This schedule covers the 37 hours needed to teach people how to be an STS Practitioner and starts them on the skill of training others. Doing all 37 hours at once is ideal in new areas where there are not yet local STS instructors or when people travel long distances to learn STS.

For these workshops, out-of-area instructors, sometimes even out-of-country instructors, come together to lead the 37-hour schedule. Attendees first experience 18 hours of preliminary STS practitioner training. Then these newly trained attendees learn how to assist in teaching STS to others. This immediate training to train kind of teaching is central to the rapid growth and replication of STS worldwide.

Then, in the remaining 19 hours, a Practitioner Training is done for people who are new to STS. They arrive at the mid point of the 37 hours of training. These new arrivals find it easier to fit just 19 hours of training into their life schedules. During these 19 hours, those early attendees start moving into STS instructor roles by assisting in training the new arrivals. This very full 37-hour schedule has been called "drinking out of a bucket".

Our goal and prayer is to have enough local instructors available all over the world so these local STS instructors are able to teach and hand off the STS skills in smaller segments at a time. Local Workshops can cover the 37 hours in several shorter gathering such as two successive 2 1/2 day trainings, or sessions of three weekends, or in even smaller meetings spread out over multiple weeks (two to three hours done once a week). These schedules allow attendees to gain new information, and to then go home and practice their skills some before they come back the next time to receive more information.

For Local Workshops, most attendees will not have to travel far or stay overnight so there is little or no cost to anyone for food or housing. Some cities in the world have already enough qualified STS instructors available to lead these Local Workshops or to host STS Story Practice gatherings. A few of those cities are listed below within the Upcoming World Workshop information.

Contact the regional leadership or USA office for information on hosting a vision casting or local workshop in a listed city. Check the guidelines for hosting a full One-Stop Practitioner/Trainer 37-hour workshop in a region where no local instructors are yet available.

A Vision Cast is a one- to two-hour session in which participants are introduced to the world of oral learners, the impact this has on gospel outreach and discipleship, and the need for an oral strategy to meet these challenges. Participants experience how Simply The Story seeks to address these realities in a God-honoring biblical manner. A deep discussion of a Bible story is the central part of an STS Vision Cast. Participants get a taste of how STS trains people to plumb the depths of God’s Word in this oral-based discovery method. Use the Contact Us link to learn more or to find an STS Vision Cast in your area.

Often those who attend an STS workshop decide later that they want more coaching. We love to spend more time with people who are using stories in some area of their lives. Whether they use STS in formal or informal ministry, we coach people and hand off the latest new ways and places to use STS. Whether people want to sharpen their skills, learn more ways of handing off STS or look into lightly assisting in workshops, the Alumni Advanced Training will be customized to fit their needs and interests. These trainings may be set up to be one to five days long and can be run as a stand alone or alongside a standard One Stop Workshop.

If you have had workshop training, want to move toward becoming a certified instructor (and are willing to do some preparation ahead of time) this one-day to two-week training is designed for you. We design this training to increase your skills and deepen your understanding of STS, and to oversee your readiness to lead a workshop tribe and do up-front presentations. Our seasoned instructors, who specialize in advanced training, lead these trainings. We reserve the right to gauge attendee readiness for this training.

These occasional in-depth trainings cover a wide range of skills that prepare qualified attendees for leadership use of STS in churches, ministries, workshops, recording of stories, setting up of Oral Bible Schools and Country Planting. These 4-to-6-week trainings are currently led at Bethel located at the STS Hemet, CA headquarters and near Mombassa, Kenya at the STS Conference Center. Openings in the comprehensive trainings are limited, and attendees are selected from interviews and recommendations by lead instructors.