How Story Telling Can Make You an Awesome Gospel Teacher

As the new teacher’s quorum adviser, I asked in presidency meeting, what they wanted during Sunday lessons.

“Stories,” came the unison response. That seemed pretty reasonable.

“What kind of stories?” I asked.

“Stories with explosions.”

Well that changed things. Considering that the lessons for August were on Marriage and Family, this seemed like a slightly more challenging task. But I forged ahead and wrote a story for class that included plenty of explosions and a powerful message about eternal marriage.

At the end of class we had a great discussion about the symbols and meaning of the story, and I went home feeling satisfied that the boys were engaged and learned something.

For mutual that week, we were going to the temple, and many of the boys piled into my car. They urged me to go as quickly as I could so that we could get their first. I told the boys that I’m a very slow driver, and very boring, so they’d just have to be okay with getting their last.

But one of the boys objected, “Well maybe you’re boring, but your stories aren’t!” And all but one of the boys joined in agreeing. The last boy had been out of town on Sunday and asked what they were talking about. The other three then detailed the lesson from Sunday, complete with all the symbols and lessons they had gathered from it!

There’s something powerful and moving about stories. If you think back to last General Conference, there’s a good chance that what you remember is a story.

Stories are an important and effective way of sharing the gospel.

Parables of the savior

Paul

General Conference

The Scriptures Themselves

Why stories are good

-science

-religion

–Parables of the savior

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/lm/summary/v019/19.1pennebaker.html

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/positively-media/201101/the-psychological-power-storytelling

http://blog.raventools.com/how-stories-sells-psychology-of-storytelling/

http://athinklab.com/the-psychological-power-of-transmedia-storytelling/

http://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/TB4_Storytelling_AL.pdf

-identifying useful stories

–places to find them

-using stories in a lesson

How to create good stories from fiction or your own life

-How to tell stories