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Story Journey: An Invitation to the Gospel as Storytelling

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This is an amazingly important book for all who want to engage the bible as a living word and want to help others to share that encounter. Boomershine describes a practical method for learning to tell biblical texts by heart in a way that is painless and profoundly spiritual. The book guides us through several gospel texts modelling a method of biblical scholarship that could radically reform the academy, the church, and the world.

4/25/2008.

"The purpose of this book is to recover the gospel as storytelling. The only way to start an exploration of the gospel as storytelling is to learn to tell stories." So this theme begins and ends Dr. Thomas E. Boomershine's invaluable "Story Journey: Faith and Imagination--An Invitation to the Gospel as Storytelling" (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1988, 221 pp., hidden until page 17, then 203, 205, et al) Storytelling is "a source of renewal and new life. . . when you are in stress, pain, or crisis." (21, 68, 195) Storytelling thus reversed the nearing-death of Broadway Methodist Church in Chicago, Illinois. (195f.) And storytelling, especially life-stories, expresses all of the emotions of teller and hearers. Bible Storytelling claims to fill the gaps of people's life-storytelling.

Author Dr. Thomas E. Boomershine is a well-known Professor of New Testament at Methodist United Theological Seminary near Dayton, Ohio and the original founder of the worldwide Network of Biblical Storytellers [...]. His book arose from his own trauma and healing (15, 67-68).

Every Biblical Scripture has a story behind it. (15f., 19) Boomershine's book attempts to organize the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth one chapter per selected event, from which to describe processes of Biblical Storytelling. Each chapter's structure and style follows a.) Learning the Story, b.) Listening to the Story, c.) Connections, and d.) Telling the Story, loosely constructed with various illustrative experiences. Each chapter includes instructions of how to progress building dramatic expressions and scripts from its Biblical event.

Techniques explored include developing memory (13, et al), tradition (16), emotions (19 throughout 206, many references), selecting themes (24, 27, 74, 205), improvisation (30, 31, 38), body language (45, 47, 57, 85, 207), connecting with today's events personal and newsworthy (16, 51, 103-105, et al), historic-geographical context (20), and more.

"Story Journey" mentions learning to tell a story ". . . without fear," unless, of course, fear is part of the story itself (23). In the book's Appendix, the five "W's"--Who, When, Where, What, Why--and "How" of journalistic reporting are absent or confused (206). With slow patience and repetition many can learn from its many instructions which otherwise would seem perhaps no more than a small group of professional dramatists could accumulate and master. Skills must not preempt authenticity.

My own perceptual preference is to look at Biblical events and stories, particularly the New Testament, as from "eyewitnesses" and also "ear-witnesses." "For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." (Acts 4:20; 22:15; Luke 1:2; Hebrews 2:3; 1 John 1:1, 3. See "Story Journey" 47, 163.) And Biblical Storytelling, for myself at least, reaches its highest effectiveness when told from "as if" an "eyewitness." (See "Knowing Feeling" Donald Nathanson, editor. New York: Norton, 1996, 307-308 by Miller James and David Read Johnson.) This arouses all of people's emotions. This connects the emotions in the text of the Biblical event and the emotions of the speaker and so hearers, instead of drama manufactured for drama's sake itself. This brings the positive out of the negative--a major Biblical theme--from the various storytellers' own personal emotional styles authentically, as the book mentions (18, 36, 99, 196).

The meaning of "witness" creates a problem. To some it means actually seeing and hearing the event itself. For others it means simply testifying an academic recitation about the event. Added to this are the methods of transmission through the years. "Only later did the gospel become associated with books. When the stories were recorded in the Gospels, they were written down so that they could be read aloud and relearned," as in Western tradition, and for future generations. (17, 20) Yet "eyewitnessing" and such storytelling stands out and breeds ". . . a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline." (2 Timothy 1:7) It is essential to the text.

At the annual conference of the American Dance Therapy Association in the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott, New York City, Saturday afternoon, September 29, 2007, I attended the workshop on storytelling through body movement and music. The workshop leader described a story's plot as: a.) "Once upon a time . . .," b.) "And then one day . . .," and c.) "And so . . . ." It was a lively workshop. Dance choreography often observes people's body movements in their everyday activities in order to abstract their essence and shape new dances. Much of Bible Storytelling today, has completed the abstraction phase but stopped there. Yet "Until you have experienced the stories as stories, all arguments about the meaningfulness of 'telling' the stories will be more or less meaningless abstractions." (17)

Generous rewards await church members and officers practicing this book's Bible Storytelling exercises. We are deeply indebted to Dr. Boomershine for his invaluable special resource for Bible Storytelling whose vibrant life and emotions flow from the origin-time of the event through printed page and voice into our hearts today.

The final chapter, on Resurrection, describes storytelling as reversing negative crisis to positive options and celebration. "The plot of the entire Gospel here reaches its conclusion. The prophesies of Jesus are being fulfilled. The resurrection confirms Jesus' status as both a true prophet and Messiah. The earlier signs of defeat in his passion and death are now transformed into signs of victory. The expectation of condemnation for the disciples and Peter is now changed into the promise of reconciliation. The place of grief in the tomb is now a place of joy." (185) by Rev. Dr. Charles G. Yopst, Chicago.