Workshop Documents: (provided after workshop registration)

  • Instructions
  • 50 Bible Stories

Category: BibleTelling Skills

Series: BT100 BibleTelling Basics

Level: Basic

Prerequisites: None

Calendar of workshops (To be Scheduled)

Workshop Description: Workshop Description: In this session you will learn a short Bible story by engaging with the text in a variety of ways including through interaction with others. You will be surprised how quickly and easily you learn the story. And you’ll have fun doing so.

Workshop Developer: Don Falkos

Trailer: (coming)

Duration: 60 minutes

Number of Participants: 15-50

Workshop Documents: (provided after workshop registration)

  • Instructions
  • Bible story in multiple translations

Category: BibleTelling Skills

Series: BT200 BibleTelling Advanced Topics

Level: Advanced

Prerequisites:

  • BT101 Draw and Tell
  • BT102 Walk and Tell

Calendar of workshops (To be Scheduled)

Workshop Description: Learn a story by breaking it into its component parts. In this session, we dissect a Bible passage by asking a series of questions. We first explore the concrete and then the abstract elements of the story. Who appears in the story? What is the setting of the story? What happens in the story? What are the people in the story thinking and feeling? Exploring a Bible story in this way is challenging, revealing, and stimulating.

Workshop Developer: Don Falkos

Trailer: (coming)

Duration: 2 hours

Number of Participants: 15-50

Workshop Documents: (provided after workshop registration)

  • Instructions
  • Bible story in multiple translations

CATEGORY: STORYTELLING SKILLS (ST)

Description

Everyone tells stories and listens to them. It is what humans do all day, every day. They do it so much that they are all good at it. In fact, there is very little difference between a person who is known to be a great storyteller and the person that says, “I just can’t tell stories.” The workshops in this series will help you make that transition from one to the other. You will be amazed how quickly you can develop this valuable skill.

Category Overview

Category: Storytelling Skills

Series: ST100 General Storytelling Series

Level: Basic

Prerequisites: None

WATCH: the recording of this complete workshop from June 20,  2020

Workshop Description: When a person decides to develop his or her storytelling skills, they start with learning how to tell a personal story. That is where they learn the basic rules. This 90-minute workshop reveals the secrets of those who can tell a great personal story. Each person will be assigned an ordinary event in their life and we will show them how to develop it into a fascinating story, one they will probably tell for the rest of their life. Join us, craft a great story, and start down the path of telling many other stories.

Workshop Developer: John Walsh

Trailer

Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: 16-50

Workshop Documents: None


Category: Storytelling Skills

Series: None

Level: Basic

Prerequisites: None

Calendar of workshops  Saturday, August 15, 2020

Workshop Description: As much as church and family mean to us, many of us know so little about the lives of the generations that preceded us. If we don’t become intentional, the next generation will say the same about us. So how do we collect and pass on these stories? I will share my own and others’ experiences and methods of collecting family stories, as well as the faith stories of your church.

Workshop Developer: Mary Claire Anderson

Trailer

Duration: 60 minutes

Number of Participants: 6-50

Workshop Documents: None

CATEGORY: GENERAL APPLICATIONS (GA)

Description

After explaining the principles and advantages of Narrative Bible Teaching, we will the walk through how to do the steps needed to create an engaging and effective teaching lesson that is easily adaptable to any age, setting, or timeframe.  Then we will put these methods into practice and discuss how to be flexible with these techniques.

Trailer

Workshops in this series

  • GA111 Narrative Bible Teaching: What Is It?
  • GA112 Narrative Bible Teaching: How Do I Do It?
  • GA113 Narrative Bible Teaching: Let’s Do It!?

Category: General Application – Discipling and Evangelism

Series: GA110 Narrative Bible Teaching Series

Level: Basic/Advanced

Prerequisites: None, but BT100 BibleTelling Basics Series is helpful

Recording of this workshop fromThursday, July 16

Workshop Description:

In this 75 minute workshop, we will explore the concepts behind Narrative Bible Teaching (NBT).  I became interested in narrative teaching because I observed that it was clearly effective.  The Bible is ideally suited for narrative teaching since most of the content is narrative literature and even the parts that are not are set in a larger Biblical storyline.

We will explore how to move from literature-based analysis of a passage to narrative-based analysis.  Instead of paragraphs, people, nouns and verbs, we will try to see the Biblical passage in terms of scenes, characters, props, and actions that we can visualize.  Then we will learn to graph the narrative arc of the story from its build-up to its climax and resolution.  Then a careful look at the perspectives of each character in the story will finalize our analysis.

From the key points of this narrative analysis, we will have several starting points on which to craft a Bible-teaching lesson that can be adapted to any audience or time frame.  The elements of this lesson preparation process include identifying the purposes of the story, crafting an interesting/fun opening, optimizing the presentation of the story, and creating a story exploration process that prefers active over passive learning techniques.

Workshop Developer: Mark Getz

Trailer:

Duration: 75 minutes

Number of Participants: 15-50

Workshop Documents: None

 

Category: General Application – Discipling and Evangelism

Series: GA110 Narrative Bible Teaching Series

Level: Basic/Advanced

Prerequisites: Recommend watching videos of these 2 workshops –

Recorded Thursday, July 23, 2020 (video coming for students of that class)

Workshop Description: In this 90 minute workshop, we will work together to create a Bible lesson using Narrative Bible teaching techniques.  We will develop the narrative framework for a Bible story and do the same for its setting in the larger Biblical storyline.  From this framework we will generate an engaging opening conversation.  Then we will apply active learning techniques to the story to open up the underlying lessons of the narrative.

Workshop Developer: Mark Getz

Trailer:

Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: 15-50

Workshop Documents: None

 

Category: General Application – Discipling and Evangelism

Series: GA110 Narrative Bible Teaching Series

Level: Basic/Advanced

Prerequisites: Recommend watching videos of these 2 workshops –

Calendar of workshops  Thursday, July 30

Workshop Description: Ok.  So, we have walked through the Narrative Bible Teaching analysis and preparation process with two narrative passages so far.  But these two stories were chosen as fairly easy examples to get us started.  The Bible is ancient Hebrew and Greek literature that is sometimes hard to read and learn.  How do we apply narrative teaching principles to passages that are a bit more challenging, and when do we want to abandon narrative teaching in favor of other approaches?  The one constant in all Biblical literature is that it is set within the larger storyline of Scripture that orients the language and meaning of the passage.  We will discuss the storyline approach to Narrative Bible Teaching and look at ways to optimize teaching of these inspired texts.

Workshop Developer: Mark Getz

Trailer:

Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: 15-50

Workshop Documents: None

Category: General Application – Poetry

Level: Basic/Advanced

Prerequisites: None

Calendar of workshops  Thursday, October 1, 10:00am

Workshop Description:

  • If you have never written a poem in your life
  • If you don’t enjoy reading poetry
  • If you think you don’t understand poetry

Then this is the workshop for you.

Participants will learn how to create stunning poetry infused with words, phrases, and images from the Bible. No need to know technical jargon of poetry such as metaphor, anapest, or ellipsis. Leave all of that behind but please bring a willingness to play. Use the tools that I provide in this workshop and I promise, you will dazzle yourself with your brilliance.

Workshop Developer: Phyllis Hostmeyer

Trailer:

Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: Minimum 6

Workshop Documents: Handout distributed upon enrollment

CATEGORY: SPECIFIC APPLICATIONS (SA)

Description

This series of Workshops will help people of all ages become comfortable retelling Biblical Stories and relate these stories to life circumstances as we are all interact with our family and friends in regular daily life.  This series helps us learn how to use different methods of triggering our memories to recall the stories that match the various developmental stages of life (children, youth, adults).  We want the Biblical story to become as naturally shared as one shares a scene from a movie during the course of conversation no matter the venue of conversation.

Trailer

Workshops in this series

  • SA101 BibleTelling for Children’s Ministry
  • SA102 BibleTelling for Youth Ministry
  • SA103 BibleTelling for Family Ministry

Category: Specific Application – Children/Youth

Series: SA100 BibleTelling for Church Discipleship Ministry

Level: Basic

Prerequisites: None

Calendar of workshops  Friday, September 18

Workshop Description: Within the 90-minutes of this workshop, you will learn how to use BibleTelling methods for Children’s Ministry in the Church for Sunday School, Mid-week programming, and Summer ministries.

Workshop Developer: Mickie O’Donnell

Trailer

 


Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: 15-50

Workshop Documents: Provided after workshop registration

  • Pre-workshop Prep Document
  • 50 Bible Stories

 

Category: Specific Applications

Series: None

Level: Basic

Prerequisites: None

Calendar of workshops  Friday, August 21, 2020

Workshop Description: Want to be empowered to recognize how the Bible speaks to people from different cultures? To learn to use appropriate Bible stories and illustrations to clearly communicate Truth to someone? Videos and break-out practice sessions will enhance discovery. Worldviews will include honor/shame, fear/power, and guilt/innocence, with 2 more if we have time.

Workshop Developer: Anne Alexander

Trailer

Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: 15-50

Workshop Documents: Accessible after registration

 

Description

Missionaries and short term mission teams are most effective if their audience finds both the storyteller’s style & message to be winsome.  This series showcases how to reduce resistance to the Gospel due to worldview expectations below the surface.   It also spotlights how to ignite acceptance of the Gospel through strategic, non-threatening story themes & mission team conduct that honors the host culture.

Trailer

Workshops in this series

  • SA311 Bridging World View Barriers with Thematic Stories
  • SA312 Ignite Cross-Cultural Favor with Winsome Staging!

Category: Specific Application – Crossing Cultures

Series: SA310 Preparing Short Term Missions Teams

Level: Basic/Advanced

Prerequisites: None

Calendar of workshops  (To be scheduled)

Workshop Description: Ever wished your missions team could truly lead souls to Christ or transform compassion ministries into a deeper evangelistic or discipleship mission?  You can!  We’ll consider Thematic Bible Story Sets for different religious contexts to reduce barriers to the Gospel, build spiritual bridges, & heighten the audience’s eagerness to invite you back.  Missions vignettes woven with activities will intensify your capacity to spy out barriers to the Gospel & pinpoint ways to maneuver over them.

Workshop Developer: Diana Stevenson

Trailer:


Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: 15-50

Workshop Documents: None

Category: Specific Application – Crossing Cultures

Series: SA310 Preparing Short Term Missions Teams

Level: Basic/Advanced

Prerequisites: None

Calendar of workshops  (To be scheduled)

Workshop Description: Is it possible to unwittingly have an ethnocentric approach to Bible storying?  Are there ways to winsomely stage our stories to enrich cross-cultural acceptance of the Message & the messengers?  We’ll mine transformational methods involving:  evangelism entry strategy, Bible telling environment, dangerous labels, church jargon, body language, non-verbals, visual aids, songs, physical appearance, and more.  Useful to ignite favor with people of different worldviews at any Bible study, camp, VBS, short term trip, long term ministry or other settings.

Workshop Developer: Diana Stevenson

Trailer:


Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: 15-50

Workshop Documents: None

Description

The techniques presented in this series will encourage collaborative and cooperative dialogue about stories from Scripture. The use of small groups enables everyone to share thoughts and ideas in order to reach deeper insights and enhance understanding.

Required Resource

Trailer

Workshops in this series

  • SA701 Introduction to Lesson Structure
  • SA702 The Triangle Discussion Tool
  • SA703 Concept Definition Maps
  • SA704 Jigsaw
  • SA705 Block Organizer
  • SA706 Somebody Wanted But So

Category: Specific Application – Small Groups

Series: SA700 Small Group Dialogue

Level: Basic/Advanced

Prerequisite: Watch the “BibleTelling 101 Draw & Tell” video (Link)

Calendar of workshops   10:00am, Thursday, August 20, 2020

Workshop Description: Participants will learn how to structure a lesson in order to encourage participation from everyone in class. I will also introduce the use of graphic organizers as a thinking and discussion tool. Each lesson in this series will follow the same structure or process but will use a different discussion tool.

Workshop Developer: Phyllis Hostmeyer

Required Resource:

Trailer: 

Duration: 60 minutes

Number of Participants: 6-50

Workshop Documents: None

Category: Specific Application – Small Groups

Series: SA700 Small Group Dialogue

Level: Basic/Advanced

Prerequisite: Watch the “BibleTelling 101 Draw & Tell” video (Link)

Calendar of workshops  10:00am, Thursday, August 27, 2020

Workshop Description: After hearing the story The Fall, participants will be introduced to the Triangle Discussion Tool. They will then use the Triangle as they work in groups of three to discuss the story The Fall. All participants will learn how to manage small groups and large group discussions.

Workshop Developer: Phyllis Hostmeyer

Required Resource:

Trailer: 

Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: 6-50

Workshop Documents: None

 

Category: Specific Application – Small Groups

Series: SA700 Small Group Dialogue

Level: Basic/Advanced

Prerequisite: Watch the “BibleTelling 101 Draw & Tell” video (Link)

Calendar of workshops  10:00am, Thursday, September 3, 2020

Workshop Description:After hearing the story The Trial of Abraham, participants will be introduced to the Concept Definition Map. This discussion tool enables participants to share concrete examples of an abstract concept such as faith, trust, or obedience. Once participants understand the components of an abstract concept, they will be able to develop a personal definition that can be applied to their lives.

Workshop Developer: Phyllis Hostmeyer

Required Resource:

Trailer:

Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: 6-50

Workshop Documents: None

Category: Specific Application – Small Groups

Series: SA700 Small Group Dialogue

Level: Basic/Advanced

Prerequisite: Watch the “BibleTelling 101 Draw & Tell” video (Link)

Calendar of workshops  10:00am, Thursday, September 10, 2020

Workshop Description: Participants will learn how to use a discussion tool called Jigsaw to encourage discussion. We will be using the story of Pharaoh’s Plague.

Workshop Developer: Phyllis Hostmeyer

Required Resource:

Trailer: 

Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: 6-50

Workshop Documents: None

Category: Specific Application – Small Groups

Series: SA700 Small Group Dialogue

Level: Basic/Advanced

Prerequisite: Watch the “BibleTelling 101 Draw & Tell” video (Link)

Calendar of workshops  10:00am, Thursday, September 17, 2020

Workshop Description: Participants will use a Block Organizer during small group discussion of the Ten Commandments. As small groups move through the quadrants of the Block Organizer, they will develop a deeper understanding of each commandment.

Workshop Developer: Phyllis Hostmeyer

Required Resource

Trailer:

Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: 6-50

Workshop Documents: None

Category: Specific Application – Small Groups

Series: SA700 Small Group Dialogue

Level: Basic/Advanced

Prerequisite: Watch the “BibleTelling 101 Draw & Tell” video (Link)

Calendar of workshops  10:00am, Thursday, September 24, 2020

Workshop Description: After hearing the story of The Broken Pot, participants will use the SWBS discussion tool to examine the motives of each character in this Bible story. The discussions will help participants to see how God is at work in our lives.

Workshop Developer: Phyllis Hostmeyer

Required Resource:

Trailer: 

Duration: 90 minutes

Number of Participants: 6-50

Workshop Documents: None