Did you know that more than 93 million Americans don't read? So how can we communicate the Word of God so that oral and visual learners can remember it? Introducing the concept of Bible storytelling, Willis and Snowden equip you to reach the digital generation through stories, dialogue, drama, and song---strategies to share timeles truths!
Product Information
Format: Paperback Number of Pages: 240 Vendor: NAV Press Publication Date: 2010
Dimensions: 8.25 X 5.5 (inches) ISBN: 161521531X ISBN-13: 9781615215317 Availability: In Stock
Avery T. Willis is an international speaker, leader, author and conference leader. He is the executive director of the International Orality Network (ION). He has served as a pastor, missionary to Indonesia and Senior Vice President of the International Mission Board, SBC, where he directed 5600 missionaries. He holds a Th.D. in missiology. He is the author or co-author of more than twenty books including the MasterLife Discipleship Series that has been translated in more than fifty languages. He directs the Orality Issues Group for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelism.
Mark Snowden has served more than 20 years with the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. He worked with storying pioneers Jim Slack and J. O. Terry. Mark has become a world-class storying trainer and developed an oral Bible for a predominantly Muslim people group in Central Asia. He worked with Avery Willis on the Following Jesus audio series and the Lausanne orality project that resulted in Making Disciples of Oral Learners. He presently trains church planters in storying.
Publisher's Description
Have you ever wondered why more than half the Bible is narrative? God had it written that way so people who were nonreaders could remember it. Today, we live in a literate society, but many people in our increasingly digital age choose not to read. Using techniques proven to work worldwide with oral learners, Truth That Sticks shows you how to communicate timeless truth with the digital generation--plus the 93 million Americans who can't, won't, or don't read. Avery Willis and Mark Snowden introduce you to effective disciple-making using stories, dialog, drama, and songs to make truth stick.
ChristianBookPreviews.com
In Truth that Sticks: How to Communicate Velcro Truth in a Teflon World, Avery T. Willis Jr. and Mark Snowden write about telling Bible stories that will hold peoples interest while sticking Gods truth to their hearts. People remember and learn a lot from stories: nearly every American can summarize multiple movie plots and watching television and blockbusters has altered the public's conscience. People are more likely to watch a movie than pick up a book. Yet, most churches are primarily sermon-based. This book demonstrates why churches should use Bible storytelling to teach Gods Word, and it shows the effects on churches that have done so.
From the beginning, the authors, who have international Bible storytelling experience, give support for the practice. Every account of its practice shows its effectiveness and how receptive people are to it. Reflection questions end each chapter, and short true stories of people and storytelling are sprinkled throughout, always in relation to the surrounding text.
The conversational writing is remarkably smooth for a two-author work, neither awkward nor choppy. The chapters progress well, none seeming out of place. The examples of the effectiveness of storytelling, however, and the "how to communicate" in the subtitle, led me to expect that the book would explain the storytelling process in detail. Such explanations, as far as helping me tell Bible stories, werent included, though a section after the appendix listing oral resources was.
Overall, Truth that Sticks is an interesting book about developing effective ministry in the 21st century. Willis and Snowden collaborated well. Whereas I would appreciate an inclusion of storytelling instructions, the books primary purpose of showing the usefulness of storytelling is effectively fulfilled. Believers interested in alternative methods of making disciples will appreciate and learn much from this book. Storytelling does help truth stick. Meredith Sell, www.ChristianBookPreviews.com