May 16, 2025 • 59 mins
In this practical and engaging workshop, Rich Hasnip teaches some easy to learn (but lifetime to master) techniques for incorporating storytelling into preaching as well as some tips for becoming a more dynamic and gripping communicator.
Rich Hasnip leads the Applied Theology and Performing Arts course at Regents Theological College. He is passionate about helping others explore the Christian faith through story and creativity.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Well, good afternoon. Thank you so much.
Lovely to see you all here. This is storytelling for
preachers. I said that now in case people
want to scurry away, desperate to learn what to do when they
hit 60. All right, let me pray for us
(00:22):
and we'll, we'll start. Father, thank you so much for
all these people. Thank you for bringing us all
together and Lord, I just pray that you'll help me to
communicate well and that this will be a useful time that
you'll inspire people today in Jesus name I ask Amen.
Oh, it's so lovely to see you all.
My name is Rich Hasnip and I work at Regent's Theological
College and my normal job is I teach performing arts and
(00:46):
applied theology to to young theologians and actors and want
to be actors and theologians andpreachers and that kind of
thing. But today I'm going to be
talking about about storytellingparticularly.
I should confess that I'm not really a one of the world
experts on storytelling. I what I know about
(01:08):
storytelling, I mostly learned from a man called Bob Hartman
who has written, some of you mayknow his work.
He's written a lot of stuff for children.
He's a brilliant storyteller himself and he very kindly spent
some time with me teaching me. And more recently I've been
watching a lot of stuff online for a man called Doctor Martin
Shaw. So if you want to research where
(01:28):
I've got some of these ideas from, Martin Shaw's doing a
really interesting thing. He was a, he was a Pagan for a
lot of years, but he's just converted to a kind of orthodox
Christianity and he's got this YouTube channel called Jawbone
where he tells stories. So do check that out if you're
if you're interested. But I wanted, what I wanted to
do with you today was just to try to show you why you might
(01:51):
like try, might like to try using storytelling a little bit
as part of your preaching. And for the bulk of the time
giving you some tips of how you might go about doing that.
Because I sort of assume that ifyou're here, you're already sort
of keen to try it. So I hope I'm right about that.
Are you all sitting comfortably?Then let's begin.
(02:14):
That was how they used to start stories when I was young and I
was watching children's television.
And I've just done something that I'd like you to.
It's my first very basic tip to you.
It's to do with space. Preachers often are stuck behind
a lectern because they have notes.
(02:35):
Storytellers generally would learn their story, or at least
learn the gist of their story. So people scurry past, but I I
can't see them, so it's fine. But storytellers, I think, want
to use space in a slightly more dynamic way.
You certainly don't want something in between you and
your audience, So think about opening out to your audience as
(02:56):
much as you can. You want to be inviting as a
storyteller. But now I have to retreat
because I do, in fact need my notes.
Martin Schauha, I've just referenced, says that myth.
Myth is a wild way of telling the truth.
Myth is a wild way of telling the truth.
(03:16):
I'd like to say it's sort of true for story more generally.
What do you think he means by that?
Well, we could unpack it, I suppose, logically, but that
would sort of fly against what I'm trying to do today.
So instead, I'd like to tell youa story and then see if we can
work out how that story might bea kind of wild way of telling
(03:38):
the truth. When some storytellers tell
stories, they like to get the audience involved.
I'm sorry if that's a shock to you.
I'll start really simply. I'd just like to do a call and
response thing. I'll, I'll say, shall we go?
And I'd just like you to say, let's go and I'll say that three
times. Shall we try it together?
Shall we go? Shall we go?
(04:01):
Shall we go then? Let's begin.
A long time ago, a long time ago, a long time ago, there was
a Great War that broke out between the birds of the air and
the beasts of the field. Now nobody knows how the war
started, but for a long time thewhole world shook until the
(04:23):
surface of the earth was littered with the bodies of the
fallen and with broken feathers and Tufts of fur on the side of
the birds arrayed in ranks in the heavens.
With the mighty eagle, the swiftFalcon, the keen eyed hawk, but
also the the smaller creatures, the birds, the sparrows, the
little fragile Finch as well, all joined in their common
(04:46):
cause. And for the beasts, of course
there was the lion and the bear and the stag, but also the mouse
and the vole and the rabbits. Only one creature didn't declare
for either side. The bat, you see, could pass
itself off either as a a bird with fur or as a beast with
(05:09):
wings, and it decided to gamble on its double nature.
So whenever the birds were winning, the bat would unfold
its leathery wings and take to the skies and and cheer on
screeching the birds to victory.Onward, friends to victory.
But when the tide of war turned and the beast seemed to get the
upper hand, then it would fold its wings away and scurry along
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on the floor and growl. Bite them beasts, bite them from
the skies. Just as no one knows why the war
started, no one really knows whyit stopped.
But the truce was declared, and during the truce, the animals
and the birds would walk the fields, and they would search
for the fallen, for the hurt, for the injured, for their
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friends who might not be dead. And they cried out the names of
their friends, but not one of them would ever call the name of
the bat, because they'd all seenthe bat flying from one side to
the other. And neither beast nor bird would
agree, then or ever, to call thebat one of their own.
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The creatures were very angry with the bats.
And so the bat took to the skiesonce more and sought the dark
places of the world where it hiditself, wrapping itself in its
leathery wings against the damp and only coming out at dark,
living the life of an outcast. That's the story that I learned
(06:41):
in Mongolia, and it's a fairly simple kind of just so story,
the kind of story that people tell to explain why the bat only
comes out at night. Is it factual?
No, probably not. I can't imagine there was really
a historical battle like that. Is it truthful?
Or maybe you see my my own storyis a little bit like the bats.
(07:08):
I was brought up as a Christian in a Christian home, and I'd go
to church and I'd sing the songsand I would sound a lot like a
Christian. But when I got to school, I
discovered that a sort of war was going on, and the Christians
were not the popular part of that war.
And so I taught myself to speak like the people around me.
(07:30):
I taught myself to swear. And I was a bit clunky with it
at first, but after a while I got good.
And then I had to be very careful at home to keep my jaw
locked shut in case those words would would torrent forth and
show me for what I was. And then at university, when I
left home, a sort of darkness took me, but it wasn't the
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darkness of a cave. It was a darkness, if you like,
of a kind of a monster. And the doctors called the
monster depression. And it was from that cave, from
that darkness that I finally hadto declare for one side or
another. And I called out to Jesus.
In that darkness, I gave my lifeto God.
(08:13):
It's the same story, isn't? It's in a way it ended happier
and more happily. But that's the story of how I
became a Christian, told in a sense in two different in two
different ways. You will have stories, of
course, I don't know them, and unfortunately I don't have time
to learn them now, but you all have them.
I wonder if you've told them. I'm sure a lot of you have, but
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if you haven't, consider it my own story.
I've often thought of as not a very exciting story.
No one's clamoring to adapt My Testimony into a film or a best
novel or best selling Christian book.
I was a Christian, I was a bit scared, and then I finally
became a Christian. It's not a great dramatic arc,
(08:58):
but when you turn it into a bat story, it has some interest.
I wonder if you could do something a bit like that.
Is there a a mythical edge you could lend to your story?
Well, have a think. Sometimes I think
recontextualizing a story can bereally helpful.
(09:18):
Clothing a lesson in the wild trappings of a story can reach
people in a way that a sermon ordinarily cannot.
I had some experience of that when I when I was fairly young.
In fact, before, before I'd become a Christian properly, I
went to London to see a production of King Lear.
I was a big theatre nerd, as youcan imagine, and I still AM.
(09:43):
And I was in London. I was quite shocked.
So as you, as you probably know,there were homeless everywhere.
And it was and it frightened me to walk past homeless people.
Not really stood to compassion. I just, I was a little bit
afraid of it and I went to the theater anyway.
If you know the story of King Lear, it's a story of a king who
loses everything and goes mad and finds himself wandering the
(10:06):
heath in a storm, having made foolish decisions.
And when I left, and it was so moving and I was in tears, And
when I left the theater, suddenly I saw the homeless
people in a different way, because every one of them was
the fallen king of Britain for me.
(10:27):
And I didn't know what to do about that, but it certainly
made me see the world differently.
Story had taught me a lesson that perhaps my moral upbringing
of being kind to strangers had not.
In terms of a technique, you'll notice that the bat story is
told in a classic storyteller's voice.
It's kind of what they call a third person perspective within
(10:49):
it. I can move around wherever I
like. I can tell you what the bat is
thinking. I can tell you that the animals
were angry. I have a lot of scope.
It's it's kind of the God's eye view of a story.
I can go wherever I want. And that is the standard
storytellers voice. And in fact, if you're learning
storytelling from a real master,they will actually get quite
angry with you if you do what I'm just about to do because
(11:12):
they think that is proper storytelling.
I'm not a proper storyteller. I'm an improper storyteller.
I'm an actor. And so I, I do other things as
well. But I'd like to think as you
consider using stories, think about narrative voice.
Third person narrative means that you can go anywhere in the
story. You can, you can tell it from
different characters perspective.
(11:33):
You could say what they're thinking.
You can tell a big story quite efficiently.
I could tell the same story froma first person perspective,
saying I, I did it with my own testimony, but I could have done
it with the bat, right? I could have been the bat for
you. The war had been going on a long
time and I was very afraid, but I had a trick.
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I had a trick that no one else knew.
I had a trick of disguise. And so I could tell the story
that way, right. And it gives you a slightly
different thing. It brings you emotionally a bit
closer to it because you empathize a little bit more with
a story that's told from the first person perspective.
Very rarely used, but sometimes useful is a second person
perspective where I start, starttalking about you.
(12:15):
You can imagine that maybe if ifyou think about the what would
be good, the Good Samaritan story would be a good choice.
So let's say I start in the third person.
I say, so a man went on a journey from Jerusalem to
Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers and they beat
him and they stripped him and they threw him and he lay on the
ground half dead. And then I could switch
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narrative voice to you. I could say, so you're lying
there. Imagine it, you're lying there.
You're covered in dust, you're covered in blood to move his
agony and you hear footsteps andso on.
So using you sort of implicates you in a story.
So this is, these are just a fewthings to think about.
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Think about space, think about narrative voice.
They all have slightly differenteffects.
And the more you tell stories, the more you'll learn how those
effects differ and what they're good for.
But the classic, if you just want to start straightforwardly,
the classic way of doing it is that third person.
Once Upon a time, there was whatever it might be.
(13:19):
Let's think a little bit about biblical storytelling because I
suspect as preachers, this is going to be something that may
be of, of of worth to you. Again, rather than theorize it,
let's tell a story together. I warned you a bit about
audience participation, and thisone will require quite a lot.
(13:41):
Some of you might have heard this story before, but I've been
telling it for many years. It's my favorite.
It's my favorite story. You might it might help you to
imagine that you're all just a little younger than you are.
It might even help you if you want to imagine that your
children that that might just help with with parts of this
story. But some we'll see.
So as part of this story, I'd like to create a sound effect
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together. My ultimate aim with this, of
course, is to teach you, but it's also to make people in
other seminars wonder what on earth is happening.
So what we're going to try and create together is the sound of
a storm taking place at sea. We're going to build this up
piece by piece, which people might what I call my stage.
(14:25):
Right. Hello there.
Would you mind being my rain? Is that OK?
Very simple. I currently do because of the
microphone. But if you just tap, lovely,
yes, perfect. And and it'll get louder and
louder as the story goes on. And you'll know when to do it
because I'll say the rain began to fall.
Perfect. So, so good.
So good. Thank you.
Now, this group, I hope you won't be offended.
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Would you be my wind now? I'm very sorry that you've drawn
this. Straw.
But all you really have to do isjust go lovely.
So it'll go like this. The rain began to fall and the
wind began to howl. Fantastic.
Now, would you be my waves? And the way to do this would be
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if you would just wave at me. But orchestra, if you could make
it kind of a the rain began to fall and the wind began to howl
and the waves began to crash. And my final group and and
you've come in at such a good time for this.
It's it's my it's my favorite sound.
(15:27):
It's the Thunder and the lightning.
Now the Thunder, if you could sort of drum with it, It's not a
great flaw for it, but hopefullywe can disturb some people
somewhere. Lightning, of course, in real
life makes no noise. That's for Thunder.
But in my head it goes. Now, I don't expect you to do
that. I've had years of training.
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But if you can do some approximation of that, that will
be very special. So the whole thing will sound
like this. The rain began to fall and the
wind began to howl and the. Waves began to crash and Thunder
and lightning split the sky. Fantastic now.
There's just, there's just one last thing.
(16:10):
Some of you will, will know thisreference, some of you may not.
But if I were to say to you, 15 men on a dead man's chest, do
you know what you would respond exactly?
It's it's from Treasure Island. Yo Ho ho.
And a bottle of rum. If you can do it in a pirate
voice, it would make me very, very happy.
(16:31):
I will. I will then do the next slide,
which is drink and the devil haddone for the rest and you will
simply repeat yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
So it goes like this. 15 men on a dead man's chest.
Yo ho drink and the devil had done for the rest.
Now already many of you will have worked out what Bible story
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this is. You know, the Pirate 1, it's
called, It's called dying for the first time.
And it's kind of a, a story within a story.
But you're all theologians of the first degree.
You'll quickly work out what's happening.
The little girl was only 12 years old when she died.
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Well, for the first time, it started with a cold, but then a
cold became a fever, and the fever became delirium.
And just before she slipped intothe deepest sleep of all, she
remembered. She remembered her father
sitting on the edge of her bed, and she had begged him to tell
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her the story of Jonah in the belly of the great fish.
It was her favorite story and whenever she got sick she would
always beg him to tell it. To her.
Very well then, my girl. Her.
Father said, using the voice that he always used for this
particular story. But I warn ye, tis not a tale
for landlubbers or the faint of heart, Dad, she said.
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Let's get on with the story. Fine, a great fish, she said.
Some say. It was Leviathan himself, where
the little girl had never even seen the sea, but even she had
heard of Leviathan. As big as the temple, with eyes
like lanterns and teeth like thesword of Goliath, Jonah was
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running away from God. Her father said.
Trying to hide from Almighty Godbut nobody hides from him so
he's on this ship fast asleep when out of.
Clear blue skies. There came the most terrible
storm. The rain began to fall, the wind
began to howl, the waves began to crash, and Thunder and
lightning split that sky. Well, they try to sail on, they
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think they can make it to a safeharbor, but it doesn't do any
good. The rain falls harder, the wind
how louder, the waves crash higher, and Thunder and
lightning split that sky. So they decide to break out.
They're a special seafaring song, but they reserve for just
such emergencies. It goes like this. 15 men on a
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dead man's chest. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Drinking. The devil had done for the rest.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. He didn't do any good, no good
at all. The rain fell harder.
The wind howled louder. The waves crash higher.
The Thunder linings play the sky.
So they wake up Jonah, and they cast lots to see which one of
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them the gods are angry with. And the lot.
Falls on Jonah Yahar says Jonah.Not in every version of the
Bible. Yahar says Jonah, throw me over
the side, Mehatis and the ship will be saved.
Well, they don't like this. They don't like it one bit.
They try to sail on one last time.
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The rain fell harder, wind howled louder waves crash
higher. Thunder and light explain the
sky. They pick up Joner, and crying a
prayer of forgiveness to Jonah'sGod, they throw him over the
side. And the storm stopped.
Thank goodness. But you see, Joner didn't die.
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He's swallowed up by this great fish, and he's sitting there in
the fish, surrounded by nothing but darkness and bad fishy
breath. And he kind of feels around
himself in the darkness, and he finds what feel like fish
skeletons, and he finds what feel like whale bones, and he
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finds what feels suspiciously like human skulls.
And what can he do, sitting there in the dark?
But he sings very softly to himself. 15.
Men on a dead man's chest. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
Drink and the devil had done forthe rest.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. He didn't do any good, no good
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at all. He's just stuck there.
So what else can he do? But he prays and the first day
goes by and Jonah prays. And the second day goes by.
And Jonah prays. And the third day goes by, and
as the third day comes to an end.
The fish develops a bit of a dodgy tummy and he spews him out
of his mouth onto dry land. And that is the last part of the
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story that the little girl remembered before or she sank
into the deepest sleep of all. Little girl get up.
She sat bolt up right in bed andthere was a man she's never seen
before just looking at her and and her mum's with him and her
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dad is there too. And now he's white as a sheet.
And the stranger turns to her mum and he says, why don't you
get her something to eat? And off he goes.
And mum goes with him, but her dad sits on the edge of her bed
and holds her hand so tightly inhis.
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And he says, you were dead. You were in the belly of that
great fish and he brought you back.
And that is how the little girl died for the first time.
And it's very nearly the end of our story.
But she continued to hear stories about that stranger.
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She heard about how he calmed a storm and about how he walked on
water. And then when she heard that he
had died, she didn't worry because, well, when you've died
for the first time, you don't worry about anything very much.
But she knelt by the side of herbed, and she prayed, and the
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first day went by and she prayed, and the second day went
by and she prayed, and the thirdday went by.
And as the third day came to an end, the first whispers and
rumors and stories began as she thought they might, that this
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man too had come back this houseround of applause.
Well done. What a marvelous storm.
You were good. Just like to quickly unpack a
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few things that I did in that story.
I've been telling that story formany years now.
So it's it's quite fluid for me now.
But it didn't start off that way.
And actually a lot of the thingsI'm doing are not that
difficult. So just like to unpack it a bit.
First of all, just notice the narrative voice using a third
person perspective, which means I can dive into all kinds of
people's thoughts. I did adopt character voices as
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well, which storytellers would not encourage you to do, but I
think I would encourage you to do that.
I think it makes the stories much more engaging, even in the
anecdotes you tell your friends.If you can do voices for the
people who occur in them, I think it makes it more
charismatic and more engaging. Another thing to consider is the
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time. So I've talked about space, how
to use space a little bit, and how to open yourselves up.
Or at least I've encouraged you to do it.
Think about time. When does the story begin?
The little girl was only 12 years old when she died for the
first time. I'm sort of starting in the
middle of a story here. She's already sick when we meet
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her. I could have, I could have done
it differently. I could have gone from from the
beginning of her story, but I don't I start in the middle.
And my hope with that is that you're I get your curiosity
working on if you remember the little girl.
That's always a danger with thatstory that the Joan a bit so
fun. You've forgotten all about the
girl. By the time we get back to yeah,
I forgot there was a girl being told this story.
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But that's that's the idea. And the Jonas story too, I don't
tell from the beginning. I divers into the middle and
just say Jonah's running away from God.
We never discover where he's going or why he's going there.
I've plunged you into the middleof the story.
Very often in a story, the best place to start is the beginning.
It tells you everything you needto know, but there are
particular things that you can achieve if you start somewhere
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else. Starting in the middle often
gets your, the audience's curiosity working in two
directions. How did they end up?
But how do they come to be here?And what's going to happen next?
Sometimes starting just before the end would be an interesting
place to start. I can imagine Daniel in the
lions den. Perhaps an interesting place to
start would be as the lions are closing in on him just before
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the Angel appears. That might be a nice way.
How did I end up here? Daniel thought as the lions
advance, whatever, whatever it might be.
So think about time. When do you want to start your
story? Have a little when I said would
suggest when you're starting using storytelling, it's to
experiment. Think of the story a few
different ways, starting in the beginning, the middle, or the
end. Which one works better for you?
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Same thing with narrative voice.Is it better if it's told from
an individual perspective using I?
Is it better to use the third person?
Often having a long-suffering friend or or spouse is useful in
these situations who don't mind hearing a story but they know
perfectly well several times. I have a very long-suffering
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wife, as you can imagine, but you can imagine that she's
long-suffering. You don't have to imagine that I
have a wife. That's that part I promise is
true. Unlikely though it may seem
something else that I find really useful to you, and I'd
really encourage you to find ways of doing it.
Audience participation is so helpful.
Now, I sort of, I said at the beginning to imagine that your
(27:10):
children, I sort of almost implied that it was a children's
story. Of course it isn't a children's
story. Children are not going to
understand the references withinthat story.
I'm sure they'd enjoy the piratevoices and stuff, but it's not
really. It's really an adult story that
I want to trick adults into becoming like children for.
So, but audience participation is very useful because it stops
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being something that I'm trying to do.
I was going to say to you, but you know what I mean.
It becomes less of a kind of a singular thing of me performing
to you and more of a communal wewill create this story together.
That's useful, I think in several ways.
Firstly, you then have a vested interest in it going well, so
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you have some stake in it. So actually you're likely to
feel more. It also relaxes me, which as I
said, I've been telling that story for many years.
I've been, I teach most days andI was still nervous standing in
front of you today because I don't know you.
It's a new context for me. So I'm still going to be nervous
(28:15):
and probably so will you. Even if you're very experienced
as a preacher, it's likely for many of you, at least maybe not
for everyone, but for many of you, nerves are a fact of, of
standing up in front of people. So it isn't a question of how
can I do it so often that I don't feel nervous.
And maybe it is sometimes, but for most people, it's a question
of how do I live with the nerves?
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What can I do to help me? And 1 great way is audience
participation. The other nice thing about it is
that it means that the first twominutes of the story are just
teaching. I'm just teaching really simple
things. There are jokes that I do every
time. That Winds joke, which you all
enjoyed so much has been honed. Even you could tell it been
honed, couldn't you, just because of the smoothness of
delivery. But I do that every single time
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that that that joke, because it partly a laugh relaxes me and
also relaxes you and makes us feel like, OK, we're in safe
hands here. It's going to be all right.
So if you can think of ways of audience, audience
participation, I think it would be really helpful to you.
There are so many ways of doing this.
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If you can't think of any other way.
The way I started the first story, shall we go, let's go,
Shall we go, let's go, Shall we go, let's go.
Just helps me get a kind of rushof energy at the start and helps
us all to feel, OK, that soundedgood.
Maybe the whole thing will soundgood.
All right, what I'd like to try and do now, I think let's try
(29:44):
and do something a little bit more practical and hands on to
try and put it into practice, orat least give you some idea of
how you might put it into practice when you go away from
here. Maybe just for now, why don't
you think of a parable, one of Jesus parables?
You don't have to tell me what it is.
If you'd like to tell me afterwards what you came up
with, if you're proud of it, I'dlove to hear it.
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But think of a parable that you know well.
And I'm going to use something Ihate to credit him, but I'm
going to use something that Keith Warrington, if you know
him, he taught me. And I, you know, I don't like to
credit Keith because of the, theman's a, well, you know what
he's like, but he's a lovely manif you don't know him, but he,
(30:27):
he has this thing where he uses the vowels to help him to, as a
kind of mnemonic of how to kind of interrogate a story.
And I'm going to use the same thing.
So a first of all ask, what doesthe story mean to you?
So if you just run through the, the parable in your mind, what
does it mean to you? Sometimes it probably means the
(30:48):
same things it means to me. Other times it may not.
I, I don't know if you've had this experience, but in the
prodigal son story, I have identified with just about every
character in that story. The only characters I've yet to
totally empathize with are the pigs.
But you know, I, I certainly empathize with the, with the
prodigal. I've certainly empathized with
the older brother when I've seenother people with more dramatic
(31:08):
testimonies or you know, who have just been Wilder for
longer. And now I have a daughter of my
own. I'm sort of hoping not to have
to empathise with the father. But I'm starting to to ask what
the story means to you. That will lead you straight on
to E, which is emphasis. We could all read the, the the
Bible story. Well, thank goodness you're not
(31:31):
going to ruin it. You're not going to spoil it
forever, but you can give it a particular emphasis.
You can have it so that we've never heard it this way before,
and it's never spoken to me in that way before because it's
yours. What's the emphasis that you
would give it? I'm not asking you to distort
this and I give it a completely different meaning.
I still want it to be recognizable, but emphasis one
(31:55):
of the That might be where you ask yourself the question, from
whose point of view do I want totell this story?
Put it in your own words. In your own words.
That's the I. Sorry I.
Lost my mnemonic. That's the point of a mnemonic.
Do you remember that? I is in your own words?
(32:17):
That's really helpful for those of us who've grown up with a
high view of Scripture, which I would applaud.
But it can in terms just in terms of being creative, it can
sort of be a bit of a straight jacket and you can be trapped in
the way that in the version of the Bible that you know best and
you can just sort of, there's nothing wrong with that.
I know a storyteller who learns the Bible and repeats it and
(32:40):
it's actually pretty compelling.But just for this, I'd like you
to put it in your own words. It might mean changing the
context a little bit, giving it different clothes.
Jesus stories were told in the context of his own time.
There's no reason why you couldn't do the same.
One of the first jobs I had was as an actor was with a company
(33:01):
called Riding Lights Theatre Company, and they had a very
famous telling of the Good Samaritan story that starts on a
train. There was a train, I forget how
it goes on its way from London to York and I go London to York,
London to York, London to York. And that was the train anyway.
And it was a football hooligan on it.
So it's, it's straightforward stuff and you've probably seen
it's done many times, but just have a think, putting it in your
(33:22):
own words. Do you, do you?
Can you change the context in a way that will be surprising?
CS Lewis talks about stories being able to get past the
watchful Dragons that can hinderpreaching in some way that if
you, you know, if you think you're being taught a lesson,
the the Dragons kind of raise their hackles.
But a story can get round them. Maybe recontextualizing a story
(33:46):
could get round some watchful Dragons in people who are a bit
allergic to sandals and robes. Oh, other verses, sometimes you
can achieve really interesting effects in storytelling,
particularly using the Bible. When you think about parts of
(34:06):
the Bible that prefigure or recall or in some ways nod
towards other stories, That's obviously how the Jonah story
came about, right? They asked Jesus for a sign.
He says, you wicked and perversegeneration, no sign will be
given to you but the sign of Jonah.
And that's the starting point for me writing that story.
What does he mean? What's the sign of Jonah?
(34:27):
And if they listen to Jesus, what would they have learnt from
that? What would they have been
expecting three days later? So are there other verses that
will add depth, give a fresh take away into the story?
(34:49):
You is use it. It's a bit intimidating telling
a story for the first time, but by and large, people love being
told stories. It was my favorite part of
school in primary school. I didn't do it so much in
secondary school, but it would have been them too.
(35:09):
It was my favorite part of a story.
And I think one of the things I like about it is that often it
has a kind of openness, like, like the prodigal son, where you
can find yourself in different places in that story.
It's not always quite clear whata story is is teaching you, but
that can be one of its its gifts.
Martin Shaw talks about, he usesthe image of a magpie.
(35:31):
He says that a magpie is is mostly, it's black and white,
but it also has just one blue feather.
And he talks about storytelling as the blue feather way.
And I like that. I think there's something,
there's something nice about that, particularly in a time
when we are increasingly polarized, finding a blue
feather way might be a nice way to heal some wounds.
(35:51):
So use it. The more you do it, the more
comfortable you'll get with it. Think about audience
involvement. I have a story I'm going to do
for some children coming up. Actually, I do it every year in
Malvern, right, for Malvern schools.
And it's the story from Acts, Peter's escape from prison.
And remember, he goes to the door and he knocks on the door
(36:14):
and the servant doesn't let him in because even though they're
praying for him upstairs. And I think that's quite a funny
story. So I do it like a knock, knock
joke. I have a series of knock, knock,
and the children say who's there?
I build it. I build it around that.
Bob Hartman has a great story inthe dining of the Lions Den
where he uses a sort of children's game.
(36:34):
He uses at what time is it Mr. Wolf, except for him, it's what
time is it Mr. Angel? The Lions are desperate to eat
Daniel, but the Angel keeps distracting them with belly rubs
and wrestling and all kinds of different things.
He's a genius, Bob Hartman, so use it.
How am I doing for time? I'm doing all right, aren't I?
I meant to stop a little bit early to give some space for
(36:55):
questions, so I will do that. Just one last thing I want you
to think about. So let me recap and then I'll
give you one last thing to go away with that you can try.
So I've talked a little bit about space.
I've talked a tiny bit about time.
When do I begin my story? I've talked a little bit about
(37:16):
narrative voice. And then just at the end here,
I've given you this AEIOU ask what it means in your own words.
Sorry, emphasis. I forgot, missed emphasis.
Rubbish. Mnemonic teeth is an absolute
fool. I don't know why I use this
stuff. Ask what it means emphasis in
your own words, other verses and, and use it.
(37:38):
And then I've talked a little bit at some, at some audience
involvement. I, I generally don't learn a
story word for word. So when I'm learning a script
for, for the stage, I do, then I, I do try and learn word for
word because writers get really upset when you paraphrase them.
Shakespeare's dead, thankfully, but because I have paraphrased
(38:01):
some of his lines quite considerably.
But I don't learn stories. What I do is I learn the events,
but then what I find is the moreI tell them, they settle.
It settles into a, into a script.
So in actual fact, I mean, Jeff's heard that Jonah's story
many times and I think I tell itmore or less the same way each
(38:21):
time, including the ad libbed jokes.
So that's, that's funny. But I think what you'll find is
that rather than worrying about it word for word, write it down,
then try and tell it on your ownand see what you remember and
then go back and, and, and refresh your memory on what
you've forgotten and then try again.
That's a Mongolian story. I, I ended up buying it in a, in
(38:43):
a book of folk tales that what Ijust did doesn't really resemble
the, the, the wording that you'ddefined in that book, but it's
close enough. It's the same story.
So that's how I learned it. One last thing that you might
like to try, and this is useful,I think for preachers, even if
you're not going to use storytelling, it's quite a fun
game that you can play. It's a game for two.
(39:06):
In fact, I think we've got time to play it.
What you will need for this gameis some written material.
It can be the program, it can beanything really.
So if you have something like that, we can try it.
What you're going to do is find a partner and label yourselves.
A&B&A will be you'll you'll readit.
(39:27):
I can demonstrate this first. And what B will do is you're
going to kind of decide on the pace.
This game is all about dynamics.So I've forgotten your name.
I've no Sharon, sorry. Sharon, would you mind being my
being my my conductor? Would that be OK?
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read this.
(39:49):
If you clap your hands, I will go faster.
And if you patch your lap, is that OK?
I'll take it more slowly. And what I'd like you to try and
do is explore. It's helped me to explore some
dynamics in terms of the pace ofit.
So let me read it out. I'll just read a normal pace and
(40:10):
then you you clap to make me go faster, perhaps to make me go
slow, to caricature them. The difference between them is
that when I speak using an I voice, a first person voice,
then what you gain is a limited perspective but emotional
intensity and proximity. Perhaps the story has a greater
(40:30):
sense of authenticity. You're not doing anything all
right. So that that game, the idea is
just to help you explore the actual range that you have
mostly. If you talk very quickly, of
course people aren't going to understand you.
But what you can do, and it's a bit of a trick, but preachers
ought to know these kinds of tricks, is that if you want to,
(40:51):
if you speak faster and faster and faster and more and more
intensely and then suddenly slowdown, you'll find that the
audience is, for no reason otherthan your speed, hanging.
On your every word. All right, well, we've got a
(41:12):
minute. Why don't you just turn to
someone next to you, let quicklyhave a go.
Just try it for for pace. I'll just give you one minute to
have a go. All right, Have you all had a
chance to have a go? Great.
Thank you so much. Lost control of the group.
(41:35):
All right, Thank you. That's just an exercise to
explore dynamics. I don't know how successful it
was for you, but have a play with it.
Find someone that that you trust, maybe not the person you
should find someone that you that you trust.
Have a little play now. I'm not.
I know what you're thinking because you preachers are all
(41:56):
the same. They say, Rich, I want to be
authentic and I appreciate that.I'm not really asking you to try
to manipulate people with vocal tricks, but what I am asking you
to do is to think about how you can make your voice interesting.
And that is not that easy sometimes.
Actually, Jeff and I, we used toteach communication class at
(42:17):
Regions, and very often there was some resistance because,
well, I think because for the very good reason that they said,
look, I don't want to perform when I'm preaching the word.
What they wanted, I think, was to be a sort of translucent
(42:38):
figure through which we perceiveGod.
If they can do that, God bless them.
I have nothing to teach you. Do that.
That would be great, but I thinkwhat often happens is not quite
that. I don't think I'm being, you
(42:59):
know, dismissed. I absolutely don't mean to be
dismissive, but I don't think I'm being reductive either.
I think what often happens is people want to be authentic, but
in fact, as they walk up onto the stage, Jeff and I used to do
it. So I was just getting them to
come to the front and just say their name.
And even doing that, the shoulders would come up and
tension would take them and their voice would get tight and
(43:19):
their mouth would get dry. And so in fact, they weren't, we
weren't seeing, I mean, what they had to say could still be
wonderful and God's word. So in a sense it doesn't matter
that much. But what I was seeing was a very
nervous person who, who, who didn't want to be there.
So I suppose what I'm saying is I do want it to be them.
(43:39):
I don't want them to become someone else, but I want them.
I want it to be them on a good day.
I want it to be them when they're loose and relaxed and at
their most expressive. And if doing some dynamic work
will help them do that, then I think it's worth it.
You can do the same exercise. I won't do it because this would
really be unfair to other seminars.
(44:00):
Of course, you can do the same thing with volume.
Some of you will have found thatas you got louder, you got, as
you got faster, you got louder. I tend to find that it happens
naturally, but you can do it just for volume.
So suddenly I won't do it. But you can become very, very
loud and other times you can seejust how quiet you can become
and still be audible. Now I have a microphone, which
(44:21):
which is obviously cheating, although nowadays every church
has a microphone, isn't it? You can't go to a church that
doesn't have a microphone. I try, but it can't, it can't be
done. I teach my actors vocal
technique. There's no point anyway.
But ideally, I think it is better without a mic and and see
what, because there's something lovely about the human voice and
(44:44):
and having it sort of digitized is is not the same.
This is a sidebar and not reallyrelevant to what I was saying.
But yeah, practice dynamics. Similarly, you might want to
think about things like if you if you ask someone as a preacher
who gets nervous. If you were an actor, we'd do
physical warmups. Now it's hard because preachers
so often have to sit at the front before they before they
(45:06):
come on. But if there's no one to stop
you worshipping a bit more enthusiastically before you go
on, suddenly it's. But in all seriousness, change
the tempo, rhythm, get your heart going a little bit.
It will relax your muscles and often it is musculature.
A lot of the things that happen to you as a preacher that you
(45:27):
don't like are physical and can be overcome.
One of the simplest is just breathing.
Before you say anything, just try taking a deep breath,
letting it out and smiling and then saying good afternoon
everyone. And suddenly everyone's relaxed.
They all took the breath with you and they held it for a while
(45:49):
and they were nervous when they held it and went.
And it's so useful. It's so useful.
It's just a physical thing. Relax your body.
If you get a dry mouth, have a glass of water there.
Don't do what I do and have a huge bottle of water, which I
then choked on in a very, very high profile performance telling
a really serious story. Awful.
(46:09):
Anyway, good. Well, listen, I'm supposed to
leave time for questions. I think we have time for
questions. So let me wrap up what I wanted
to say there and just thank you all for coming.
And then just give some space for questions.
Hold your applause. I know you want to applaud.
Let's hold that until after the questions because my answers to
the questions may be, if anything, even more brilliant.
We don't, we don't know that could happen.
(46:30):
Does anyone have any questions? If not, we can go straight to
applause. Oh, yes, Sir.
Thank you. I'll just repeat the question
(46:50):
just because they're recording it and I forgot to give you the
mic. I'm always reluctant to
surrender the mic. You never know when an
evangelist might be in the room and you never get it back from
them. The question was, is it useful
to open with a joke? With comedy?
I think it depends. I'd I find it because I, I
naturally go to humor, you wouldn't have noticed.
(47:13):
But when, when nervous in particular, I go, I go to humor.
And if they laugh, it relaxes me.
Of course, if they don't laugh, it makes me so much more tense.
And I wish, I wish I hadn't tried.
But yeah, I do because I feel like it's true to me.
I think for some people, I wouldn't want them to feel like
they really have to. You know, Mark did, of course,
today it's sort of didn't he, with his flat pack story,
(47:36):
storytelling for preachers. You see, he's been in, he's been
in a seminar before, though no audience participation, I
noticed. So I did mark him down for that.
Any other questions, please. So I'll just repeat this again.
(48:05):
I just do not give this market. So be sparing because you can,
you can lose. Did they lose the audience or
did they lose where they were going to start?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, That's really helpful.
Thank you. That's really helpful.
Yeah. The the start is is so important
to what you're going to say. In a sense, if you can get the
(48:25):
start right, you'll be it relax you for everything.
And if you get it wrong, that's all people remember.
I doubt you remember much more of that of what he they went on
to say. Yeah, yeah.
Good. Thank you.
Does some money now it could happen.
Yeah, go. No, you do, because it's the
recording. Now I've got a really loud
(48:46):
voice. So can you give us any practical
tips that will help us to find where we are in a story that
we've forgotten where we are in itself?
So let's just say we're like, I just forgot what I'm saying.
So if we forget where we are in a story and we're really
flamboyant about this story and we're like, what's a good thing
(49:08):
to do to get us back to that? That's such a good question.
If only I had such a good answer.
What to do when you lose your place in a story?
That's clever. That's for clever.
Yeah. You could pretend they've
forgotten and say, now where were we?
Let's find out how much you werepaying attention.
That's a good idea. That's a really good idea.
(49:29):
The other thing I try and do is I build in kind of anti
forgetting measures by by havingrepeated motifs.
And I've noticed that lots of stories do this.
They have particular ways of saying things.
Sometimes the same story will have a similar device that they
do. So I'll have, I'll have audience
participation. I mean, I do often have a script
(49:50):
somewhere lurking in the place. So if there's a bit of audience
participation I can go into and while they're participating, I
could check it. That would be something else to
think about, but but that's one of the reasons why I don't
recommend you learn them or you try to learn, but actually what
you learn is the events because you're much less likely to
forget that, whereas the actual wording is easily, easily goes.
(50:12):
Yeah, some other people are questioning.
Yes, Madam, I think you have. Hi, I'm Soph.
In terms of like I work in marketing and in terms of
connecting with the audience, weobviously talk a lot about
storytelling. How would you, at what point do
(50:35):
you assess the room, decide which story is going to work or
how you're going to use that story?
Marketing 101, please. Yeah.
Yeah, that's a great, that's a great question.
And the truth is, of course, often I don't have, I can't, I,
I was going to tell you that batstory, whoever you were.
And they say, because, because Ihad a point I was going to make.
(50:58):
So I was just hoping you're connected to it.
So I, I didn't, and actually probably unless you become a
storyteller who had, I mean, I talked to, I talked to Bob
Hartman about this and he, I said, do you ever have a bad
show with storytelling? He says, not really, because if
a story goes badly, I can changethe next one.
I don't have enough stories for that.
So I, I don't know. I think the only the only thing
(51:19):
you can do is is good. Good.
Yes, I forgot we were Pentecostal.
Yeah, we can. But spiritual leaders, we that
won't happen. Yeah, I guess so.
I think all you can do is is is I have some stories like the the
Jonas story nearly always works.I've never, well, maybe
(51:41):
occasionally people have not liked it, but by and large, it's
a it's one I can trust. So I guess having having if you
could find one that you're really comfortable with, that'd
be really helpful. Madam, two question I got to ask
the first one when I preach and like you use your introduction,
(52:02):
your body and your conclusion. But are you to the scripture
that are you through my personalexperience as a story or my
friend or somebody I know go to the CAF time or what they
overcome and sometimes sometimesI preach what knowledge just
come out with people with the same message message.
(52:25):
Then I just give it. Then people just come out.
So many people come out. Now I have to go back to my
message again. You know, I don't know
sometimes. Yeah, that's wonderful.
That's that's fantastic. I think it's a great, that's a
great way of using stories And, and I think stories are useful
in that, in that people can often connect to them because
human experience, it's not infinitely various.
(52:48):
There are some particular themesthat we all face one way or
another. I missed someone, so yeah.
Any tips on the gathering database of stories or stories
you want to kind of have in yourresources?
Kind of there is. Well, I've plugged Bob several
times. Bob Hartman has many books of
(53:10):
stories that you can use tellingthe Bible is a good one.
He's got a lovely little red used to be a red book called
Anyone can Tell a Story. I found that a really helpful
place to start. It's also got some examples of
his storytelling within it. But I suppose increasingly I, I
try to, I try to write my own and using the stuff that I've
(53:31):
done with with the Bible today. I, I think I like doing that
because I always I don't, I don't this part of me that's
maybe it's ego. I don't like telling someone
else S story. I sort of feel like if I
wouldn't do it as well as Bob, so I'd rather do my own story,
which he doesn't know. He'd still tell it better, but
he doesn't know it. Yes Sir.
I'm working with some new converts and we are reading the
(53:57):
book of Luke and we are reading True.
But I will like to tell in a story way.
So sometimes I use the voice variety.
So with your presentation, I would like to know how I could
improve. Although I want them to get the
contest, but I want to tell in astory way so that they can.
(54:19):
Sometimes I draw them in. So in it tips.
Well, first of all, well done for doing it.
I think that's great. Yeah.
So you're working with new converts, you're telling the
story of Luke, and you're just using some voices a little bit
to help them sort of taken in with this story.
Yeah, I suppose for you, I guessI'd, I'd suggest you want to,
(54:44):
it's easy to make the voices funny or, and if it's a serious
part of the story, you want to avoid that.
So sometimes it might just be playing with something like a
character's age rather than accents and maybe just slightly
changing the pitch. Other character, a younger
character might have a slightly higher register.
Perhaps an older 1 might be a little deeper, might be slower
(55:05):
in tempo. So you could, you could do, I
would suggest subtlety probably if you were because you're
because they don't know the story for the first time.
So you probably don't want to doanything too creative with it.
You want them to experience it as the the evangelist wrote it
first, I guess. So I suppose that's what I'd
encourage subtlety. I think with that good.
I think we have probably time for one or maybe two more
(55:26):
questions. I often do some write story
based content for children and young people and then some
adults. Are there any, what kind of tips
would you say to the the are there things that work best for
children's stories? Their thing was that work best
(55:47):
with young people, things that work best with adults.
Are there any kind of differences between those?
Yes, the great question. I think probably the the
audience participation works best with children and adults, I
would say. I think teenagers are a hard
sell on that. But maybe it's not impossible.
(56:15):
And just occasionally I've done it where I do something
repeatedly and they join in and they think they're sabotaging
me, but in fact that's what I wanted.
So there are ways of of trickingthem into enjoying it, but they
are the toughest crowd, aren't they?
And I suppose what you might sayis that children respond very
(56:36):
well to any kind of misfortune happening to someone other than
them. So that's often a good, a good
hook to think about South, a slapstick moment or something,
particularly if it happens more than once to the same character.
So there's a kind of a fool guy in a story.
They respond really well to that.
(56:57):
But also there's sort of somewhere in between children
and and teenagers, I guess, in that you sometimes again, have
to just hold their hand a bit tosay it's going to be OK.
You're not going to, I'm not going to make you look stupid.
You'll enjoy it if you join it. But but sometimes a story that's
a little bit more subtle as a start, as a warm up might be a
(57:17):
might be a good one or one way you do more of the work.
Yeah, good, I think. Oh, we've got one, one last.
Let's make this one last question right at the back.
Yeah, My question would be that when I hear people when they're
preaching and they do storytelling and they're like,
(57:39):
for example, this morning it's like, Oh yeah, I got the flat
pack out, I got the the table. I always think, did that really
happen to you or you just makingit up to make a point?
And then so I don't do that sortof thing, but then it's kind of
fake. And I'm I'm not very good at
like drawing stuff out of my ownpersonal experience.
I always think, do they make it up?
Does it have to be your own personal experience?
(57:59):
I don't know. That's a great question.
Yeah, but let's discuss this. Is Mark a liar?
Well, let's, let's take some time to unpack it.
I think no, it's a great, it's agreat question.
What I think what I would say, what, what I would say with
storytelling. And one of the reasons I quite
(58:20):
like that thing of sort of stepping past the the pulpit is,
is sort of saying that we are now in story time.
I, I would like to be fairly upfront with, with stories and
say, look, I'm going to tell a story.
Now this is going to be Isis. I I'm sure that did happen to
Mark. I'm pretty I just for the, for
the recording is a is a is a really is a man of of high
(58:45):
integrity. But I, I suspect it did.
But I, I, I, I don't make stuff up as a preacher and claim it
happened to me. And I don't, I don't think, I
don't think you should. For, for what it's worth, I
wouldn't do that. I would tell it as a story.
I could say a certain man or, you know, Once Upon a time there
(59:05):
was a man who ordered flat pack furniture or whatever.
But yeah, I, I wouldn't pass offa story and claim it was my own,
that that wasn't no good. Apart from my my former life as
a bat, of course. Well, that's all the time we
have. But thank you so much.
You've been such a lovely crowd.Thank you.
Well, good afternoon. Thank you so much.
Lovely to see you all here. This is storytelling for
preachers. I said that now in case people
want to scurry away, desperate to learn what to do when they
hit 60. All right, let me pray for us
(00:22):
and we'll, we'll start. Father, thank you so much for
all these people. Thank you for bringing us all
together and Lord, I just pray that you'll help me to
communicate well and that this will be a useful time that
you'll inspire people today in Jesus name I ask Amen.
Oh, it's so lovely to see you all.
My name is Rich Hasnip and I work at Regent's Theological
College and my normal job is I teach performing arts and
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applied theology to to young theologians and actors and want
to be actors and theologians andpreachers and that kind of
thing. But today I'm going to be
talking about about storytellingparticularly.
I should confess that I'm not really a one of the world
experts on storytelling. I what I know about
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storytelling, I mostly learned from a man called Bob Hartman
who has written, some of you mayknow his work.
He's written a lot of stuff for children.
He's a brilliant storyteller himself and he very kindly spent
some time with me teaching me. And more recently I've been
watching a lot of stuff online for a man called Doctor Martin
Shaw. So if you want to research where
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I've got some of these ideas from, Martin Shaw's doing a
really interesting thing. He was a, he was a Pagan for a
lot of years, but he's just converted to a kind of orthodox
Christianity and he's got this YouTube channel called Jawbone
where he tells stories. So do check that out if you're
if you're interested. But I wanted, what I wanted to
do with you today was just to try to show you why you might
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like try, might like to try using storytelling a little bit
as part of your preaching. And for the bulk of the time
giving you some tips of how you might go about doing that.
Because I sort of assume that ifyou're here, you're already sort
of keen to try it. So I hope I'm right about that.
Are you all sitting comfortably?Then let's begin.
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That was how they used to start stories when I was young and I
was watching children's television.
And I've just done something that I'd like you to.
It's my first very basic tip to you.
It's to do with space. Preachers often are stuck behind
a lectern because they have notes.
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Storytellers generally would learn their story, or at least
learn the gist of their story. So people scurry past, but I I
can't see them, so it's fine. But storytellers, I think, want
to use space in a slightly more dynamic way.
You certainly don't want something in between you and
your audience, So think about opening out to your audience as
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much as you can. You want to be inviting as a
storyteller. But now I have to retreat
because I do, in fact need my notes.
Martin Schauha, I've just referenced, says that myth.
Myth is a wild way of telling the truth.
Myth is a wild way of telling the truth.
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I'd like to say it's sort of true for story more generally.
What do you think he means by that?
Well, we could unpack it, I suppose, logically, but that
would sort of fly against what I'm trying to do today.
So instead, I'd like to tell youa story and then see if we can
work out how that story might bea kind of wild way of telling
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the truth. When some storytellers tell
stories, they like to get the audience involved.
I'm sorry if that's a shock to you.
I'll start really simply. I'd just like to do a call and
response thing. I'll, I'll say, shall we go?
And I'd just like you to say, let's go and I'll say that three
times. Shall we try it together?
Shall we go? Shall we go?
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Shall we go then? Let's begin.
A long time ago, a long time ago, a long time ago, there was
a Great War that broke out between the birds of the air and
the beasts of the field. Now nobody knows how the war
started, but for a long time thewhole world shook until the
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surface of the earth was littered with the bodies of the
fallen and with broken feathers and Tufts of fur on the side of
the birds arrayed in ranks in the heavens.
With the mighty eagle, the swiftFalcon, the keen eyed hawk, but
also the the smaller creatures, the birds, the sparrows, the
little fragile Finch as well, all joined in their common
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cause. And for the beasts, of course
there was the lion and the bear and the stag, but also the mouse
and the vole and the rabbits. Only one creature didn't declare
for either side. The bat, you see, could pass
itself off either as a a bird with fur or as a beast with
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wings, and it decided to gamble on its double nature.
So whenever the birds were winning, the bat would unfold
its leathery wings and take to the skies and and cheer on
screeching the birds to victory.Onward, friends to victory.
But when the tide of war turned and the beast seemed to get the
upper hand, then it would fold its wings away and scurry along
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on the floor and growl. Bite them beasts, bite them from
the skies. Just as no one knows why the war
started, no one really knows whyit stopped.
But the truce was declared, and during the truce, the animals
and the birds would walk the fields, and they would search
for the fallen, for the hurt, for the injured, for their
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friends who might not be dead. And they cried out the names of
their friends, but not one of them would ever call the name of
the bat, because they'd all seenthe bat flying from one side to
the other. And neither beast nor bird would
agree, then or ever, to call thebat one of their own.
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The creatures were very angry with the bats.
And so the bat took to the skiesonce more and sought the dark
places of the world where it hiditself, wrapping itself in its
leathery wings against the damp and only coming out at dark,
living the life of an outcast. That's the story that I learned
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in Mongolia, and it's a fairly simple kind of just so story,
the kind of story that people tell to explain why the bat only
comes out at night. Is it factual?
No, probably not. I can't imagine there was really
a historical battle like that. Is it truthful?
Or maybe you see my my own storyis a little bit like the bats.
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I was brought up as a Christian in a Christian home, and I'd go
to church and I'd sing the songsand I would sound a lot like a
Christian. But when I got to school, I
discovered that a sort of war was going on, and the Christians
were not the popular part of that war.
And so I taught myself to speak like the people around me.
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I taught myself to swear. And I was a bit clunky with it
at first, but after a while I got good.
And then I had to be very careful at home to keep my jaw
locked shut in case those words would would torrent forth and
show me for what I was. And then at university, when I
left home, a sort of darkness took me, but it wasn't the
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darkness of a cave. It was a darkness, if you like,
of a kind of a monster. And the doctors called the
monster depression. And it was from that cave, from
that darkness that I finally hadto declare for one side or
another. And I called out to Jesus.
In that darkness, I gave my lifeto God.
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It's the same story, isn't? It's in a way it ended happier
and more happily. But that's the story of how I
became a Christian, told in a sense in two different in two
different ways. You will have stories, of
course, I don't know them, and unfortunately I don't have time
to learn them now, but you all have them.
I wonder if you've told them. I'm sure a lot of you have, but
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if you haven't, consider it my own story.
I've often thought of as not a very exciting story.
No one's clamoring to adapt My Testimony into a film or a best
novel or best selling Christian book.
I was a Christian, I was a bit scared, and then I finally
became a Christian. It's not a great dramatic arc,
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but when you turn it into a bat story, it has some interest.
I wonder if you could do something a bit like that.
Is there a a mythical edge you could lend to your story?
Well, have a think. Sometimes I think
recontextualizing a story can bereally helpful.
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Clothing a lesson in the wild trappings of a story can reach
people in a way that a sermon ordinarily cannot.
I had some experience of that when I when I was fairly young.
In fact, before, before I'd become a Christian properly, I
went to London to see a production of King Lear.
I was a big theatre nerd, as youcan imagine, and I still AM.
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And I was in London. I was quite shocked.
So as you, as you probably know,there were homeless everywhere.
And it was and it frightened me to walk past homeless people.
Not really stood to compassion. I just, I was a little bit
afraid of it and I went to the theater anyway.
If you know the story of King Lear, it's a story of a king who
loses everything and goes mad and finds himself wandering the
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heath in a storm, having made foolish decisions.
And when I left, and it was so moving and I was in tears, And
when I left the theater, suddenly I saw the homeless
people in a different way, because every one of them was
the fallen king of Britain for me.
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And I didn't know what to do about that, but it certainly
made me see the world differently.
Story had taught me a lesson that perhaps my moral upbringing
of being kind to strangers had not.
In terms of a technique, you'll notice that the bat story is
told in a classic storyteller's voice.
It's kind of what they call a third person perspective within
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it. I can move around wherever I
like. I can tell you what the bat is
thinking. I can tell you that the animals
were angry. I have a lot of scope.
It's it's kind of the God's eye view of a story.
I can go wherever I want. And that is the standard
storytellers voice. And in fact, if you're learning
storytelling from a real master,they will actually get quite
angry with you if you do what I'm just about to do because
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they think that is proper storytelling.
I'm not a proper storyteller. I'm an improper storyteller.
I'm an actor. And so I, I do other things as
well. But I'd like to think as you
consider using stories, think about narrative voice.
Third person narrative means that you can go anywhere in the
story. You can, you can tell it from
different characters perspective.
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You could say what they're thinking.
You can tell a big story quite efficiently.
I could tell the same story froma first person perspective,
saying I, I did it with my own testimony, but I could have done
it with the bat, right? I could have been the bat for
you. The war had been going on a long
time and I was very afraid, but I had a trick.
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I had a trick that no one else knew.
I had a trick of disguise. And so I could tell the story
that way, right. And it gives you a slightly
different thing. It brings you emotionally a bit
closer to it because you empathize a little bit more with
a story that's told from the first person perspective.
Very rarely used, but sometimes useful is a second person
perspective where I start, starttalking about you.
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You can imagine that maybe if ifyou think about the what would
be good, the Good Samaritan story would be a good choice.
So let's say I start in the third person.
I say, so a man went on a journey from Jerusalem to
Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers and they beat
him and they stripped him and they threw him and he lay on the
ground half dead. And then I could switch
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narrative voice to you. I could say, so you're lying
there. Imagine it, you're lying there.
You're covered in dust, you're covered in blood to move his
agony and you hear footsteps andso on.
So using you sort of implicates you in a story.
So this is, these are just a fewthings to think about.
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Think about space, think about narrative voice.
They all have slightly differenteffects.
And the more you tell stories, the more you'll learn how those
effects differ and what they're good for.
But the classic, if you just want to start straightforwardly,
the classic way of doing it is that third person.
Once Upon a time, there was whatever it might be.
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Let's think a little bit about biblical storytelling because I
suspect as preachers, this is going to be something that may
be of, of of worth to you. Again, rather than theorize it,
let's tell a story together. I warned you a bit about
audience participation, and thisone will require quite a lot.
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Some of you might have heard this story before, but I've been
telling it for many years. It's my favorite.
It's my favorite story. You might it might help you to
imagine that you're all just a little younger than you are.
It might even help you if you want to imagine that your
children that that might just help with with parts of this
story. But some we'll see.
So as part of this story, I'd like to create a sound effect
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together. My ultimate aim with this, of
course, is to teach you, but it's also to make people in
other seminars wonder what on earth is happening.
So what we're going to try and create together is the sound of
a storm taking place at sea. We're going to build this up
piece by piece, which people might what I call my stage.
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Right. Hello there.
Would you mind being my rain? Is that OK?
Very simple. I currently do because of the
microphone. But if you just tap, lovely,
yes, perfect. And and it'll get louder and
louder as the story goes on. And you'll know when to do it
because I'll say the rain began to fall.
Perfect. So, so good.
So good. Thank you.
Now, this group, I hope you won't be offended.
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Would you be my wind now? I'm very sorry that you've drawn
this. Straw.
But all you really have to do isjust go lovely.
So it'll go like this. The rain began to fall and the
wind began to howl. Fantastic.
Now, would you be my waves? And the way to do this would be
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if you would just wave at me. But orchestra, if you could make
it kind of a the rain began to fall and the wind began to howl
and the waves began to crash. And my final group and and
you've come in at such a good time for this.
It's it's my it's my favorite sound.
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It's the Thunder and the lightning.
Now the Thunder, if you could sort of drum with it, It's not a
great flaw for it, but hopefullywe can disturb some people
somewhere. Lightning, of course, in real
life makes no noise. That's for Thunder.
But in my head it goes. Now, I don't expect you to do
that. I've had years of training.
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But if you can do some approximation of that, that will
be very special. So the whole thing will sound
like this. The rain began to fall and the
wind began to howl and the. Waves began to crash and Thunder
and lightning split the sky. Fantastic now.
There's just, there's just one last thing.
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Some of you will, will know thisreference, some of you may not.
But if I were to say to you, 15 men on a dead man's chest, do
you know what you would respond exactly?
It's it's from Treasure Island. Yo Ho ho.
And a bottle of rum. If you can do it in a pirate
voice, it would make me very, very happy.
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I will. I will then do the next slide,
which is drink and the devil haddone for the rest and you will
simply repeat yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
So it goes like this. 15 men on a dead man's chest.
Yo ho drink and the devil had done for the rest.
Now already many of you will have worked out what Bible story
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this is. You know, the Pirate 1, it's
called, It's called dying for the first time.
And it's kind of a, a story within a story.
But you're all theologians of the first degree.
You'll quickly work out what's happening.
The little girl was only 12 years old when she died.
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Well, for the first time, it started with a cold, but then a
cold became a fever, and the fever became delirium.
And just before she slipped intothe deepest sleep of all, she
remembered. She remembered her father
sitting on the edge of her bed, and she had begged him to tell
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her the story of Jonah in the belly of the great fish.
It was her favorite story and whenever she got sick she would
always beg him to tell it. To her.
Very well then, my girl. Her.
Father said, using the voice that he always used for this
particular story. But I warn ye, tis not a tale
for landlubbers or the faint of heart, Dad, she said.
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Let's get on with the story. Fine, a great fish, she said.
Some say. It was Leviathan himself, where
the little girl had never even seen the sea, but even she had
heard of Leviathan. As big as the temple, with eyes
like lanterns and teeth like thesword of Goliath, Jonah was
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running away from God. Her father said.
Trying to hide from Almighty Godbut nobody hides from him so
he's on this ship fast asleep when out of.
Clear blue skies. There came the most terrible
storm. The rain began to fall, the wind
began to howl, the waves began to crash, and Thunder and
lightning split that sky. Well, they try to sail on, they
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think they can make it to a safeharbor, but it doesn't do any
good. The rain falls harder, the wind
how louder, the waves crash higher, and Thunder and
lightning split that sky. So they decide to break out.
They're a special seafaring song, but they reserve for just
such emergencies. It goes like this. 15 men on a
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dead man's chest. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Drinking. The devil had done for the rest.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. He didn't do any good, no good
at all. The rain fell harder.
The wind howled louder. The waves crash higher.
The Thunder linings play the sky.
So they wake up Jonah, and they cast lots to see which one of
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them the gods are angry with. And the lot.
Falls on Jonah Yahar says Jonah.Not in every version of the
Bible. Yahar says Jonah, throw me over
the side, Mehatis and the ship will be saved.
Well, they don't like this. They don't like it one bit.
They try to sail on one last time.
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The rain fell harder, wind howled louder waves crash
higher. Thunder and light explain the
sky. They pick up Joner, and crying a
prayer of forgiveness to Jonah'sGod, they throw him over the
side. And the storm stopped.
Thank goodness. But you see, Joner didn't die.
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He's swallowed up by this great fish, and he's sitting there in
the fish, surrounded by nothing but darkness and bad fishy
breath. And he kind of feels around
himself in the darkness, and he finds what feel like fish
skeletons, and he finds what feel like whale bones, and he
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finds what feels suspiciously like human skulls.
And what can he do, sitting there in the dark?
But he sings very softly to himself. 15.
Men on a dead man's chest. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
Drink and the devil had done forthe rest.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. He didn't do any good, no good
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at all. He's just stuck there.
So what else can he do? But he prays and the first day
goes by and Jonah prays. And the second day goes by.
And Jonah prays. And the third day goes by, and
as the third day comes to an end.
The fish develops a bit of a dodgy tummy and he spews him out
of his mouth onto dry land. And that is the last part of the
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story that the little girl remembered before or she sank
into the deepest sleep of all. Little girl get up.
She sat bolt up right in bed andthere was a man she's never seen
before just looking at her and and her mum's with him and her
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dad is there too. And now he's white as a sheet.
And the stranger turns to her mum and he says, why don't you
get her something to eat? And off he goes.
And mum goes with him, but her dad sits on the edge of her bed
and holds her hand so tightly inhis.
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And he says, you were dead. You were in the belly of that
great fish and he brought you back.
And that is how the little girl died for the first time.
And it's very nearly the end of our story.
But she continued to hear stories about that stranger.
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She heard about how he calmed a storm and about how he walked on
water. And then when she heard that he
had died, she didn't worry because, well, when you've died
for the first time, you don't worry about anything very much.
But she knelt by the side of herbed, and she prayed, and the
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first day went by and she prayed, and the second day went
by and she prayed, and the thirdday went by.
And as the third day came to an end, the first whispers and
rumors and stories began as she thought they might, that this
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man too had come back this houseround of applause.
Well done. What a marvelous storm.
You were good. Just like to quickly unpack a
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few things that I did in that story.
I've been telling that story formany years now.
So it's it's quite fluid for me now.
But it didn't start off that way.
And actually a lot of the thingsI'm doing are not that
difficult. So just like to unpack it a bit.
First of all, just notice the narrative voice using a third
person perspective, which means I can dive into all kinds of
people's thoughts. I did adopt character voices as
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well, which storytellers would not encourage you to do, but I
think I would encourage you to do that.
I think it makes the stories much more engaging, even in the
anecdotes you tell your friends.If you can do voices for the
people who occur in them, I think it makes it more
charismatic and more engaging. Another thing to consider is the
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time. So I've talked about space, how
to use space a little bit, and how to open yourselves up.
Or at least I've encouraged you to do it.
Think about time. When does the story begin?
The little girl was only 12 years old when she died for the
first time. I'm sort of starting in the
middle of a story here. She's already sick when we meet
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her. I could have, I could have done
it differently. I could have gone from from the
beginning of her story, but I don't I start in the middle.
And my hope with that is that you're I get your curiosity
working on if you remember the little girl.
That's always a danger with thatstory that the Joan a bit so
fun. You've forgotten all about the
girl. By the time we get back to yeah,
I forgot there was a girl being told this story.
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But that's that's the idea. And the Jonas story too, I don't
tell from the beginning. I divers into the middle and
just say Jonah's running away from God.
We never discover where he's going or why he's going there.
I've plunged you into the middleof the story.
Very often in a story, the best place to start is the beginning.
It tells you everything you needto know, but there are
particular things that you can achieve if you start somewhere
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else. Starting in the middle often
gets your, the audience's curiosity working in two
directions. How did they end up?
But how do they come to be here?And what's going to happen next?
Sometimes starting just before the end would be an interesting
place to start. I can imagine Daniel in the
lions den. Perhaps an interesting place to
start would be as the lions are closing in on him just before
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the Angel appears. That might be a nice way.
How did I end up here? Daniel thought as the lions
advance, whatever, whatever it might be.
So think about time. When do you want to start your
story? Have a little when I said would
suggest when you're starting using storytelling, it's to
experiment. Think of the story a few
different ways, starting in the beginning, the middle, or the
end. Which one works better for you?
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Same thing with narrative voice.Is it better if it's told from
an individual perspective using I?
Is it better to use the third person?
Often having a long-suffering friend or or spouse is useful in
these situations who don't mind hearing a story but they know
perfectly well several times. I have a very long-suffering
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wife, as you can imagine, but you can imagine that she's
long-suffering. You don't have to imagine that I
have a wife. That's that part I promise is
true. Unlikely though it may seem
something else that I find really useful to you, and I'd
really encourage you to find ways of doing it.
Audience participation is so helpful.
Now, I sort of, I said at the beginning to imagine that your
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children, I sort of almost implied that it was a children's
story. Of course it isn't a children's
story. Children are not going to
understand the references withinthat story.
I'm sure they'd enjoy the piratevoices and stuff, but it's not
really. It's really an adult story that
I want to trick adults into becoming like children for.
So, but audience participation is very useful because it stops
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being something that I'm trying to do.
I was going to say to you, but you know what I mean.
It becomes less of a kind of a singular thing of me performing
to you and more of a communal wewill create this story together.
That's useful, I think in several ways.
Firstly, you then have a vested interest in it going well, so
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you have some stake in it. So actually you're likely to
feel more. It also relaxes me, which as I
said, I've been telling that story for many years.
I've been, I teach most days andI was still nervous standing in
front of you today because I don't know you.
It's a new context for me. So I'm still going to be nervous
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and probably so will you. Even if you're very experienced
as a preacher, it's likely for many of you, at least maybe not
for everyone, but for many of you, nerves are a fact of, of
standing up in front of people. So it isn't a question of how
can I do it so often that I don't feel nervous.
And maybe it is sometimes, but for most people, it's a question
of how do I live with the nerves?
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What can I do to help me? And 1 great way is audience
participation. The other nice thing about it is
that it means that the first twominutes of the story are just
teaching. I'm just teaching really simple
things. There are jokes that I do every
time. That Winds joke, which you all
enjoyed so much has been honed. Even you could tell it been
honed, couldn't you, just because of the smoothness of
delivery. But I do that every single time
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that that that joke, because it partly a laugh relaxes me and
also relaxes you and makes us feel like, OK, we're in safe
hands here. It's going to be all right.
So if you can think of ways of audience, audience
participation, I think it would be really helpful to you.
There are so many ways of doing this.
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If you can't think of any other way.
The way I started the first story, shall we go, let's go,
Shall we go, let's go, Shall we go, let's go.
Just helps me get a kind of rushof energy at the start and helps
us all to feel, OK, that soundedgood.
Maybe the whole thing will soundgood.
All right, what I'd like to try and do now, I think let's try
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and do something a little bit more practical and hands on to
try and put it into practice, orat least give you some idea of
how you might put it into practice when you go away from
here. Maybe just for now, why don't
you think of a parable, one of Jesus parables?
You don't have to tell me what it is.
If you'd like to tell me afterwards what you came up
with, if you're proud of it, I'dlove to hear it.
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But think of a parable that you know well.
And I'm going to use something Ihate to credit him, but I'm
going to use something that Keith Warrington, if you know
him, he taught me. And I, you know, I don't like to
credit Keith because of the, theman's a, well, you know what
he's like, but he's a lovely manif you don't know him, but he,
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he has this thing where he uses the vowels to help him to, as a
kind of mnemonic of how to kind of interrogate a story.
And I'm going to use the same thing.
So a first of all ask, what doesthe story mean to you?
So if you just run through the, the parable in your mind, what
does it mean to you? Sometimes it probably means the
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same things it means to me. Other times it may not.
I, I don't know if you've had this experience, but in the
prodigal son story, I have identified with just about every
character in that story. The only characters I've yet to
totally empathize with are the pigs.
But you know, I, I certainly empathize with the, with the
prodigal. I've certainly empathized with
the older brother when I've seenother people with more dramatic
(31:08):
testimonies or you know, who have just been Wilder for
longer. And now I have a daughter of my
own. I'm sort of hoping not to have
to empathise with the father. But I'm starting to to ask what
the story means to you. That will lead you straight on
to E, which is emphasis. We could all read the, the the
Bible story. Well, thank goodness you're not
(31:31):
going to ruin it. You're not going to spoil it
forever, but you can give it a particular emphasis.
You can have it so that we've never heard it this way before,
and it's never spoken to me in that way before because it's
yours. What's the emphasis that you
would give it? I'm not asking you to distort
this and I give it a completely different meaning.
I still want it to be recognizable, but emphasis one
(31:55):
of the That might be where you ask yourself the question, from
whose point of view do I want totell this story?
Put it in your own words. In your own words.
That's the I. Sorry I.
Lost my mnemonic. That's the point of a mnemonic.
Do you remember that? I is in your own words?
(32:17):
That's really helpful for those of us who've grown up with a
high view of Scripture, which I would applaud.
But it can in terms just in terms of being creative, it can
sort of be a bit of a straight jacket and you can be trapped in
the way that in the version of the Bible that you know best and
you can just sort of, there's nothing wrong with that.
I know a storyteller who learns the Bible and repeats it and
(32:40):
it's actually pretty compelling.But just for this, I'd like you
to put it in your own words. It might mean changing the
context a little bit, giving it different clothes.
Jesus stories were told in the context of his own time.
There's no reason why you couldn't do the same.
One of the first jobs I had was as an actor was with a company
(33:01):
called Riding Lights Theatre Company, and they had a very
famous telling of the Good Samaritan story that starts on a
train. There was a train, I forget how
it goes on its way from London to York and I go London to York,
London to York, London to York. And that was the train anyway.
And it was a football hooligan on it.
So it's, it's straightforward stuff and you've probably seen
it's done many times, but just have a think, putting it in your
(33:22):
own words. Do you, do you?
Can you change the context in a way that will be surprising?
CS Lewis talks about stories being able to get past the
watchful Dragons that can hinderpreaching in some way that if
you, you know, if you think you're being taught a lesson,
the the Dragons kind of raise their hackles.
But a story can get round them. Maybe recontextualizing a story
(33:46):
could get round some watchful Dragons in people who are a bit
allergic to sandals and robes. Oh, other verses, sometimes you
can achieve really interesting effects in storytelling,
particularly using the Bible. When you think about parts of
(34:06):
the Bible that prefigure or recall or in some ways nod
towards other stories, That's obviously how the Jonah story
came about, right? They asked Jesus for a sign.
He says, you wicked and perversegeneration, no sign will be
given to you but the sign of Jonah.
And that's the starting point for me writing that story.
What does he mean? What's the sign of Jonah?
(34:27):
And if they listen to Jesus, what would they have learnt from
that? What would they have been
expecting three days later? So are there other verses that
will add depth, give a fresh take away into the story?
(34:49):
You is use it. It's a bit intimidating telling
a story for the first time, but by and large, people love being
told stories. It was my favorite part of
school in primary school. I didn't do it so much in
secondary school, but it would have been them too.
(35:09):
It was my favorite part of a story.
And I think one of the things I like about it is that often it
has a kind of openness, like, like the prodigal son, where you
can find yourself in different places in that story.
It's not always quite clear whata story is is teaching you, but
that can be one of its its gifts.
Martin Shaw talks about, he usesthe image of a magpie.
(35:31):
He says that a magpie is is mostly, it's black and white,
but it also has just one blue feather.
And he talks about storytelling as the blue feather way.
And I like that. I think there's something,
there's something nice about that, particularly in a time
when we are increasingly polarized, finding a blue
feather way might be a nice way to heal some wounds.
(35:51):
So use it. The more you do it, the more
comfortable you'll get with it. Think about audience
involvement. I have a story I'm going to do
for some children coming up. Actually, I do it every year in
Malvern, right, for Malvern schools.
And it's the story from Acts, Peter's escape from prison.
And remember, he goes to the door and he knocks on the door
(36:14):
and the servant doesn't let him in because even though they're
praying for him upstairs. And I think that's quite a funny
story. So I do it like a knock, knock
joke. I have a series of knock, knock,
and the children say who's there?
I build it. I build it around that.
Bob Hartman has a great story inthe dining of the Lions Den
where he uses a sort of children's game.
(36:34):
He uses at what time is it Mr. Wolf, except for him, it's what
time is it Mr. Angel? The Lions are desperate to eat
Daniel, but the Angel keeps distracting them with belly rubs
and wrestling and all kinds of different things.
He's a genius, Bob Hartman, so use it.
How am I doing for time? I'm doing all right, aren't I?
I meant to stop a little bit early to give some space for
(36:55):
questions, so I will do that. Just one last thing I want you
to think about. So let me recap and then I'll
give you one last thing to go away with that you can try.
So I've talked a little bit about space.
I've talked a tiny bit about time.
When do I begin my story? I've talked a little bit about
(37:16):
narrative voice. And then just at the end here,
I've given you this AEIOU ask what it means in your own words.
Sorry, emphasis. I forgot, missed emphasis.
Rubbish. Mnemonic teeth is an absolute
fool. I don't know why I use this
stuff. Ask what it means emphasis in
your own words, other verses and, and use it.
(37:38):
And then I've talked a little bit at some, at some audience
involvement. I, I generally don't learn a
story word for word. So when I'm learning a script
for, for the stage, I do, then I, I do try and learn word for
word because writers get really upset when you paraphrase them.
Shakespeare's dead, thankfully, but because I have paraphrased
(38:01):
some of his lines quite considerably.
But I don't learn stories. What I do is I learn the events,
but then what I find is the moreI tell them, they settle.
It settles into a, into a script.
So in actual fact, I mean, Jeff's heard that Jonah's story
many times and I think I tell itmore or less the same way each
(38:21):
time, including the ad libbed jokes.
So that's, that's funny. But I think what you'll find is
that rather than worrying about it word for word, write it down,
then try and tell it on your ownand see what you remember and
then go back and, and, and refresh your memory on what
you've forgotten and then try again.
That's a Mongolian story. I, I ended up buying it in a, in
(38:43):
a book of folk tales that what Ijust did doesn't really resemble
the, the, the wording that you'ddefined in that book, but it's
close enough. It's the same story.
So that's how I learned it. One last thing that you might
like to try, and this is useful,I think for preachers, even if
you're not going to use storytelling, it's quite a fun
game that you can play. It's a game for two.
(39:06):
In fact, I think we've got time to play it.
What you will need for this gameis some written material.
It can be the program, it can beanything really.
So if you have something like that, we can try it.
What you're going to do is find a partner and label yourselves.
A&B&A will be you'll you'll readit.
(39:27):
I can demonstrate this first. And what B will do is you're
going to kind of decide on the pace.
This game is all about dynamics.So I've forgotten your name.
I've no Sharon, sorry. Sharon, would you mind being my
being my my conductor? Would that be OK?
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read this.
(39:49):
If you clap your hands, I will go faster.
And if you patch your lap, is that OK?
I'll take it more slowly. And what I'd like you to try and
do is explore. It's helped me to explore some
dynamics in terms of the pace ofit.
So let me read it out. I'll just read a normal pace and
(40:10):
then you you clap to make me go faster, perhaps to make me go
slow, to caricature them. The difference between them is
that when I speak using an I voice, a first person voice,
then what you gain is a limited perspective but emotional
intensity and proximity. Perhaps the story has a greater
(40:30):
sense of authenticity. You're not doing anything all
right. So that that game, the idea is
just to help you explore the actual range that you have
mostly. If you talk very quickly, of
course people aren't going to understand you.
But what you can do, and it's a bit of a trick, but preachers
ought to know these kinds of tricks, is that if you want to,
(40:51):
if you speak faster and faster and faster and more and more
intensely and then suddenly slowdown, you'll find that the
audience is, for no reason otherthan your speed, hanging.
On your every word. All right, well, we've got a
(41:12):
minute. Why don't you just turn to
someone next to you, let quicklyhave a go.
Just try it for for pace. I'll just give you one minute to
have a go. All right, Have you all had a
chance to have a go? Great.
Thank you so much. Lost control of the group.
(41:35):
All right, Thank you. That's just an exercise to
explore dynamics. I don't know how successful it
was for you, but have a play with it.
Find someone that that you trust, maybe not the person you
should find someone that you that you trust.
Have a little play now. I'm not.
I know what you're thinking because you preachers are all
(41:56):
the same. They say, Rich, I want to be
authentic and I appreciate that.I'm not really asking you to try
to manipulate people with vocal tricks, but what I am asking you
to do is to think about how you can make your voice interesting.
And that is not that easy sometimes.
Actually, Jeff and I, we used toteach communication class at
(42:17):
Regions, and very often there was some resistance because,
well, I think because for the very good reason that they said,
look, I don't want to perform when I'm preaching the word.
What they wanted, I think, was to be a sort of translucent
(42:38):
figure through which we perceiveGod.
If they can do that, God bless them.
I have nothing to teach you. Do that.
That would be great, but I thinkwhat often happens is not quite
that. I don't think I'm being, you
(42:59):
know, dismissed. I absolutely don't mean to be
dismissive, but I don't think I'm being reductive either.
I think what often happens is people want to be authentic, but
in fact, as they walk up onto the stage, Jeff and I used to do
it. So I was just getting them to
come to the front and just say their name.
And even doing that, the shoulders would come up and
tension would take them and their voice would get tight and
(43:19):
their mouth would get dry. And so in fact, they weren't, we
weren't seeing, I mean, what they had to say could still be
wonderful and God's word. So in a sense it doesn't matter
that much. But what I was seeing was a very
nervous person who, who, who didn't want to be there.
So I suppose what I'm saying is I do want it to be them.
(43:39):
I don't want them to become someone else, but I want them.
I want it to be them on a good day.
I want it to be them when they're loose and relaxed and at
their most expressive. And if doing some dynamic work
will help them do that, then I think it's worth it.
You can do the same exercise. I won't do it because this would
really be unfair to other seminars.
(44:00):
Of course, you can do the same thing with volume.
Some of you will have found thatas you got louder, you got, as
you got faster, you got louder. I tend to find that it happens
naturally, but you can do it just for volume.
So suddenly I won't do it. But you can become very, very
loud and other times you can seejust how quiet you can become
and still be audible. Now I have a microphone, which
(44:21):
which is obviously cheating, although nowadays every church
has a microphone, isn't it? You can't go to a church that
doesn't have a microphone. I try, but it can't, it can't be
done. I teach my actors vocal
technique. There's no point anyway.
But ideally, I think it is better without a mic and and see
what, because there's something lovely about the human voice and
(44:44):
and having it sort of digitized is is not the same.
This is a sidebar and not reallyrelevant to what I was saying.
But yeah, practice dynamics. Similarly, you might want to
think about things like if you if you ask someone as a preacher
who gets nervous. If you were an actor, we'd do
physical warmups. Now it's hard because preachers
so often have to sit at the front before they before they
(45:06):
come on. But if there's no one to stop
you worshipping a bit more enthusiastically before you go
on, suddenly it's. But in all seriousness, change
the tempo, rhythm, get your heart going a little bit.
It will relax your muscles and often it is musculature.
A lot of the things that happen to you as a preacher that you
(45:27):
don't like are physical and can be overcome.
One of the simplest is just breathing.
Before you say anything, just try taking a deep breath,
letting it out and smiling and then saying good afternoon
everyone. And suddenly everyone's relaxed.
They all took the breath with you and they held it for a while
(45:49):
and they were nervous when they held it and went.
And it's so useful. It's so useful.
It's just a physical thing. Relax your body.
If you get a dry mouth, have a glass of water there.
Don't do what I do and have a huge bottle of water, which I
then choked on in a very, very high profile performance telling
a really serious story. Awful.
(46:09):
Anyway, good. Well, listen, I'm supposed to
leave time for questions. I think we have time for
questions. So let me wrap up what I wanted
to say there and just thank you all for coming.
And then just give some space for questions.
Hold your applause. I know you want to applaud.
Let's hold that until after the questions because my answers to
the questions may be, if anything, even more brilliant.
We don't, we don't know that could happen.
(46:30):
Does anyone have any questions? If not, we can go straight to
applause. Oh, yes, Sir.
Thank you. I'll just repeat the question
(46:50):
just because they're recording it and I forgot to give you the
mic. I'm always reluctant to
surrender the mic. You never know when an
evangelist might be in the room and you never get it back from
them. The question was, is it useful
to open with a joke? With comedy?
I think it depends. I'd I find it because I, I
naturally go to humor, you wouldn't have noticed.
(47:13):
But when, when nervous in particular, I go, I go to humor.
And if they laugh, it relaxes me.
Of course, if they don't laugh, it makes me so much more tense.
And I wish, I wish I hadn't tried.
But yeah, I do because I feel like it's true to me.
I think for some people, I wouldn't want them to feel like
they really have to. You know, Mark did, of course,
today it's sort of didn't he, with his flat pack story,
(47:36):
storytelling for preachers. You see, he's been in, he's been
in a seminar before, though no audience participation, I
noticed. So I did mark him down for that.
Any other questions, please. So I'll just repeat this again.
(48:05):
I just do not give this market. So be sparing because you can,
you can lose. Did they lose the audience or
did they lose where they were going to start?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, That's really helpful.
Thank you. That's really helpful.
Yeah. The the start is is so important
to what you're going to say. In a sense, if you can get the
(48:25):
start right, you'll be it relax you for everything.
And if you get it wrong, that's all people remember.
I doubt you remember much more of that of what he they went on
to say. Yeah, yeah.
Good. Thank you.
Does some money now it could happen.
Yeah, go. No, you do, because it's the
recording. Now I've got a really loud
(48:46):
voice. So can you give us any practical
tips that will help us to find where we are in a story that
we've forgotten where we are in itself?
So let's just say we're like, I just forgot what I'm saying.
So if we forget where we are in a story and we're really
flamboyant about this story and we're like, what's a good thing
(49:08):
to do to get us back to that? That's such a good question.
If only I had such a good answer.
What to do when you lose your place in a story?
That's clever. That's for clever.
Yeah. You could pretend they've
forgotten and say, now where were we?
Let's find out how much you werepaying attention.
That's a good idea. That's a really good idea.
(49:29):
The other thing I try and do is I build in kind of anti
forgetting measures by by havingrepeated motifs.
And I've noticed that lots of stories do this.
They have particular ways of saying things.
Sometimes the same story will have a similar device that they
do. So I'll have, I'll have audience
participation. I mean, I do often have a script
(49:50):
somewhere lurking in the place. So if there's a bit of audience
participation I can go into and while they're participating, I
could check it. That would be something else to
think about, but but that's one of the reasons why I don't
recommend you learn them or you try to learn, but actually what
you learn is the events because you're much less likely to
forget that, whereas the actual wording is easily, easily goes.
(50:12):
Yeah, some other people are questioning.
Yes, Madam, I think you have. Hi, I'm Soph.
In terms of like I work in marketing and in terms of
connecting with the audience, weobviously talk a lot about
storytelling. How would you, at what point do
(50:35):
you assess the room, decide which story is going to work or
how you're going to use that story?
Marketing 101, please. Yeah.
Yeah, that's a great, that's a great question.
And the truth is, of course, often I don't have, I can't, I,
I was going to tell you that batstory, whoever you were.
And they say, because, because Ihad a point I was going to make.
(50:58):
So I was just hoping you're connected to it.
So I, I didn't, and actually probably unless you become a
storyteller who had, I mean, I talked to, I talked to Bob
Hartman about this and he, I said, do you ever have a bad
show with storytelling? He says, not really, because if
a story goes badly, I can changethe next one.
I don't have enough stories for that.
So I, I don't know. I think the only the only thing
(51:19):
you can do is is good. Good.
Yes, I forgot we were Pentecostal.
Yeah, we can. But spiritual leaders, we that
won't happen. Yeah, I guess so.
I think all you can do is is is I have some stories like the the
Jonas story nearly always works.I've never, well, maybe
(51:41):
occasionally people have not liked it, but by and large, it's
a it's one I can trust. So I guess having having if you
could find one that you're really comfortable with, that'd
be really helpful. Madam, two question I got to ask
the first one when I preach and like you use your introduction,
(52:02):
your body and your conclusion. But are you to the scripture
that are you through my personalexperience as a story or my
friend or somebody I know go to the CAF time or what they
overcome and sometimes sometimesI preach what knowledge just
come out with people with the same message message.
(52:25):
Then I just give it. Then people just come out.
So many people come out. Now I have to go back to my
message again. You know, I don't know
sometimes. Yeah, that's wonderful.
That's that's fantastic. I think it's a great, that's a
great way of using stories And, and I think stories are useful
in that, in that people can often connect to them because
human experience, it's not infinitely various.
(52:48):
There are some particular themesthat we all face one way or
another. I missed someone, so yeah.
Any tips on the gathering database of stories or stories
you want to kind of have in yourresources?
Kind of there is. Well, I've plugged Bob several
times. Bob Hartman has many books of
(53:10):
stories that you can use tellingthe Bible is a good one.
He's got a lovely little red used to be a red book called
Anyone can Tell a Story. I found that a really helpful
place to start. It's also got some examples of
his storytelling within it. But I suppose increasingly I, I
try to, I try to write my own and using the stuff that I've
(53:31):
done with with the Bible today. I, I think I like doing that
because I always I don't, I don't this part of me that's
maybe it's ego. I don't like telling someone
else S story. I sort of feel like if I
wouldn't do it as well as Bob, so I'd rather do my own story,
which he doesn't know. He'd still tell it better, but
he doesn't know it. Yes Sir.
I'm working with some new converts and we are reading the
(53:57):
book of Luke and we are reading True.
But I will like to tell in a story way.
So sometimes I use the voice variety.
So with your presentation, I would like to know how I could
improve. Although I want them to get the
contest, but I want to tell in astory way so that they can.
(54:19):
Sometimes I draw them in. So in it tips.
Well, first of all, well done for doing it.
I think that's great. Yeah.
So you're working with new converts, you're telling the
story of Luke, and you're just using some voices a little bit
to help them sort of taken in with this story.
Yeah, I suppose for you, I guessI'd, I'd suggest you want to,
(54:44):
it's easy to make the voices funny or, and if it's a serious
part of the story, you want to avoid that.
So sometimes it might just be playing with something like a
character's age rather than accents and maybe just slightly
changing the pitch. Other character, a younger
character might have a slightly higher register.
Perhaps an older 1 might be a little deeper, might be slower
(55:05):
in tempo. So you could, you could do, I
would suggest subtlety probably if you were because you're
because they don't know the story for the first time.
So you probably don't want to doanything too creative with it.
You want them to experience it as the the evangelist wrote it
first, I guess. So I suppose that's what I'd
encourage subtlety. I think with that good.
I think we have probably time for one or maybe two more
(55:26):
questions. I often do some write story
based content for children and young people and then some
adults. Are there any, what kind of tips
would you say to the the are there things that work best for
children's stories? Their thing was that work best
(55:47):
with young people, things that work best with adults.
Are there any kind of differences between those?
Yes, the great question. I think probably the the
audience participation works best with children and adults, I
would say. I think teenagers are a hard
sell on that. But maybe it's not impossible.
(56:15):
And just occasionally I've done it where I do something
repeatedly and they join in and they think they're sabotaging
me, but in fact that's what I wanted.
So there are ways of of trickingthem into enjoying it, but they
are the toughest crowd, aren't they?
And I suppose what you might sayis that children respond very
(56:36):
well to any kind of misfortune happening to someone other than
them. So that's often a good, a good
hook to think about South, a slapstick moment or something,
particularly if it happens more than once to the same character.
So there's a kind of a fool guy in a story.
They respond really well to that.
(56:57):
But also there's sort of somewhere in between children
and and teenagers, I guess, in that you sometimes again, have
to just hold their hand a bit tosay it's going to be OK.
You're not going to, I'm not going to make you look stupid.
You'll enjoy it if you join it. But but sometimes a story that's
a little bit more subtle as a start, as a warm up might be a
(57:17):
might be a good one or one way you do more of the work.
Yeah, good, I think. Oh, we've got one, one last.
Let's make this one last question right at the back.
Yeah, My question would be that when I hear people when they're
preaching and they do storytelling and they're like,
(57:39):
for example, this morning it's like, Oh yeah, I got the flat
pack out, I got the the table. I always think, did that really
happen to you or you just makingit up to make a point?
And then so I don't do that sortof thing, but then it's kind of
fake. And I'm I'm not very good at
like drawing stuff out of my ownpersonal experience.
I always think, do they make it up?
Does it have to be your own personal experience?
(57:59):
I don't know. That's a great question.
Yeah, but let's discuss this. Is Mark a liar?
Well, let's, let's take some time to unpack it.
I think no, it's a great, it's agreat question.
What I think what I would say, what, what I would say with
storytelling. And one of the reasons I quite
(58:20):
like that thing of sort of stepping past the the pulpit is,
is sort of saying that we are now in story time.
I, I would like to be fairly upfront with, with stories and
say, look, I'm going to tell a story.
Now this is going to be Isis. I I'm sure that did happen to
Mark. I'm pretty I just for the, for
the recording is a is a is a really is a man of of high
(58:45):
integrity. But I, I suspect it did.
But I, I, I, I don't make stuff up as a preacher and claim it
happened to me. And I don't, I don't think, I
don't think you should. For, for what it's worth, I
wouldn't do that. I would tell it as a story.
I could say a certain man or, you know, Once Upon a time there
(59:05):
was a man who ordered flat pack furniture or whatever.
But yeah, I, I wouldn't pass offa story and claim it was my own,
that that wasn't no good. Apart from my my former life as
a bat, of course. Well, that's all the time we
have. But thank you so much.
You've been such a lovely crowd.Thank you.
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