Product Description

Through the art of “Storying,” your students will experience God in a new way. This unique, dialogue-centered approach will spark imaginations and inspire your group to find themselves in God’s amazing story.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #156144 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

From the Back Cover
A good story draws students in, engaging their hearts and minds—leaving them wanting more. God's story is like this…a captivating epic that stretches from the beginning of time, across our lives and into the future…calling us to find ourselves in it. We can help students to be captured by this amazing story, rather than seeing the Bible as confusing, boring or irrelevant.

After ten years in youth ministry, Michael Novelli felt like he had tried everything to help his students connect with the Bible. Then, a missionary introduced him to a unique, ancient way to engage people with the Bible through story. Michael learned the art of “Storying,” a sequential telling of Bible stories followed by a time of creative retelling and in-depth dialogue. God used this process to completely transform his youth group as they found themselves experiencing God in a whole new way.

Take a journey into the amazing process of Storying, and discover how it can change your life and ministry. This new approach to learning builds a lasting theological foundation while challenging students to discover their unique identity and calling in God’s story. Shaped by the Story helps you understand why Storying connects with students today, and provides all you need to introduce Storying to your group, including sample narratives and an interactive training DVD.

About the Author
Michael Novelli has invested his life mentoring and inspiring high school students and youth workers. For more than 13 years he led student ministries in local churches in the Chicago area. Michael now develops interactive resources, curriculum, experiences, and events to help students, educators, and youth workers learn in new ways. For several years Michael has been developing narratives and training to help others discover the art of "Storying," a dialogical approach to Bible learning. Much of his Storying work is available for free at www.echothestory.com. He, his wife Michele, and their son, Angelo, live in Elgin, Illinois.

Customer Reviews

Great evangelistic (and probably discipleship) tool!
Shaped by the Story: Helping Students Encounter God in a New Way

I run a youth group in a rural town in Maine where Christianity is not the norm. So my ministry is more about evangelism than discipleship. I have roughly 15 kids coming every week for pizza, soda, and hide-n-seek in an ancient church building. They love it!

What they don't love is hearing about God. I've tried so many different approaches, but nothing seemed to work... Until I came across this book.

Michael Novelli lays out a method that is great for both believers and non-believers. We tell the stories of the Bible, the ones we heard in Sunday School and forgot about, and then we retell them. Afterwards we discuss them. Then we key in on what we learn about God from these stories. Through this, the group will learn to see Scripture as one larger story. And then they will have a context for any further teaching (systematic, spiritual formation, etc.). I am learning so much - even after 23 years of being a Christian (and my time in Bible College).

I would strongly suggest to anyone working with youth - get this book (and check out Novelli's website with free stuff - [...])!We're only into our 3rd week of storying, but the group is getting more involved with the bible than I've EVER seen in 13 years of youth ministry.

There's only one caveat - Novelli seems to be friendly with the emergent camp. He points to the likes of Brian McClaren and others (he has a list of 4 or 5) as great teachers. I'm not sure what he means by that exactly, but it certainly makes me a bit leary. Fortunately, emergent theological leanings or not, Novelli's method works! And you can choose your own stories from the Bible to work with. I know I have.

Making Youth a Part of God's Story
This is an amazing book and the DVD is such a bonus. It was great to see them go through the storying process and seeing the youth really get into God's story. It makes such great sense to me. We have not tried out the process of storying yet, but I am very excited about the possibility.
Here is a little snipit from the book that I really liked:

"We need to stop tryinig to fit God into our lives and stories and realize that God desires us to play a role in his Story instead. As subtle a difference as it may seem, the shift in perspective changes everything. When we see ourselves as a part of God's Story---as to opposed to God being a part of our stories--it awakens us to live in a broader reality, to live for and contribute to something bigger than ourselves.

Furthermore, fitting God into our own stories seems akin to trying to create our own realities--revolving around our own desires--as we ask God to bless our actions. We then invest time and resources trying to find out how the Bible is relevant to our lives instead of trying to discover and pursue how we might become more relevant to God's Story already in progress.

God doesn't have a relevance issue - -we do!

Again, Eugene Peterson describes this so well:

The Christian life is not about us; it is about God. Christian spirituality is not a life-project for becoming a better person, it is not about developing a so-called "deeper life". We are in on it, to be sure. But we are not the subject. Nor are we the action. . .The great weakness of North American spirituality is that it is all about us: fulfilling our potential, getting in on the blessings of God, expanding our influence, finding our gifts, getting a handle on principles by which we can get an edge over the competition. And the more there is of us, the less there is of God."

We're called to join God and his actions in us and in the world, participating in what God is doing. When we get a picture of how our lives fit into the encompassing epic of God's Story, we begin to see our path in God's activity as his people in the world. Our focus changes. We move away form our own agendas to join God in restoring things to wholeness- -the way God created them to be. It's a focus that moves beyond personal growth to participation in God's kingdom."

Good stuff...
Great overview of storying with good ideas, a nice DVD pointing out the highlights using a live youth team leader and youth in a group setting. Very helpful!