Living To Tell The Tale > Writings > My Sabbatical

Sabbatical in Storytelling

About 30 years ago, a young American theologian named Tom Boomershine was working on his PhD thesis, on Mark's Passion Narrative as Narrative. He had read all the books, and knew all the scholarly thinking. But he was stuck. He had come to a point in his thesis where he was deadlocked and didn't know how to proceed. So he prayed earnestly about it; and the Lord said to him, "Learn the biblical text, and tell it to someone.

Now, Tom was working on the Greek text, as you would expect. He didn't know, and couldn't think of any way of learning it, except to sing or chant it while strumming his guitar. So this is what he did. Shortly afterwards, at one of his regular meetings with his 'study buddy' Gil Bartholomew, he picked up his guitar and asked Gil to listen to what he had been working on.

Some Greek text

Etcetera…

NotesGil was nonplussed! and the way Tom tells the story, a short time after this event Gil went off and did something completely different for a year. But he came back, and by that time, Tom was exploring a slightly different avenue, making tape recordings of people reading the text of Mark, and comparing them with recordings of people telling the text that they had first learned by heart.

Even on tape the contrast was so striking, that the two of them agreed that part of their ministry would be to start a network of biblical storytellers.

The Network of Biblical Storytellers (NOBS) has now been in existence for more than 20 years. They describe themselves as

And the aim of the network is: to encourage everyone to learn and tell biblical stories.

Tom Boomershine has said:

It is said that when the words of the sacred text are kept in the hearts of the people, the religion thrives. But when the words are not kept by heart - but in books - that same religion will go into decline.

In the UK a sister organization was begun in 1998, called The Telling Place. It is a partnership between Bible Society and the Northumbria Community, and describes itself in this way:

Working nationally across church and cultural boundaries, the initiative seeks to

The main difference between NOBS and The Telling Place, according to the latter, is that whereas in the US it is the faith communities who tell the sacred stories to themselves, in our context we need to tell the stories to a culture that has largely forgotten or never known them.

History of a Sabbatical

When I first began to plan a sabbatical, it was going to be about 'The Roots of Anglicanism'. This did not happen, because before I was able to make too many plans I came across Angela Knowles of The Telling Place, and became completely excited about what they were doing. I have always told stories as part of my parish ministry, especially in Family Services, but have lacked confidence, and never had any real training in how to do it. I decided to spend my sabbatical acquiring some of this training, and researching about storytelling.

The activities of the sabbatical period from May to July 2001 (with a one week overflow into August) were designed to fit into this programme. I wanted to include some practical training and experience, some reading with a view to undergirding this with some scholarly or theoretical framework, time for reflection, and a spiritual retreat based on similar themes.

Activities During Sabbatical

Retreat: An 8 day IGR (Individually Guided Retreat) at St Beuno's Ignatian Spirituality Centre. My retreat guide was Margaret Silf, a wonderful woman who shared a lot of laughter and tears with me as I explored - to my surprise - aspects of masculinity including the four archetypes of the mature masculine: King, Warrior, Magician and Lover, as well as aspects of the inner Child. The Ignatian approach was particularly helpful, because it makes use of stories for imaginative prayer, as it helps the retreatant to explore his/her own story in the light of God's Story. This retreat took place very near the beginning of the sabbatical, and although one piece of advice I received beforehand was that this might prove a bit 'heavy', and should maybe not be undertaken before a short holiday break in which to wind down, it proved exactly right. The Ignatian style of retreat proved ideal as a starting point for this particular topic.

St Deiniol's Library: I made two separate visits to St Deiniol's totalling a little over 2 weeks, for quiet reading and reflection. I had hoped I would find more appropriate literature, but much of what has been written on Storytelling has been published in the States and is not so readily available over here. Still St Deiniol's can be thoroughly recommended for rest, reading and reflection. It has particular strengths not only in Theology, but also in literature, history, Gladstone (naturally). Also you meet some interesting people there.

I read some interesting material, but there is a lot more useful literature which was not available at this time, some of which now makes up my continuing reading list.

Kirchentag: I took advantage of the sabbatical to attend the 29. Evangelischer Kirchentag in Frankfurt am Main (June 13-17). This was an interesting experience, though I did not enjoy Kirchentag per se enough to feel, like some of the English visitors, that I want to go back time after time. I attended a number of lectures and other events with a Jewish flavour, particularly in the theme Lehrschule: Judentum für Christen. (Judaism for Christians). There was a series of lectures on how Jews learn scripture and Talmud, which included a number of Jewish stories, and a programme of Jewish stories and dances which ended with all the audience being invited to join the circle dance. All of this was useful and fitted in with the sabbatical topic, but was not as significant a part of the experience as was visiting Germany again for the first time in 16 years, and reviving my German language skills, once fluent, and still pretty respectable.

Storytelling School, Northumbria. (June 18-24, 2001) This event was run by The Telling Place, who hold two such schools each year. Each can be attended by about 14 people. The object is to give people experience of actual storytelling, and in doing so to increase both their confidence and skill level. The first part of the course concentrates chiefly on traditional or folk-tales, with each person learning a tale that is then told to the group at a ceilidh at the end of the first few days. Then the emphasis shifts to the telling of biblical stories, to which more time is given because many people find this harder, especially as there is more learning by heart, a term which, together with 'internalising' is preferred to 'memorising'. The importance of this distinction is that the school promotes a whole-person approach to the telling of stories, rather than the highly cerebral or intellectual approach which has marked much of Christian teaching practice. A number of learning techniques are taught, because everyone learns in a different way: some by seeing, some by hearing, others by repetition, drawing, making notes, dancing, singing etc. By presenting a number of learning styles, each can find out what works most effectively for her/him. In most cases it is true that a mixture of methods produces the best results, though I have found that whatever else I try, I need to do something which involves the whole body in physical activity. There is also a marked emphasis on the fact that this style of telling is a discipline, a form of spiritual exercise, and this is very refreshing.

NOBS Festival Gathering in Atlanta, GA. This concluding event was definitely one of the high points of the sabbatical. It took place at Simpsonwood Conference and Retreat Centre, north of Atlanta, and was attended by about 170 participants, mostly from the States but with a number from Britain, most of these from the Northumbria Community who featured as keynote presenters. In addition to these keynote presentations, there were workshops designed to help with the comprehension and learning of bible stories, and a number of more informal story sharing events, called 'Lighting the Fire'. The whole event was great fun, with a truly hospitable welcome from American Christian brothers and sisters, as well as being inspirational and encouraging.

And what now?

I come back to the parish from my sabbatical full of enthusiasm for stories and storytelling, wanting to continue to read and learn about them, and wanting to incorporate many of these insights into all aspects of parish life. Storytelling obviously has important applications in worship, preaching, and Christian nurture, where it has traditionally been used chiefly in teaching children. But I would want to use it much more extensively with adults too, in areas like spiritual direction, committees and ministry team meetings, pastoral care and healing, and catechesis.

In the last of these areas I have been working for a couple of years on a Christian basics / Confirmation preparation course called MasterClass. It differs from Alpha, for example, in that instead of being an argumentative attempt to persuade people rationally about the truth of the Christian faith, it says, "Let's learn about it by doing it. Let's learn about discipleship by being disciples." The different themes of the sessions of the course are then presented by telling stories from the Gospels and discovering the links between these stories, and the stories of the course participants. The course or group leader, instead of getting everyone to look up the passage in the 'textbook', which is Luke's Gospel, and then reading it, instead tells the story in his / her own words. This teaches not only the story itself - which in many cases may be already partly or well known - but also the experience of storytelling and -listening, and the desirability of learning and telling Bible stories. We don't have to be able to deliver theological lectures to communicate the Christian faith; but we can all do it by telling the stories of our faith tradition! As Angela Knowles says, As we learn biblical stories, we'll find it easier to talk about our faith.

I hope to be able to enthuse others in the parish with a vision of learning and telling biblical stories in this way, and this has already happened to an extent with a workshop I ran at a recent Parish Weekend, and with the interest of at least one of our usual lesson readers, who has offered to learn and tell the passage, the next time he is on the rota. In the mean time, the congregation claim to be enjoying the increased skill, confidence and enthusiasm I have gained through the sabbatical

I am hoping to explore links with secular storytelling groups. Part of the vision of The Telling Place is to get Christian storytellers involved in the secular scene, partly because we can learn so much from those who have been doing it for a long time, but also to earn the right to tell our own faith stories in the secular context. We cannot do that unless others recognise our skills and respect us.

I want to tell stories at every opportunity! And to develop my own skills and repertoire not only of biblical but of all kinds of stories. This may be possible in schools, but also (because adults too are starved of stories) in clubs for senior citizens, women's groups and wherever will offer an audience.

I am willing to offer my experience and enthusiasm within the wider sphere of the diocese, in helping with workshops or other training opportunities. I know of at least two other people in the diocese who are part of The Telling Place network, and there are probably more. There are exciting possibilities and opportunities here which can be valuable in all kinds of areas, and I would again urge the importance of seeing that stories are not just for children, but can enormously enrich the lives and imagination of adults also.

Finally, I am very grateful to the parish and the diocese (and my wife and family) for making this time of study leave possible. I feel I have been wonderfully blessed by a true experience of grace in and through it, and strengthened both in my personal life and in my ministry. I think other colleagues have seen how valuable this is, and it seems half the deanery chapter are now either taking or planning sabbaticals themselves.

Tony Price

8 October 2001

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