Spiritual Reflections
Nigerians learn to 'tell the story'
Pat Ozment Jr. IMB Missionary to Ghana
Chronological Bible Storying (CBS) teaches the Bible to people who cannot read, or who have no Bible translation in their language. CBS uses a series of stories from the Bible to teach people about God, the Bible, creation, sin and God's plan to redeem mankind from sin through Jesus Christ. The first story in the series is called "Creation to Christ" or "C2C." Each story takes from 7 to 10 minutes including an opportunity to accept Christ. This method is patterned after Luke 10:1-11, and God is really blessing its use. Peggy and I traveled to Nigeria to observe Clint Bowman, a fellow missionary, as he supervised several Nigerians, whom he had trained in CBS, as they used it in two villages. The plan is for us to teach it here in Tamale. The training sessions began with singing and prayer. Clint told the group that one of the main purposes of sharing the story was so they could tell it to others. They were all asked to agree to share it after finding a person of peace. Then Creation to Christ was shared with the group, by the leader, who we will call "S," because to use his real name might place him in danger. After he told the story, an assistant told the story again. The people listened intently. Then the group split and one group went next door into another building. The story was told again by the leaders of each group. Volunteers were asked to tell the story, and they were helped by their leaders, and the other listeners as well. The story was told each time with little variation. After this was repeated five or six times the two groups came back together and one volunteer from each group told the story again. The story had then been told about 10 times in the space of 2 hours. The meetings closed with a praise song and prayer, and the people went out to tell the story. There is an old hymn, "I Love to Tell the Story." We sing it, but do we mean it? Tell the story, and I'll see you in church.
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