Storying is a natural, appealing way to communicate the gospel, and once you get started people actually want to hear more, according to Christine Dillon in her book Telling the Gospel Through Story: Evangelism That Keeps Hearers Wanting More. The book provides a convincing argument for the use of story-telling as a key part of effective communication, both in cross-cultural and in same-cultural situations.
After explaining the benefits and biblical basis of storying, the author goes on to explain how to select suitable stories from the Bible and how to prepare stories from the biblical text. Because storying creates a high degree of engagement between the listeners and the narrative, it serves well as a basis for interactive learning, and if used with appropriate questions can lead to vigorous and perceptive discussion of the key issues.
Many forms of evangelism rely on the evangelist having a highly developed skill set, and this often causes ordinary Christians to despair of their ability ever to become effective evangelists. Storying, on the other hand, is an activity which everyone engages in to some extent, and it is a skill which can easily be worked on even by people who have no literacy skills. This makes it a very attainable and reproducible evangelistic technique.
The book naturally made me curious as to what a story as envisaged by the author might sound like. The book itself does not contain example stories because, as the author asserts, storying is an oral communication form, not a written one. Videos of example stories can be accessed through the author’s website StoryingTheScriptures.com, and these should give the viewer confidence that a smooth and polished presentation is completely unnecessary for engaging storytelling.
In my opinion this book is one of the most effective resources on evangelism that I have ever encountered, and I highly recommend it.