The Big God Story impacts our lives by giving us an accurate and awe-inspiring perspective into how God has been moving throughout history. It’s the epic story we’ve been invited into!
During the Celebrate/Discover time, we have the privilege of telling stories—both personal and biblical. The reality is that it can sometimes be a challenge to engage a group of children, whether a group of 5 or a group of 500.
The following are super practical suggestions/resources for your storytellers to help them inspire kids:
• use emotion when storytelling; whether it’s fear, excitement, wonder, or awe, timely placed emotion engages listeners
• stand close to a squirrely child while you talk
• ask open-ended questions about how the people in the story responded or may have felt; then have the kids circle up and talk about it
• prompt the kids to show exaggerated facial expressions for how so-and-so might feel instead of just talking about it
• do call-and-response where the storyteller asks children to repeat a word or phrase every time she says a particular word or phrase
• throw in some spontaneous hand motions
• get the kids doing hand motions
• change the volume of your voice; everyone loves to hear a whisper
• put a “prop box” on stage full of fun items the storyteller can grab if he’s losing the kids, etc.
• as part of storytelling training, play theater games with your storytellers to help them feel more comfortable on stage
— ideas from Cheryl Wong at Good Shepherd Church
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