Creative Delivery of God’s Word

Prayer and Praise Report #2, February-April 2014 

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Dear Friend of God’s Story,

Reports show that after discovering God’s Story and/or being trained in STS, the interest in Bible study soars! This #2 newsletter of 2014 mentions just some of the creative ways people are using these two tools. For instance, churches are using the STS oral inductive Bible study, not just for services, but as you see in the picture above, for Sunday School!

Reports on Flagship Tool, God’s Story

By God’s grace . . . we have 12 new languages waiting for final approval and 20 more new ones being translated or set to record.

UUPG We thank God for the new Bodo version for NE India. The 1.5 Million Bodo are listed as 0 percent evangelical (so they are an Unengaged Unreached People, a UUPG).We have record of 32 UPGs and UUPGs in India being reached by God’s Story. Please PRAY for yet another people- group breakthrough. In two weeks, believers wanting to reach the Bodo intend to start the showings of God’s Story.UPG. Another new, very exciting version just done is the Zuni. These Native Americans also are an unreached people (UPG). Many errors of the past have made the Zuni very wary of Christianity. In Acts 16, God sent an earthquake and opened prison gates. He unlocked the shackles of Paul and Silas and all the prisoners! PRAY for bondages of the Zuni to be broken.

Jungle UPG. Among the unreached aborigines who live on the Andaman Islands, there is a people group called the Nicobarese After many years of challenges, our India Director finally was able to set up a God’s Story recording for these reclusive, unreached, jungle people. After the team recorded 1/4 of the 80-minute program, the narrator, one of a few saved Nicobarese, became very ill and the recording had to be suspended. Word just came to us today that the Nicobarese are listening to that 20 minutes of audio (Creation to Abraham), no music or sound effects, no visuals, just a Bible storyteller retelling Scripture.

Amazingly, from hearing God's message, the jungle people are coming to Jesus, a lot of them!

The Bishop of Andaman Islands sent a message, "Thank You God's Story people for bringing Creation to the promise of God to Abraham." PRAY for these remote people who are discovering God’s love.

Creative Delivery. From the beginning of God’s Story, people were not sure in what category to place it. The art is simple classic, which makes it timeless. Some people like to use the audio and let people picture the story in their minds while others use the “movie” as a way to draw people to hear the message.

A sweet letter came today from a New Tribes missionary at home in USA due to ill health. “I really liked the God's Story DVD a lot. In fact it is the best I have seen out there. I took art in Community College many years ago so am sensitive about how art is done. I usually like real detailed things, but this was so good as you could avoid really picturing Jesus (Which I have heard is important with Mus.lims.) There was such a feeling of action because of the kind of pictures and what ever you did to make them seem to move.”

Since the start of The God’s Story Project, we at the project have enjoyed partnerships with the Body of Christ. Just these last few months, missionaries with various organizations have asked about partnering on 15 new language versions of God’s Story.

Reports on Simply The Story

We also enjoy creative partnerships on STS. The highly successful ministry documented in

Miraculous Movements by Jerry Trousdale, works with 100,000 church planters in N. Africa. They saw that the unique oral method of deep Bible study taught by STS could be a valuable asset to their church planters. They invited African STS instructors to train their leaders in Cote d’Ivoire.

One of the participants was 75 years old. He said, “I'm so happy because the process of STS makes me a better disciple, because even with God's Word we are supposed to always be learning.” He added, "In my many years of ministry, I have never seen such levels of maturity in the Word and in lifestyle as I have seen with STS users and particularly in this class--not even in my 4 years of Bible college." PRAY for even deeper understating and application of God's message to spread like a wild fire among those trained and to others yet to be trained in Africa.

Mercy Ships Finds Creative Ways to Share. The ship adopted STS in Guinea. Since then, they invited STS instructors to come join them again, this time in Congo-Brazza. We trained Congolese ground crew there and led an advanced training on the ship. Since that time, they have developed multiple ways to minister using interactive Bible stories on the shore in churches, outreaches and the land hospital. Due to there being 450 people on the ship committed to medical tasks, they decided to post a calendar. Anyone telling stories lists the date and time on the ward or deck, so crew members can find a time to join in. PRAY for body and soul healing.

Brings Believers Together. A wonderful Thai brother in the USA discovered STS. What this shy man learned prompted him to become an ordained pastor and establish a church that uses STS.

He called today from Thailand where he went to lead a large workshop in the Thai language. He excitedly reported, “STS is helping the Body of Christ serve together. Seventeen people, who we have previously trained, came from many cities for the week to help as staff. They represent eleven different denominations!” The Thai people, on an average, read very little. PRAY for them to be touched by hearing the Word of God.

Wonderfully, when people who treasure the Word of God come together to study using STS (so they stay in one passage at a time) the Lord leads them to discover truths and new information on which they can agree.

In North Sudan, Simply the Story workshops continue. This is not an easy place to serve. How is this for replication? Two years ago, instructors we trained in the USA, trained a man in Africa, who trained others in his country, who now go to N. Sudan to train Sudanese, who in turn help train fellow Sudanese! These Sudanese train other Sudanese, and then select a few attendees to go to new locations to serve as provisional instructors.

One person selected told the story of Paul and Silas to those learning STS, presumably all Christians. After much discussion STS style, the storyteller felt led to say, “The jailor asked for salvation because he discovered he needed to get saved, and I say if you know you are a sinner and haven't yet received the salvation of God, and you know you need it, then you have to stand and ask for salvation and I will pray for your salvation.” Ten out of 35 trainees stood and prayed with the storyteller . . . a 17- year old Sudanese girl! PRAY for the Holy Spirit to anoint people (even the youth and women) to carry God's Word to difficult places.

Out of the Safe Box! A lady I’ll call “Lee” attended an STS workshop. She was like many Christians who serve mostly within the structure of an organized church or missions setting and use preplanned outlines and notes. After the STS training, Lee, who had not done much witnessing to strangers in the marketplace of life or taught without notes, stated, “This is terrifying. I want to do it, I think it is right, but it seems like ‘free falling.’” Within one month, reports from this lady flooded our inbox.

Okay, I’ll do it, but I don’t think it will work and the only story I remember is the “Jars of Oil” story. So I turned to passenger seated next to me. All I could think to say was, “I’ve just been to a storytelling conference. Can I practice a story on you?” She said “sure.” While I was telling the story I kept thinking, What’s the point of telling this story to her? When I was done, before I could ask any questions, the passenger started telling ME what the story had spoken to her! I didn’t do anything!

Lee taught a Sunday School class . . . without notes. Afterwards, a seasoned Christian in her 80s told her,” I have read this story many, many times and I can honestly tell you that I have never seen some of the things in this story that I saw today. I really enjoyed this class."

See another insightful report Lee sent about her mission trip “free fall”, called Scary Decision on the Eve of Service. If you want to make copies of Lee’s to give to friends, go to our web site search feature, upper right corner, and type in “Scary Decision” PRAY that more will boldly speak of You.

Church Planted. “Two months ago we started a new church in Mbanaa. It has a population of about 300 persons who are mainly Dagombas from the Upper West Region of Ghana. They are subsistent farmers and the predominant religion is traditional worship and Islam. Though making disciples was slow in the beginning, the CPM and STS principles came in handy and have proven to be effective ministry tools that facilitated sharing the gospel - especially in regions where most of the indigenous are unlearned.” PRAY for the new believers in the church plants coming from STS.

Creative Radio. One ex-Muzm told a Bible story on radio . . . in a dominant Muslim country. The early responses were very positive. Even two months later, a muz.im man went to a church and told the pastor of the church how he had heard the story on radio. The man stated simply, “Now I believe.” That pastor happened to know the radio storyteller, so he contacted the storyteller and told him about the wonderful impact on that one man’s life. PRAY for the storyteller’s safety and for God to open radio opportunities as He wills.

The Parade-The Graduation.

These photos show everyone’s excitement about the graduates who have learned and can teach 296 Bible stories. We gathered information on the Oral Bible Schools. To find and make copies of this report, Special STS and OBS Report, to go search feature on our web site.

As of April, 2014, we counted 80 schools in 11 countries. The Home Bible Schools (HBS) number well over 1,000.

A typical HBS starts with a mixture of believers and seekers. Those who gather commit to learning the same 296 Bible stories done by the OBSs. Most attendees come to faith and the HBS develops into a local house church. The details and testimonies in the report amazed us! PRAY for the new army being raised up that they will live by what they proclaim.

We have just a few openings left in our June advanced training at Bethel at our Hemet headquarters. Also, we are set to be part of a conference in late July in Phoenix about reaching refugees. Anyone need an STS workshop while we are there?

Blessings, Dorothy A. Miller